Guild Wars 2

Jim Hunter.6821:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Jim Hunter.6821:

I don’t like this set up, I would much prefer damage, support and control to be the best way to beat content, but ignoring the reality of how dungeons work isn’t helping anyone

Well, you still support and control with berserker builds. I think people just expect to CC-train bosses for the entire fight or have 1 person gear or trait for CC at the expense of their damage. You just have those responsibilities divided equally among the 5 members of your party. Eg. Ranger support is buffing the party’s damage output with condition removal and regen as bonuses and can swap to GS or LB for CC.

That’s the problem. There is no reason to run anything but zerk because the useful boons in dungeons don’t need you to spec heavily into anything else. What good does healing do when the bosses have big, highly telegraphed, 1 shot kill moves? DoT damage is ineffective because of the way conditions work in the game. You can’t even spec into control. So the only reason to run anything but a max dps build is because a player wants to be selfish. (With the exception of guild groups screwing around for fun)

I dunno, I think it’s fine the way it is. It’s not as black and white as you’re making it sound, there are viable support builds that are not Max DPS. Phalanx strength is the most recent example of this, you do garbage DPS but you buff your party by a gigantic amount. Guardian builds can still spec into virtues for support, Strength runes are not max dps,but people run them anyways for support, etc. Although, taking a build that has both inferior support and inferior DPS is a problem.

If anything I’d say DPS builds other than melee zerkers needed to be buffed, but it would have very big balance issues. Class balance is also a problem, speed runs shouldn’t be about stacking eles in your composition. I also feel that melee DPS needs to be far more rewarding than ranged DPS, which directly contradicts what i said 2 sentences ago. It’s hard issue to solve.

Jim Hunter.6821:

I don’t like this set up, I would much prefer damage, support and control to be the best way to beat content, but ignoring the reality of how dungeons work isn’t helping anyone

Well, you still support and control with berserker builds. I think people just expect to CC-train bosses for the entire fight or have 1 person gear or trait for CC at the expense of their damage. You just have those responsibilities divided equally among the 5 members of your party. Eg. Ranger support is buffing the party’s damage output with condition removal and regen as bonuses and can swap to GS or LB for CC.

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

maybe… just maybe… we should get TurtleDragon to upload some dps tests with carrion vs. berserker on the various weapons? traited and all (pets too), i’d say. like, just to really hit the point home (or not – my inclanation is the former, though)

i mean… what else are we gonna do with our time? (and by “we” i mean TurtleDragon)

It’d be a waste of time. For the other weapons, I don’t already know their coefficient of DPS. I’m sure plenty of other people have done the math already, just maybe not with the same spreadsheet I used.

For some of the spreadsheets I’ve already uploaded (Sword, Axe, GS), it’s fairly easy to see the difference between berserker and carrion. Take a build editor like this one, swap the gear to carrion and then change the power, crit chance and crit damage in the spreadsheet.

I wouldn’t want to speak to you either. You’ve made several incorrect statements, tell people they’re wrong without backing it up, accuse people of strawman arguments and tried to discredit me instead of supporting your own claims. You’ve also been very immature and stubborn in your responses (Cute nicknames btw). This is why I can’t take you seriously and point out incorrect PvE statements such as this:

A max condition build mixed with four power builds works really well In dungeons.

There is no objective benefit to bringing 1 condi DPS to dungeons/fractals.

For that fight in particular, you do not want a mix of people meleeing and ranging. It just causes problems for everyone involved and makes Lupicus use all of his attacks.

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

TurtleDragon.3108:

There are a few bosses in the game that do not use a certain attack if everyone is in melee range.

sure, and there are some who have much better damage opportunity if everyone stays in their face. it’s a whole spectrum of behavior, innit

Most of which is avoidable.

Also, in the bosses I was thinking of, the ranged attack you are preventing the boss from using are more lethal than their melee attacks.

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

it’s not automatically harder just because some of the party aren’t at close range.

There are a few bosses in the game that do not use a certain attack if everyone is in melee range.

The issue is that people are going to have different standards for acceptable DPS trade offs. Would you consider 10% less DPS to be a good trade away? How about 20? 50?

