Guild Wars 2

Mortifer.2946:

Okay I need a final answer if somebody can give it, so I can finally reforge my armor. Am I going to be accepted more in raids as a zerker DH with GS and LB, or condition guardian? I guess more as zerker. And what about DPS tanking guardian? I think I would be more valued as not-tank because of merciful intervention and wings of resolve that can save green circle runners.

Who know what pugs will accept, there is a lot of crazy people in there. 5 days ago a Viper Warrior would have been kicked faster than he could write, now pugs salivate when they see one. Pug will want whatever they know is good, but they rarely know much, especially in those early time in raid were information ain’t yet nicely show all in one place like metabattle and such.

That said. Even if condi and zerker guardian are pretty much on part when it come to dps, Zerker will be safer. But it seem that guardian are more welcome as a tank these days in pugs. Celestial or Knight/Zerker are two good setup for a tank guardian.

icy.9250:

So you don’t have a “main” that can just do everything? idk… switching to a dedicated fractal character seems strange to me. If you say it’s cheaper, I believe you. But wouldn’t you rather not have to make another armor set, possibly another character to wear it, etc.?

Yes my main can do everything. I don’t need +70 stats from Infusion to do everything.

Swagger.1459:

You’re deluding yourself if you think raids are hot (pun intended) and have great participation numbers overall. Also, most players don’t give a crap about it and want it out of VB because groups of players are standing around doing nothing but taking up needed meta # space. But by all means keep thinking that raids, in their current form, are good and have a healthy participation rate. Raids will end up like dungeons and fractals, and legendary armor rewards won’t save them in the long run.

I think that anybody that think they can figure out what is the participation of the community to raid is delusional.

Swagger.1459:

so where are all the forum threads saying how good and amazing and fun raids are, and how teams are filling up so fast that they are turning peeps away…?

Lot of positive here
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Name-3-things-good-and-bad-about-Raids/first#post5802602

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Raid-need-at-least-2-difficulty-level

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Raid-difficulty-is-perfect

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Raid-guild

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Fun-raid-ideas-go-here

In much if not all of the thread there is about the same ratio of negative to positive feedback to be honest. A lot of people are talking about tactics, build and composition in different subforum. But all of that is irrelevant. People go into the forum to search help, offer help or QQ. You rarely see someone going on the forum to create a topic on how great something in particular is. That doesn’t mean that everybody except a small minority that QQ on the forum love raid. That also doesn’t mean that the forum is representative of the community. And even if it was, like I said, I see about the same amount of negative than positive feedback on raid.

I don’t go around claiming that raid is the most popular content of the game or that the majority of player are playing it. I just enjoy it and know a lot of people that enjoy it. But I also know that around 5-10% of all my guild is playing them on a regular basis. And that around 20-30% of my guild would want to play it and that I will everything I can once I have mastered them to include as much people as I can. What is the situation on the community as a whole, that I don’t know and you don’t know either. We can only speculate with our own experience and the very biais (both ways) forum.

icy.9250:

But I don’t know why you would put that much gold into +5 Toughness for fractal tbh.

Maybe you’re super rich and have a hundred different ascended sets, with one dedicated to fractals, but I don’t. I’m in the process of setting up an ascended set I can use everywhere… simple +7s look a bit silly to me outside of fractals.

What?? If my character do fractal, i only put versatile +7 AR on them. If they never go into fractal I use +5 stats from WvW with no AR on them.

If you go for +5 AR and +5 Stats, that’s where it start to be freaking expansive.

My points is that why would you put +5 AR +5toughness on a character is totally useless. I could understand if you put a +5 toughness on a character that doesn’t do fractal.

I agree with some of the point that Madrabbit make, but not all.

As a D/F Tempest you should look to give might to your group. Ideally, all group should have a PS Warrior and a Herald for might and fury, but that’s not the case 100% of the time. Some group don’t have them, but even the first boss, you usually are shot on might in the second group, the one that run Lighting Circle. Anyway, even if you don’t need might, Persisting Flame increase your dps because of Flamewall and Burning Speed which are important in the rotation of D/F Ele. Blinding Ashes is not that good for PvE to begin with, in raid that completely useless because all boss are immune to blind.

You won’t get much Imo, cripple, chill in raids, you are indeed better off with Element Bastion to give more support.

You also don’t get cc that much during combat in raids so Gale Song is meh. If you need to go in water (At Gorseval for chill, or if you want to stack might) then Latent Stamina is nice. Otherwise Unstable Conduit with Element bastion work well (but Bastion have a 30sec cooldown, so Unstable Conduit might not be that usefull.

Scholar, Strenght, Rage and Flame Legion will all give you more dps than Eagle, while Strength and Rage will give more support. Not really for Rage, except if you lack herald or when you split at Gorseval and you don’t have an herald next to you.

Now, it’s where I think that MadRabbit made a mistake. He didn’t saw that you were talking about raids. Not much condition there for now, so Wash the pain away is perfect for raid. Yes Brilliance give more blast, but that shouldn’t be needed.

Glyph of storm bring more dps than the 2 shouts you take, so you could replace one of them.

Really, there is just the Persisting Flame that cause problem with your build. Everything else is pretty much quality of life or preference.

Warlord.9074:

In order from best to good.
Nikes
Warlords
Thaddeus’s

I agree with that. All three will have great dps, but the higher on that list, the more optimized it will be, but it will also cost more to build.

Narc I have a question. I know that Dekeyz use a Magi/Cleric Druid, did you guys had any agro problem between the cleric trinkets of the druid and the relatively small toughness from the celestial guardian? Because we had some problem with that at Gorseval (still working on my Trailblazer armor to replace the guardian). Our Druid had to swap some trinkets to get less toughness. She didn’t had the agro all the time, but a couple of time, Gorseval changed agro for like 2 secs.

Warlord.9074:

problem is that reapers bring nothing to the table in terms of group support so given the DPS is not as strong and they don’t offer support why chose a reaper over an engi or a warrior.

Because raid are a group of 10 players. Yes Warrior bring banners, but after you have two of them, the third don’t don’t bring much more than dps.

The engie bring blast for water field, but the vast majority of group in raid don’t use them because they need some coordination unless you blast your own Healing Turrets, Mortar Water fields. Stealth is useless in raids and might is almost never a problem, meaning that the support from an engie is pretty much some cc and some healing. The reaper too can bring CC, so the difference between the support of a Warrior, Reaper and Engineer isn’t that much (Unless you don’t have at least one PS Warrior or 2 of them for Gorseval and Sabetha).

