Guild Wars 2

phys.7689:

the penalty doesnt need to be like banning, it can just be like you cant use the grouping tool for a half hour. if a person is leaving groups 5+ times a day but doesn’t want to wait a half hour before returning, i think they may be a serial leaver.

On days that i play for a longer time, this would affect me a lot. I can see me leave 5 groups very easily. This is bullkitten, forcing ppl to play together for no other reason that you feel that the community is harsh. There is A LOT of situation when what you propose would be terrible.

Purple Miku.7032:

If they wanted conditions to be good in PvE they wouldn’t have nerfed might. :P

Nah but the reality is that when you’re alone conditions are fine provided you have time to build them up. In group play they aren’t.

I don’t see this as much of a problem because it’s my opinion that they should be niche and if they right now were good/optimal to bring in groups then they’d be king in all 3 gamemodes.

Ideally I would see condition as the best total dps, but with a build up time. Direct damage would be better in short fight, while condition would be better in longer fight. In low level dungeon like AC this wouldn’t change a thing because all mobs die super quick there, but in higher dungeon there is several bosses that don’t die in 30sec (unless you are doing a record run). Dungeon with a lot of trash mobs, direct dmg would be optimal, while in dungeon with a lot of boss, condition damage would be ideal. But that’s just how I see it. It will probably never work like this.

Shieldbash.5304:

Other classes do not have to neuter themselves to have these! Whats the point of having a Warrior master of weapons for buffing, other classes can do it better more efficiently.

And I’ll argue that the strength of shoutbow is exactly the opposite. You can give might, remove condition and heal your group, while sacrificing not that much as a warrior. That’s why shoutbow is view as a meta build right now. Not because its a good 1vs1 build, its bad at that. But because it’s good at group combat.

What I’m doing arguing with someone that don’t know the game yet sorry my bad.

skeptic.2409:

I noticed that guards are only good in a group but alone they crumble fast and cant hold there own against 2v1s

It depend on your build, but true guardian is better in group. Now for the 2vs1 it is really all about what is your adversary and what are the skills of each individual. I used to hold 3vs1 for quite something on my bunker guardian, but then again I could be annihilated by 2 other ppl. There is a huge difference when you fight 2 ppl that have a good build against yours and are better than you or when you fight 2 ppl that don’t have a good build against yours and are worst than you.

Nash.2681:

katsubo.9875:

Why would someone use this garbage skill in the first place? :p

Serious or trolling? :o

He’s either trolling or talking about PvP. At least I hope because if he’s talking seriously about PvE, he have a lot to learn about guardian lol.

Purple Miku.7032:

Berserker is always going to be optimal with the exception of a few classes unless the enemy in question cannot be crit (structure/world bosses)..

Well if they change condition to make them good in PvE we could have Zerker/Assassins/Sinister/Rampager that could all be optimal in their own situation.

phys.7689:

Its all about the party mode.

• kicking requires 3/5
• leaving 4 times a day gives a penalty
• cool dude commendations can be handed out on completion, which serves no real purpose other than unlocking some titles related to being an easy going adventurer
• kicking for reasons other than harrassment, afk, offline etc are actionable offenses.
• vote abandon everyone leaves with no leaving penalty

I think it suppose to be already 3/5 for kick, but something don’t work and Gaile didn’t came back with an answer on that yet. WTH leaving 4 times a day give you a penalty. What If I need to go 30min for a IRL situation, I’ll quit the party to give my place. What if I want to give my place to one of my friend in the middle of the run? (did that on Arah path 4, helped my guildmate up to mid dungeon, then gave my place to a friend who never did it before). What if there is no abuse, but just disagreement in the dungeon and I want to leave, because it’s no fun? What if the party wasn’t what I expected and its a bad party that take forever to complete stuff? Same with the kicking thing. What If I asked for path 2 and 3 in the LFG because we are 4 of my guild. We complete path 2, then start path 3 and a guildmate get online. If we started the dungeon I’ll complete it with the pug, but if we only entered the path, i’ll ask him to leave or kick him while explaining to him why. And how this will work? You could obviously quit a party outside a dungeon so it would only be when you are inside the dungeon that the restriction would appear? Could I just quit the instance and then quit the party without penalty? If yes the quitting policy is useless, if no then that mean that I can’t switch character in the middle of a run?

phys.7689:

And thats the bottom line mode

• kicking is instituted by leader and seconded
• leader can be changed by 4/5 vote
• leader changes on DC by vote, or order of joining.
• leaving, no penalty? (not sure if this would be good, im assuming yes)
• Each person can give 1 person master of execution commendation on completion which serves no other purpose other than unlocking some titles related to being an effecient adventurer. (and probably end up as a kind of badge on how good you are in elite circles)
• kicking isnt actionable unless its greifing

I’m ok with most of that. But the master of execution commendation. Na. ‘’Elite circles’’ (Whatever that mean) will take care of their own things, if anet install something like that it will be worthless.