For example, let’s say I consider more than 10% less DPS without any significant advantages gained to venture in to “Play how you want” territory. A more casual person may think doing 35% less DPS but having more fun is acceptable.

Guess: absolute best case scenario (and impractical) is going to have bows in the range of **70-85% sword DPS.

It’s more of a different standards issue than exaggeration, because in both practical play and theory, ranged weapons for Rangers suck.

**is a guess by comparing coeffecient of DPS, and then boosting it by 10%. LB in particular, is by far the most annoying to analyze. It has a cooldown reduction trait, non auto attack rotation with 3 different DPS based on your distance from your target. I just took the best case scenario, max range with max buffs. SB also has a non trivial amount of bleeds to consider.

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

snip

I really don’t have much more to add to this discussion without degrading it into insulting and defining bad players. At the end of the day, it’s up to you to decide what’s appropriate for the situation. Don’t be a blind meta sheep or hate on it just because its meta, try to understand why it’s the way it is and form your own playstyle from here. Like another poster in a different thread said, I personally do not enjoy doing half the DPS of melee players by ranging.

Grok said it best

I’m all for playing how you want, but don’t pretend a set up is better than the meta (i.e best)

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

we can most certainly agree that it is generally “inferior” – however, the degree of inferiority is exactly what i’ve been speaking about/against here. some people make it sound like melee is 100% and ranged is 0%. that’s a silly attitude. as long as people are using their skills properly (gear and traits too, obv.), there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with being ranged. it’s “a bit less dps” most of the time, but then again, it’s safer most of the time too, so there’s a clear benefit – see below – and it’s not like it’s impossible to stay in boon range even if you’re not melee.

I get that you want to make it not sound as bad, but you can mathematically prove the degree of inferriority. For example, under the same conditions, axe is about half as much DPS as sword on single target.

I’ll spare you the math, but it can get pretty extreme, in the range of 20-80% DPS less because the associated playstyles do not let them try to optimize DPS. Generally they’ll be playing with less than 9 might, use no food and potions, etc., non meta builds, not understand the combo field system etc. Even if they did play it perfectly, it’s still inferior by a fair margin.

Ranging is safer, but the more experienced players will only do so if absolutely necessary. I was also hoping you could name specific examples of ranged fights.

Archon.6480:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Fractals are basically all I did from before I quit playing this game, daily [31-40] + [41-50] tier with guild zerker group.

And this ends the debate. I call BS on 41 to 50 “berserker fractals group.” You don’t even play the game anymore. And I am getting tired of explaining everything. I’ve beaten 49 and 50 countless times with every king of group you can imagine. Full zerker groups… Yeah, whatever.

https://www.youtube.com/user/turtledragonx/videos
I have 3 fractal runs on my channel. All of them were casual runs, 1 of which was not with my current guild. These are all recent.

At this point, I’m assuming you don’t have any arguments to support your claims or dispute mine which is why you’re trying to make arguments out of nothing.

I’m also in a speed running guild (Coldsnap [IX]). Members are expected to play in full berserker gear with DPS builds for dungeons and fractals so any guild run I do is a berserker group. It’s the norm.

I still log in once in a while to do arah/fotm or chat with guildies, but the days of doing every dungeon to farm gold are long over for me.

Archon.6480:

Any personal damage output gained in zerker gear is lost in the lack of might boons on allies.

So… explain how using Berserker Gear leads to less might on allies. Unless you’re using giver’s gear (lol), Gear choice has literally no impact on might duration. Runes/Traits/Playstyle however…

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

snip

I’m not Fluffball, but he is pretty much right.

Ranged dps is generally inferrior DPS wise to melee in most cases, and will generally be out of range of buffs so it’s even worse in practice.

Could you name what trash and boss fights in dungeons/fractals that where “range is preferred/advised”

Archon.6480:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Carrion isn’t even available at lvl 40 and you have to wait till level 80 now for grandmaster traits. Like an above poster said, it’s a big waste on GS as one of the 3 stats doesn’t even effect it.

Dying and making mistakes is part of the learning process. No rational person expects you to play perfectly, nor should you. You should always be looking to improve your play, and you won’t get better if you blame your team or the game instead of yourself. Sometimes it’s beyond your control, but more often than not there’s usually at least one thing you could have done better.