And reaper bring A LOT for Gorseval with chill and epidemic.

EazyPanda.6419:

Thieve’s Venomshare may deal up to 16+k DPS. We can sustain that damage for around 12 seconds with 32sec cooldown. That’s a 37%, 16k dps uptime.

True, but a Daredevil Staff without venom share can compete in term of dps.

Profession won’t be balanced around dps only. Some deal less dps, but buff the party to compensate like PS Warrior and Mesmer. It will never be perfectly balanced. For exemple a condi Warrior can have a very high dps, while still buffing the party by a lot with the 2 banner. Herald also have high dps, while buffing with might and fury. Engineer have very high dps, while bringing just about anything a group could need, but just a little bit ; )

But even if the balance is not perfect, it’s pretty good IMO.

1) They nerfed dungeon reward because they can only put a certain amount of direct gold in the economy without creating inflation which is bad for everybody. It took them 2 years to stabilize the inflation, so It was a good decision. (Don’t mix offer and demand which is boosting price at the moment, with inflation). That have nothing to do with elitism.

That said, they made some mistake in their reward nerfing. They should have increase the amount of non gold reward to counterbalance and don’t leave such a bad taste in everybody’s mouth. They also screwed up with the gold reward from Fractal, making an even bigger mess of the whole thing.

But to be honest, we had some guildmate that need some dungeon tokens from special runes and we got back into them a bit and they are going so more quicly now than before the patch. The power creep is real, but it’s also easier than ever to keep perma full buff on the team. They maybe decreased the reward, but the speed is much faster and compensate. My friends and I will concentrate on Raids and on fractal after they fix it. But once that done, we surely gonna get back into dungeon.

2) True. But a big part of that is the demand and offer. A lot of people don’t know how to create or farm certain items that is needed. As more and more guild finish their guild hall and most people have their expensive raid gear like Viper done, the demand will drop by a lot.

3) I just disagree with you on that. I like those maps. Now, they probably gonna have the same problem as Dry Top over the long term. Meaning that their map currency have limited amount of reward to get. Once everybody have everything they need, the value of the reward in those map will drop by a lot, so will be the number of players on them. Silverwaste had a way better system for that. You always want Bandit Crest even when you alreayd have the exclusive reward of the map.
4) I agree. They was suppose to be alternative way to play a character, but pretty much all metas in both PvE and PvP use the elite spec. If there was 30-50% of the meta build that include an elite specs I could be comfortable with them, but it’s more like 90-99%.

Palador.2170:

The problem is, this is not one of those other games, and it is GW2. GW2 was supposed to be different, not just a copy of other MMORPGs. The grind may be small by the standards of other games, but those are not the standards we should be using. If GW2 is meant to stand as its own thing, we should measure it as such.

Lets be honest for a second. MMO can’t live without grind. Multiplayer mode can live forever only by their content, because the developer only have to create the framework, but that’s all the different players that shape all matches into different content that keep it fresh.

PvE can’t achieve that. The developers have to create the content and people will go through it faster than the devs can create it. So the devs need to create incentive for players to repeat the same content over and over again, while still enjoying it. A good content is a very good base, but you also need to give rewards and goal to keep the player engage. That where grind at it’s core come from. Feeling that something is grindy or not is subjective, but at it’s core, grind isn’t subjective. If you need to do the same content more than once for a reward, it’s grind. Like I said, it can feel or not grindy to a specific players, but that’s another story.

The gold of GW2 was never to get rid of grind. Because if you can get all the reward by going through the content only once, the game will have a very limited life span. Just like a single player game. You buy the game, you play it, you stop playing the game. But that’s not what we want from a MMO. We want a sense of constant evolution. We want to play the game for years as we slowly upgrade our characters, ours skills, etc. We also want a place where we find friends and can socialize. Something that can’t really be done with a normal PvE game.

So grind is necessary to keep the players engage long enough for more content to be created so that we can get that sense of long term RPG and socializing.

The goal of GW2 was not to eliminate grind, but to make it optional. There is nothing fun into grinding if you don’t really want the reward, but you need it. I want to do X content, so I need Y gear, but for that I need to do Z task, which I hate. You have two methods to go around that problem.

1) One you create optional grind. You only grind if you want the reward, not because you need the reward. GW2 is good at that, since almost nothing is needed anywhere. Of course Ascended gear come back often and IMO it was a mistake to introduce it in the game. I need to do specific task to get my ascended gear for fractal and raids.

2) You give optional ways to get rewards. GW2 have some problem with that. Ascended gear wouldn’t so bad if different ways to get it would exist. Not easier way, just different. Someone the old fractal had a much easier time getting their ascended stuff that someone doing PvP, or WvW. Someone doing guild mission have a lot less work to do that someone without in a small family guild.

Swagger.1459:

You don’t really pay attention to what’s happening in game…

Well enlighten me then oh master. Because so far, everybody that I bring in raids have a blast. We must be playing it wrong I suppose.

Armed Silon Il.4597:

The +7’s only go into upgraded rings and back not the rest of armor/weapons etc

So wrong facepalm. The versatile +7 replace the versatile +5 on all your gear. What you are talking is +1 that can be crafted into higher AR. If you want to do fractal 100, you would want 2 x +11 and 3 x +10.

And yes OP, that would be nice to be able to replace your infusion +5 AR, +5stats for some +7AR, +5stats. SOme people spend a lot of gold on those infusion. But I don’t know why you would put that much gold into +5 Toughness for fractal tbh.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Yes, you would still need to know the tactics and yes it would have been harder than dungeons (lol), but still it would be considered very easy content and all their promises about challenging HoT content would fall apart.
You would not need ascended gear, you would not need a good class comp and mistakes would matter a whole lot less if even at all.

I’m sorry but with the current GW2 combat system, PvE content without a system that forces players to do their absolute best is not challenging.

I still disagree. Before I continue, I’ll make this clear. I’m ok with the timer and I’m glad that it’s in the raid. That said, I think that there is a lot of other ways than a timer to give challenge. I make a distinction between the timer and timed task. Just like the need to dps isn’t the same thing as a dps check in the fight.

