Guild Wars 2

Nice try on the bad math and pretending that you get 4 stacks of bleeding from the get go.

(171 + 171 + 215)/1.5 does not equal 305. You can’t even make typos or miss a sign to get that number. Made your claim look good tho, eh?

Anyway, I’m done. I have no desire to argue against made up numbers.

@SneakyErvin

Okay, simple as can be.

Rabid is not as good as Rampagers for DPS. Neither is as good as Berserker’s. AND THAT INCLUDES ‘CONDITION’ CLASSES.

Since I know you won’t believe me, I grabbed my necro and took her to the mists. I cleared her stats, stripped her armor, and used nothing but scepter which, as I pointed out, is a hybrid weapon. Every attack includes both direct and condition damage.

In short, I isolated just the Rampager versus Rabid part.

With your precious Rabid her autoattack was
129-129-184 direct and 89 bleed – 176 poison.
DPS that works out to 258-258-368 as scepter is a 1/2 second attack. So even with Rabid, the direct damage is far better DPS than the conditions.

Rampager
171-171-215 direct 75 bleed – 148 poison
DPS 342-342-430.

Rampager lost 14 points of bleed and 28 points of poison and in exchange picked up 84-84-62 direct.

Oh, and since I know you’re thinking it…but…but..bleeds stack! Yup. In testing they get to 5 for a split second and hold at 4. Not enough to make up for the direct damage buff, and it takes 3 seconds to get there. And now you’re prolly thinking, but…but…I can use undead runes and earth or agony sigils and skills and stuffs to get more stacks. Yup. And a direct damage build can use direct damage runes and skills all of which hit harder with Rampager because power scales better than cond damage.

Oh, for giggles:
Berserker’s
248-248-354 direct 43 bleed 84 poison
496-496-708 DPS.

Berserker’s is even the best DPS choice on a ‘condition class’ like a necro.

And to really, really make the point:
30 Points in Curses for 300 points of condition damage
30 Points in Death Magic for 300 points of Toughness
6 Undead Runes for 183 condition damage and 50 Toughness & 5% of toughness to cond damage

Basically, I skewed this test as much as I could in favor of Rabid’s over Rampager’s

Rabid
141-141-202 w/ 118 bleed & 234 poison
282-282-404 DPS

Rampager
179-179-256 w/ 102 bleed & 203 poison
358-358-512 DPS

Rampager’s still wins because power is still better than condition damage as a DPS stat.

Oh, and I haven’t brought it up yet, but Rampager’s has more precision as well. So along with the better damage in normal attacks, you’re going to be looking at a higher crit rate. And if instead of purposely trying to skew things towards Rabid, I’d just gone and built a Rampager based DPS build with appropriate runes, sigils, skills, and traits, it’s not even close which is the better armor set.

(and again, neither of them will get to what a necro wearing berserker’s can get to)

@SneakyErvin

1) If it takes 2 seconds to get your bleed stacks, that’s an extra 2 seconds you have to account for when calculating DPS. Those two seconds don’t apply to direct damage. Math is fun.

2) Engineers can make fantastic cond damage toons. Just cuz you can’t figure it out doesn’t mean it’s not there.

3) Cond duration only matters in long fights. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned the whole “high health” thing a time or two already tho. Glad you finally agree with me on that. For the majority of the fighting you’ll do tho, it doesn’t matter at all as the stuff dies long before your conditions finish proc’ing.

4) Crits don’t do anything for cond damage. They also don’t care what your cond damage stat is at. Crits do care a great deal what your power is at as they multiply the base damage that is set by power. So for crits, precision sets how often you’ll get extra damage, power and critical damage decide just how much that extra damage will be. So…power is still the most important DPS stat.

5) A pure DPS necro has lower max DPS than a pure DPS anything else. I wish you the best of luck in your belief that that isn’t true. Maybe someday when minion AI includes actually attacking every fight, or weapon skills get rebalanced to work on their own, or more stat combinations get added to gear, that’ll change. But right now, you cannot build a DPS necro that does as much damage as even a DPS engineer (another class that suffers in this area)

p.s. I’ve played every class to 80, and most more than one 80. I have a bunker marks/wells necro who is a lot of fun to play, and she works well in groups because practically all her attacks set up combos for my teammates. I’ve tried a whole host of builds on her (I really, really want to go minions), but the one she’s running seems to work the best, espec in groups where her mediocre damage is offset by her ability to tank and help her teammates.

6) I brought up greatsword warrior to point out just how very wrong you are about cond damage being anywhere near as important as power. A high power greatsword warrior blows away any cond damage build in terms of DPS. They don’t have to wait 2 seconds for bleeds to stack. They don’t have to hope all the cond removal skills of their target are on cooldown. They just do a lot of damage.

7) Rabid is not as good as Rampager for total DPS. Rampager does so much better on the direct damage side that it more than makes up for the very small loss of condition damage. It takes a lot of points of condition damage to see meaningful changes in the DPS. Conversely, small changes in power make immediate meaningful boosts to DPS. Rampager’s has power. Rabid doesn’t. Rabid has nowhere near enough extra condition damage to make up for that lack of power.

8) Berserker’s is the best DPS armor, and I never said anything about it being the best condition damage armor.

You really do have trouble following along, don’t you. Either that, or you know your argument has gone poorly and you’re desperately attempting to build strawmen to cover the fact that your original claim, that rabid’s is better than rampager’s, was proven incorrect. That your follow up claim that condition damage, and hence the condition damage stat, is better than power and direct damage was proven incorrect. That pretty much every claim you’ve made about game mechanics has been proven incorrect.

By the way, I’m not trying to insult you. I had a bunch of misconceptions about how things worked until I either asked questions, had other people show me, or tested myself. I genuinely am hoping to explain how mechanics work so you’ll get better. I think you’ll have more fun if you understand how the game really works. I also don’t think you need to min/max to have fun, but if you at least understand what’s going on, you won’t end up as frustrated as to why every thief or warrior you meet seems to do more damage than your necro.

@SneakyErvin,

By the numbers:
1)Bleed stacks. How long did it take you to stack enough bleeds to match DPS with a power-buffed direct damage attack? How much of your build do you have to focus on keeping those stacks around. Ya. Thought so.

2)Nowhere in my post did I mention crits. Crits is a whole ’nother discussion. But the cliffnotes version is that power is significantly better than precision. I suspect this is why so many traits and sigils are designed as on-crit. It serves to buff precision putting it back on par with power.

3)Your testing doesn’t isolate variables, and as I mentioned, I intentionally picked a bad skill for power scaling. Go run my tests again using a warrior greatsword and you’ll understand why it is nobody thinks condition damage when it comes to min/max DPS.

4) I mentioned the high health-high armor boss case specifically because it’s one of the few places where condition damage becomes really valuable. However, even there, it’s still not as valuable as power. So for maximizing your DPS versus said bosses, you want a lot of power and a lot of condition damage, and you want skills that let you stack conditions fast.