Maybe and it’s a big maybe. They are fixing conditions for PvE by making their stronger and comparable to direct dmg in term of dps, but adding resistance to balance PvP so that condition don’t become overpowered.

It will also probably be a rare boons that nobody will have a good access too at first. That way they gonna be able to test it on a large scale during some time before giving it to other profession and skills and balance things out.

But that’s pure speculation.

Regeneration ‘’Gain health every second; stacks duration’’.

Rise of healer???

phys.7689:

You want people to follow what you say, so you make guides, cool
if people dont follow what you say, they are the enemy, and are objectively stupid.

regardless of your rightness or wrongness about anything mechanic related, thats the attitude that people dont like that makes them want to avoid dungeons, and dealing with that mindset.

What are you talking about. Ppl make guide to help other ppl find out what is the best in the game because the community worked over the last 2 years to figure out all those stuff. Ppl are not stupid if they understand what is best but they prefer to play another way, they are not stupid if they come with new ideas and make their case to the community to explain why they think this could be good. But ppl that come in the forums and make false claim that they can’t back up and discuss about with other, then I have no remorse calling them stupid.

phys.7689:

Sure, there are hardheads on the other side,
half the time the complaint people have isnt even about one side or the other side, its that when they are trying to do a dungeon, these two sides will have a big argument in the middle of the dungeon, and someone will rage quit, or vote kick.

a lot of people dont want to do that, they want to work together to beat a dungeon meta or not, without huge blow ups because 1 guy isnt following meta.

and no, that isnt confined just to lfgs that ask for speed clears/ zerk metas etc.

you think im trolling when i say people outside of the dungeon community think that dungeons are filled with drama and control freaks? look at the op, thats what people really think

Everytime I talked directly to someone in-game about dungeon and they tell me that they kind of fear dungeon, it was always (100% of the time) because of forums, but they never really tried dungeon. Took them in 2-3 runs, they had fun, figure out that all that kitten about dungeon was blow out of proportion on the forum and that in reality it happen very few times.

Dude you play the game for only a month and you are trying to act tough on the forum.

Shieldbash.5304:

Buff botting is not fun, end rant!

So you are making the point that Warrior don’t have real defensive abilities and low healing. When someone point out to you that its untrue, you change your argument to its not fun?

Buff botting make me think that you just play Warrior badly. Do you at least check which condition do you remove with shout and which one do you transform into boons with your warhorn?

Everytime someone use term like this take no skills, this is only 111111, this is botting something, etc. That only prove that you don’t know what you are talking about. You can make a good point, but you choose not too by making blank statement like this.

phys.7689:

if the “wishes” of your party are not the majority, then isnt just the wish of two people in the party?
2/5 of the people were a player who wanted to watch the scenes and their friend
1 guy tells them to skip the cutscene
apparently at least 1 other guy agrees with him.

Why do you keep talking about that case, noboby else is talking about that. We only heard one side of the story and its not like cutscene in Story mode is a big problem. That’s irrelevant. People complain about experienced vs casual, zerker vs non zerker, etc. Nobody is talking about these few times when somebody kicked someone because they watched a cutscene in a story mode. That’s a situation that don’t happen often.

Pwent.2639:

Vukorep.3081:

could you tell me what kind of utility a thief gives in pve?

Blasts (lots)
Blind
Party Invisibility
some reflects and a projectile block
AoE Rez field

I dont thief in pve, but those are just some that i can think of off the top of my head.

And you can add defiant stack management.

Shieldbash.5304:

Really? Un equip your LB and show me your prowess!

Really Shieldbash? 3 weeks ago you posted a thread how you just started the game and you go all kitteny already?

Relax man.

