Guild Wars 2

My group usually has 1 or 2 eles but sometimes none of us feel like playing it. We arent so worried about taking a minute longer for each path especially as we dont rush to every dungeon. The runs take pretty much the same time no matter what composition we use. Casual day for me involves chatting on ts, doing some dungeon runs, maybe a fractal and taking it easy. We will often spend 5-10 minutes between dungeons doing absolutely nothing in game while deciding what to do next. Such is the way of the casual!

Tree.3916:

I am curious, as I mentioned above, that the gs portion of the gs+a rotation is almost double the dps of the axe portion. Makes me wonder if it’s better dps, even in a group where the self-Might isn’t needed to even swap. Clearly Goku and Dub and the other lupi warrior solos have unscientifically figured out that it’s better when solo especially with strength runes, but I will go back in and do the math to see if it’s better in groups too.

Its better for the same reasons as in solo. You rarely have perma 25 might and vuln in casual runs. Obviously if you are doing a record or you are super keen every casual run like DD do then its not the best choice.

Guang if you want to phase skip lupi with a mesmer you would be best off using 6/6/0/0/2.

Its the highest non phantasm reliant variant. Sure it lacks glamour cooldowns and traited focus but sometimes all you need is high base dps because your phantasms always die and you dont need many reflects.

In other news it didnt take long for the average player to forget about ferocity and immediately start creating more nerf zerker threads. While also making it clear that they dont understand the game.

Thats why in game GS always yields better results? 100b doesnt have backloaded damage so you dont lose much by interrupting it before the final hit. GS has other skills other than auto attack to fill the gaps between 100b. The auto attack isnt that bad and it stacks vuln. With GS, axe + mace you never have to auto attack with GS anyway. The rotation allows plenty of space for dodges while never being forced to gs auto and any half decent player can time their 100b so they dont have to interrupt it. If you know an attack is coming use ww, bladetrail or rush then dodge, then use 100b.

Yeah the level of brainpower used in that run was 0. We were almost falling asleep. Atleast in berserker gear we have to pay attention and dodge/reflect/block key attacks. With stacked passive gear all you have to do is stack and mash face against keyboard repeatedly.

Mixing “zerker” with tanks in a group doesnt make the run harder it makes it easier for the “zerkers” if they are getting perma regen, prot and heals and the tanks continue to faceroll. While at the same time the groups dps is increased by the zerkers. If the zerkers dont dodge they will probably still die even with all that prot but thats the risk you take when you go for dps over passive defence. The more tanky specs you have the easier it is but it also slows you down. Most decent berserker players can survive no matter how long the fight lasts.

tl:dr

You can make any run easier by taking tanky heal spec players but they will also slow the run down. Passive defence is op.

We were all running things like clerics/pvt/apoth. The video was to demonstrate how op passive defence is and how easy the game becomes when you stack that much passive defence.

Think about the time it takes to stack might. And the number of encounters that allow it without slowing you down (boss being friendly for a period of time).

Yeah eles have a ton of modifiers and i think thats one of the reasons they dont want to fix lingering elements otherwise it would create unholy amounts of burst. I havent tested it myself. But i know a number of ele mains who have and have been asking for this to be fixed since release. Ele is a good example why not having traits will tank your dps seeing kitten much comes from those flat modifiers.

Its probably some other factor that is triggering the damage increase (its probably bolt to the heart causing the difference or maybe vital striking?). Im curious though so i think ill test it later myself.

Gaaah the temptation.

Its actually easier to get full 100b’s off inbetween dodges than it is to completely avoid interrupting the axe auto chain. This is another small reason why it is superior.

How can you test the coefficients without steady weapons? Please explain xd

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

That’s why a “vacuum” is the most accurate way to forcecast DPS, because even if it gives an unrealistic picture, it’s still a baseline.

The problem with that is that we never play in a vacuum. The closest we get to that situation is in a speedrun where things often go wrong due to pushing yourselves to knock off every last second. In regular runs it is almost never worth taking this so called new meta build.

Its the better gearset. That doesnt mean its most suitable for everyone. Dont be pedantic. :P

Trice.4598:

Dub.1273:

I’m often kicking people who do not match my lfg. But you can usually identify these by some extraordinary description I put in. I’ve had a lot of fun trying to get ‘native english speakers who are willing to communicate". Eventually, after about an hour, someone joined me, quite sadly I didn’t understand his advanced english ‘i rune dol cuz orb i die many’.

That’s old Britain, you need something like an English Major before even starting to understand.

If only.

Once again testing in a vacuum.

Well its hard to believe that someone gets 4 precursers in 1 day but ive seen it happen. T_T

RNG :<

My guide has been updated. Berserker with scholar runes. Sigils are undead/night/force with strength on offhands. Energy sigils for more difficult fights. Dagger warhorn and focus. 6/6/0/0/2 is now the best trait setup unless you run in an optimized group that takes a ranger and you have perception stacks, in which case you will want to swap to the old 6/5/0/0/3 instead.

Andele.1306:

No but ele damage bonuses are mostly attunement specific… so swapping attunements which is core to get over a 50% bonus is cruical… stuff like piercing shard, air training, etc.