5) I picked thief as my example because it gave me ready access to a mediocre power skill, a poison skill, and bleed skill. Thieves also allow you to isolate on damage types. You can put your trait points into one area of damage and see how much each point affects things.

Just FYI, necro is a really bad choice for trying to test any DPS related stat because they simply can’t be built pure effectively. They have mixed traits, badly mixed weapon skills with lower damage multipliers since they were intended to have conditions, etc. What I mean is that the direct damage portion of their attacks have all been lowered with the assumption it will be made up for in condition damage. At least that’s the theory.

The reality is that it makes building effective DPS necros impossible since all the gear they’d need to maximize simply doesn’t exist. You really would want max power and then have a lot of condition damage and precision, and you can’t. Rampager and rabid are both precision, not power, heavy. The reason Rampager’s is better than Knight’s is because 3 DPS stats are better than 2, even if the balance isn’t optimal between them.

And again, all that said, there are cases where Rabid and Rampagers really are very good choices, but they’ll never be Berserker’s.

stof.9341:

Star Ace.5207:

The MF divided among party members has its own problems as well, which others has discussed before.

What, who, where?

I have yet to see anyone commenting on that suggestion except you. It’s not even that I disagree with the problems, I haven’t seen anyone mention them.

I have a few times.

I play easy content with magic find in the easy stuff because I don’t need stats to survive, and hence, am using gear that allows my higher skill to receive higher reward. I don’t want to see my rewards reduced because I’m carrying a bunch of people who either can’t, or won’t, run with magic find.

And yes, this means I would happily run AC, CM, fractals level 10-16 or so, in a party of people all wearing exotic MF gear. I already run in pug’s all the time consisting of inexperience peopled, people in non-exotic gear, people not built for raw dps, etc., so it’s not like I expect everyone to be built precisely the way they would need to be to minimize how long an AC run or whatever could take. More than that, even if they were, we’re only going to save a minute or two of real time. Trying for perfect would be way too much hassle for such a tiny return.

If you want to replace MF gear with something else, make sure that something else still provides higher rewards for higher skill and/or contribution. For example, a system that provided a reward buff on dungeon completion to the people who provided above average DPS, boons, healing, etc. For example, if you do 10% more DPS than the party average, you get 10% more gold and tokens when the dungeon is completed. By making sure to include more than just DPS, you can be sure that most good players will find a niche where they’ll get their reward buffs in pretty much every group they run with.

@SneakyErvin. You’re wrong. You obviously have no idea how damage works. I’m bored. I’ll explain.

Direct damage = (weapon * power * skill ) / target armor

Condition damage varies by condition
Poison = 4 + Level + .1*cond damage
Bleeding = 2.5 + Level + .05*cond damage
Burning = 8 + Level + .25*cond damage
Confusion = 10 + Level + .15*cond damage

Notice those tiny little multipliers? That’s what makes raising cond damage an iffy choice. It takes a lot more cond damage to get more damage than it does power.

For example:
Poison with 0 cond damage = 84 per tick, 1 tick per second (ie. 84 dps)
Posion with 1467 cond damage = 233per tick

1467 cond damage is 30 points into cond damage, the rabid jewel, and 6 undead runes in the Mists.

Poison with 1175 cond damage = 202 per tick.

1175 cond damge is Ravager and 6 undead runes (even tho 6th isn’t as useful).

So giving up 292 points of condition costs you a whopping 31 DPS for poison.

Bleeding stacks are at 43 with 0 condition. At 1467 they are at 117. At 1175 they are 101. That’s a whopping 16 DPS per stack you’ve lost with that horribad sucks so much ravager instead of rabid (and again, I stuck with undead runes while testing). Even if you build for lots of fast stacks of bleeding, you can’t push it as much as…

Thief autoattack 2&3 with nothing but 916 base power. ~290 per hit
Thief autoattack 2&3 with 1016 power. ~310 per hit … measely 100 points and we’ve already gone up more per hit than ~300 points of condition damage did for bleeds, and oh ya, we’re hitting faster than once per second
Thief autoattack 2&3 at 1116 power. ~345 per hit. Amazing how not having that tiny fractional coefficient makes power ever so much better than condition damage.
Thief autoattack 2&3 at 1216 power ~410 per hit. For the same 300 point difference between rampager and rabid in cond damage, you’ve picked up 110 points per hit on weapon strikes that are faster than condition proc’s.

Oh, and thief autoattack is actually one of the weaker skills. If you use bigger hitting skills, the straight multiplier of power gets that much more noticeable. I just didn’t feel like jumping between toons to get easy access to all the damage types.

So, power is better than condition damage. Rampager has power. Rabid has none. And I’m the one that was wrong about which was better for DPS?

Now, Rabid does have value. As you pointed out, it has a nice bit of synergy with undead runes, so if you’re say, building a necro who has built in high health making toughness the go to best choice for adding some extra survivability, then rabid gets you that toughness and lets you take advantage of some of the necros other tricks like a +400 toughness when channeling so stack conditions and then hit a long channel to make them all start ticking higher, or building a juggernaut engineer that skews a bit more towards tank than damage, etc.

Condition damage even without the runes also has value, espec versus bosses where you can get a lot of stacks of bleeding going (confusion sadly, not so good as bosses attack slow…but confusion rocks versus other players, espec bursty thieves who hit a whole bunch of skills as fast as they can). Unlike power, condition damage doesn’t care about armor. Bosses tend to have lots of that. As soon as you factor that in, condition damage’s lower DPS becomes a good choice versus high health (so you can get lots of stacks) high armor (that you’ll ignore) boss mobs.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Precisely. You get rewarded extra for helping the group less. Goes against everything Anet stands for.

Magic find in a dungeon/fractal SHOULD equal out. So if 1 person has 100% magic find and all other 4 have 0% magic find then everyone (including that person in mf gear) should get 20% magic find (100 divided by 5 = 20).

Plus, MF users kick puppies and steal babies from dingoes so they can eat them first.
-rolls eyes-

Why should a skilled player who can contribute significantly to a group get less reward because the rest of the group is too cheap or not skilled enough to be using MF gear themselves?

Oh, and bad players or players in over their head…they come in all varieties, not just MF gear. You don’t need to inspect their gear to know they are dragging down the group and potentially making things impossible to complete.

This is true of all fractal groups, btw. If you get a player with no fractal experience or no agony resistance in your level 30 group, you’ll know. Ask them to leave, and if they don’t, kick them. Easy enough problem to solve.

VakarisJ.5619:

So everyone’s either eating it and claiming numerical superiority (wrong) or saving it for sentimental value (illogical)?

I’m only keeping mine to consume it later, when I’m drugged on karma boosts and karma jugs.