I’m not pushing the meta. 2-3 pieces of valkyrie, signet mastery, Hammer build in dungeon, etc. That’s not meta. The op asked for surviability, not using F keys and still having acknowledgeable dps. That’s what I gave him. Protection is WAY more powerful than toughness gear to gain survivability. I just gave him a good build that will provide him with as much if not more survivability than the build you provided him with, while having a lot more dps.

I think that the biggest problem is specific requirement in the LFG.

Some ppl are really bad at asking requirement. They ask for AP which is irrelevant, ask for exp which i’m sure that new player think mean explorable and not experienced, they forget to ask for 80s only, etc. If a level 60 join your group and you only ask for exp, the fault is on the new player? He just joined an explorable dungeon group for all he know, the fault is on the ppl that created a unclear LFG.

But on the other end, you have ppl NEVER reading the description EVER. You put 80 only and ppl join on level 70. You ask them to come back on a level 80 and they said that they want to level up an alt or they that its their only character. You ask zerker and they try to leach. You ask for experienced and they don’t know the path.

Not so long ago someone posted a redesigned UI and that included a revamped LFG where you can select requirement (experienced, 80 only, etc). Well done, it could fix a big part of the problem.

They all have clear meaning, they are just subjective. Grinding is the same definition fo everybody for exemple. But a particular aspect of the game can be view as a grind of not, mostly if you like it or not.

- How did you get it?(Paid, or crafted)
Crafted all of my 6 legendaries

- How long did it take you to gather the materials?
My first one took me a year (Sunrise). But lately it was more around 2-4months depending if it was The Moot (relatively cheap) or Twilight (relatively expansive)

- What method did you use to gather the materials?
That can be a long answer. But to make it quick : Keep everything, do dungeons, SW and Cursed Shore (which one you prefer), don’t try to farm every single items. For some you are better off farming the gold and buying them. Laurel can be turned into tier 6. You can turn your tier 5 into tier 6, same with cores (don’t do that with all of them, some will cost you more other will save you gold).

-How long did it take to craft you overall?
Exact same time as gather material/gold.

-How often did you play during that time period?
Around 30-40 hours per week.

- Did you enjoy it?
Some more than other. Over time I don’t play the exact same character so some Legendary I don’t use them as much as I used to. But overall, I enjoyed it. The only problem is sigils. I want to use my Legendary all the time, but I want several weapons with different sigils depending on the situation, but then I’ll have 3-4 weapons with the exact same icon in my inventory and I need to find which one have the right sigils. Wish you could swap sigil like you can swap stats on your legendary.

The blast trigger as soon as the Dragon Tooth hit the ground. If you put your fire field under a target, the taget move away and you do Dragon’s Tooth, the blast won’t occur because the Dragon’s Tooth will hit where your target was when you used the skill.

If you put your fire field under the target, activate dragon’s tooth, and then the target move away the blast will occur, but the target won’t be hit by anything.

For the pheonix. Its an interesting question. The pheonix will do dmg to any target between you and your ground targeting. When it land it will explode and do dmg, but I don’t think it will do dmg on the way back to you. It will only cure condition and give vigor.

Xyonon.3987:

Thaddeus.4891:

Xyonon.3987:

Ranger – gosh what did ranger get? Some GS buffs and longbow 2 right? Oh dang and all the signets if it was that patch! Yea ranger is definitly stronger than what I said, thx!

Well ranger are now 4th in term of dps, while the Warrior is 5th so it was significant enough to change the ranking. That doesn’t make Ranger better than warrior since the warrior can boost the party twice as much as the ranger, but it still change the number by a good margin.

So you’re telling me the dps ranger deals more direct damage than the pahalnx war. I beleve that, but he won’t than the dps war. However rangers are the class with the heaviest damage mods in the game, thx to the signet now, they are the frost bow executer and this gives a huge junk of passive dmg! Sad good rangers are so rare.

Do the math yourself and you’ll see. Ranger now have a better dps than Warrior (ya even if its not a phalanx warrior). If you ain’t able to do the math you can discuss with a lot of ppl here in the forum. I suggest that you open a new thread : ‘’Warrior DPS lower than Ranger now in PvE?’’ You gonna have all the answer you want.

Xyonon.3987:

Ranger – gosh what did ranger get? Some GS buffs and longbow 2 right? Oh dang and all the signets if it was that patch! Yea ranger is definitly stronger than what I said, thx!

