Guild Wars 2

There arent threads. There are only videos. Mostly lupi solo records. Video proof is better than maths anyway.

And the math i have done personally has shown that berserker builds for most classes in solos is really not that impressive. So its no surprise that condi comes out on top in solos. Especially as most bosses have more than 2600 armour (the standard value theorycrafters use to calculate direct dps). This doesnt mean its the case for all classes. Some classes are very bad at condi dps. Guardian for example.

Most bosses have high or moderate armour values. There are some exceptions. But its recently been publicly shown off that condi builds seem to achieve faster times than berserker when soloing. Berserker engi builds achieves 9min lupi solos. Condi is a lot faster. Lupi does have very higher armour so thats a rather extreme example. Theres also the fact that a very large portion of engis dps even on a berserker build is condi damage. If you can generate might then you pretty much max out condi builds potential. Berserker builds require a lot more investment. Which most classes dont do very well solo.

I thought the 6/6 build was pretty obvious.

Heres the variant with extra vigor.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQJAqOlUUpEr9Zh1rRaLIQfiI2WRlxPXgAcUA-ThRBABXt/o8rjTAAe6BA4BAQp6PmpEEA-e

Besides the original point was that build is irrelevant. What makes engi easy is using your utilities (toolkit for blocks, elixir U for projectile defence etc). Condi is superior for solos. Berserker is superior for group content. Its the same with all classes, you tailor your build for the encounter. So there is no set build. It varies, but stays relatively close to the meta builds traitwise for each class. Utilities always change.

I think you and I have a different definition of snarky. I didnt ask them to back me up. I dont even know them. You were just wording things in a very aggressive manor while asking debatably silly questions. Im not sure how exactly to explain how to faceroll on an engi without describing several different encounters in detail. Which would be an absurd thing to do and a waste of my time.

It seemed like you didnt really want an answer, you just wanted to discredit me. Which led to people jumping on you. Whether that was your intent or not, I dont care. I think we have finished the arguement anyway so ill leave it here. Sorry for any misunderstandings.

Yeah i should clarify despite the snarky responses. Engi is not entirely faceroll. The micromanagement involved in rotations. And the knowledge required to perform well is quite advanced. But once you have that down (doesnt take too long assuming you have average levels of competance and initiative) the class is incredibly easy to survive with.

tl;dr
Surviving on engi is faceroll. Playing it to its full potential with correct rotations is not.

Which funnily enough is what i said originally.

Engi for faceroll survivability assuming semi decent level of competence.

I do have personal experience. I just dont record. >.>

I was using a friends example to back up my claims. I know how easy it is from my own experience. I just dont have any videos because im not interested in recording anything. You can believe what you want. Doesnt bother me.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Spoj The Second.7680:

I ignored your engi question because i missed it. As you edited it in late. To answer. Simply change your utilities for the situation. Generally bombs + nades for dps. And then using shield and toolkit gives you more than enough blocks to face roll everything without energy sigils.

That is not much build info. Do you have a video of your experiences face rolling stuff?

I havent recorded anything personally. But ill link you to my friends lupi solo. This was literally done a day after he hit 80 on the engi. And he lvled mostly through leeching dungeons. He asked me open and help get him to lupi so he could record it. I was the guy sitting in the instance watching. It took him 3 attempts to get that time. Previous attempts he reset due to bad rotations.

http://youtu.be/NVXsyJg2rV8
Build is in the comments.

Engi is on par with warrior at being really easy to solo stuff. Partly because you can semi range and still maintain dps thanks to nade kit. Partly due to the health pool. And partly due to the vigor, blocks and invuln access. For group stuff you would go berserker, use speedy kits/static discharge (6/6/0/0/2) and use different rotations. But its essentially the same in terms of survivability in “difficult” encounters.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Okay, well what buffs did a warrior get, that justifies claiming they got the second most beneficial additions in added to them?