Also, I could care less what you run in Open world, levelling, WvWvW, PvP, but in dungeons/fractals the gear to use is zerker. Condition damage, defensive stats are signs of bad, inexperienced, or lazy (take your pick) players. The gear says to me “I’m not comfortable enough going full zerker or knowledgeable/experienced enough to know why it’s optimal for dungeons.” This is made even worse by the fact that the dungeon content has mostly been the same for the past 2 years and in some cases, has even gotten easier since then (Better gear, Apr 15 patch). We’ve done the encounters 100’s of times and everything is scripted and predictable. Every encounter is melee-able and you do not need defensive gear or condition damage for most scenarios. The majority of your survivability comes from Active Mitigation. It’s also a team effort, and if your team is struggling with a certain strategy, adapt to the situation instead of banging your head against the wall repeating the same thing that caused you to fail in the first place.

Condition damage is also vastly inferrior to Direct damage in dungeons/fractals because this game has a horrible system for it. It has less burst, less cleave, less theoretical damage, has a cap, scales off 2 stats instead of 3, and has less modifiers/buffs. Certain enemies can also clear conditions or are immune to them.

Your conclusions about condition damage are wrong. And your recommendations for zerkers ranger in fractals is ridiculous. Anyone who has made it far will know that will get one shoted repeatedly. And you wont be able to avoid it. But go ahead, show us your zerker ranger with sword at fractals 50 video. Would love to see that.

Saying something is wrong without elaborating on it adds nothing to the argument. Explain why condition damage builds are worth bringing to dungeons/fractals or refute my claims against it instead of just saying “You’re wrong.”

I’m quite experienced in fractals, they were my favourite dungeon content to run while I was an active player. Fractals are basically all I did from before I quit playing this game, daily [31-40] + [41-50] tier with guild zerker group. It’s difficult but not impossible, and some of the fight mechanics don’t allow you to use sword so you need to GS. As a ranger, you can melee all the fights in fractals with the right combination of skill, strategy, experience and team composition, but you can’t 100% sword all of fractals.

Carrion isn’t even available at lvl 40 and you have to wait till level 80 now for grandmaster traits. Like an above poster said, it’s a big waste on GS as one of the 3 stats doesn’t even effect it.

Dying and making mistakes is part of the learning process. No rational person expects you to play perfectly, nor should you. You should always be looking to improve your play, and you won’t get better if you blame your team or the game instead of yourself. Sometimes it’s beyond your control, but more often than not there’s usually at least one thing you could have done better.

Also, I could care less what you run in Open world, levelling, WvWvW, PvP, but in dungeons/fractals the gear to use is zerker. Condition damage, defensive stats are signs of bad, inexperienced, or lazy (take your pick) players. The gear says to me “I’m not comfortable enough going full zerker or knowledgeable/experienced enough to know why it’s optimal for dungeons.” This is made even worse by the fact that the dungeon content has mostly been the same for the past 2 years and in some cases, has even gotten easier since then (Better gear, Apr 15 patch). We’ve done the encounters 100’s of times and everything is scripted and predictable. Every encounter is melee-able and you do not need defensive gear or condition damage for most scenarios. The majority of your survivability comes from Active Mitigation. It’s also a team effort, and if your team is struggling with a certain strategy, adapt to the situation instead of banging your head against the wall repeating the same thing that caused you to fail in the first place.

Condition damage is also vastly inferrior to Direct damage in dungeons/fractals because this game has a horrible system for it. It has less burst, less cleave, less theoretical damage, has a cap, scales off 2 stats instead of 3, and has less modifiers/buffs. Certain enemies can also clear conditions or are immune to them.

Archon.6480:

snip

I don’t think you understand how spreadsheeting and theorcrafting works. I did take into account all of those things you mentioned. I did not include some of the more unrealistic buffs such as 2nd untraited frost spirit, strength booster and 25 bloodlust stacks.

The whole point is to find out what the theoretical DPS is without unforseen factors. In a dungeon and fractal scenerio, your DPS is going to vary a lot depending on how well your party is maintaining buffs/debuffs, so addition is only accurate for that one particular fight. We also don’t have any real DPS meters in this game.