Well ranger are now 4th in term of dps, while the Warrior is 5th so it was significant enough to change the ranking. That doesn’t make Ranger better than warrior since the warrior can boost the party twice as much as the ranger, but it still change the number by a good margin.

Terrorsquad.2349:

You don’t PvP alot, do you? :p

Sorry my bad. I was sure you were asking what 3 professions are out of my top 5 for pve dps. I mixed this conversation with another one.

Xyonon.3987:

Source:
http://gw2dps.david-reess.de/
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bAcpwAdwB24CxK_Ziy8ygISUHCkQepLfRMh2_PtP52o/edit

Two things.

1) Those are old numbers. (June 2014 doesn’t include the september patch) For a lot of profession, those numbers didn’t change. But Warrior dropped since then and Ranger got higher in rank since then.
2) Those are Dekeyz numbers and you need to looks at what she said about the context.
http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/13987449-dps-estimates-for-each-professions-in-30s-battles

For exemple. The DPS was for 30s battle. In longer fight, the Mesmer will have better dps, in shorter fight the dps will be less (because the time you spend on summoning). She didn’t took into consideration the reflect dmg so Guardian, Ranger and especially Mesmer will have bigger dps in a lot of situation. The Elementalist numbers do not include Frostbow.

We all know Dekeyz work and spreadsheet. But you CAN’T use the numbers it gave for Warriors and Rangers, they are not good anymore.

CMF.5461:

Factor in actual combat scenarios and yes the build I proposed will drop behind drastically. BUT I feel it is one of the better options to take while building for survival.

It certainly better than what cletiscake proposed, but that doesn’t make the build you propose good. Its lackluster in DPS, have less resistance than an Hammer build. The only thing it have better is the sustain, which is not good in this game.

If someone want to have a bit more surviability the best choice is always active defense. If you want to sacrifice a bit of dps for more resistance or for more sustain that’s ok. But when you sacrifice a lot of dps for both resistance and sustain, you end up with well a bad build.

But you still imply that your build was around 30% less dmg than a zerker build even if in reality its more around 50%. Whatever you said, the number you provide give zero useful information. 30% less dmg on a single attack between your build and a general purpose zerker build. That give no useful information.

I gave him a zerker hammer build with a cheaper run easier to keep up, and several options if he need more survivability. Signet Mastery, Valkyrie gear, etc. How much more survivability he think he need will depend on him.

- For the GS/Staff he said he was flexible to get a better option.
- For blind exposure, that’s why I propose him to use signet mastery instead. That trait line is still the best because of minor trait and stats.
- Slaying potion give you 10% more defense and 10% damage and cost almost NOTHING. So why is that speed run territory? Its a good and cheap utility, why can’t he use it? And i also proposed Skale Venom which will work everywhere.

Iris Ng.9845:

Set necro above mesmer, please. Thanks. My second main is mesmer, btw.

Edit: dagger has two target cleave, i believe. Both well and tainted shackle are amazing aoe kitten nal of necro.

I didn’t ranked Necro above or below mesmer. There are both in the same tier because it can be so variable.

Yes dagger cleave, but that’s only for gaining life force. You do dmg on Death Shroud and Axe mostly, which is single target. But you are right about wells.

CMF.5461:

Feel free to point out errors, as I’m sure I am capable of making mistakes.

1) Let’s take you numbers. That’s not how you get the % increase of dps.

7 440-5 209 = 2 231

2 231 / 5 209 = The zerker build have a 42.17% increased dps compare to what you propose. When I did the math, it got to 38.75% increased dps compare to you.

EDIT : Sorry Like Molch I looked at how much more dmg a zerk build will do, your math is good on that

2) You take into account 5 self might for your build but you didn’t took into account the might for F1 for the zerker build, neither the vulnerability of the F1 for the zerker build. But you didn’t take into account the fury you gain from Rune of the Pack. In solo situation zerker would only have 30% more dps, but in group situation it would be around 50% more dps than your build.

3) That’s a terrible zerker build. That’s like the entry general purpose build. On a real zerker build you would have a sigil of the night (10%), a slaying potion (10%), UC (20%) and trait would be more like 4/6/2/0/2.

4) You calculate dmg only for 1 attacks. GS camping is a big lost of dps. Using a good rotation between GS and Sw/F will increase your dps by 12-13%.

Overall, a zerker build will do around twice as much damage as your build.