As well, no need to ignore my question about the engineer. You made the claim that it is a face roll survivability experience. I would like to know what build you personally use for said experience, and how do you personally play said build. Clearly you must have a great many hours of experience to make such claims. So I wouldn’t mind a little education from a master such as yourself. Please explain.

I think you are in the wrong thread. This thread is not discussing who got the best changes in the previews. Its asking what the best solo pve class.

I ignored your engi question because i missed it. As you edited it in late. To answer. Simply change your utilities for the situation. Generally bombs + nades for dps. And then using shield and toolkit gives you more than enough blocks to faceroll everything without energy sigils. You can take vigor on swiftness if you need even more active defence.

dancingmonkey.4902:

I am curious. How did you come to these conclusion. How do you rank professions that took specific nerfs, as having got more out of the update then the professions that reciefed multiple buffs and no nerfs at all or few nerfs?

Here:

Things i consider is solo damage, utility and active defence. For example guardian has a lot of utility and active defence which makes it great for group content. But solo it has some dps problems.

The announced changes have very little impact on PvE in the grand scheme of things. This list is more about current the situation. Previewed buffs/nerfs wont effect the overall position of most classes from what i can tell. But they will improve/nerf the classes effectiveness slightly in certain situations.

People are exaggering the nerfs (most are completely justified). Warrior damage is taking a hit (adren change also effects this). But it will still be one of the strongest solo dps classes, so the nerf has no impact on the classes overall ranking.

The changes they showed are the ones they want feedback for. Considering theres a pvp tourny coming up they would prioritise the important changes. Or changes which will have big impacts. So its safe to assume that the other unlisted changes probably arent going to address our core issues either.

I would be very surprised if they do change withering precision, siphoning power or lifesteal without previewing it.

vincecontix.1264:

People need to take into account several factors:

1. Effort/Skill req(difficultly)

2. DPs output Aoe and single target

3. Defense/Survivability

4. Skill ceiling

5. Mobility

6. Skill level of the average gw2 player

So based on the factors what class is the best for solo pve?

Warrior.

Ele for slightly more competent players that can handle risk. Engi for faceroll survivability assuming semi decent level of competence.

adormtil.1605:

Ironically the bottom classes are the two which many people claim to be really good for open world solos (pet AI is most likely the culprit). I can tell you from experience they are fine in open world but not better.

You see the best part of ranger and probably necromancer is that you can do other things while playing like watching a movie you do not need 50% attention on the game with them at least with ranger.

Thats exactly the reason people make that arguement. But thats a really poor arguement in itself. Its far from effective playing like that. And open world is so easy you can play with 50% attention on any class even without pet AI.

A good afk class doesnt make it a good class.

Tweaking a puzzle which is only fun for a minority is perfectly acceptible in my opinion. Its no where near as serious as removing an entire path. I honestly cant fathom what you find fun about the puzzle. I certainly cant imagine that its the highlight of the dungeon. But i respect that you dont want it completely removed.

Changes to it which i think you will find more to your liking would be as follows:

- Increase time between elemental spawns
- Increase health/movement speed of ooze slightly
- Increase time window in which you can activitate each gear slightly. Ive experienced many times where one side was a bit slower and were unable to get the 2nd ooze in place in time (missed it by about 2 seconds).

A combination or selection of these changes would make the puzzle more pug friendly. Which would drive less players away from the instance. The movement speed increase would speed it up, making it a less frustrating timegate for people who dont like the puzzle.

Rankings should be done according to group and solo dungeon rankings. Solo open world is easy on any class and easier on the classes which can solo dungeons most effectively. Most people seem to think ranger is really good for solo just because its fine in open world. The reality is warrior, thief, ele, guardian and engi are very clearly better in both dungeons and open world and in groups or solo. If you can solo something open world easily on a ranger then you can probably do it faster and easier on a different class.

Rankings I would use are as follows. Things i consider is solo damage, utility and active defence. For example guardian has a lot of utility and active defence which makes it great for group content. But solo it has some dps problems.