Here’s a basic guide to theorycrafting:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/23yg8j/guide_to_pve_dps_theorycraft/

This comment in particular addresses your concerns about target dummy tests: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/23yg8j/guide_to_pve_dps_theorycraft/ch1zhp2

Also, Carrion gear is terrible in PvE. If you can’t melee every encounter in this game, then that is a problem with either the player, your strategy or your team composition.

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

TurtleDragon.3108:

I took the time to test it for fun.

awesome =) empirical video!

what i don’t get is why your damage seems to be noteably slower than mine. are you going untraited?

In the rotation videos, it does not matter what gear you use or how much damage you do. We are looking at the # of times you cast skills in a 30 second window. I think i was using settlers or apothecary amulet lol.

Working as intended. It’s part of the GW2 experience to be able to lose your progress at any given moment.

I took the time to test it for fun.

Axe: (2 > 3 > 1 Rotation)

Ricochet: 21
Splitblade: 4
Winter’s Bite: 3

( 21(0.5) + 4(0.5) + 3(0.5) ) / 30 = 0.466 for single target.
( 3*21(0.5) + 5*4(0.5) + 3(0.5) ) / 30 = 1.433 for multi target assuming split blades target limit is 5

This works out to be 9226.19 DPS without including the bleeds from Splitblade
Spltblade with 25 might and zerker gear will do 3019 damage.
(3019 * 4) /30 = 402.53 dps increase for single target
402.53 * 5 = 2012 DPS for for 5 targets

Total: 11238 DPS

Tl;dr GS > Sword > Axe for AoE

Rotation Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkITjOIJeg4
Spreadsheet : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XbeQMg-1QdPWWiYYAkXJz8sHdVWrP-c2Ac8C_uPtLyA/edit?usp=sharing

If you read my post before i editted, i forgot to divide by 30 lol

Archon.6480:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Archon.6480:

Against 3 targets, axe is always dealing more dps than sword… At least, I’ve never been able to hit for 4500 with sword swipe.

Anecdotal evidence is great and all, but let’s use math to explain why this isn’t true.

Sword 3 Targets:
16.66 sword AA chains in 30 seconds =
( 3*17(0.6) + 17(0.6) + 3*16(0.7) ) / 30 = 2.48

This is ~ 15k DPS

Axe multi target
(3 (0.5)) / 1.0 = 1.5
Assume melee range and wiki cycle time of 1.0 is correct.

This ~9k DPS without including splitblades or bleeds.

I’m not going to include it because it would require me to record hitting the training golem for something I know isn’t going to make up a 6k dps differential.

Your equations don’t model what we are discussing and are more useless than what you presume is anecdotal evidence.

What are we discussing then? The OP asked for MELEE recommendations, a bunch of people started recommending ranged weapons, and some have stated that it’s a “bit less DPS” than melee. You said that axe does more damage than sword in 3 target scenarios which is not true at all.

Archon.6480:

Against 3 targets, axe is always dealing more dps than sword… At least, I’ve never been able to hit for 4500 with sword swipe.

Anecdotal evidence is great and all, but let’s use math to explain why this isn’t true.

Sword 3 Targets:
16.66 sword AA chains in 30 seconds =
( 3*17(0.6) + 17(0.6) + 3*16(0.7) ) / 30 = 2.48

This is ~ 15k DPS

Axe multi target
(3 (0.5)) / 1.0 = 1.5
Assume melee range and wiki cycle time of 1.0 is correct.

This ~9k DPS without including splitblades or bleeds.

I’m not going to include it because it would require me to record hitting the training golem for something I know isn’t going to make up a 6k dps differential.

Enlighten me, define “a bit less” and tell me what has changed recently to make ranged weapons competitive with melee weapons in dungeons and fractals.

Sword/GS can hit 3 as well, axe damage is also awful even if you did hit farther targets.

Piercing arrows is clunky to aim, and you have to give up a valuable trait slot for something multi target encounters which other weapons could already do. It means removing 1 of Spotter, Bountiful Hunter, Signet of The Beastmaster/Remorseless.