Now for the OP. Here what I propose.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAS7dlsApUo9CxZI8DRR8QlVKa7H8C1FAY+EbBA-TxBBwASUCaU5HgnAAu9H1fSpbIh5vAXEAA-e

The hammer build will give perma protection to you and your team. That’s a 33% decreased incoming damage, the build that CMF gave you only reduced incoming damage by 26% with all that toughness. So you will be able to take more hits like that. You can take with your a stock of Potion of slaying and Skale Venom (for when there is not a slaying potion). The potion will decrease incoming damage by another 10%, while Skale venom will give weakness to enemies (also decrease incoming dmg). All of that will only cost you about 5-10% of you dps and not 50%. I also changed the rune from Scholar to Flame Legion. That’s a small lost of dps, but Flame Legion is way cheaper and the dmg bonus is far easier to keep. At that point, feel free to maybe add a couple of Valkyrie gear (maybe 2-3 pieces of armor) if you don’t feel comfortable with your low hp. You can also change Blind Exposure to Signet Mastery and take the Signet of Resolve over Shelter as your heal. Those choice will make you harder to kill with the less sacrifice possible to your overall effectiveness.

Finally, if GS isn’t good alone and need another weapons to compensate the auto-attack (Like Sword or Mace), Hammer is good by itself without swapping in the fight. So you can take with your Sceptre/Focus if you need to range stuff in difficult situation.

robertul.3679:

A lot of missinformation flying around as usual.
Dps rankings usually go by tiers because of the variables.
Highest dps is ele and thief depending on how long the fight is and how big is the target. Thief shines in short fights against smaller targets while ele is strong against larger/multiple targets. The thief is slightly ahead but for all purposes they pretty much the same dps.
Then engi and warrior have comparable dps depending on how much your conditions matter and how good are your rotations. Engineer is slightly ahead though.
Then mesmer and guard is variable given special circumstances like unscathed and phantasm uptime.
Necro and ranger are “who cares” tier.

You used to be right 6months ago, but the game changed and your information are dated.

Top Tier : Elementalist have the highest burst (Icebow) and dps against group. Thief have the highest single target dps.
Mid Tier : Engineer and Rangers. Engineer were only buff a little, but good build and rotation mostly got mainstream so ppl know how they are good now. Rangers got buffed in september.
Low Tier : Warrior, Guardian, Mesmer and Necro. Warrior and Guardian are close since the last nerf to warrior but he’s still ahead most of the time. Mesmer is highly variable depending on how much phantasm he can keep up. Necro is in the lower tier and don’t cleave.

I wouldn’t take a celestial amulet if I was you. It cost 20 laurels which is 20 gold. Its a lot of gold to waste if eventually you gonna switch to zerker. IF you plan on roaming in WvW, then celestial trinket could be a good way to start because even if you switch to zerker trinket for PvE you will still use celestial amulet for WvW. If you don’t plan on doing wvw roaming with your elementalist, then you are better off with using exotic armor to gain the little defensive stats that you need when you starts (they cost less than trinkets).

Full zerker Elementalist is really hard so the vast majority of ppl using full zerker right now, took some defensive stats when they started.

For you question about infusion. You get three kind. Offensive, Defensive et Utility (Utility is only for amulet). For everything except amulet and back item you don’t really have a choice. Armor will all be defensive and weapons will all be offensive. For rings and accessories, they are unique so you can’t equip the same twice. That mean that if you want zerker stats you gonna need 1 zerker offensive infusion and 1 zerker defensive infusion. For the amulet you are better off with a offensive or a utility. I have one of each. The utility is for a 20% Magic find that I alway have on me, and the offensive is for agony resistance when I’m in fractal.

You can either put agony resistance, stats or both in those infusion. But if you plan on putting stats in all of them, it will cost a lot of gold, its a long long term goal, that 99,9% of players never do, even for hardcore player.

phys.7689:

i think the thing you guys are forgeting is nmost of that poer comes from better gear, and better traits.
With the new trait system, a new level 80 may have little to no concept of their value, and no access to traits that actually help them much. As for gear, they may not have exotics, or even full greens/rares

You can buy a complete armor+weapons+trinkets rare level 80 on the TP for around 4-5 gold.