1) Ele
2) Warrior
3) Engi
4) Thief
5) Guard
6) Mesmer
7) Ranger
8) Necro

Ironically the bottom classes are the two which many people claim to be really good for open world solos (pet AI is most likely the culprit). I can tell you from experience they are fine in open world but not better.

That doesnt seem likely. As it stands its about equal to dagger as far as i can tell. But then dagger rotation should pull it out on top. Theres also utility and safety situations you have consider. Generally you probably never want to sacrifice utility in fractals. Plague or golem are better for them. And then in arah you can use lich on a few bosses if you want. But that may mean no plague for skips. And thats risky if you arent comfortable with skips or you dont have a thief to carry you.

Ive tried well bombing with lich on a few fights in arah. It didnt really feel any more powerful than dagger rotation. The only times it seems clearly better is if you lack crit chance because of your group composition. I havent done the math either so i cant say anything conclusive. But ill look into after the feature patch. The coefficient changes will make it strong on higher power builds at the least.

I dont think anyone ever said aetherpath doesnt have more interesting boss fights. They are the only reason that path can be considered half decent though. And they could be better. But if you ruin a dungeon with other stuff it doesnt matter how good the boss fights are. The end result is an unpopular crap dungeon overall.

Khisanth.2948:

Spoj The Second.7680:

Too little too late. And it shows that you guys havent really listened to us in the past. We dont want dungeon reworks. We want new content. No amount of reworks will fix the fact these dungeons have become 2 years old and stale. Also when you rework stuff you tend to take stuff away aswell. Still upset about TAFU being removed.

Fractal reward updates and a brand new dungeon (mordrem themed?) are what I would like to see. But that looks unlikely and im certainly not going to sit around waiting for it anymore.

I am 100% sure that a new dungeon will not help. It would be fairly unreasonable to expect more than one to be added at this point. People would quickly burn through the new dungeon and then we will be right back at the same spot we are now. If it isn’t some how absolutely perfect it even has a risk of being dead on delivery. TA aetherpath seems to be a bit like that.

There needs to be some fundamental changes to dungeons.
- better uses for tokens
— once you have your characters all fully decked out in whatever the only thing to do with these is to buy stuff and salvage them. this seems like a very degenerate use
- rewards
— I think it might be better to get rid of the daily rewards and increase the rewards per run. Maybe with a reasonable daily cap to avoid the old CoF p1 issue. The dailies end up having a negative impact on rerunning a path. If some paths never get run as a result then that is clearly a balance issue.

A new dungeon with replayable daily rewards certainly has more to give than one time living story achievements.

Aetherpath failed because of forced timegating through puzzles and unskippable dialogues and cutscenes (hinders replayability and causes irritation). Rewards werent worth the time. Puzzles are only an annoyance and only interesting the first time you do them. If they actually went back and fixed those issues the path could become pretty popular.

We made these things clear to the devs in fractal CDI so im sure they know not to make that mistake again if they ever make a new dungeon. Which they should.

Will be no change. Depending on the other changes we get, necro might be slightly better in fractals.

Its not just the fact that there are irritating puzzles. Its also that they appear before you even get to a boss.

When i first played that dungeon it left a bad impression because the start was so irritating. And even though the bosses were quite fun I already had a bitter taste in my mouth by that time.

Vex.7486:

Wait what? Lich? Not like you can even keep players in those wells, let alone while in Lich form.

They will most likely change it just to be consistant with ele tornado.

Im not saying dont give constructive feedback. Im just saying you guys are letting it go way too easily.

Ive been giving feedback for 2 years. I dont have much more to give. Ive been repeating myself as much as a i can and nothing major has changed. I dont really feel like its worth my time anymore.

Its embarrassing that you believe anything will change. It was a typical PR response to quell the uproar.

Seems it worked on most people. I dont want to live on this planet anymore.

Purple Miku.7032:

Also sadfais, I got an infraction for talking about Archeage on page 2 :<

Same. I got a ban for it.