The ligthing Circle have a timer. You need to complete the task before the timer run out of you all get a bit it. I find that mechanic way more interesting than a Overall timer.

The Wall and spirit at Gorseval are dps check, and I find them way more interesing as mechanic that the overall timer that push people to bring max dps.

You see the difference? For exemple. They could have added a dps check to Vale Guardian. For exemple, the seekers each 20second are going toward the Vale Guardian and if they reach him, they boost him. So now you have a timed mechanics with the Ligting Circle and a dps check with the Seekers. You still need a dps composition to be able to do it, which push people to their best, but you don’t have a simple Timer, which to be honest is a cheap, but effective way to bring more challenge to a content.

Seriously, the timer at Gorseval don’t bring any challenge at all. It,s the dps check that do all the job. If you don’t have enough dps, he will do too many big attack for not enough updraft.

Like I said, Timer is an easy way to increase the challenge of something. But it’s not particularly inventive or smart.

Ryn.6459:

What does dps uptime means? damage per second uptime doesn’t have any sense.

He meant damage uptime obviously, don’t be that guy pls.

Condi Reapers are especially good at Gorseval. They have good dps, bring a lot of chill and Epidemic is epic against the wall and spirits.

People in pugs are so bad. Until they read something on a website, it’s garbage. Worst things is they usually don’t even try to find out what is good, so they miss so much good tactics.

Swagger.1459:

I don’t need stats, the “evidence” can clearly be seen by the popularity and interest for the raid.

What evidence? The QQ on the forum. The same QQ that screamed that Pew pew ranger were OP and needed some nerf for then QQ how Dragonhunter are OP and need nerf?

Or the same QQ that screamed that Silverwaste mobs were too op and needed nerf, to then QQ that HoT mobs are too op and need a nerf?

Or the same QQ that predicted the end of zerker meta when Anet announced the nerf to critical damage tranformed into ferocity, just to predict the end of zerker meta when Anet announced the nerf to might, to then predict the end of the zerker meta when Anet talked about raid?

Is that QQ forum your evidence?

If you want to compare the dps of Zerker vs Condition Dragonhunter here some infos.

During the 15 first second of a fight zerker will pretty much always be better. When the marker it 20sec it’s a bit more complicated. On a non moving boss with a large hitbox, the condition build will be able to hit 16 times with Smite, which will proc a lot of burning. But this almost never happen tbh. You have Lupi and Bloomhunger. Maybe Sabetha, but I’m not sure she’s big enough. Anyway 99% of all mobs won’t allow you to proc simet 16 times. The second tricky things is the number of DPS utilities. For Zerker it’s Blade Processions and Bane Signet (leaving one space for support), the condi guardian is

A condition guardian with 3 DPS utilities will have around the same dps as a zerker guardian with 2 dps utilities after 20second of fight. Since Guardian are usually needed for support, a condition guardian with 2 dps utilities and 1 support skill will have a bit less dps than a zerker guardian. But really, they are very similar.

To give you an idea how the dps of a guardian compare to other. Most good Dragonhunter build have a theorical max dps of between 16 and 17.5k dps. A condition engineer can reach 21-22k, but with a very hard rotation to maintain.

In my experience a good Dragonhunter can maintain 16k dps, while a good engineer can maintain 19k dps. A different of around 15% in combat situation.

1,2) The build on meta battle is about right. It’s also the most optimized build (was updated based on the last Nike’s Video from DNT). That said, there is a couple of stuff that you can change without butchering your dps.

Trait : You don’t do that much direct damage so using Grenadier instead of Glass Canon isn’t a bad choice. Other than that, you shouldn’t change a thing in your explosive and firearms line. Tools is mostly about quality of life tbh, so change whatever you want, or you can even change the line to whatever line you want.

Skills : The 3 utilities skill are important. If you even need to swap one utility, swap Flamethrower, but it will start to drop you dps a bit. The healing turret is the best heal IMO, but if you dislike it take whatever you prefer. Same go for you elite. Mortar is more usefull for blast, soft cc, water field, but not part of your dps rotation so swap it if you want. Never swap bomb or grenade out of your build. You can swap the second pistol for a shield in hard situation, but it will drop your dps a bit.

Gear : You have 2 option for different runes on meta battle if you can’t get Beserker Runes. As for gear, this is tricky. Your goal here is to always reach 100% condition duration for both burning and bleeding. A mix of Viper and Sinister is the best. Viper or Sinister Back item don’t exist so either rabid or rampager will do. Condi Engineer is expensive to build because Viper, Sigil of Malice and Nourishement are expensive to make. So you could make something like that for exemple. That would be less dps than the original build, but would safe you around 50 gold, which isn’t negligible for a lot of people.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQJAqalUUhSsYfWwWLQ7FLpFFYJuiHw3GGANw4PmGFJA-ThSAQBRUllLpEEbK98y+BIwCiA8AAkmeAAcCAsm6EhUZAhAWsGA-e

3) I prefer not to learn the rotation and instead learn the priorities. Your first priority should be Fire Bomb, it’s your main dps skill. After that, you want to prioritize Flamewall, Sprapnel Grenade and Blowtorch. When all of those are in cooldown you want to use filler skills. Those are not big hitters, but does more damage than your auto-attack. It’s Pistol 2 and 3, Grenade 4 and 5, Bomb 3, Grenade Barrage, and Incendiary Ammo. Once all of those are in cooldown auto-attack with Grenade. Never touch the other skill as part of your dps rotation (but they could be useful for something else than you dps, like blind, soft cc, etc).

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Difficulty comes from timer. Without a timer, mistakes would not matter. Gear would not matter. Team communication would matter much less, class comp would not matter..

I always disagree with that. Timer bring some diffulty, not all of them is coming from the timer.

Without the timer, you would still need to bring boon rip, you would still need to make a team of 4 for the lighting circle, you would still need to bring condition to kill the Red Guardian, you would still need to break is bar(or not), you would still need to push seeker out of the way, etc.

Yup the timer put more pressure on the team to bring the difficulty one step higher overall and yes it will be easier without the timer. But not every difficulty in the world come from the timer.

