Guild Wars 2

Edit: Fixed a mistake in the calculation of crits. Most of the text below is no longer correct. Read my next post for further information. Also attached the new file so download again if you want to update.

I did a little calculation on the viability of flamethrower dps. I did it mainly because I wanted to mess around in matlab/freemat a bit so probably it is not 100% correct. Overall, it is a simple DPS comparison of rifle autoattack vs. FT autoattack for my equipment based on the source material available to me.
Note, that this is mainly for PvE. I don’t pvp/wvw much and I’m sure the FT has other uses and roles there, so I’d prefer leaving pvp out of this.

TLDR conclusions:
With my equipment, I’d need around 50 might stacks to make FT do the same DPS as rifle’s autoattack.
Even taking into consideration additional factors (+15% dmg instead of +10%, higher chance for procs, might-stacking, caused vulnerability stacks), this simply doesn’t make the FT worth it to me.
Note: This does not mean, that it can’t be used for things like lifesteal food or stacking might to use with other weapons.

So how does it work?
In the attacked .txt file, there is some very crude code you can copy and edit with any editor and execute with freemat (free) or matlab. It is nothing that couldn’t be done in excel or whatever, but as I said, its main purpose was to mess around with matlab.
The sources used are also linked/mentioned in that file.

What it takes into account: Normalized for crit% and critdmg%. 1 s burn per 2.5 sec burst for FT. Decreased stats from rifle. Might stacking.
What it does not take into account: caused Vulnerability, increased chance for procs, %-increases for either weapon, other abilities than autoattack
What works? what doesn’t?: calculation of tooltip damage is pretty accurate, but overall the numbers are a few % off. Also, DPS is off by a factor of 10-20 but ratio of dps is still the same.

My stats with rifle equipped: Currently 1918 power, 52% crit and 46% critdmg from a mix of soldier/knight items and 10/30/0/0/30 traits. Certainly not minmaxed but the mix has suited me up to now.
I’d really like to know your stats so I can check if the results are better with other builds.

Long conclusions:
My calculated rifle DPS is much higher than my calculated FT dps. This coincides with my (short) tests of kill time vs. mobs. According to the calculations, I’d need around 50 stacks of might to pull even.
Even other factors like vulnerability stacks, slightly higher damage multiplier from traits, etc. that are normally in favor or the FT, can’t even out such an impossible number.

Believe me, I’d love to play FT. I used it a lot in dungeons because it is a very fun weapon but from a DPS perspective, I just don’t see any benefit in it. However, I won’t use grenades either despite their dps potential because if I’d love pressing 1, I’d play Rift instead.
So rifle it is for me then. Even though rifle is still very mediocre when compared to other classes.

So what is the FT good for then? What can it be used for?
-Abusing life steal foods (will be fixed, just wait for it)
-Stacking might for other weapons
-Providing a few stacks of vulnerability if there aren’t many other sources
-AoE on some groups
-Dmg on reflect-mobs like jade colossi (though prybar is probably better for that)
-Getting a little bit of extra toughness
-a lot of fun to use compared to grenades or rifle

What makes the FT bad/unviable? Where could it be improved?
-Damage coefficient is simply too low (really needs to be fixed. For all of our kits.)
-Lost stats and low weapon damage (compared to exotic weapons) hurt it a lot (and the other kits, too)
-Elementalists locking up burn debuff decrease dps further
-#2’s design simply doesn’t work
-short/very short range compared to other weapons can be problematic in some fights

So… let me know what stats you have with your builds etc. I’d expect the difference to be smaller on defensive builds or people with lower than exotic equip (green weapon or such) and much bigger on berserker/rampager builds, simply due to the bad coefficient of the FT’s attacks and because of the burn base damage (that benefits defensive builds a lot more).

This isn’t to discourage anyone from using the FT. It is a lot of fun to use so go for it if you feel like it. Just trying to theorycraft a little (not enough of that without dps-meters etc.).

I switched from emeralds in everything to using emerald accessories with Exquisite Ruby Jewels in their upgrade slots. I also use rubies in my armor upgrade slots, can’t decide on runes.
Why?

Stat points lost per 1% crit damage gained:
5 stat points – upgrade slot of trinkets and backpack
7 stat points- upgrade slots of armor, compared to other jewels, not runes
10 stat points- traits (not an equipment, but listed for comparison)
12 stat points – glove, shoulder and boots
12.8 stat points – 1H weapons and amulet
13.33 stat points – Earring
14 stat points – Backpack (rare version from guild armorsmith)
14.22 stat points – 2H weapons
14.4 stat points – Coat
16 stat points – Ring, helm and legging
(copied and expanded from gw2guru)

Though the amount of stats needed for efficiency varies greatly with what build you use.