Don’t forget the ice cream and ascended karma gear

SneakyErvin.3056:

But AC isnt whats being discussed in this thread, its about the difference in MF gear compared to useful gear. Everything is done better and quicker in proper gear, even AC.

Explorer gear is awful for dps, just like you proved by posting your stats earlier in the thread. Attack, crit, critdmg does not lie, it’s simple math. You also claim ramapgers would be higher damage, when there are actually better dps sets for condi classes that provide more survivability aswell i.e Rabid gear.

You will never reach close to the same condi damage bonus with rampager since rabid syncs much better with undead runes and some class traits. The power you gain from rampagers is not worth it, since condi is the lesser stat. Rabid has condi as main stat and still keeps the same precision, in addition to that you will gain even more from undead runes due to the toughness on rabid.

No. You made a snarky comment about my mentioning AC. I responded to that. You don’t now get to explain your lack of reading comprehension by insisting this thread is only about MF. (p.s. I like snarky comments as long as you don’t get obscene.)

Explorer’s and Knight’s both have power & precision. Those are are two best DPS stats. Explorer’s gear will give you better DPS than anything but Berserker’s or Rampager’s.

Rampager’s is better than Rabid because all three of Rampager’s stats are damage. Undead runes only turn 5% of toughness into conditional damage. So no, they do not get you to Rampager levels of DPS. It won’t even get you to Knight’s/Explorer levels of DPS because power is far more valuable than precision when it comes to straight DPS. (to get to those cases where Rabid, and hence precision, is more valuable, you need sigils and traits that proc on crit as well as move away from straight DPS to more of a DPS/survive hybrid…which is a much more involved discussion)

Carrion is cond damage/power, and it’s right in there with Knight’s and Explorer’s level of damage provided you can stack conditions very fast.

Ya know how I keep bringing up I’m a better player than average? Well, I’m also a better theorycrafter than average. There is a reason I end up with piles o’ alts in every game I play. It’s cuz I really, really enjoy testing and twinking and seeing what kind of oddball stuff I can make work.

I’d recommend not trying to tell me what is and is not good DPS

I’m not sure why we need so many different currencies, but here we are…

The easiest solution would be to just dump all these different currencies since the goal is to let players play the game the way they want to, but if we’re going to keep them, then we need for all gear to be available in all ways of playing.

Right now. Rings are acquired via fractals or laurels. Kinda sucks if you can’t play every day and hate dungeons. Amulets are laurels only. Really, really sucks if you have multiple alts as one laurel a day and ten per month is not going to gives you best in slot gear in anything resembling a reasonable amount of time. Even when other achievements get converted, it’s unlikely going to cover anything more than two or three more alts.

So we need more ways to buy ascended (BiS) gear to both cover all the ways people want to play as well as make it possible for multiple alts to get their gear.

The easiest way to do this is to simply create vendors that use each type of token. WvW players can spend their badges. Dungeon players can keep running fractals. Open world PvE players can spend karma. It should be pretty straightforward on figuring the costs between each vendor if it’s just converted back into time.

For example, it takes 10 days of level 10 fractals to earn a ring. It should take 10 days of laurels to earn that same ring. Just figure out how much karma a normal player can earn in 10 days, and make that the cost of a ring. Same with WvW badges.

Do the same with all new ascended gear. This lets players play their way and gives altaholics multiple ways of getting gear to cover their multiple toons.

Price on ori is crashing now. It’s kinda fascinating to watch both the ore and ingots bounce all over.

Underwater kills – play as a ranger or engineer with grenades

Gathering – collect 20 copper from nodes around newbie zones. Might take you 10 minutes.

Crafting – refine 20 copper into 10 ingots as jewelcrafter takes 5 seconds

Events – same as it’s always been

Combos – spend 10 minutes figuring out how to get guaranteed combos cursing ANet the whole time. Then a few minutes more finishing it. The key part is that you can’t finish your own combos fields, and you really, really don’t want to use %chance finishers.

Observations:

-You can’t use your own fields. You also can’t use your pet’s fields (ie. spider poison cloud).

-The killing blow has to be a combo finisher, and it has to actually be the combo part that kills. Ranger healing spring therefore doesn’t work. Ranger fire trap does. Thief shadow refuge also works as does most of the elementalist fields (in case you hadn’t guessed, ran with an elementalist and thief while playing my ranger to do this one)

-You don’t have to be in a party, but it definitely makes it easier to coordinate laying down fields and letting your teammate get the killing blow.

-Don’t use %chance to finish abilities. It’s bad enough getting lucky to have the combo finisher be the kill without only have a chance to combo in the first place.

Anyway, took about 10 minutes once we figured all that out.

SneakyErvin.3056:

Xavori.3768:

SneakyErvin.3056:

Reading more and more in this thread I can see one person being in love with AC. Is it the only dungeon he can beat?

1. Ascalonian armor is the best bunker armor in the game currently. Power/toughness/vitality.

2. It very low risk, moderate reward.

3. It’s quick. I only have to spend an hour of my time to make 3+ gold. That buys a lot of WvW upgrades and gear repairs.

4. I ONLY WEAR MF GEAR ON EASY STUFF WHERE LOSING A BIT OF DPS JUST DOESN’T MATTER, AND AC IS DEFINTELY EASY STUFF. Since this thread is about MF gear, and I’m defending MF gear, I’m only going to defend it those cicrumstances I feel it’s acceptable. You’ll never catch me running Arah exploraton or level 40+ fractals in MF gear. Hence, I’m not talking about Arah or level 40+ fractals.

But your view isnt honest. Sure its easy and quick even if you wear MF, but how quick is it when your whole party wears MF. You are still underpreforming in a non-MF group when you wear MF gear. Thats just fact, you will never have the preformance of a real set. Thats where it becomes selfish, for a tiny gain of roughly 50-70s per run (your own numbers) you skip the good of the group for the good of yourself.

You would also be better off just running a fractal 10+ for a much higher income, without the need for MF gear. Something that takes 45m-1h to complete.

Also, point #1 doesnt matter, because you dont need MF gear to obtain it, so its a moot point. MF doesnt improve your speed or chance of getting it.

There are instances/fractals where a full MF group would lie dead in their tracks, not being able to push through due to lack of dps. Same goes for any group with a lack of dps. I’m also curious how the new patch and no WP bumrushing will effect the MF users. Just another reason not to grab them. Lower damage, lower survivability, so you have to spend more time fighting, which results in a bigger risk of wiping and having to start over on the boss.

Dude. You have to stay with me here. I wasn’t talking about MF in those 4 points. I was responding to why I’m talking about AC so much in this thread.

Oh, and to answer your ‘lack of DPS’ concern…how is one of the highest DPS set in the game turribul turrbul zomg can’t take them? Pretty sure a well built DPS toon in explorer gear is doing his or her fair share of DPS. The problem with explorer isn’t DPS, it’s survivability.