My list is

Good
1) Mechanics
2) Difficulty
3) The diversity between fight, which push diversity in party composition and tactics

Bad
1) Rewards? I’m not sure about this one. For now we are losing money on raid, but as we get better, this might be just fine. I reserve my judgment on that.
2) Weekly Reset? It’s not bad, but it feel too little content for a whole week. This problem won’t be a problem anymore as we get more wings and raid over time.
3) No lobby and LFG make it hard for no reason to form a pug raid group.

To be honest. I don’t find much problem with the raids themselves. It’s usually more stuff around it. A lot of different tactics start to be developped by players and some stats would be nice, but are several times more costly than other for no good reason. A lot of food are becoming popular right now, but several of them had their recipe dropped years ago with no other source in view. These recipe cost are growing higher and higher, making the price grow with it.

Ya Short Fuse is a mistake. It should have been in my build.

For Grenadier, it’s a small different and it’s debatable. Yes Glass Canon is small, at the same time grenadier is pretty useless. The Velocity change nothing to your dps and the blast radius increase of 60 is too small to make a difference with the spirit when you bring Gorsaval to the wall. So I prefer the small increase of dps from glass canon. But either way it won’t change much.

2100 Toughness seem a bit too much. In pugs maybe, but otherwise I want to increase my damage, not reduce it. Cactus salad is nice. It’s an easy way to increase my surviability if I need it. I will probably keep using Koi Cake, but it’s a nice substitute if our main Healer isn’t available for exemple.

I don’t see any reason to take Trailblazer for both weapons and the amulet tbh. They are expensive and and I already have the Viper for both. If someone with Rabid Rings and Accessories still think he need a bit more toughness, then yes that would be a good choice, but it’s not really my case for now.

I think i’m gonna take something in that range

From max dps
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQJAqalUUhOvYfWwELQ7FLpFF9xn8PPYJuiHw3GGANAA-TRiHQByT9ndp0jcaBq1DA4F7PIOdAA4EAQQlBQRJYAAEgdT3AwQH6QH6QHa7W3Cd3Cd3kCAmlVA-e

To a bit more survivability
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQJAqalUUhOvYfWwELQ7FLpFF9xn8PPYJuiHw3GGANAA-TRiHQByT9HypFoWPAgio07F7PIOdAA4EAQQlBQRJYAAEgdT3AwQH6QH6QHa7W3Cd3Cd3kC4ulVA-e

I’ll probably be somewhere in between.

Henry.5713:

I am sure one can actually finish the raid with a couple of thieves. Many spots are just filled with full damage builds (not including condition damage focused ones).
Thieves can spam short bow blasts on fields for “support” even or do some other plays.

You need to consider how people think about raids first, though:
-People want to finish content they haven’t mastered yet
-They want to finish it well and they don’t want to take chances
-They much rather expect the worst of you and instead invite someone with easier or just more support while having equal damage
-They will always prefer groups which won’t need them to communicate or have as much team work
-They will use what is “supposed” to be needed if they aren’t sure themselves
-They will exclude those who are “supposed” to be useless
-Etc.

Just think how it used to be with dungeons if you find this strange:
-People didn’t take a blast group if they could have a PS warrior
-They didn’t take an engineer for stealth if there was thief to take
-They would have never attempted a run without a Frost Bow
-Etc.
Raids lead to the same mentality times ten.

That should answer the “why” question.

That would be true if we knew what is best or not yet. Which we don’t. People heard rumours or saw a couple of video, or worth go check metabattle raid section (facepalm) and think they have an idea of what is good or bad. Why thief would be less efficient for the first fight as the 2 last spots for dps than other profession?

I would understand that you don’t want a thief when you don’t have your PS Warrior, 2 Herald for buff, your chronomancer, druid, condi engineer or tank. But once those sport are filled there is still 1-2 spot to fill and there is very reason to exclude a thief for those spot just because it’s a thief.

florence.1674:

The problem comes with a game that tries to be all-inclusive(hearts, monster steal killing, group events) and suddenly does an about face to become exclusive.

Most people don’t have the time, will or resources to re-kit themselves like the hardcore grinders. Just look at Arah throughout the lifespan of GW2. The popularity of Arah would have given everyone a distinct clue to how popular the raids will be.

Raid ain’t exclusive, it really depend on the players. Like I said, so far I have around 15ppl as part of the core group, but we invited 6 others members of our guild. We killed the Vale Guardian with thief, people with exotic armor, we tanked in our WvW gear, we don’t mind a wide array of build and composition, just as long as they seem to be willing to put the effort, be ready to learn and we can reach a decent composition. As time pass and we get better and better at it, we will able to include more and more people. So no the raid ain’t exclusive. It’s that some players are exclusive and to an extant, that’s ok because raid and new. You need to master a content before you can include more people that do not have as much time to wipe and learn, test thing out and figure out what work.

Asmodal.6489:

hmm I do not find that really convincing yet. looking at the meta build draft for DH celestial tank on metabattle as well as several PoV DH tank raid vids I am not sure we are on the same page.

I basically mimic’d the stats but gaining about 200 power 10% crit chance and losing 30% crit damage in exchange for 50%boon duration – which comes only with thoughness. The healing is not for me but for pure of heart which bnefits largely from even a little.

the build is far away rom being a dedicated healer build.
what it does it optimizes my sustain by having 100% uptie of regeneraation and vigor and having acces to the maximum number of aegis.

maybe what is considered meta has already changed?

Ok first of all, I’m the one that put the Celestial build on meta battle, but i’m not the initial author. That would be Narc from DNT.

You need to understand something. There is no meta for raid and there won’t be any from a couple of weeks, probably more a couple of months. For now, anybody can go on metabattle and write whatever build they want. So really, look at metabattle to see nice idea, but for now don’t take them as anything close to best build. If you want to look for good build, research video of fight and you will see what is working.

Now, you are right, but Darknicrofia too. That’s the thing with raids. With 10 players, there is several solutions to kill the boss. A lot of group used Zerker Reaper or Chronomancer to tank the boss with just enough toughness to keep agro. With a good healer, they can do the job and stay alive while doing high dps. This give your group more room for error because you do way more damage that ways.

Another strategy is to use a hybrid tank with a healer. This leave less dps to the group as a whole, but the tank is more independant of the healer, leaving the healer more freedom to heal the 8 DPS. This also give more freedom for the tank to move the boss around as he please. Overall this method have less dps, but it’s easier for the 8 dps to do their damage. Both method work tbh, and i’m sure other strategy work too.