Use turrets, pets or other people (best to take turns on this) to body block.

Other than that, the projectiles are kinda easy to avoid when at 900+ range so just ranged dps him.

Which skin is this shield? First time I’ve seen it ingame and it actually looks like a shield unlike too many others….

Tried the different database sites and the wiki but none of them even knew that npc

Saw this earlier. Chances are that instead of adjusting the encounter they’ll just nerf something about our class.

“Hey that guy used a greatsword! And he seems to survive pretty well! Let’s just decrease GS dps by 20% and reduce warrior health by 1000 and call it a day!”

Yeah you got the wrong tier of items. Crests and gem orbs are 20/14/14, which puts them at 288 stats for the whole 6 armor slots.
That is 73 stats more than the runes. Makes you really question why runes are so expensive since crests are just 2-3 s (well, soldier’s is 40) and orbs are 3/6/9 s (depending on which). However, for some runes like the soldier’s rune the high price is to be expected because they are simply that strong.

Still, before using some mediocre rune, better use orbs or crests. Once you are full exotic, some runes are still worth it, however.

It is actually surprisingly strong… but I also think that offhand axe is overrated and doesn’t actually produce that much dps, instead distracting everyone by its huge numbers stacking up…

The trick is to throw the sword, let the bleeds stack up and pull it back out the moment it would drop off. The bleeds really do a surprising amount of damage, even for the block skill.
However, the cooldowns could really be a bit shorter :/
just compare the block to the mesmer offhand sword block, which has a lot shorter cd and can also be used to daze a target…

Since the Discipline tree is all about adrenaline generation, I’d suggest just turning it into 1% cooldown reduction on burst skills per point. Sure, overall most builds benefit a lot more from not spending your adrenaline (a design flam, imo but whatever) but this would actually increase the viability of builds using mace mh (more stuns!), sword mh (used at 1 adrenaline does same damage as used at 3 adrenaline and the damage actually isn’t all that bad) or bow.
I tried a build that used sword/wh and bow with shouts and adrenaline restore on shouts and weapon swap and it actually isn’t as bad as it might sound.

The problem with the 1% damage per point in beta was that it could be used for (too) extreme burst.

Hm… maybe give it different properties to make it useful? Maybe make it pull you in a random direction while used on the ground (though we already have so many “knock yourself back” skills) and/or make it blind targets at your landing position. Make the toolbelt skill immobilize a target/several targets just like binding roots does so they can cut themselves free. Also make it reduce falling damage (maybe doesn’t stack with traits to not make it too easy).

Another thing I’d like are binoculars that allow you to zoom in and increases the maximum render range of objects, players, mobs while zoomed in. It could be used to call in an “artillery barrage”.

Though they won’t add anything like that anyways.

What I’d like to see:
-slight max range increase (either through traits in firearms/inventions/alchemy or base, doesn’t matter)
-damage increase the closer you get to the enemy (+0% at max or near current max range; 15-20% at closest range)
-very slight range increase on #5
-flame blast detonatable by hand + maybe a blast finisher

What I’d like to see for elixir gun:
-“heals too much bug” never ever fixed
-better scaling with healing power
-area size on #4 increased, maybe make it spawn on targeted enemy (or slightly in front of him) so I don’t have to be up close

Sounds like a lot of fun and I’ll try it. Though I’ll probably use my gear mix of soldier’s and knight’s so I’ll have less max hp but about the same toughness. And I’ll probably go 0/0/20/20/30 instead of 30 alch. But I’ll have to test that out.

However, it really seems like a one trick pony. What is your strategy after retaliation has run out? Between the 75%hp elixir B and your elixir B pop, the retaliation will drop and your confusion also isn’t up the whole time. Then your only option seems to be using your blocking/evasion/stealth to get to the next elixir B… but I guess I’ll see
stealth to rescue yourself to the next elixir B.

Maybe… I really wouldn’t know. It was massive down there it felt like 2-3 outdoor zones combined.
I think they actually have all the fractals in one zone to reduce loading times between the different fractals (of course only spawning mobs etc. as needed). The underwater part looks like a part of the dolphin fractal and the castle/town might be a part of the ascalon fractal (which is also a framerate killer, even for me…).