(p.s. please note ‘one of’ in my statement. It means it’s not THE highest which would be zerker or rampager depending on build and/or opponent, but only ONE OF the highest.)

Someone will post on the forums that there server has Balthies open. Piles o’ people will flock to guest on that server for fifteen minutes or so to get their shards. Then they go back to their real server, dump tons o stuffs in the mystic forge, not get what they wanted, come back to the forums to rant about how much ANet sucks. While they’re shouting at their computer, they’ll get overheard by their significant other who will ask what they’re doing. Being in a bad mood from getting ripped off by the RNG, they’ll snap a mean reply back at said s.o. Said s.o. will get ticked off and go stomping out the door. While out, they’ll decide to go to the club to relax, and at that club they’ll meet a rich doctor and it’ll be love at first sight. They’ll then go home with their shiny new doctor and juvenile feline all night long. The next day, they’ll head home to get their stuff, and tell the poor idiot who is still smarting for wasting all that gold on the mystic forge that it’s over. The poor idiot in deep despair will then decide to hell with it all and drive to Las Vegas for a massive blowout party to forget all their problems for a while. While in Las Vegas, they’ll stumble into Linsay Lohan who will be out clubbing. After a wild night involving far too much adult beverage, they’ll end up at an all-night marriage chapel completing the train wreck that began with ANet adding guesting.

So there you have it. ANet adding guesting is going to ruin the lives of a whole lot of players who will end up married to Lindsey Lohan. There is simply no worse ‘feature’ ANet could possibly have added to the game.

Ruprect.7260:

Pannonica.5378:

Our guild leader is sitting at about 133k kills at the moment, and the game wasn’t released 10 years ago, so titles are not unreachable.

LOL, your guild leader has gotten 900 kills a day every day since launch.

Screen shot please

I spent a Saturday camped in Stonemist which was under attack the entire time. Even with a few breaks in there, it was almost 10 hours of barrage and rapid fire and people dying.

I finished with less than 300 kills. Even if it had been 300 kills, that’s 30 kills per hour or one kill every 2 minutes.

Now, my ranger is head to toe exotic zerker and killing someone in two minutes is pretty easy. Heck, most kills are less than 30 seconds (cuz if the fights last longer than that, it usually leads to dead ranger). The problem is that it’s really tough to find a new person to kill every two minutes.

So I’m really skeptical about 900 kills every single day since release…

SneakyErvin.3056:

Reading more and more in this thread I can see one person being in love with AC. Is it the only dungeon he can beat?

1. Ascalonian armor is the best bunker armor in the game currently. Power/toughness/vitality.

2. It very low risk, moderate reward.

3. It’s quick. I only have to spend an hour of my time to make 3+ gold. That buys a lot of WvW upgrades and gear repairs.

4. I ONLY WEAR MF GEAR ON EASY STUFF WHERE LOSING A BIT OF DPS JUST DOESN’T MATTER, AND AC IS DEFINTELY EASY STUFF. Since this thread is about MF gear, and I’m defending MF gear, I’m only going to defend it those cicrumstances I feel it’s acceptable. You’ll never catch me running Arah exploraton or level 40+ fractals in MF gear. Hence, I’m not talking about Arah or level 40+ fractals.

Essence Snow.3194:

@Xavori…idk why you are comparing yourself to other players dicussing MF….you should only be comparing yourself w/ mf to yourself w/o mf. It’s pretty obivous that you are giving up some stat for the gain in mf….so you are not playing at 100% potential.

Regardless of your individual skill…there is always a useful stat that mf replaces. If you are an expert at staying alive…then you are giving up increased crit dmg. If you aren’t then you’re giving up survivability. Do you (yourself..no one else) play worse (less skilled) when not using mf? I should hope not.

If what you say is correct then you have no problems staying alive answer me this please:

Would increased crit dmg change your dmg output over not having increased crit dmg?

Then consider what the goal is at it’s core level…killing things right? Does increased dmg help you achieve that goal? Ofc it does…does increased mf and decreased dmg help you achieve that goal? No, ofc not. It only applies to the loot after the goal has be completed.

I’ve said quite a few times the difference in a little bit extra damage doesn’t matter. It doesn’t save that much time or make an AC run all the much easier.

I really don’t run my MF warrior in high level fractals or Arah explorable because not only is she geared MF, but her build isn’t exactly that great for it. I also don’t run her in WvW for pretty much the same reason (the lack of a stun breaker vs other players is suicide). She’s very, very good for what I use her for, and I have a pile o’ alts for when I want to do other stuff.

So no, there is no point in my getting back that bit of critical damage and extra power. If was going to change her gear, it wouldn’t be into zerker anyway. I’d almost certainly be into knight’s specifically because if I was changing her, it would be to run harder content, and zerker wouldn’t be my choice for that.

@mf doesn’t work.

My MF warrior averages 3.3 gold per AC set. My non-MF toons average 2.6. Now I have gotten exotics on my non-MF toons and had runs without any rares on my MF toons. But over the long term, the MF is definitely worth it. If the stealth drop nerf was really a bug and not a nerf and gets fixed, those numbers should both go back up, and the spread between them increases.

alcopaul.2156:

WAT. You say toughness is useless and you don’t want to be forced wearing an offensive gear?!?!?!

And imply that MF users are the most skillful players in game coz you’re one?

Joke man. Whatta big Joke.

Ya. Not what I said. You’re building strawmen.

I said toughness was useless on easy content. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve referenced AC and low level fractals in this discussion.

I’ve also not once tried to make a sweeping generality about MF player skill. I am highly skilled. I know not at all how much skill anyone else in this thread has. I want to be rewarded for my high level of skill, so I wear MF gear on content where the alternative gear wouldn’t really matter.

Now you did get the part about me not wanting to be forced to wear specific gear pretty close. Ask yourself, what if I insisted that if you played a guardian you had to wear toughness/vitality/power armor and go with an alturuistic healing shout build because that’s what would be best for me if I ever ended up grouped with you?

(side note: I love being grouped with one alt healing shout guardian…gimmee boons)

Doesn’t it seem a lot more selfish to tell someone else what build and what gear they had to use?

After all, all I’m asking for is superior skill to receive superior rewards which is kinda how the real world is supposed to work (please note all the qualifiers I stuck in the second half of that sentence…and make sure you understand what I mean by qualifiers). To me, that’s not selfish. It’s how things should be.

Navzar.2938:

Xavori.3768:

. . .
@Navzar,

Explorer’s gear is not giving up 1003 useful points. That toughness will not save you from a graveling scavenger landing it’s leap – omnomnom combo. It will not save you from Kholer’s pull-whirl. It will not save you from Colossus’s or the Howling King’s screams (poor Ghost Eater has no scary attacks at all…my MF warrior just stands toe to toe with him). Surviving those attacks is 100% about player skill and experience.