Anyway, the best is to find a nice guild to help you through all these early step, this can make all the difference. I started the game at launch with my friends so we had to discover the game by ourselves like everybody else at that time. We couldn’t complete some dungeon, we figure out CM by ourself and we explained it to random ppl. Other random ppl figure out other dungeon and explained it to us. We try different build, wasting gold and tokens on different build that weren’t great. But now, with a nice guild you can skip through all that hard job of figuring stuff out.

Linken.6345:

How Do I Get Masteries?

The ability to train Masteries is unlocked at level 80 for all players that own Heart of Thorns.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/reimagining-progression-the-mastery-system/

The masteries clearly being said to be unlocked if you own heart of thorns. I would think the same goes for specilizations aswell.

My guest is that you won’t have access to neither. You will gain experience at level 80 like you do now but won’t be able to gain mastery. And you probably won’t be able to activate the specialization.

Diovid.9506:

The things I expect to be free for everybody: The new borderlands and stronghold. Because there is no way to limit that content to those who have the expansion.

Everything else will no doubt require you to have the expansion.

Maybe not. The new borderlands seem to be like a 5th maps, so it could be only accessed by player with HoT.

Stronghold could be a new mode completely with a separate queue. In that case it would be easy for them to limit it to only HoT players.

disagree.

Sword main-hand is part of one of the best PvP build right now. It’s an amazing weapons that fit perfectly Celestial gear. The burst skill is so nice in a one vs one right before landing a final trust. But don’t use that in PvE.

Sword off-hand is really good in difficult combat for PvE (especially if you solo/duo a dungeon). The block will help a lot. I think that some PvP build also use the off-hand sword, but its true that off-hand sword could get a little love.

Rez.8016:

Corner stacking was never only about FGS dps boost.

It was also about:

1) line of sight pulling multiple mobs who have a ranged attack.

2) Similarly to FGS, taking advantage of the wall to get more dps out of skills that use mobility with potential for multiple attacks (eg warrior GS 3).

Yes and? FGS was the reason its always good to corner a boss, it was the biggest reason.

1) This still apply. Corner stacking still exist it this situation. Even if in some, its even better to run to the boss and cc them together. But corner is easier for pugs, which is ok.

2) Ya when we used to take 4 warriors in a run. Now it help a little with meteor shower, but it’s often better to don’t corner mobs for that reason.

There are still reason to corner, but in most fight there is no reason for doing so. Its just an old habit that ppl can’t get rid off.

Like other already said Cooper-Fed Salvage-O-Matic and unlimited gatherings tools are pretty convenient. But its really about convenience as they usually won’t save you gold.

The Salvage-o-matic for exemple. It will take 2 millions salvages before you get back the gold you put into it. That will take several years before you reach that amount.

For unlimited gathering tools you will need to use 36 millions charge to get back your gold. With the Watchwork Mining Pick it will be between 1-0.5 milllions (hard to estimate I don’t have the average sprocket you get from it)

So in the end, you will probably never get our gold back from these items, but they will be convenient.

Assassin.7890:

So in a nutshell:
Run with either Assassins or Zerker gear and with Zerker trinkets – is that right?

Yes. In the end they will both pretty similar in term of dps and if you run as a casual you won’t even notice the difference. If you later want to optimize even more, then it will depend what you are doing and with which other profession you are doing it.

Casia.4281:

you aren’t capping vul and bleed without assassins?

You can, but that will hurt your overall dmg. For exemple, I could take a sigil of accuracy and rune of the ranger to get a good amount of additional precision and have a zerker gear. But assassins with scholar rune and damage modifier sigil will give you better overal dps.

Again and like other said. There is a difference between capping vulnerability on elite and capping it on unshakable bosses.

Casia.4281:

hrm. strange.

seem to remember mathing out zerker vs assassins before quiting and finding zerker still better.
Also could have sworn I was maintaining 20-21 stacks of vul without vul on crit, alone.

If you calculate your direct dmg only yes zerker will be better. The advantage of assassins is that it will give more bleeding and vulnerability. The the lost in base direct dmg is less than the gain in bleeding and boost of direct dmg from the additional vulnerability stack.

And can you sworn is was on boss with unkhakable? Because that decrease by 50% vulnerability duration.

Tren.5120:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mob_

I don’t think anyone should be asking me what 1 shot skills exist in this game, because there are many.

There are also multiple boss encounters where they put down multiple hostile pads on top of each other, and you can get knocked down and die instantly from them. I’m not the only person this has happened to. I’ve seen it happen on several occasions to other players. I’ve seen as many kitten -7 pads getting layered on top of each other, which would be considered a bug and fixed/balanced out in any other decent MMORPG game.