We were in Jade Maw and while running through, lost one to the mobs… because we couldn’t go back, we decided to suicide to reanimate him. After jumping off, I hit a floating rock, dropped dead instantly and my corpse continued to drop down through the dark clouds…
then through white clouds… then I dropped out of the clouds and saw below me a grassy area with strange mountains and the words “Jade Kraken” written in dirt textures across it in giant letters (only got a part of “JA” in one screenshot). And once I hit the ground… I started regenerating health O.o

So yeah, why the others 3-manned the Jade Maw (one had a reanimation orb), I walked around this giant area. It had what looked like a giant castle built from Ascalonian architexture. And an area with Dredge drills and whatnot. And a snowy area. Weather etc. changed as I walked around it. Eventually, I came to a lake I could actually jump into (invisible walls around the other bodies of water) and down there I could peek through textures into underwater tunnels with luminous plants. And there was a giant temple structure down there as well, so I can only assume this was the dolphin and jelly beast fractal… so I climbed back out of the water…
and was eaten by Piranhas (or at least a debuff that said something about piranhas and creatures of the dark) when I was back on dry land.

Of course a bug, doesn’t look like it was meant to be accessible but the healing effect down there only made this possible so that effect should probably be removed though I can’t see how anyone could abuse it…
well, here are some screens. Enjoy.

More screenshots at:
http://s1294.beta.photobucket.com/user/rofltehcat/library/

I thought it was pretty interesting but it really felt like the cripple duration from the traps was far too high. Catch one trap and you probably won’t make it back in time. Catch two or be disabled by a mob and you’re already out.

Coo! Quaggan still loves if you you don’t love Quaggan!

oooOOOOooooo

I was walking around Southsun Cove and I stumbled over a line of “NORMAL” on the ground. What is this? Was it just overlooked by the map designers? Or is it some line used for building the map from there? Or is it just some messup by my video card?

See the screenshot if you wonder what I mean.

How about always starting the fight with the less desirable weapon and then switch to the more desirable one the moment you enter combat?
You’ll still get the 10 sec cd but then at least you are in your more desirable weapon set and won’t be surprised by the 10 sec cd somewhen into the fight. Though that probably is more of a PvE workaround.

Example: Switch to your ranged weapon between fights (for shooting flowers or whatever). Shoot while running towards the enemies, switch to melee weapon. Now you have 10 seconds cd but you are in your melee set and chances are you won’t have to go away from your target for the next 10 seconds because the fight just started. When going back some distance from the enemy, you can now enjoy the 5 sec cd swaps.

Hm… I think they have a little much health but other than that I don’t see a problem… in orr the undead also had a lot of health for normal mobs…
The mobs still seem hit for kinda normal amounts that are about equal to orr and have one or two heavy hitting attacks that you need to interrupt/dodge/block/reflect. Especially the small karkas. They are basically worthless as soon as you avoid their initial salvo.

The elites? Well, I guess they aren’t meant to be soloed, especially the veteral karkas with their insane armor that you need to shoot off before getting to phase 2. Still not much of a problem, it is not like there is nothing but those around.

I find myself sometimes switching it in for those knight pulls in TA…

They should just give us a “kit” weapon that we can transmute rifles onto and that acts as stat donor for all the kits. Only allowing rifles also prevents problems that could arise between rifle, 2pistols and pistol+shield.

It is a lot of fun in PvE (although for some reason, I’m always the “tank” because most mobs seem to focus me as soon as I use FT) but I wouldn’t use it in WvW except to burn through gates. Though pure rifle does more damage on single target and also seems to do more damage to enemies that have hitboxes that allow you to pierce several of them.
I also tried using the FT for a knockback/endurance bunker build in sPvP but this didn’t really work out. I don’t play much PvP though.

BTW, anyone can recommend me a great thrid utility ability for FT+ elixir gun for PvE? I can’t decide on any and I tried many

Not just that… there is also a slight problem with condition removal.
Condition removal is completely binary. Either it removes everything (or a whole stack) or it doesn’t remove anything.
Probably just a WvW/PvP “problem” though.
It kind of is like the “stealth” problem known from other games like LoL or WoW, if you’re familiar with it. Stealth is/was either 100% effective or 0% effective. Last I heard they changed something about that, though… at least in LoL.

Overall, if there isn’t any or only little condition removal, builds using conditions should deal a little more damage than builds without conditions. Especially in PvE.

Thank you a lot for going through the effort and sharing it!

Did all 3 paths of TA, got 2 bags each run (18 additional tokens, karma varied between 300 and 400, maybe because of level).
One dropped from the jungle wurm/vine each time, and I think I got the other ones from Leurent/Mesmer/Mrs.Transformsintospider.