That’s why I should the difference with both defensive and offensive stats. If you read past the first sentence, you’d still see that its 18% less power+ no critical damage. Or is extra power and crit damage useless too?

Offense is not useless, just not going to matter in easy dungeons. My fastest time ever completing all three AC paths in a pug was just under an hour, and that was more because it was a really good group of experienced people, and nobody ever needed to break, not even between paths (oh, omnomberry bars are great timers which is how I know how long most runs take me). The average time to complete all three paths is an hour and 10 minutes, and the ~15 minute difference is usually time spent waiting on people. My longest time every while still actually completing all three paths was two hours, and that was because Deltha bugged and we had to start over combined with one guy who kept going afk, but since he warned us up front, no one really got upset with him.

@stof

My warrior is 5 signet traited for the precision on unused signets. This gives me an extra 200 precision. Signet passives are also worth 90 more stat points (power, precision, and vitality). I’m also using ascended stuff everywhere currently possible, and have the karka accessory we got at Lost Shores, and I fully expect to have the new ascended laurel stuff as fast as possible as I already make it a point to complete all my dailies and monthlies. So yes, I do have more stats than your average player, but I still don’t think it matters anywhere near as much as my experience running the dungeons and playing the game.

I’m pretty sure there are players rolling their eyes at a 5 signet build since the perception is that because it’s not as OP at level 80 as it is at level 30 (and honestly, a 5 signet warrior at low levels with all the extra precision is seriously OP), it’s not worth doing. But when you look at the total stats you can put together which improves every single attack you make, it’s a very solid build. The only real weakness is a complete lack of condition removal. However, with both adrenaline and signet regen, I can outheal poison and 6 stacks of bleeding together. Somewhere I also have written down how many stacks of freezing I can take in the ice fractal, but I can’t find that piece of paper. It was a lot tho.

Now, 5 signet is definitely not the ‘best’ DPS build, nor would I ever take her into WvW like this. However, it is about as close to perfect for most dungeons and low level fractals since every single attack you make gets buffed, and once you get your adrenaline built up, both your damage and durability go up pretty significantly.

And why do I have to keep Knight’s out of the equation? Because it makes my point about the stats not mattering?

You are right that zerker w/ rubies would be more damage with the same survivability as explorer. The fact that you want this as your basis of comparison pretty much proves one of my key points from above tho. There is only one way I could do more damage than I do now, and there is no reason I would ever do it. I’m not remotely interested in being forced to wear zerker armor just because y’all think I’m being selfish by not doing so, especially since as I’ve said so many times, it’s not going to matter. The runs will take how long they take based on things other than my DPS.

My problem with legendaries isn’t the asthetics, it’s the stats.

I mean, The Dreamer would be a lot of fun for me. I have two thieves and three rangers. I’m sure one of them could use it except…

It’s power/toughness/vitality.

This is not a thief or ranger weapon. Those classes usually want power/precision/crit damage or power/precision/cond damage on their shortbow because the weapon attacks work best that way, and both classes are more mobility-kiting oriented when using a ranged weapon than they are bunker oriented.

So while I could prolly make any of the legendaries in fairly short order, I simply have no desire to do so. And since sticking those skins on exotics removes their legendary status, I’m not going to do that either knowing that ascended weapons are coming.

Since y’all want to talk about stats now. Here’s my MF warrior:

Power 1902
Precision 2401
Toughness 1413
Vitality 1023
-
Attack 2926
Critical Chance 58%
Armor 2624
Health 19,442 w/ 2 regens
-
Magic Find (no luck stacks or food) 129%
_

Pretty sure that’s well above average even without the extra toughness I could get from Knight’s instead of Explorer’s.

@Navzar,

Explorer’s gear is not giving up 1003 useful points. That toughness will not save you from a graveling scavenger landing it’s leap – omnomnom combo. It will not save you from Kholer’s pull-whirl. It will not save you from Colossus’s or the Howling King’s screams (poor Ghost Eater has no scary attacks at all…my MF warrior just stands toe to toe with him). Surviving those attacks is 100% about player skill and experience.

p.s. I know that toughness doesn’t help because I also have a full tank warrior who put 30 points into toughness, 30 points into vitality, and is head to toe exotic power-toughness-vitality gear. If she gets omnom’d by scavenger when “Shake it off” is on cooldown, she dies just like everyone else.

@Hellkaiser. I didn’t “throw out the word juvenile”. I was using the term ‘juvenile feline’ to replace kitten which replaces naughty words on these forums. I do that I lot cuz it’s phunny.

And yes, skill is a valid argument. You would know this if you’d played AC enough to realize that there are mob attacks in those dungeons that stats simply aren’t enough to deal with, but player skill can regardless of toughness. So no, you don’t get to reject that argument out of hand unless you can first demonstrate that skill doesn’t matter since I’m pretty sure I’ve explained exactly how and where it matters more than anything else.

SneakyErvin.3056:

@Xavori.3768: But it does matter, that is the point. If you run with lower levels, thats your choice, you can see who is lower than 80 and chose not to group with them. However, people cant see if you wear MF gear on the spot, so there is no way they can know before starting the dungeon.

Also, if you run with lower levels, the groups survival or dps would increase alot if you field zerkers or knight gear, because both would significantly raise your threat, helping the less geared/leveled people to survive better. Here zerkers would be better since it also increases the groups damage.

Another thing is, I dont mind running with lower levels, thats not an issue, they dont chose to be lower levels. But a MF player activly picks lesser stats for their own benefit, they have the option to field the best gear for their group but decide not to and let others carry a heavier weight.

Selfish, selfish, selfish.

In my case, you don’t need to inspect my gear. You can just ask. Better yet, just make it clear when putting together the group you don’t want MF. I’m not even remotely interested in upsetting other players by trying to sneak in. Games are about fun. Juvenile felining people isn’t fun to me. Plus, I have lots of level 80 alts. I’m sure one would fit in the group.

As for selfish…how is it I’m selfish for wanting to be rewarded for my skill? It’d be selfish if the group was carrying me….if I was doing less than average. I promise you. That never happens.

Magic find gear is all about being rewarded for player skill because the stat the devs take away is toughness. That means it’s up to the player, not their stats, to keep them on their feet. If you reach the point where you are totally comfortable with movement and dodging, you don’t need that extra toughness to protect you. So the smart thing to do is trade a stat you’re not using for one that you do. Knight’s and Explorer’s are identical except one has toughness and one has MF. I made that trade because I am totally comfortable counting on my ability to time dodges and move in and out of range of mobs to keep me going.

I think it’s selfish that I’m expected to only play a full DPS build – full zerker gear toon because that truly is the only way I could really make the runs I take my MF warrior on faster. And as I’ve tried to point out, it would likely all be for naught because so many other things factor in to how long easy dungeon runs take, and most of those things have a bigger impact that a slight buff to my DPS.

