This thread as a great step forward. Not only are you giving the community a chance to provide feedback on the proposed changes, but you’re also explaining what guiding principles are motivating the changes for each class. Bravo!
Any chance that you could take another step forward in this area and provide a test server with early access to patches? While providing advance notice of changes is a big help, sometimes it’s hard for players to understand how those changes will affect gameplay especially in pvp settings where many things can interact in unexpected ways, so having the ability to test out the changes would go even farther towards inviting the players to assist you in providing the highest quality game play experience.
In dungeons I almost exclusively run a Grenade build (30/10/0/20/10 for instance). My preference is to focus on power rather than on condition damage, but the beautiful thing about a Grendadier spec is that by default you already get +30% condition duration, which synergizes very well with stacking vulnerability with grenade explosions as well as spreading the chilled condition with skill #4 for control. My role in dunegons is typically high sustained single-target AND AE dps while stacking vulnerability to improve my teams dps. Obviously you can also focus on water combos if needed, and in high level fractals the Elixir U toolbelt is very handy for avoiding ranged damage. Some people do HGH, though I find it too annoying to have to both constantly activate grenade auto attack AND also have to spam elixirs constantly for the might stack, but that’s personal preference. It is a powerful build if you can stomach the finger activity thats required. I typically don’t focus on a pure condition damage grenade build in dungeons because it’s too easy to conflict with someone else running a condition build.
Soul
Rifle only really shines as a power dps weapon if you spec properly for it. I’d recommend a static discharge build like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUl0pyUX8SyF17IyoHkWntZgekX+1I+pAbB-TkAg0Ecp4yxlhLJXWuGUcoA
The Rifle by itself is lackluster dps, but when you add Static Discharge and some utilities that synergize with it, you can pump out impressive burst damage, and have some good control (immobilize, knock back, pull, cripple) as well.
This build works well in spvp assuming you’re good at positioning yourself behind your allies so that you’re not on the front line. If you want more survivability you can swap out the 10 points in exposives to put 10 points in alchemy for protection injection, and you can change the grandmaster trait in Tools to Armor Mods for the Aegis on crit (which is helpful against backstab theives).
Soul
Was there any mention of fixing the Scope trait so that it actually applies the 10% crit chance bonus when not moving? This has been reported as not working since release. I would be very excited about a fix for this. I’ll also be very happy if they remove (or tone down) the RNG aspect of our elixirs and toolbelt abilities.
I have both a warrior and engineer at level 80, so I have an informed opinion on this subject. For single-target dps where fighting in melee range is an option and where the warrior can successfully land hundred-blades (without getting interrupted or having the target move out of range mid-channel), a greatsword warrior out damages a grenadier engineer, assuming optimal gear/builds.
With 25 might stacks my warrior’s final swing of hundred blades hits for 25,000 to 30,000, and my auto attacks hit for about 2000 to 2500 per swing (3 swings every 2.5 seconds). The warrior also doesn’t need to interrupt the dps rotation to “chug elixirs to build might stacks” his might stacks automatically on crits (which happen 80+% of the time for each attack due to the ease of acheiving perma-fury with Signet of Rage + “For Great Justice” and +boon-duration). While Signet of Rage costs 1 second to activate every 60 seconds, “For Great Justice” is instant, and can be cast while using other abilities (so there is no cost to use it).
I would argue that it takes a lot more effort for engineers to build up a stack of 25 might than it does for greatsword warriors. The opportunity cost of using elixirs to build might stacks is too expensive: not having utility when you need it because you’re always using elixirs when their cooldowns come up for their might stacks, not to mention the .5 to 1.0 seconds you spend activating each elixir is time that you’re not dpsing.
I do agree that grenades benefit far more overall from might stacks than greatsword does, since our kits scale better with power than normal weapons do, and grenades benefit from both power and condition damage (whereas greatsword only benefits from power). However the cost to get those might stacks, unless the group is giving out a lot of Area Effect might, hurts the engineers dps, and no measure of overall grenadier dps is valid unless it takes that cost into account.
Maybe I’m just a bad engineer but I almost never have 25 might stacks. More typically I have between 5 and 10. I don’t run an HGH build because I find it too clunky to waste slots in my attack rotation to use elixirs who’s effects I don’t currently need, especially when I might need them at specific times in the next 20-30 seconds (invulnerability or condition removal is very situational, for instance). I’m not sure how much damage my grenades would do with 25 might stacks, but with 5 to 10 the damage doesn’t match the best my warrior can do.
Sure its possible that with 25 might stacks a grenadier can outdps a greatsword warrior, though I’d like to see someone provide concrete damage numbers to back up that claim, but it’s much harder for an engineer to get those stacks than it is for a warrior, so it’s not necessarily a fair comparison.
The reason that I’d be excited to see real numbers for many classes with actual builds/gearsets is that this game makes it very difficult to get to them short of having a real character to measure with.
One thing I’ve been working on understanding is the relationship between how power and condition damage, contribute to dps, and finding the right balance between them depending on build. I’m not talking about their basic mechanics, because I think we all understand that. But more how much adding 100 power boosts dps when you’re at 1800 power than when you’re at 2200 power, and how this also varies per weapon and attack.
Another is measuring the actual “cast times” for various abilities/chains. For instance, this morning I shot at a target dummy for a minute with my pistol (as an engineer) just using auto attack, and observed exactly 69 attacks, which gives us an effective attack rate of .85 seconds per attack, which is much slower than the time listed on the ability (which was .50 seconds). It would be great if there was a good database (I know that there is a wiki that has this for some abilities, but it’s not organized well, nor complete) of “true attack times” coupled with the real damage per attack and how power affects it. I’ve noticed that kit-based abilities are typically more positively impacted by increases in power than weapon abilities (like Rifle auto-attack). Not that I’m asking the OP to provide a spreadsheet that has all this info, but it would be great if the community could put something like this together in a structured way for all classes, weapons and attacks and build off of it. Would make it much easier for us (and maybe for the devs) to see how the classes truly compare, and give us the raw material for putting together new effective builds.
This is interesting, but what would be more useful still, would be to include some dps measurements to backup your dps ratings. I have a level 80 warrior, thief, elementalist and engineer, all properly geared in exotics that match good builds. I agree that thieves and warriors are high dps (if built for it), but whats less clear to me is how the range of dps for various engineer builds overlap with (or fall short of) other classes ranges. Actual measurements (or at least well thought out theorycrafting) is far more useful than subjective ratings such as you used. With the number of level 80s that you have, you’re in a unique position to help the community. Can you provide some real dps numbers for common ability rotations for key builds for the various classes?