Of course it is. Nevertheless, I’d still prefer to look them up somewhere without testing out every single one for myself. In the warrior forum there was a list for it, for example… though I atm can’t even find that one -.-

Interesting. Where did you get those scaling and attack speed numbers? Not questioning them, I’d just love to have a place to look such stuff up.

Zero, nil, nada… not because the game wasn’t good or something (actually it is a good game) but because the people I’d invite first have played GW2 already and now play other stuff and other people I know who played a lot of GW1 are either not interested or have too old computers.

Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll get a response as soon as the two interns working on PR get around to it. They got a lot to do atm though.

Lol, 2 people working on class changes. I think I’ll play this game more casually then… it is still a lot of fun but it they want the game to be a success in the long run they’ll have to try harder.

Really a bit disappointed.

There is a reason all the bots are rangers.

Though a ranger can also mess up a lot in group play… but that is nothing new, pet classes have been like that since like forever.

Before I actively played my story, I thought Logan should go die in a fire. After I played my story up to the parts where Trahearne shows up, I didn’t care about Logan anymore. That guy still deserves to die (permanently instead of in every single encounter with every single mob) but Trahearne is just so much worse.

Basically everything about Trahearne annoys me. They should rather have done the story missions with the (also horribly written) Destiny’s Edge drama club than give us Trahearne.

I chose the monocle so I can’t say for certain but I think lvl 1 gems (the ones you get from copper) might fit it because the mid level back pieces from the story quests and the halloween event back pieces had the same problem.

Just buy some stuff off the TP every 5-10 levels. Lvl 41 is a good level for this because lvl x1 stuff is often cheaper but it hardly makes a difference because stuff tends to be vendor price + 1to5 copper anyways. Crafting gives you slightly more control over what stat combos are available (if you want sometime other than berserker, which you don’t) but is normally much more expensive than this method.
Once you find something better, just vendor the old stuff. At this point you effectively paid 1to5 copper for it. Much better than running around with stuff 10 levels too low or with strange stat combos.

I’m using a sword with it to jump around and stack bleeds on everything. Though that probably isn’t as effective. I also mainly PvE but for the little WvW I did it was pretty good (won 80% of 1v1 engagements, took out one and then got away in 2v1 etc and even the lost 1v1s I often bled them to death after I dropped).

Rune of the Centaur is probably wasted because with Signet of Rage + Warhorn you never stop running anyways (at least with some tactics and skilled WH).

The most powerful thing about warhorn is anyways dispelling movement impairing effects and some effects are pretty cool when converted to boons. I just wish that the dispelling effect and the conversion effect were in switched or 0.5 secs delayed. For example, sometimes you use 4 to get out of immobilize and you also have a burn or poison on you and it converts the immobilize instead of dispelling the immobilize and converting the burn/poison.

Isslair.4908:

Medkit is great for perma-swftness travel. But my medkits heal is so little it’s not worth it. Strange how you say it is more than HT.

I probably should have expressed myself a bit clearer. I’m talking about the F1. For me (lvl 65, 200 +heal from traits) it heals 3489, which is the exact same amount as the heal you get from deploying the turret. The way I use the turret is that I place it an nearly immediately blow it up so it comboes on itself for an additional AoE heal.
So it is mainly
turret regeneration (1053 over 8 secs, stacks to 16 secs immediately after placing the turret) + 900to1000ish heal from combo
VS
3×774 from medpacks

However, when grouped with other people, you often have a guardian or whatever who is keeping up regeneration anyways, so the regeneration from the turret is easily wasted.
Lots of theorycrafting, though ;/

I’m currently lvl 63 and mainly doing dungeons and story missions with just a little exploration. My main weapon is the rifle with grenades mixed in for AoE.
Up to now, I’ve been mainly using the healing turret, most of the time comboing it shortly after deployment or shortly after cleansing burst for additional AoE healing and starting the cooldown asap.

However, I’m also eyeing the other healing skills. To me it looks like the med kit is about equal in healing from skill use and with placing 1-3 medpacks about equal in healing (slightly better self, about equal group) but requiring more time to do so. Condition removal and fury seem nice, though.
Completely unsure about the elixir. It seems to heal slightly more than turret+combo but has a longer cd, longer cast time and if there is no other reliable source for regeneration, it probably heals less. Also I dislike “random boon” effects.

Anything I might have overlooked? Or am I mistaken on some points?

Is it intentional that I can only put lvl 1 gems (from copper) into my Mad Memoires: Complete Edition’s upgrade slot? Its item level is about equal to the back piece from the personal story line, which can be improved with pretty much any gem (or at least mine has an improved orb gem in it).