Navzar.2938:

Of course, that’s why you don’t take any of that group into a dungeon with you. The point is that you can very easily eliminate that extra time by switching to your normal gear.
And if we cared so much that someone is getting more stuffs, then we’d just use mf ourselves. Heck, I do use it, just not for dungeons. Besides, in something easy like CoF, you get most of the better drops from chests, which mf doesn’t affect. So as far as money/time goes, its better off without it anyway. Also, you can’t play your maximum potential if your using mf gear. I don’t see what’s so hard to understand about that. And if percentages are so empty, why do you even use mf gear? That’s all it is, an increased percentage.

The assumption that only good players use mf gear is also very lulzy as well.

I take whatever groups come up with me into AC and low level fractals.

See, I do understand what y’all are saying. My counter argument is that on easy dungeons, the difference between me in MF and me in zerker DOES NOT MATTER. It’s not going to have a noticeable affect beyond all the other things that change how fast a dungeon run goes.

What’s more is that the only way there would be a difference is if I did choose to switch to zerker armor. If I choose knight’s, it’s exactly the same as explorer’s since I don’t need toughness to keep from getting downed, and it wouldn’t save me from the stuff that can down me anyway. If I choose anything other than knight’s or zerker, my DPS goes down while my survivability doesn’t change.

So what I see the argument breaking down into is that y’all insist on wear zerker armor so that you can save 30 seconds to two minutes on a dungeon run. My counter argument is I don’t care about 30 seconds to two minutes when there are so many other factors that play a bigger role in how long a dungeon takes, and I most definitely am not interested in putting all my toons in zerker armor during AC runs just so y’all can have an extra two minutes of time if everything goes perfectly.

@gimmethegepgun

You do realize you’re demonstrating exactly my point that anti-MF people don’t really care about efficiency, and hence, aren’t making rational arguments.

I do agree that stats other than DPS can be useful. But this entire time I’ve made it very clear that I only play my MF warrior on easy stuff, and in those cases, DPS and the RNG tend to be the only things that matter. It’s also why I keep pointing out that the difference in DPS between explorer’s and zerker isn’t enough to warrant my switching.

I’ve also explained a few times now that I choose MF gear for that content to minimize the amount of time I have to spend on stuff to earn gold. I promise you that if zerker gear was the better route to minimizing time to earn gold, that’s what I’d wear. The fact is there simply isn’t enough time saved to make up for the loss of gold.

And yes, I’d very happily run AC with teams decked out in exactly the same gear as my warrior. Head to toe exotics with ascended where possible makes for a whole lot of DPS even if all of it is MF boosting as well.

An offer for all of the anti-magic find people. Let’s run a full set of AC explore sometime. If at the end of that run you can show me that I’m not more valuable to a group than the average player, even in MF gear, I’ll agree y’all are right.

On the other hand, given just how many times I’ve run AC it’s entirely possible we’ve already run together, and you just didn’t realize I was in MF gear because I do contribute more than average.

@stof: I would happily run AC in group with all MF users. I already happily run AC in groups with sub-80’s players, first time in dungeon players, players not in exotic gear, etc. The difficulty of the dungeon is so low you don’t have to be anywhere near perfect…heck, you don’t even have to be anywhere near average.

As for your useful stats thing: I don’t need toughness to survive AC or low level fractals, nor would it help against Colosuss screams or scavenger nomming. So it’s not useful. I trade it for MF. That is useful. If useful is your definition of acceptable, then MF is better.

@Navzar: Percentages are fun tools, eh? ZOMG!!! 10%. And those sub-80’s, they’re 15%. The guy who doesn’t know any of the fights and asks for advice on how to handle them. He’s 35%. Unless you’re going to insist on level 80, exotic berzerker, DPS traits only, percentages are just as empty as every other anti-MF complaint centered around time or efficiency. You don’t actually care about either of those. You care that someone else is getting more stuffs than you.

@sharing MF: You don’t convince skilled players to play to their maximum potential by promising them the lower rewards of shared magic find. You convince skilled players to play to their maximum potential by rewarding them for doing so. MF as it currently exists does this. I play closer to (but seriously, AC is easy enough that I’m still semi-half junvile felining it most of the time) my maximum potential in MF gear than I do on my tank warrior because I have to. ‘Course, outside of the Colossus and Kholer, my MF warrior happily melees everything in AC, and when I’m really feeling my oats, I’ll even melee Colossus just to see if I can stay in that narrow little wedge directly behind him the entire fight.

@Essence Snow:

The difference between me running my MF warrior in AC using MF gear and zerker is maybe 2-3 minutes off the run time. Average players are already overkill for AC’s difficulty and you don’t get linear returns as you push farther and farther into that overkill zone. If it was graphed stats versus run time, the graph would definitely start to flatten out long before we get to explorer’s/knight’s gear, let alone zerker.

One bad spawn of extra graveling scavengers costs more than 5 minutes.

Deltha bugging and needing to be lured to her death can cost an entire dungeon run up to that point if she doesn’t unbug.

A graveling scavenger deciding to nom on Hodgkins rather than the player guarding him can force a reset that costs 5 or more minutes.

Kholer being spawned with a pair of elementalists versus a pair of warriors can double the time it takes to kill him because he’s really good at tanking for them, and they hit hard and have AoE’s.

One or two sub 80 teammates costs more than 5 minutes.

One guy needing to go afk because his dog is about to piddle on the carpet is 2-3 minutes.

One gal needing to go afk because she’s about to piddle on the carpet is 5 or so minutes.

So many things cost more time than I could possibly make up by switching to zerker gear, and many of them are completely beyond the control of the players.

Zapan.7460:

I don’ use MF gear or food. What I think would be a good idea, is to nuke MF gear, jewelry, & weapons from orbit (replace MF stat with some other stat; keep skin, oh wait, it’s not a unique skin), and increase MF food buffs.

The ANet definition of Rare or Exotic being .0001 or whatever number it is with that there RNG, fine. Bothering with MF to go from .0001 to .0002 is of no interest to me and seems absurd. Early on, I’d tried it with jewelry, gear, then I salvaged that gear and jewelry when a guild mate showed me some numbers.

After the new currency is added and the new way to buy class gift boxes (anxious to see what the heck the result actually are with the new system), MF is primed to be removed completely from jewelry, gear, & weapons. Before the: oh, i spent so much materials making MF you can’t render it obsolete position is made, I’ve played a few MMOs where content has been rendered obsolete (changed currencies, new gear, new stat customization system, combined PvE and PvP gear, etc). it’s to be expected. Plans don’t always go as expected, and change is inevitable. (WarhammerOnline & DCUO comes to mind; I bet there are many more that have obsoleted content)

Some say getting in a game early is more fun, while others wait for year 2 to avoid spending time on stuff that might be removed from the game. Enjoy the time spent either way = fun. I’d like to see MF gear be put into a large pile on the beach in Lion’s Arch and burnt. Those that contributed at least 6 units/items to the burn the MF gear event get a reward: pick which tier, of a stack (250) of a tier of Dust (crystalline, incandescence, etc). ;P

I’m not worried about my gear getting nuked. I’ve already geared a whole pile of alts, re-gearing my warrior would take me a few minutes on the trading post then a few more at a crafting table. I only have the one toon with MF, and I only use her in easy stuff. If MF went away, I’d put her in knight’s and start running higher level fractals with her which again translates into better rewards for the higher skill required for those fractals.