In PvE, there are a few specific and niche scenario where racials do shine, but they do not make a big enough difference to warrant running that race for its specific racial.

You can’t use racials in sPvP/tPvP, unless you count “height” as a racial.

Idk about WvWvW, some of the above posters think they do.

It’s not a bit less dps and also significantly worse when you consider multi target scenarios

I prefer the term “handicap” instead of “liability” when it comes to pets :P

Might gives condition damage, so it does actually help condition builds. Precision just helps you stack more conditions, it doesn’t make each tick hit harder, so you’re just doing more of the same damage faster. Unlike Quickness the power equivalent, this is a problem because you have a limit on how much condition damage you can do to a boss.

Power has access to more offensive stats, buffs and modifiers so it scales better.

I don’t see how condition damage gets better food than power users, they have the same stat or effect allocation,

Bosses like Subject Alpha clear conditions, i think the golem has a cleansing turret as well.

Condition damage is also weak against bosses with invulnerability phases or bosses that have short windows of time to DPS them.

Now, ignoring any gameplay mechanics and if you got off your full condition damage applied to a boss, It still does far less damage than a berserker build.

Michiel.3608:

P.S I have not tested the whole vulnerability thing and do not know if it even works as well as it should.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unshakable

25 stack limit, bleeds being overwritten by party members unintentionally, not scaling off buffs or more than 1 stat. etc

Edit: Here’s a few more: Not working on structures, bosses clearing conditions, single target focused (bad at cleaving trash)

Nike.2631:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Nike.2631:

I don’t understand the fascination with power builds for Rangers.

Condition and hybrid builds are lackluster in PvE.

Hmm. In my experience, against world bosses there are so many players nobody is really doing anything special (other than bludgeoning it with raw damage). In dungeons condi-damage works fine as long as there isn’t another player working the exact same condition. And hybrids don’t necessarily stack all the way to cap by themselves anyway so they’re more forgiving a little splash by teammates in groups of 5.

There’s a pretty distinct difference between “works fine” for completing content, and being optimal/effecient at completing content. You can complete any content in any gear or build you choose as long as you can find 4 other people to carry you.

Condition damage suffers from both bad game mechanics, and lower theoretical damage. It also has much higher ramp up time than power builds to the point where a power focused team/player would kill things before you stack up a lot of conditions.

Pick a nemesis or deathshroud build for necromancers. It’s was always either that or condition damage.

You should try using sword on Archdiviner or any reflect boss :P. It’s even better than the Bubbles in TA Forward.

Guardian sword always felt awful to use on Trash, especially when trying to double stack before it was nerfed.

You were probably thinking of 6/5/0/3/0, which was the old meta build and is still viable. It’s even better in some cases.

Also, Brazil released 2 ranger videos shortly after the patch. You probably saw the first one but not the 2nd one.

Simon.3106:

PvE ranger build (non-dungeon) shouldn’t really matter. Play the way you want and enjoy. If you like LB, go for it. SB, then go for it. The mobs usually aims at your pet anyways so it’s not required for you to have a great build to survive. Dungeon, PvP, and WvW are all different stories though.

Dungeon, your pet get one shotted 90% of the time
WvW and PvP, nobody with a brain would chase your pet over you

Good luck, Elf Man!

Not in the mood to explain whats wrong the OP’s build, but this is 100% incorrect and a big exaggeration. Pet survivability used to be bad, but there has been multiple patches and improvements to this like the one where they gave them increased health. With proper swapping and recalling, your pet will survive 90% of dungeon encounters, but broken pet mechanics or safe spotting will prevent them from surviving a very small number of boss fights.

I know you said you don’t have any other 80s, but I still feel it’s an important factor in deciding your legendary.

I’d say Twilight if you plan on having a level 80 Warrior/Guardian, otherwise Bolt because you can use that on 5/8 classes in this game.

I made a Twilight as my ranger’s first legendary, and it encouraged me to GS camp a lot just because legendary. Eventually, when I got better at the game I started using it less and less, and eventually it became mostly a trash skipping, open world and fractal weapon. I ended up moving it off my ranger to my guardian because it wasn’t seeing much use.