Anyway nothing will be solved unless we make it crystal clear how displeased we are. So i dont agree with Lilith in censoring our posts. My only hope is that the sheer numbers of complaints on here and reddit will make anet seriously think about dedicating more resources to new content with high replayability value. Its encouraging to see a lot of posters ive never seen before in the dungeon forum supporting us.

But i also want to make it clear that even if this does encourage anet to change. Its going to be a while before we see a result. And I and many others probably wont be around for it. You cant expect us to stick around forever especially as we have now found at that you have nothing in the making right now.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Aw, what the hell, one last time:

AC: Fine
CM: Fine
TA: Fine, increase incentive for doing Aetherpath
…

TA is not fine. Its missing a path. TAFU mysteriously disappeared at some point in the first season of LS.

dutchiez.7502:

We need new content, not reworked old content. We know Anet can’t rework things, every time something has been reworked something else has suffered. Give us completely new content with new bosses and LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES.

Oh and please stop loading everything with puzzles/gimmicky minigames, that’s not what a dungeon should primarily be about.

This. You guys are falling for the PR response way too easily.

Too little too late. And it shows that you guys havent really listened to us in the past. We dont want dungeon reworks. We want new content. No amount of reworks will fix the fact these dungeons have become 2 years old and stale. Also when you rework stuff you tend to take stuff away aswell. Still upset about TAFU being removed.

Fractal reward updates and a brand new dungeon (mordrem themed?) are what I would like to see. But that looks unlikely and im certainly not going to sit around waiting for it anymore.

Sagat.3285:

Spoj The Second.7680:

Sagat.3285:

Condi tank complains are from people in general. It is not very likely that a conditioner will not run Dire in www too many zerkers out there pve is different classes like necro,guardian,engi can benefit form sets like rampager.

Guardian doesnt benefit from rampager at all.

And neither does necro. With necro you either go berserker or rabid. This is because scepter has low direct damage and the other weapons have low condi damage. Rampager works on engi because nades have both decent condi and direct damage.

Not the usual build but in my opinion it can work.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsf7dlsApaotCxWIEENR8QZ7I0CVHATwji3TA-TxhFABAcSAUT/wAPBABVCay+DGq+jSK/CAcAsbdrbdDGf8xHf8xb3d3d3d3tUAmLNC-e

Necro rampager is possible if you use Scepter/Focus-Axe/Dagger with Parasitic Contagion and Epidemic the damage is pretty good.

Viable in the way that they can complete content? Yes. Good? No, not even close.

Sagat.3285:

Condi tank complains are from people in general. It is not very likely that a conditioner will not run Dire in www too many zerkers out there pve is different classes like necro,guardian,engi can benefit form sets like rampager.

Guardian doesnt benefit from rampager at all.

And neither does necro. With necro you either go berserker or rabid. This is because scepter has low direct damage and the other weapons have low condi damage. Rampager works on engi because nades have both decent condi and direct damage.

Were convinced our group is cursed to have the longest fractals. Before the dredge nerf we got cliffiside pretty much everytime and if we got it on the 2nd fractal we were almost certain to get dredge aswell. After the changes we always get ascalon or cliffside and if we dont get cliffside second we tend to get it on the third. Were so used to this that whenever we get good rng on fractals it takes us about 20 minutes to do the whole fractal. x)

Its a big consequence in a record attempt.

Would like to have a fractal where we dont get ascalon or cliffside or both. Just once. Please! We never get dredge now that they changed it. Fk RNG.

Also would like those npcs back for ascalon. Its kind of painful without them on the higher levels.