Now for you build. You may have similar stats as the Celestial Tank build, but you are a bit too far into the tanky side of it. Stats ain’t everything. You have less dps trait with Valor, Hunter’s Fortification and Determination. You also sacrficed the Hammer, which is a deadly error imo. Perma protection from the hammer is so powerful for the tank, while doing more dps than camping mace.

I think you focus too much on Aegis. It’s a nice boon, but adding duration to it is near useless. It’s the number of aegis that count not it’s duration. Anyway for the first boss you don’t have small amount of big hit, but large amoutn of small hits, making aegis less powerful. Really, protection beat aegis by a lot in raids (while in normal pve, it’s the other way around).

I would also take Bane Signet with you. It’s a dps increase, but more important it’s a massive cc for break bar.

You are good with your mix of gear to replace celestial. But you miss the point of the build. You sacrificed too much dps and your perma protection, which we the two main goal of the Celestial Tank build (other than tanking itself of course).

I don’t get something. You want a budget build, but you take 2 sigil of malice at 15-16 gold each? I think you underestimate Sigil of Smoldering and agony

Here you build with little modification.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNBjYD7kpDolUs2Dw7DgOEsMFYHHhAwITJIED6Bvn2XbtF-TVSAQBYTpnX2PABWQEgLCQA1NYN1fAwTAIkKDajSwAAIAzcmJzyMYoDdoDdoDtZOzhOzhOzSBAzaA-w

I changed the two trapper runes for a 5th Rune of the Nigtmare and a Coral Orbs. For you sigil I used Smoldering and agony.

This give you 100% Condition Duration. 2 Less condition damage, 9 more power and 20 more precision. This just give you about the same exact dps as your build, while costing you around 25-30 gold less.

Tarkan.5609:

Uhh seems like I’m gonna level up slowly… really slowly… if at all, may enjoy PvPing more than a toughness scale festival.

Thanks though

Well until level 60-70 you won’t really notice any toughness scale festival. I actually enjoyed the new fractal up to around 70-80.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

What I’m talking about are groups inside guilds which completely shut themselves in, so to say, don’t let anyone else in and rather not raid at all than filling up the missing slots with other guild members. I’m saying this because I heard of cases where this actually happens (not saying this is the exact same in OP’s guild, but it is a possibility)

True but at the same time for now we only take other people because we don’t any choice. If we could take the same group of 10 players every night we would do so. But one have kids, the other have plan one night, the other just don’t show up, etc, etc. So we end up taking other people to fill out place. And even in that situation, I bet that a lot of people in my guild would say thing like ‘’oh it’s bad, they have a close core group of players and everybody else can’t raid’’. We don’t ask in the guild chat every time since we still often have out 10 man group and I’ll ask specific people that already know the fight first of course.

So I don’t see anything wrong with a exclusive group of 10-15 players that can always fill out the raid by themselves with people that know the fight and with whom they like to play. It’s sad for people outside of their group, but nothing is denying them the right to form another squad.

Just look at this the other way around. Would it be fair for a guy that worked hard on a boss with a group of guildmate and the next day they just telling him oh btw we want to include everybody so we gonna take someone else today? If he’s late or wasn’t suppose to be there I understand, but otherwise?

Hi,

I man Viper/Sinister engineer for raids so far and I love it. I heard how good Scrapper Tank is for the second boss and I wanted to try it. Most people are using rabid gear for that role, but Trailblazer seem so good for this role. I started to accumulate the material needed to do the build, but at the same time, I wanted to see what other people were thinking about it so here it is.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQJAqalUUhOvYfWwELQ7FLsFFdwP8JP4HWiBwXFmhHAA-TRiHQByT9ndp0jcaBq1DA4F7PIOdAA4EAQQlBQRJYAAEgdT3AwQH6QH6QHa7W3Cd3Cd3kCAmlVA-e

The trinkets are the same I have on my Viper/Sinister build. And I changed only the stats of one of my pistol, because I’m near completion for my HOPE so with the same sigil it will be easier for me to just swap the stats.

Once I have my armor, I’ll test out if that’s enough for my own surviability. My guess is that i will need to swap some trinkets from sinister to rabid tbh, but I’m not sure yet, I’ll have to see when I have my gear.

Urosh Uchiha.9732:

You are missing the point here. Thief damage is high, that is correct. But he offers nothing for the rest of the group. Thief is a selfish class as it stands now.

And Vale Guardian is doable with exotic gear, so any class may be accepted here. I’d like to see how you do as a thief on Gorseval. With all your single target damage skills.

It doesn’t change the fact that a lot of group did all 3 bosses with thiefs. I killed the Vale Guardian with 2 of thems. Excluding them just because they are thiefs won’t help you finish the raid tbh. But hey, pug have all the rights in the world to exclude whoever they want.

a) Condition Condition Condition with a PS Warrior for might. Boon Steal make a very small different. 5 people will crits all the time and boons will full up quickly after any steal, making it marginally good at best. But Anet is suppose to fix things up with the toughness so Condition and Direct Damage will be more on par by the end on december.

b) I stop running fractal except for recommended tbh. It’s sad because my group and I used to run a 50 everyday. It’s was fun up to 60-70, after that it became boring and long. By mid 80s we figure out that nope, we are not unlucky and nope the drop rate don’t increase at higher level, it was more and more boring and raid were coming so we stopped. But if I would still be running I would do each level once and then do some easy one for daily like 60 and 56. Tbh, the range 21-50 is better. Without raid, I would be probably just be doing recommended and 21-50 daily.

c) BAD. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18IHVJao5j85KOp6lBTOgO8qs4VYD3Xty-jKPZo8o-Q4/pubhtml

Lol even KING stopped their drop research.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

No you’re not brothers, but why should a guild with more than 10 people split up into small groups which don’t let anyone else in? That’s not the point of a guild. Also, yeah it’s surely a great guild if it excludes people from joining at first and then exclude them because they didn’t practice the content they weren’t allowed to play in the first place. For me, that would a reason to abandon ship/guild/whatever.

Maybe because the raid is 10 players only? I mean, I think you are quick to judge tbh because you would probably call my guild bad for doing about the same thing.

We don’t want to exclude people but at the end of the day it’s a 10 players raid and we only need 10 players. When we need more people I ask in the guild and the person that answer first and have the kind of build we need have the place. And when I’m talking about kind of build we need, we gonna take about anything, but we are not gonna take a second tank or second healer.