Those arent affected by lingering elements. Its a common complaint about the trait.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lingering_Elements

Maybe they crit you. :P

Dunno but ive experienced some unusual amounts of damage on occasion and not just in fractals. I can only assume its because of crits.

Lingering elements doesnt effect damage modifiers.

Anyway my original point was that a class using dps gear will almost always out dps a class using sub optimal gear. So its not surprising that the op did more damage than the warriors and guardians in his group.

as anyone who was doing arah solos for selling, tis either skip, cheeze or slowly slaughter thrash

Not really true. But its true that the chance of screw ups in solos is much greater. A lot of solo’ers do exploit the hell out of instances. But I really wish you wouldnt make assumptions that all of them do. I know a number of players who can consistantly solo arah p2 in under 30minutes. And others who can solo other dungeons in other impressive times and do so daily (this was before the patch, now its even easier due to higher crit damage in downscaled dungeons).

As an example, in the past when my guild actively sold arah we often complained about the number of sellers who sold for cheaper and undercut us while skipping lupicus or going underwater to completely exploit the entire path while afk. Our guilds requirement back then was to be able to solo lupi so it was an unwritten rule that if you skipped lupi you would be removed from the guild (happened to one new guy since ive been in the guild). Those of us who still sell, tend to do it fully legit. Pugs exploit more than most sellers these days anyway.

No no gear and traits have the largest impact on dps. And im not referring to class specific exceptions like minions and phantasms.

The highest dps build do the damage they do because they have high crit chance from gear and traits. And they stack modifiers and buffs/debuffs from traits. If you play without any trait points you notice a huge difference. If you play without gear its not quite as noticeable. But still a difference. Difference between dps of classes when using similar gear and trait philosophies is very similar when the classes are exposed to the same level of buffs.

But yeah its true necro lacks a lot of high coefficient skills. I believe this is down to anet trying to force necros into condi/minion roles. And yeah staff is terribly weak.

Yeah even though necro cant help buff the group. You will still do more dps than other classes if they are using soldier gear (assuming you are using berserker). No class is so different that they would do more dps than other classes with subpar gear. Gear and traits are more important for dps than the class.

Missing the point. The point is 6/5 is still superior to 6/6 for pure damage. You would only run one warrior in a speedrun anyway so it doesnt matter.

Bhawb.7408:

They’ve never waited for us to be OP to throw in nerfs with almost every buff to anything that isn’t absolutely awful. I’m not sure I want to see what they nerf just to give us a few more sources of blind/weakness/etc.

More combos is absolutely what we need (the fields/finishers is a large part of why MMs work at all, instead of being totally awful), but I don’t think buffing our weapons is the way to do it.

How else would you do it? There is no other way to give us more finishers without putting them on weapons. The only utility we have which would make sense to get changed is making spectral grasp a projectile finisher.

You said it yourself. We need more finishers. The only space we have for them is on weapons. Our underwater weapons have plenty and they work well. It should be the same on land.

Your playstyle is weird to watch xD

It almost looks like your a bot.

Actually it is the way to go. Having finishers on weapons wouldnt imbalance minions. The fields you get with minions are poison fields and thats only with a grandmaster trait (big investment). If you gave all weapons a range of blasts and projectiles all you do is give a minion build the opportunity to do a bit of extra poison or extra weakness. But every build should have the option to utilize their fields, it adds an extra level of skill. I think you are overestimating the value of poison fields.

Yes more finishers on weapons would benefit wells and minion builds more than others. But that doesnt mean it would be op. Frankly we could have way more combo’s than we have now and we wouldnt come close to the amount of combos eles and engineers have (and they keep adding more to ele every patch). So please dont imply it would be op.

Yes lets be realistic. Most builds dont use minions. The dark field access is good. But pretty much no build has any finishers to interact with our fields. We rely solely on our teammates to do that. All other classes can interact with their own fields in abundance.

I posted a comparison of all fields and finishers across all classes a few months back. Necro is at the bottom along with mesmer and by a large margin. The mesmer however doesnt suffer so much due to the other types of utility they have at their disposal (although they are a lot worse off now thanks to a certain grandmaster trait move).

You have 2 sigil slots now so you may aswell take a dps sigil with the energy sigil. Also means it will be slightly better for wvw. My staff has force + energy so i can use it effectively in wvw. Also if you want to lifeblast stuff for whatever reason then having a dps sigil on a staff is good for that.

Not really. And I dont know why you guys are overthinking it xD

They actually dont really die that much and the boon stripping and utility mesmers have is very helpful in a lot of places in CoE.

You shouldnt lose much if you keep the bleeds on you. Plus they can still be used to get extra healing out of consume. Even if you dont heal and you take no extra damage from other sources the bleeds should never account for more than 10% of your hp. And the regen from focus should counteract any bleed damage you take. Just be aware of your scholar bonus when considering to cleanse/heal the bleeds.

Russelus.1397:

Is it still worth to use Signet of Spite? It only gives you 80 Power instead of 180.