Nike.2631:

I don’t understand the fascination with power builds for Rangers.

Condition and hybrid builds are lackluster in PvE.

It just takes a lot of practice and is more about feeling the rhythm and timing of the AA chain. It’s also about learning which fights to not bring the sword to. Sword usage is also very dependent on how well you know a specific boss encounter, you’ll generally have a bad time if you are not familiar at all with said boss fight.

You can interupt the AA chain btw, it requires a weapon swap or cast-cancel.

See the sword section in my guide for more details.

Tachii.3506:

Staff/Hammer guard in CoE.

Is there a worse set up? :|

There’s nothing wrong with that set up unless played badly by an inexperienced player.

It’s not optimal, but there are plenty of worse combinations like mace/torch.

Guardian is amazing in Fractals, and are always wanted in groups.

Stratos.9375:

What would be the top ele and warrior builds for fotm/dungeons? I was always interested in a warrior in some way.

The top warrior build in fractals would be an Empowered Allies, double banner, and if needed, Phalanx Strength build. Build would need to be adjusted if you have more than 1 warrior in the group.

Meta is pretty much the same as it was before, except Ranger Runes are now viable (and no longer unconditional).

You guys are making me want a Rodgort now -.-

You can hit 7k+ easily with signet of the wild active.

Edit: I forgot about the Ferocity patch for some reason, it might still be doable with cooldowns and light armor targets.

Condition damage and defensive stats are never ideal for PvE. Ranged pets are not good and birds are mediocre at best.

You will do about half the damage of a properly geared PvE ranger in exchange for marginally more survivability, and condition damage. Neither of these are favoroable trades in PvE.

Max Lexandre.6279:

Dalanor.5387:

I wanted some fancy insulting, but i have a serious question instead.
Why you favour your own build instead of the accepted meta builds? Including berserker gear ofc.

Because the game is fun when we have several builds, and we actually PLAY the game, not fast-run towards all content and then complain this game do not have enough content. O.o

It doesn’t have enough content because the game’s focus is on temporary content, and we’ve had a long break without any more of it.

Serpent Strike should be used only for it’s evade, not for it’s damage. Signet of the Hunt should never be used in Combat, but it’s great for travelling and skipping trash. Be sure to swap it out before entering fights.

Gear should be berserker with Ranger runes.

WvWvW should be done with a different build/gear set up from your PvE build.

See my guide in my sig for more detail.

It was a joke. They won’t make any new dungeons cause it’s not profitable.

Maybe they could sell us new dungeons in the gemstore, coinciding with the living story.

KOPPER.1458:

So no SB or LB builds? curious as those are the weapons my wife likes the best. trying to find her as good a build as possible,

LB/SB are not ideal “main” weapons for builds, but they are slightly less bad in Fractals where it is quite difficult to melee some of the encounters in there.

6/5/0/3/0 would probably be the “best” bow build. You’ll get the option of either Piercing Arrows, or Eagle Eye without gimping your team utility. Never use Read the Wind in dungeons/fractals.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/91678-post-april-2014-patch-dps-calculations/

Unbuffed base DPS: Mesmer > Ele = Engi > Thief > Warrior > Guardian > Ranger

All buffs: Ele = Mesmer > Engi = Thief > Warrior (walled GS) > Warrior > Ranger

Ranger and Mesmer scale worse with more buffs because their pets/phantasms do not get the full benefit of buffs. Ranger in particular scales extremely poorly due to the pet barely getting anything from buffs (they will not receive banner, spirit, etc. buffs due to 5-target AOE cap) other than standard boons transferred to the pet via Fortifying Bond.

The joys of being of being a pet class.

but but… what about the stacking exploit, I don’t like it when other people do it!

Fluffball.8307:

Interesting. I might list that as “inconclusive” then. I’ve always had a gut feeling both warriors and rangers did more damage than guardians, but that may very well be because most guardians are not very good and/or not damage oriented players.

Might be an excuse to dust off my guardian and try out the latest builds.

If I were to judge based on gut feeling and not math, it’d be

Ele > Thief > Warrior > Guardian > Ranger = Necro = Engi > Mesmer