I’d also be okay with the food idea as it makes it one part of what I do better. Right now, if you kill the champion gravelings in AC, you get 5s. If you you the bars, you get more. The bars only cost 4s to buy, so it’s a pretty obvious investment.

Ganzo.5079:

1) Why make a party if you equip just for your own interest.

2)You claim to be skilled, but really nothing excuse this, you trade an helpful stats, for a stat that help only your droprate.

3)Not all player have the same “skill level”, and most of the fantomatic MF users, go on dungeon, die like idiots, and make the rest of the party to lose time for ressing them, and all of this just for the sake of the droprate of one player!

As i said on this thread, if the MF value was shared by all the party members, i see no harm on using MF gear, because you trade an helpfull combat stats, for an helpfull droprate stats, and this is acceptable. But on the actual form, there IS REALLY NO EXCUSE.
Skilled or not, sometime you may die just because you have not enough vitality or toughness, or you slow your mates because you have less crit damage then the others.

1) Because soloing AC isn’t possible except maybe path 2, and even then, it’d be really sketchy.

2) I trade nothing of effect. I’m wearing the equivalent of knight’s gear, but using my skill rather than stats to stay alive. More than that, even if I went zerker, it wouldn’t make a noticeable change in how long it takes to do an AC run because there are so many other variables that go into that.

3) Totally pointless complaint for magic find gear since it would be a problem regardless of what gear that player was wearing. If someone is making a dungeon run impossible to complete, you don’t need to know what gear they’re wearing to identify that fact.

More than that, on the AC and low level fractals I run my MF warrior, even bad players still have some value provided they don’t commit a cardinal sin like rezzing Deltha before a ghost wave is cleared. It takes a whole host of problems in a party before an AC run becomes impossible, and none of those would relate to what gear someone is wearing.

As for sharing magic find for an entire party…why would anyone who believes they should be rewarded more for being better ever like this? If I could have made 3.5g on an AC run, but now I’m only going to make 2.5g because no one else is willing to invent in MF gear and food, then I’m losing out because the rest of the party is leeching off of me and the fact that I can wear explorer’s and still more than carry my weight.

My suggestion was about keeping motivations for good players to play their best. Sharing MF is the exact opposite of that. Sharing is about letting the player who just sits in the corner with his autoattack get the same rewards as the player who is busting their juvenile feline off.

I’m so not interested in a game that hands out participation ribbons.

Ganzo.5079:

ehm you miss some point.
Mf is not a stats that add something to the party but only for your personal gain.
berserk gear is all about dps, but even knight gear is helpful to the party, you have power and precision for the damage, and toughness for the defense, more defense = more suvivability = Your mate have to ress you less times = MORE DPS!

MF add really nothing to the party composition, and thats the point!

So everything I do must be for the good of the party?

At the end of the dungeon, should we all tally up how much loot we got and then split it evenly? I mean, if you’re upset that I take advantage of my skill as a player to allow me to still contribute greatly to groups I’m in even while wearing MF gear, then why is it okay for one person to get more loot than someone else through just random chance? If everyone is supposed to get the same rewards for doing the same task, then why not make it truly the same?

Cuz that’d be silly.

And I picked knights specifically because it’s identical to explorers except you trade toughness for magic find. By your claim, the goal is me not dying. Well….I don’t die in explorer’s gear, and I have the same power and precision as I would if I was wearing knights, and you were okay with me wearing knight’s, so you’re okay with me wearing explorer’s then, too? Again as long as I don’t die which was your ultimate goal for me.

You know, I came up with a change to MF and rewards I’d be 100% okay with, and would encourage me to switch my warrior from MF to zerker. Change dungeon rewards so that greater contribution provides greater rewards. If I do more damage, or provide more boons, or cure more conditions, etc, then I should get more rewards. That’s kinda my thought process in picking MF gear in the first place. I know my skill as a player is valuable, and I’m trying to maximize that value. If I could maximize my reward in a way that coincided with also maximizing the group’s efficiency, I’d definitely be in favor of that.

It wouldn’t even be that hard to actually implement. Just have the game track each player’s damage, healing, etc. When you get to the end where the tokens and whatnot are given, take each category and average it. Players who exceed the average in a category get their coins and tokens increased by a percentage based on how much they exceeded the average.

For example, the reward for completing a dungeon is 60 tokens. The average DPS of the party was 1000. But I did 1100. So I get an extra 6 tokens. Let’s say we had a water elementalist who provided an extra 5% healing beyond the party average, so they get 3 extra tokens. And we had a shout guardian who kept everybody covered in boons, providing 20% more boons than the average player did, so they get an extra 12 tokens. Then we had some guy who was afk half the fights, hid on ledges, etc. He was below average in everything, but he still gets his base 60 tokens so he hasn’t ‘lost’ out. Go through that with things like condition removal, crowd control, etc, and do it for both tokens and gold on the final reward.

I think that would both give skilled players the additional rewards they’re seeking while also providing everyone an incentive to play their best which I think is what the anti-MF crowd is seeking.

There are some really scary DPS guardians out there.

There are some nearly impossible to kill tank thieves.

There are some really good healer elementalists.

There are all kinds of flavors of mesmers.

The classes don’t hit all three possibilities of the trinity are those that have either been nerfed to death (-cough-engineer-cough-) or have seriously broken core mechancis (-cough-necro minions-cough-) that cut off that part of their possibilities. But most classes can be built to fit pretty much any role you want to them to.

Heck, look at all the possible ways a warrior can be turned into a combat healer including a bunch of buffs to reviving downed teammates. Never actually seen anyone do that, but it’s definitely a possibility.

stof.9341:

Turial.1293:

I honestly don’t know who came up with the idea that using MF makes you a leech lol, certain players want to boost their items, others want to provide the most damage possible, others wear gear to increase criticals, others use…. etc. you see my point?

That’s because it does. If you go in with MF gear instead of Berserker, your group kills mobs slower. As a result, the other 4 players in your group gets less loot for the time spent while the MF in your gear gives you more loot instead.

By gearing up in MF instead of Berserker, you made a conscious choice that gives you more loot and gives all the other party members in your group less loot.

What if I want to wear Knight’s instead of zerker because I don’t want to die as much because I don’t want to spend money on repairs? Does that make me a leech, too?

What if I just wear rare gear rather than exotic because I’m going to get dungeon gear and there’s no point in buying exotic that I’ll just replace after a week? Leech?