This happens in both story and explorable missions.

As far as me being back to WoW, yes, I did resub after getting to 80 in this game.

As far as me being still here, well I guess I paid the price of admission the same as you did, didn’t I?

So you are not good enough to dodge, block, blind or reflect these 1 shot kill? That’s just a L2P issue.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Guild Wars 2’s end-game content involves a mix of instanced and open world content. One set is good everywhere. The other is not.

That statement is just wrong. Both bezerker and assassins is good everywhere. Assassins is better in certain situation and bezerker is better in other situation.

Phineas Poe.3018:

So it’s not like switching to Assassin is needed to maintain 25 stacks, especially when Guanglai did the math over two years ago establishing that you could maintain 25 stacks against Defiance back before Assassin was even in the game.

I can reach 100% critical chance by myself without assassins gear. I can get to 25 stacks of vulnerability without assassins gear. That’s not the point, the point is assassins allow you to reach your max dps in a dungeon settings.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Has anyone actually sat down and recorded runs with Berserker vs. Assassin and has seen an obvious difference? Or is this just something people drew up in some theorycraft session, saw the “advantages” on paper, and everyone kinda just went along with it? It’s not like we’ve ever been guilty of this before. /s

Yes they did exactly that. You can ask DEKeyz2Chaos from DnT if you want more information.

Jerus.4350:

. . . How do you maintain 25 vuln stacks? I mean I can hit it when I line up Barrage and nades, but very quickly I drop down and can only maintain ~10-20 depending on what point of my rotation I’m in (strait nades it’s like 15-20). And, this is with Precise sights and assassin gear. I need help with about 5 stacks and to not deviate from grenade much at all if I want to keep 25 stacks 100% of the time.

If you are ready to sacrifice your damage you can reach that. Sigil of Peril increase your vulnerability duration, sigil of frailty give more vulnerability. You can auto-attack and do barrage only to maximize vulnerability on crit. You can have condition duration runes. Giver’s weapons also increase condition duration. And on top of that the usual food.

You can easily get constant 25 stacks of vulnerability, that doesn’t mean that its a good idea or a good balance.

Phineas Poe.3018:

You’re still going to want a Berserker set for when bosses are immune to conditions, and for general PvE outside of instances where stacking vulnerability isn’t a priority. So if someone is going to go through the time and expense to acquire a second set of ascended armor, they should be aware of its drawbacks and the fact that Berserker is actually 100% useful 100% of the time.

He’s asking why engineers use Assassin over Berserker, and I’m saying the reasons for it aren’t justified at what expense is required to obtain it.

You would want a Beserker set only if you want to optimized for zerg events or world bosses. Otherwise assassins will only be a little less dmg on those, but it will still do the job.

Just as Assassins is optimal in dungeon and solo, but zerker will only do a little less dmg, but it wil still the job done.

You seem to think that assassins is horrible in certain situation compare to zerker but its not. Both set will only have a small difference and will both work in all situation. If you want to optimized for dungeon and solo use assassins, if you prefer world boss and zerg, then Zerker will be better.

Phineas Poe.3018:

That’s not a huge difference, and I consider 89% close enough to 100% to not worry about it. I mean, has anyone been actually been able to visually notice a difference in speed clearing wearing Assassin over Berserker? Because taking a second elementalist over an engineer for an extra ice bow has very clear and obvious advantages at several points in a dungeon train.

Not trying to diminish the desires of min/maxers, but at the end of the day you kinda gotta ask what all of this is for, especially when what you’re recommending involves veteran engineer players investing even more gold into their characters.

I don’t get what you try to add to the discussion here. OP asked why the meta build use assassins and we answered. I won’t gonna tell him re roll a Elementalist for the Ice Bow, I won’t gonna tell him that zerker is better even if assassins and zerker is close. What you are saying is right, its not a big difference between assassins and zerker and I specifically said that at several time during this post.

Assassins gear is actually less costly than zerker (Vicious claw cost less than powerful blood), but the difference is very little so i don’t get why my advice would ‘’involves veteran engineer players investing even more gold into their characters’’.

You are mostly right Phineas Poe. It depend for which content you prefer to optimize. If you want to do mostly dungeon or solo stuff then assassins will be the best choice. If you prefer do world boss and big zerg event, then zerker will be better for you.