Change your build would be the first thing.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Zelyhn-s-Advanced-D-F-PvE-Guide/first

Scepter conjure builds and staff builds can often be more efficient in some situations. But D/F is a good flexible solo build. As any soloer knows, be prepared to change build for almost every encounter. Adapting your traits and weapons around each encounter is very important especially when just getting started. Being creative and finding what works for you is a big part of soloing. What works for some people might not work for you etc.

winterchillz.2564:

As a person who does Tequatl almost daily I’d say that it’s going to be the same. In my observation, the map was usually getting filled up with people after Karka Queen – which means that people were already there, and yes, you usually get many people at Karka.

Is it convenient? Maybe, maybe not, depends on personal schedule. But then again, 2 months ago people were crying about the schedule, now other people would probably complain about this one. You can’t please everyone.

I wont be able to join you anymore. :<

Its 5pm for me which is when im picking up my brother and then the next one is too late considering the queue time. We will probably do dungeons and fractals instead. Please anet, give us dragonite in fractals so those of us with restricted play times can actually get a decent amount at any time of day. >.>

You are missing thief, engi and ranger from that list. Too many warriors and guardians aswell. Not enough eles.

Condi doesnt work in groups as things die way too fast. Rampager d/d may work ok in groups but not tried it.

For solo you want BiP, signets and sigil of battle with arist runes. Can get between 9-25 sustained might. Can probably maintain about 15+ might with coordinated signet usage. And even more if you dont need energy sigil so you can take strength aswell.

Last time i did it he managed to move off no problems. So i assumed it didnt work anymore. :P

Its not really a safe spot though. Meh im sure cookie can clarify.

I thought 1. was fixed. If not then it would be disallowed. For 2. Id say its legit and it doesnt work reliably anymore anyway.

Aristocracy condi necro is pretty op for solo.

Staff is a support pierce weapon. Pierce =/= cleave. Its also really weak. Id be ok with it if it had similar damage to eles staff, but they wont do that.

Gauntlet isnt difficult on necro. If you want to suggest a fight that kittens necro then i recommend Mai Trin. Her main damage dealing attack has to be reflected, blocked or invulned through lol. “For this fight i recommend equipping sentinels gear”. x)

Make weakening shroud a projectile block like ring of earth please!

You can play the game however you like. But theres always a meta and some people enjoy playing with efficiency in mind.

Basically what Bhawb said is correct. 6/6 is best for organised groups that stack might and other buffs etc. 6/2 is better for other groups, although i personally still recommend 6/6 for its superior solo flexibility/ability where you cant camp in DS reliably.

That said you probably dont see many decent necro pugs because as people have said they play other classes. Only casuals play warrior or guardian though. Ele is where its at.

Personally ive always felt with sylvari its either cultural or TA or nothing.

I think i might be top underneath the people with banned mains tbh. Im either very lucky or very unlucky. Cant really tell which.

I didnt include blind because it doesnt work on bosses and is easily cleansed by players with auto attacks. But I suppose I can add a few more things to that list just make you guys realise how separate necro is from the other 7 classes. Ill update the list with blinds and cc later today. The necro is clearly the odd class out when you compare these things. Even things like weakness, chill, regen, prot and stab are on similar or lower levels of access than the rest of the classes. So wheres the thing necro has clearly the most access to?

I still dont understand why its the same class which lacks things rather than it being more spread out among classes. Why is it the necro that lacks utility, cleave, active defence and mobility. I mean what do necros have that is so strong that they cant have good access to a single one of those core game mechanics? Because it definately isnt deathshroud.

True but it doesnt do a lot in pve. Although yeah i guess that is a valid reason to trait that way.

That dug up post is pure gold. Thanks for that.

Again people completely missing the point of the list. x)

Honestly I dont mind necro having so few options. Its amazing necro does as well as it does with how little choice is has to avoid damage. But you cant deny this is a pretty big imbalance in a game that emphasises the importance of active damage avoidance.

“Dodging is very prevalent in the game”. Yeah but not for necro.

Well seeing as blocks, evades and invulns can all be used to avoid cc. I dont see why necro cant have more stability. Especially seeing as the devs seem to want us to sponge every attack. Stability doesnt prevent this, it just allows us to actually fight back while sponging.