Why would it be my responsibility as guild leader to make sure everybody have their group. Yes a couple of players in each guild will be left behind, but we can’t be everywhere doing raid every day to satisfy everybody. I’m gonna do my very best, but I need to master the content before I start to help as much guildmate as I can.

The best is to create a squad yourself. I bet a couple of person in your guild also want to raid.

Otherwise, it’s the same situation in my guild. I’m one of the leader and I created one squad with the core group being my friends. Our goal right now is to get the raid done and learn how to do those boss on a regular basis. In a couple weeks, we plan to take some new guildmate into raids like 1 or 2. With a core group of 8 to do the heavy lifting, it will be much more easier to show the raid to new people. I hope to show the raid to everybody that want to experience it and as we train more and more people, secondary squad can form by their own if they want to raid on a regular basis.

Sthenith.5196:

-Ele
-Thief
-Warrior
-Guardian
-Ranger
- Engineer
-Mesmer (depending on encounters)
- Necro (still seems to be at the bottom, but might have changed)

That list is wrong. Engineer was at the top of the list before HoT. Now I think that Tempest Staff ele regain the first spot, but not by much. There is also the condi warrior that is a contender for the 1st place.

Herald is probably under these 3 build, but not so much far behind them.

Thief dropped to 4th place with the specialisation update, but with Daredevil, he increased again, but I’m not sure how much. He’s certainly not second anymore.

To be honest. Anyone that give you a list as absolute is bullkittenting you. We just don’t really know yet. We have approximation and even those change depending on the encounter. For exemple. Tempest Staff is pretty high on the dps list, but rarely used in Raid unless at the 2nd boss. It’s been just 1 months since HoT. It will take more time then that to test all these build and figure out what is good and what isn’t.

1) Zerker Revenenants, Condi Engineer or Condi Warrior. Those three can be usefull in all 3 fights, can good dps, good surviability.

2) Well if by full tank with Vitality, Toughness you mean full Soldier then no. It will work, but that’s not the best setup IMO. A mix of Soldier and Zerker, or maybe some knight would be better. It really depend on the tank and his group. For exemple if you have a Healer druid in magi gear, you can just take some toughness to tank the boss and go with a decend dps, but if you have a zerker druid, you might want more surviability. A good compromise is full celestial. This give decent dps, while giving a good amount of surviability. You won’t need much help from a healer in that gear. Keep in mind that a Tank Guardian is good in the 1st and 2nd boss, but not for the 3rd boss. But for the third boss you could go zerker Dragonhunter.

3) Revenants is probably the best then. They are one of the best dps, while giving fury and might to his group. He also usually bring a staff for breakbar. I don’t see much group that doesn’t use at least 2 Heralds in each of the 3 bosses, so you wouldn’t need to change to different gear or build for different boss like other profession. Chronomancer is another good choice. It’s have a surprisingly high survivability for a light armor because of all the invulnerability, bring decent dps (not as high as herald), and are incredible for the support because of quickness and alacrity.

Sparrow.5936:

Rev doesn’t need to be in full zerk first of all.. a mix of valkyrie, zerk, and marauder is better. I’m not saying go into soldier or anything like that. When I see rev’s in full zerk I get sick to my stomach. Not at all necessary unless you don’t want to trait invocation for some reason.

Soooo… how bout some heal/tank/condi builds now?
I’m tired of this “only one build works” meta mentality.

Well you have 1000 Base Precision + 961 from full ascended zerker gear + 170 from Banner of Discipline + 150 from Spotter for a total of 2281 Precision

(2281-916) / 21 = 65% Critical chance.

At that you add 40% from fury + Rolling Mist to reach 105% witch is over the time. So you are true that a couple of Vakyrie piece would be better. But we are talking about 105 useless precision, which is less than spotter. It’s true that whatever you have a ranger with spotter you waste a big portion of his precision, but you don’t always have a spotter with you. Most people just don’t bother and go full zerker.

But you are right that a Vakyrie Chest or Amulet would be better in those situation. So are you sick to your stomach for 1 piece that could be Valkyrie instead of zerker? That seem a bit of an overreaction.

As for tank, there is already plenty of squad that used one in a Vale Guardian kill, what is wrong with that. It is better or worst than other tank, I freakly don’t know at all, but so far it seem pretty good.

It just leave us with condition and for that I have no idea. I just didn’t tried it, but why not. Berserker was found to be a very powerful condition profession, while Tempest is pretty good. We’ll to test out to see where a Condi Revenant situate itself. It take time to do those test, why don’t you do them if you don’t think that the community is fast enough for you.

Sparrow.5936:

That’s more of a standard dungeon / PVE build rather than a RAID BUILD. That gear is ultra squishy too. Not sure scholar is the way to go in tough fights either.

Instead of copy and pasting the dungeon meta, how about some situational Raid builds rather than straight DPS.
IE:
-Tank Build
-Boon Removal
-Condi (Although maybe not optimal, something that can work if a group is desperate)

What are you talking about ultra squishy?? That’s what most Herald use in raid. Revenant are either full zerker or in a tank build. I don’t see any reason for a middle ground here.

The variation we see is taking Mallyx. Either because there is no chronomancer to boon rip the Blue Guardian or because you have enough quickness with your chronomancer and prefer the +10% stats from Embrace the Darkness.

Personnally, I prefer Rune of Strenght over Scholar for the first boss because most group only have 1 PS Warrior and the second group kind of rely on the Herald for might. For the second and third boss, I would prefer rune of Scholar but we don’t want to ask that of our Herald so we keep Rune of Strength for all 3 bosses.

- Requiring full ascended : There is nothing that Anet can do about that. I heard of people excluding a guildmate because he wasn’t meta. What meta lol, there is no freaking meta yet. Or people excluding Thief just because they are thief (I killed the Vale Guardian twice now once with 1 thief and another one with 2 thiefs). Yes people will be jerk, yes people will have nonsense idea about what is needed and what is good (Especially in pugs). Nothing Anet can do about that and we’ll have to live with it. Just like we had people asking for AP while doing dungeons. It’s their right to ask for those thing and it’s our right to not join them if we don’t like it.