But Phineas if you get to 100% with berserker gear in a party that’s because you took precision in a place that wasn’t ideal (not saying its bad, just not ideal).

Beserker gear on the meta should get you to 89% fully buffed (spotter+discpline+fury).
With Assassins armor fully buffed that go to 93%.

But of course if you get crit chance from food, utilities, sigils or runes, then it will be different and you could reach 100% critical chance with zerker gear.

Shiyo.3578:

Thaddeus.4891:

Behellagh.1468:

Problem with fractals is the teaming requirement. Dungeons are also PvE and we don’t get them as PvE dailies so why is it okay with Fractals?.

GW2 is a MMO right? I think that the first M stand for Multiplayer right? Just checking.

If everyone was replaced with AI in dungeons/fractals/open world PVE I don’t think anyone would notice a difference, honestly.

Your friends have really bad personality if you could replace them by AI and don’t see the difference. Anyway Anet didn’t gave us the best AI in this game so…

Tren.5120:

PvE content that is tuned properly.

Classes that are balanced properly.

An actual tank and healer profession.

The PvE in this game is terrible, the classes are way out of balance, and the tuning is way off. Seriously, I cash shopped a full set of Exotic gear and runes, and I still get 1 shotted by trash MOBs, MOBs still stack AoE damage and knock you down in them for the insta-kill, etc.

Some of the mechanics seem completely brain dead. In any other game the developers would see instantly that when a MOB stacks 4-6 damage pads on top of each other it’s a serious issue, yet it seems rather common in this game (Honor of the Waves one of the bosses loves to do that).

Also, player habits are a bit odd as well. People are in obsessed with skipping content and simply zerging MOBs/bosses before they even check to see if everyone is there or ready to go.

I’m confused? You ain’t back in WoW? What are you still doing here, GW2 is clearly a bad game, you shouldn’t stay around here.

Ark.9586:

I couldn’t prevent myself from at least giggling at 3:14 xD

Ikr, I couldn’t even see any hp on the guys. ‘’See See all it take is one shot and he’s dead’’ LOL

Kusumura.8642:

Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope. For Engineers – a class in contest for arguably the lowest base DPS that has to really push it to keep up with everybody else

Engineer dps in PvE is 3rd best right now. So you clearly don’t know what you are talking about.

The reason why assassins give you more overall dps is because of bleeding and vulnerability. Your direct dmg is higher in zerker than assassins, but the additional bleeding and vulnerability with assassins compensate for that.

Wow your build is weird.
1) You are playing alone right? Because 73% of crit chance + sigil of perception will give you 88%. Fury alone will get you over 100% and you will lose stats, a banner of discpline or spotter will be completely waste so I hope you are playing alone or maybe you just distrust all pugs.
2) Sigil of Air and Sigil of perception. Not a great mix.
3) Rune of the Eagle? That’s a terrible choice of runes.
4) Why a ring with Precision, Toughness, Power as stats?
5) Why slicks shoes and mines? Is this a pvp or pve build?
6) Ya precise sight is one of the most important trait for a nade PvE engineer with grenadier, don’t know why you don’t have it.

That

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/suggestions/What-Eternity-Should-Look-Like/first

Well if ppl usually try to explain the most effective or optimized way of playing (meta) that doesn’t mean that everybody should only play that way. That’s the blurry line between PHIW and Elistist. But most ppl don’t really care if you don’t have an optimized build as long as you get the job done with a somehow good build.

You can post something in profession subforum for specific advice on your problem. Explain that you know the meta, but can’t stay alive with it since you don’t have the reflexes to dodge most attacks.

Obviously there will be a couple of ppl that will say play what you prefer (PHIW) and other ppl that will stay stick with the meta and learn to play (Elistist), but you will also have legitimate advice on how to approach as much as possible the meta, while having a build that will better serve your needs.

That won’t change jerk to point out to you that you don’t play meta, but hey humanity will always have jerk, nothing you can do about it.

Xdmatt.3958:

What does PVT mean? I saw this abbreviation several times but I have no idea what it means. Soldier’s?

PVT = Power, Vitality, Toughness

So ya Soldier gear.

voxrar.2859:

Anyone got any experience as a dungeon runner as engineer? I haven’t seen anything on that yet.

What kind of information are you looking for exactly?