I feel that the lack of custom created chat channels really hurts this game.
Currently, I am running around in Queensdale because I’m looking for a CM group. But I’d also go TA or AC if I had the opportunity. However, I can’t really switch between the zones for those instances to call LFG because the cost would be too high. Sitting around in lion’s arch wouldn’t work either because then I’d miss out on the people LFGing in the zones.

Now, this game isn’t the first MMO without a proper lfg/dungeon tool. I only got first hand experience from WoW and Rift, both of which didn’t have a lfg tool for quite some time.
On many servers, the players’ solution was to create a custom chat channel to organize groups. It would normally be called LFG or something like that and although it didn’t reach the whole population, the more people joined it, the better it worked.

So why can’t we create custom chat channels? It would really be a great help and surely it would be less hassle for them than creating a lfg tool (that people will complain about anyways).
AN wouldn’t even have to implement the ability to create chat channels, they could just open up an official chat channel that people can join/display or ignore if they chose to. This probably would be even less work and it could maybe even be cross-server (like the overflow chat) for a few servers or maybe even a whole language area (enUS, enGB, de, fr, sp…).

Either solutions/features would be great while we surely surely will be waiting for the lfg tool for some more time.

Hm…. you sure? The numbers I stated were taken from the wiki and you mixed up the cds (90<→45).

I can’t log in atm to check the cooldowns, so cds are from the wiki, but what about going:
30 defense for either Defy Pain (5 sec invuln when you drop below 25%, 45 sec cd) or Last Stand (90 sec cd is kinda long, though).
Because you’re probably trying to stay in melee as much as possible to keep weakness up.

The last 10 points could go into Strength for +12% dmg or Discipline for extra adrenaline on swaps and +9% crit… depends on how often you use your burst skill and on your crit%, though.

Tbh, I prefer having useful elite skills to having entertaining ones.
My Charr warrior has some nice elite skills and I’m using signet or banner all the time. When playing my Norn mesmer, on the other hand, it feels like I have only long cd ones that aren’t very good (quickness bubble is probably good for pvp, though), or at least not as good with the much too long cd. If you can do something for 10 seconds every 5 minutes, it should be really strong instead of mediocre.

I think warrior elite skills are the way they should be for other classes. I only fear that instead of buffing the other classes, they’ll just give the signet a 240 second cd and reduce the uptime of the banner to 10 seconds

I agree. I have a very good pc and very solid FPS that never really drops.

Still, I absolutely hate playing with guardians and to a slightly lesser extent some elementalists and some mesmers because their particle effects are far too flashy and block out a lot of information that I absolutely need when playing melee. Ranger is also annoying on some bosses like the spider in TA up, where the shortbow hit indicator looks exactly like the boss’ wind up effect (or at least I think this because of rangers, might be something else).

It just isn’t done well, imo.

Warhorn sounds are also just wrong. It sounds like someone blowing into a nearly full bottle 100 m away. If you can even hear the sound, it is often drowned out by your character shouting his “OMG I JUST GOT A BOON!!!” taunt -.-

Love the warhorn

So which sigils are you guys using on it? I’m currently running Sword/WH a lot so not quite sure which ones to take (please don’t recommend stack-on-kill ones, I’m incredibly unlucky with those :/)

Battle Roar is no shout, so you’d be running 2 shouts + battle roar, reducing the number of healing abilities.
imo, from reading up on them, I’d say all racials except norn are pretty much ok (varies by class, of course). The Norn ones suck, though.

Well, most of them have kind of obvious animation that warn you.
However:
-Many are almost impossible to see because of all the fireballs etc. raining down on the boss, some on-hit effects even look exactly like the telling animation. At least the spider in TA up seems to have the same effect for its cast time as a thief or ranger with a shortbow… maybe it was also some other class?
-It is not always clear when during those animations you have to dodge. This can be found out by repetition but some abilities seem to be really funky there.
-Trash mobs also have those charge up animations. However, the above two problems still exist. They also tend to be a lot smaller so they are even harder to spot.

I recommend you read up on the stats and where to get them in those two guides.
http://dulfy.net/2012/09/08/gw2-templegod-karma-armor-sets/#3
http://dulfy.net/2012/10/03/gw2-endgame-gearing-guide/
I currently use them for gearing myself. However, it looks like there are no karma armor pieces with power/prec/tough so you probably have to mix and match.
If you want purely knight armor, crafting armor (or dungeons) seems to be your only way to get it.

Wait, this was ever bugged? I used Axe/Sword and then Sword/Sword for a long time.

I’m packing a lot of Magic Find on my green lvl 80 gear that I use to get my exotics. Still, I think it is a very bad stat and only serves to unbalance the game.