- Potential of a gear treadmill : That’s always a potentiel problem. When I see that no buff work in the raid except basic food I feel better about it. But then I remember the potion and AR from fractal and I fear some more subtle gear treadmill. I highly doudt that we ever gonna see better than ascended, but if we end up with special potion in addition to our food or special +10 stats infusion, etc this would still be a type of gear treadmill. Let’s hope this doesn’t happen.

- Legendary Armor outside of Raiding : The game need to have a Legendary Armor for Open World, PvP and WvW at least and fast like in the next 6 months, not in 2 years. Exclusive skin is ok, but exclusive type of armor is not a good thing at all. To be honest, we can’t have a legendary armor yet so they still have time to introduce them.

- players just…just conceding : People will be people what do you want. Anet can help by making the game reward teamplay. One exemple (outside of raid) where they fail at this is some of the legendary collection where you need to fail certain events. Lets hope they don’t put that into raid. Otherwise we are human playing with human so we gonna see human reaction that we like it or not.

TBH, the aspect that I’m the most afraid is power creep. I talk about this on several occasion here on the forum, but my Zerker Guardian used to do around 8k dps in exotic gear at launch. Now my DH Zerker can do between 16-17k of dps. Ascended was a big power creep, but Specialization and Elite Specialization were even worst on that front even if it was subtle. If they keep the power creep growing what happened to Dungeon will partially happen to Raids. I don’t want to see the Vale Guardian killed in less than 4min because the new Elite spec of the next expansion boost even more the dps of everybody.

Viper is always better than Sinister as long as you don’t hit the 100% Condi Duration. But like other said, Sinister is good. The only place you could start to see a difference would be at Gorseval or if you want to do raid on a regular basis.

Here a list of the most popular build type for these 3 matches

7 → Tempest, Cele
5 → Chronomancer, Marauder/Zerker
4 → Herald, Marauder
3 → Thief/Daredevil, Marauder
3 → Reaper, Cele/Wanderer
2 → Herald, Cele
2 → Druid , Sentinel
2 → Dragonhunter, Marauder
1 → Herald, Viper
1 → Druid, Cele
1 → Scrapper, Marauder
1 → Scrapper, Cele

Jordan.5930:

Well at least if you get ascended you can play. I keep getting kicked as a thief with full ascended gear because I’m “useless” and “outclassed”.

Ya, that’s just pug bullkitten tbh. Yesterday we killed Vale with 2 thiefs.

Mortifer.2946:

Thank you dear elitist for your input. I will quit my RL and start equipping all 9 characters so I can finally play. …your kind is what made this game so horrible…or the game became this horrible and attracted your kind? Hmmm

Don’t think you go a bit too far? Raids are a challenging content and push everybody to adapt their build to the need of the game. Why would you want to equip 9 character in ascended? You don’t need that. You just need 1, we only saying make it count. Try to find a role that is good for you and good for the raid so that everybody is happy. If that’s too much for you, find a group of 9 other people that want to raid with you. Other than that, there is not much we can do.

Pugs ain’t to blame here. Your guild on the other end is bad lol.

For the first and third boss, ascended gear won’t make a difference. It’s mostly about being good with the mechanic. There is a little dps check there, but it’s more about having a good build and being good with the mechanics. The 2nd boss on the other end is a big dps check and, most group will need to get as much dps as they need, making full ascended and good build a must.

That said, if someone can do a great job with Ascended Trinket/Weapons and exotic armor on 1st and 3rd boss, a Longbow/GS build Ranger is pushing it. I’m not saying it’s bad, but look at it this way.

Ranger itself isn’t one of the best profession for raid. Good, but not the best. Now you are not in the best gear since you are not full ascended. Then you are not in the best build for raid because you are using a GS. That’s a lot of reason for a pug group to not accept you. Why a pug would choose you if he can take the full ascended Herald next to you?

In a guild group that would be different because I prefer to have a friend that I know will be good and listen. Plenty of group killed boss with different composition and with profession that most pug don’t really want to invite. So even if your ranger could do a decent job, most pug group will prefer the guy next to you.

If you like your ranger. Your best choice would be Condi Ranger or Druid Healer for raid or to find a permanent squad like in a guild or something.

Mortifer.2946:

Yeah, I know.. I will start farming right after I chill from the last farm for birfrost… Can somebody please tell me what stat combo gives me the highest chance of being accepted in raid (guardian/DH)? Metabattle says cleric, but forum posters say other stats… I have 3 ascended boxes from PVP,fractals and bioluminescence collection, so I am half-way there. I just don’t like the concept…. I will choose stats and in the second wing they will ask for some different ones… Also, I think that the best possible set for me would be Zealot, but my God :/ that one is expensive as hell.

Wow you have such terrible person in your guild Jesus. There is nothing on meta battle you know. Nothing at all. Anybody can go add a thing there. In theory the community would vote to know what is the meta and what isn’t, but almost nobody vote for those anyway so you end up with what 2-3 people think the meta should be.

It’s even worst with raid because for now nobody voted on anything. Those are only draft that random people did. There is not testing or discussion as what work, let alone work the best. So for at least a couple of months, Metabattle is complete garbade for raid, don’t even look at it lol.

We just don’t know yet was is best, and it usually change depending on the boss, with different guild/group having different solution to the problem.

For exemple, DnT used a Celestial Guardian as a Tank for the first boss, no guardian in the second boss and a Zerker Hammer DH for the last boss. We killed the first boss with a Soldier Armor, Zerker Trinket Guardian and we gonna test a Guardian with a mix of Magi, Cleric and Nomad for one of you next raid. I saw zerker DH dps in different group for all 3 bosses that ended in a kill.

Really, there is no meta at all. A bunch of stuff work great and we very very slowly stats to see what work good or not as we continue to see different video of killl and people start to share their build.

Swagger.1459:

The one to Rule.2593:

No, Legendary gives no added bonuses over ascended, if you don’t want to work for legendary then you are not any worse off than before. No support.

Legendary “stuff” does provide versatility so that is a boon to the gear rank. Your level of support for this doesn’t matter, something will change over time once the devs gather enough feedback and statistics. I guarantee they are questioning their current design choices as we type, so it will only be a matter of time. Also, a dev could swoop in here and tell me I’m wrong, but that will be temporary “heel digging” and won’t last long.

Edit- Games can offer challenging content, and none of what I said takes that away. You people also have to understand that casuals are the backbone to any video game so content designed to being tightly exclusive, along with a lack of options and qol features like I mentioned, are areas where developers always end up shooting themselves in the foot.