Are you sure your not in a low level zone and being downscaled? Wouldnt make sense for them to nerf the passive on 1 signet and leave all other signet passives untouched.

Edit: If you were in Vigil keep when checking that would explain it. Gendarran fields is a lvl 30 zone and it scales down signets to 80 stat points instead of 180.

And yes its still worth taking the signet for the passive power even when downscaled. Theres not many other options. If you need more utility then you can swap it but otherwise you may aswell use it.

AC – Elementalist
CM – Thief
TA – Engineer
SE – Guardian
CoF – Ranger
CoE – Mesmer
HotW – Necromancer
Arah – Warrior

Fractals – Elementalist

Downscaled dungeons are now a joke. Everything can be pretty much 1 shot by berserkers. The changes buffed berserker in the lower lvl dungeons and had a minor effect in lvl 80 dungeons and fractals.

Hes just annoying to cc. I havent done coe recently but focus pull always worked fine for me.

You can always sploit over the gate and LoS him into the corner before your team gets there.

Dalanor.5387:

Can someone enlighten me about how the earth attack of Subject Alpha works exactly? I’m always standing inside him without melee assist and get almost one shotted on Ele.

They fixed it so standing inside him no longer avoids it. You have to dodge (near impossible in melee). You can sort of predict it and if your group has enough dps you can just fgs burst before it becomes a problem. But yeah them fixing that attack is the reason i decided not to pug coe on my ele anymore.

You wont have LH available all the time in fractals. D/F is superior and you have an extra blast now thanks to frozen burst.

Saint.5647:

Spoj The Second.7680:

Its kind of annoying that you can only get the lupi chest once per day. So dungeon paths which have common bosses in multiple paths are affected. So it does effect everyone.

Oh what? Wow…Didn’t realize that. Haven’t noticed :P I thought it was only something that would affect people that rush a path over and over.

Maybe that will be fixed though? It seems like a bit of an oversight/error.

I dont pay much attention. But it doesnt seem to always happen.

Its kind of annoying that you can only get the lupi chest once per day. So dungeon paths which have common bosses in multiple paths are affected. So it does effect everyone.

Yeah. It might work with clones aswell. Havent tested. I also assume it works with consumables like ogre whistle and ember. But those have such high cooldowns now I wouldnt rely on them to get the bonus.

It was bugged before and provided a permanent 5% even if you didnt have a companion. They simply fixed it so it now only works if you have an active companion. So essentially they made it useless for everyone except minion necros and rangers. Which is a shame because it was a good precision based alternative to scholar runes. Now there isnt one.

The funny thing is we can run those casual group comps and still finish the dungeon just as fast as your optimized groups in casual runs. If we wanted to go all out we would do a record run.

Besides theres only so many dungeons in a day and thanks to the daily rewards there is no reason to rush them. Id rather have fun and take them at a relaxed but fast pace and have something to do for the whole day. Rather than blitz all the dungeons and then be bored for the rest of the evening. :P

Wheres the fun in that? Theres being elitist and then theres being boring.

Those builds arent even optimal for records.

Player hitboxes are all exactly the same size no matter what race they are.

urieldhynne.2743:

Mobility and the lack of stability is the most important problem as a necro by far.

Personally id say its the lack of cleave and alternative methods of active defence. :P

Updated the quick reference link at the end of the guide.

Its not even just about dps. Not having a gs means you have less evades. Pug groups arent full of top end players. Most of them need the versatility of more flexible builds. 6/5/0/0/3 is still the most versatile and pug friendly build. And its still a meta build.

Anyway look at it from this perspective. Most players who watch these guides follow them blindly. Which would you rather have them run in a pug? Something that is only useful and effective in a fully organized group or something that works very well in all groups but loses a small percentage of efficiency in a fully optimized group? Its pretty clear to me which I would prefer. Id rather not have pug eles running 5/2/2/5/0 in my pug groups. They would be much better off and help the group a lot more by running 6/6/2/0/0.

I dont even pug but its obvious that the recommended builds for the public should be the more versatile versions of the meta builds. You can still include all the info about the absolute best dps options but it should be pointed out that these often wont be as effective in pugs. Some people cant work that out for themselves so you need to tell it to them straight.

Tree.3916:

Most people who think the axe warrior build is boring probably haven’t played it. Doing the proper rotation is a bit more challenging than the gs+axe build and it’s significantly more active, especially the EA build that Eviscerates as part of the rotation.

I feel like I’m surrounded by crybaby carebear casuals. “waaaa I wanna use my twilight waaaaa I don’t care if its 10% less dps” is no different than “waaaa I like my celestial gear because I play how I want.”

Its not 10% less dps in most groups. Its actually higher dps in the average group. Only time pure axe is better is when your group is always capping might. Which doesnt happen in fractals and for many casual dungeon runs (depends on class composition). EA is pointless in a group which doesnt utilize buffs properly.

Besides builds that are advertised for the public should be tailored to more relaxed groups or dps pugs. For obvious reasons. The top guilds dont need to be told what is optimal in record runs as they should be working that out for themselves.

Guide is updated. 6/6/0/0/2 is now superior in almost every situation.