They give you quality of life, not an advantage. And really it’s not even a good quality of life. As long as legendary don’t allow you to swap sigil/runes, they are almost useless. Yes from time to time it can be usefull, but I have 5 legendary weapons and never changed the stats on them because it serve no purpose, and I’m not alone.

That said, I agree that Legendary Armor shouldn’t be locked behind Raid only. I’m good with a unique Legendary Skin behind raid, but not that raid are the only way to get legendary armor. We should be able to get a Legendary PvP armor, a Legendary Open World armor and a Legendary WvW armor. Even maybe a Legendary Fractal armor. That way, all type of content have one. Of couse each of those should be equally hard to get, but not lock behind a content that a part of the community just don’t like. This doesn’t really affect me because I love raid, but it’s good for the game in general. I think that they want to introduce a PvP Legendary armor with the leagues, but we didn’t hear much about that and only PvP and Raid isn’t enough, a big portion of the community don’t do either of those 2 content.

Ya you are not missing any story really. The story is pretty small and it’s really only an excuse for the raid. What do you want them to do, just put random boss in line with no explication? They just made a couple of line of dialogue to give us a context, nothing more.

Like Trice said. There is a lot of different gear that can be used. We don’t even know which one is the best and people are still asking for some meta that nobody know.

We used Soldier, Cleric, Sinister, Viper, Beserker, Assassins, Celestial, Magi and Nomad. Not necessarily a full set of each, sometime it’s mix and match.

To answer the OP question in general. NOt because there is plenty of different gear that ALL of them can be optimal in a content. Think about it. How can Anet design a content for all kind of gear to be optimal? Right now there is glassy gear which give you the best dps for Dungeon/Fractal which is Zerker, Assassin, Sinister and Viper, to a less extend Rampager and Rabid.

After that you have different combination that work great for Tank and Healer in raid.

Otherwise, it’s either gear for suboptimal, niche, or training gear. For exmple, someone doing only Wold Boss don’t really care about it’s dps, so he could prefer to play Soldier because that feel more comfortable for him.

Finally you have WvW in which a lot of gear are good. From Soldier for a Zerg Guardian to Marauder for Roamer, passing by Celestial for a Elementalist, even Nomad or Sentinel for a Commander. A lot of gear are good there.

So that’s why there is so many gear in the game. Because the game isn’t just optimal Dungeon/Fractal. There is raids, Open World, WvW Zerg, WvW Roaming and there is different person with some wanting to do the most optimal, some want to explore different build, other want to have an easy time, other want to fill niche role, etc.

binidj.5734:

I don’t want easy, and I don’t want cookie-cutter … let raids be a test of my skill, not a test of which website I got my meta build from.

How can you ask us to take you seriously after that dude. What website? There is no freaking meta right now. Even if there was, what composition is the best? Hundred of different combinaison worked so far. Did you even tried the raid? We maybe worked 1hours max on our composition, 12 hours at practising the first boss before we got it. Continue to search for the best build so you can wipe with the best build.

Daddicus.6128:

30 laurels for the recipes for one full armor set (6 × 5).
30 for one amulet.
70 for two rings
80 for two accessories

Total 210 for one character. I have 9 characters. That’s 1890.
.

Oh I see. The problem isn’t the source of Laurel, but how you spend it. It’s not our fault if you spend them like a kitten.

You get badge of Honor from achivement, I higly doudt that someone is short on that. So that mean that Amulet is 20 laurel, not 30.

Ok now for rings. I understand that someone don’t like fractal. Now if you want to gear up 9 characters with full ascended and talk about raid, don’t bullkitten me that oh no I hate fractal and can’t stand doing it. Just do the Recommended daily each day, they will take you 15-20min max and you will get 2 rings in 10 days. So that mean that ring should be 0 laurels. Worth case scenario you buy them from the WvW vendor for 25 laurel each.

Now, Accessories can be tricky. Someone without a guild can have difficulty getting commendations. Someone that want to invest heavily into ascended will find a guild just for guild mission. A lot of medium guild will be happy to get help for their mission and you can also find them in LFG sometimes. But I know that for some people, they don’t want to bother with that.

So worst case scenario it’s
20 Laurels for an Amulet
50 Laurels for 2 Rings
80 Laurels for 2 Accessories
30 Laurels for the armors
10-15 Laurels for the weapons

So a total of 195 Laurel for each character. So 1755 for all 9.

But a normal person can with ease drop that to 145 Laurels per characters for a total of 1305 laurels.

And really, if you gonna go after 9 ascended set, it would be stupid to no get a guild for commendation. So it’s really 65 laurels per character for a total of 585 laurels.

This is from someone with 350 laurels, 20 Ascended weapons, 5 Ascended Armors set (3 Zerker, 1 Soldier and 1 Viper), 10 set of Ascended Trinkets, 5 armor set with infusion (2 with AR and 3 with WvW stats),

pdavis.8031:

Concerning the raid AFK/LFG groups. While I agree that they do not cause the meta events to scale, but they do increase the map population which means that fewer people are left to do the meta. After accounting for raid AFK/LFG, flax farmers, explorers, people just getting HP’s etc. it is likely that there may not be enough people to successfully complete the meta (but it depends on the map).

A simple solution to this would be to create an instanced raid waiting area. Instead of going through the portal straight into the raid, you go into a portal that takes you to a waiting area, like fractals.
(Although this already could be the case, I haven’t done a raid yet so I am not sure exactly how it starts). This would solve the extra people AFK/LFG in the map, and make more room for those wanting to do the meta.

Yes, but that’s not the point of the OP. Everybody agree on your point. Raid is new and demand 10 man which can be longer to fill up with pug. A lobby for raid is needed, especially since VB have a big meta event.

But OP was talking about Flax Farming, not raid afker. And to be honest, even Raid afkers will rarely make the meta even fail.

Revenant in Hearld/Shiro with Sword and Staff would be the best choice but all three are great.

Guardian can do a good bunker or dps.
Reaper can do a great dps and even a decent tank
Revenant is just a great dps while buffing the team and it can do a decent tank.

Reaper tank or DPS guardian might have some difficulty find pug group, but it doesn’t mean they are bad. Just people want to optimize thing since they are not really good in raid at the moment.