What if I play a tank build instead of a DPS build because I enjoy going toe to toe with every mob I come across and don’t really care how fast I kill stuff? Am I leech because I’m putting my fun over your efficiency?

I can keep going. The whole argument that you must build for DPS and must wear Berzerker gear is even worse than the don’t-wear-MF-because-efficiency argument.

I mean, if you truly believe that every party member must build for maximum DPS, must be in head to toe exotic zerker gear, and must be skilled enough to not get flattened while playing a glass cannon, then I hope you have 4 friends who believe exactly the same as you do and who play as often as you do or you’re going to spend a lot of time frustrated because the groups you end up in don’t meet your exacting standards.

Why would you want to be an altaholic?

I’ve spent a couple hundred gold on character slots. I’ve spent ten times that on gear for all those characters. There are starving children Tyria who I could have helped for just a few copper a day. But because of my addiction, they go hungry.

When you’re an altaholic, moar toonz consumes your life. You spend your time all juvenile feline’d up thinking about where your next alt is going to come from, what class it will be, and will it have a silly or serious name. Will you create another Asura with big eyes and cute floppy ears or will it be a fieresome looking Charr with long fangs and a pink poodle skirt? Will it maybe be a human female running around in her underwear, or do you already have so many of those that Queen Jenna herself has started to wonder if you’re the reason for her lack of lacy underthings.

Don’t do it, man. Don’t let this addiction consume your life. You might thnk that you’re strong. That you could stop making alts anytime you want. But all it takes is that first alt, and then a second, and the next thing you know you’re passed out in an alley in Lion’s Arch being groped by a drunken Sylvari.

p.s. Go mesmer. You can get some of the stealth you said you liked, and their clones allow for some fairly unique gameplay. There are also a whole bunch of builds, and they can actually make very good use out of any of their allowed weapons. As for WvW, you’ll have portal which not only makes you useful, but very popular.

Czar Peter.7961:

Tyria takes place hundreds of millions of years after the ending of Mass Effect in an isolated galaxy with a destroyed mass relay. Everyone is an organic/synthetic due to the green ending. The unlimited ammo comes from secret Asuran embedded mass effect technology.

What green ending? I played through all three of those games many many times and there was never a green ending. There was no blue ending. There was no red ending.

In fact, ME3 didn’t have any ending at all. You get past the boss and are about to make it up to your shiny toy space station and the game just stops right there. Nothing else happens.

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Xavori.3768:

Shatters.7315:

Xavori.3768:

However, most players make it perfectly clear they’re okay dragging along sub-80 people, or people who have non-exotic gear, or people who haven’t run the dungeon so many times they have every encounter and boss memorized. After all, it is a game. We’re playing to have fun, not tweak out the last .001% of productivity. So that whole argument about not contributing as much to the party…ya…completely hollow. It’s a weak attempt to try to rationalize what is truly an emotional, not rational, response.

Maybe it is, but its still very valid. When I am doing a dungeon with other people, i want them to be TRYING. That afk guy is gonna get kicked from my party. Somebody in full MF gear is afk for 33% of the time. I love taking sub-80 people to most dungeons, because they are often even more motivated then the rest. The people in MF gear are being so extremly selfish that i dont want them anywhere near my party.

Point is, its safe to assume that being in full MF instead of other gear is going to gimp your dps with ~30%. If everybody did that, the run would take 30% longer. Now include wipes because you couldnt kill X fast enough, people leaving because its taking to long, ect. I estimate the average dungeon with people in MF gear would take about 50% longer, depending on the diffuculty.

Long story short: It might be a emotional reaction, but taking people that are trying to the fullest, even when not level 80 or geared in full exotics, is in no way comparable to people in full MF gear. Intentionally being a liability to your group while you can also just equip your normal gear, is for solo players.

Uh. Zerker is 315 power/224 precision/16% crit damage. Explorer’s is 224 power/224 precision. The difference in 16% crit damage works out to about 2% DPS. The difference of 91 power is more complicated to work out because it’s multiplied by weapon and skill coefficient, but based on many dead golems in the mists, (knight’s versus zerker), it’s about 3% DPS.

In my case specifically, I lose a few more percentage with MF runes, but I get back some with ascended gear. The total difference between what my warrior could do in max DPS versus where her gear is now is ~6%.

This is nowhere near 30%. I suspect this is because I used spreadsheets and testing and you used colonic extraction in coming up with the numbers.

That’s because you didn’t include jewelry, which has FAR more Crit Damage involved with it. There’s 16% on armor, but 32% on the jewelry.
With the jewels included, on a meager 35% crit rate, it’s a 14% average increase in damage from just the crits, which increases as crit rate rises.

You’re still not saving enough time to get beyond a bad dice roll tho unless you manage to hit the perfect all zerker all level 80 all skilled player group. And, I suspect you’ll waste more time trying to put that group together than you’d save just going with the people who are ready to go right now.

And this is ultimately why I put so little credence in the max efficiency argument that anti-MF people put out there. If they truly cared about max efficiency, they’d factor in how much DPS is lost because someone isn’t running a 30/30 power/precision build, how much is lost by having someone in rare gear instead of exotic gear, how much is lost by letting a non level 80 run with them, etc.

As soon as you allow any of those factors to be acceptable, but not MF, you’re not really caring about efficiency. Efficiency is just the rational front you’re putting on an emotional argument.

Of course, emotion is cool. The positive emotions from having fun are the entire point of playing a game.

Heck, my whole reason for MF gear ultimately breaks down into emotional calculus. I enjoy building alts, WvW, and trying new stuff out. Those things cost gold. I do not enjoy grinding for gold. So to maximize the amount of time doing stuff I enjoy, I minimize the amount of time spent doing stuff I don’t.

Of course, if you just took gold out of the game completely, and I could just have whatever I wanted as soon as I wanted it, I’d get bored and go do something else, just like most other people would.

People are weird like that.

SneakyErvin.3056:

@Xavori.3768: But it isnt practical. The benefit you get from MF towards drops doesnt match the loss of other stats. MF brings very little, you get almost the same amount of loot without it. The bonus is minimal when the loot revolves around RNG. Mostly you still have a 95% fail chance on getting anything above the ordinary.

So all you do is increase that minimal chance to a slightly higher chance, which is still a very minimal chance. It also doesnt effect chests, which makes it even more worthless and totaly pointless on boss fights.

.2% is still greater than .1%.

Because I only run her on easy dungeons, there is not noticeable effect on time that is greater than what a couple bad dice rolls from the RNG could do. In fact, the RNG plays a much greater role in how long an AC run takes an average group than pretty much anything else. All it takes is for an excessive number of scavengers to spawn, or a boss to get lucky and fire off the big charged attack right after someone was forced to burn all their endurance, and you’ve added 2-3 minutes minimum to the fight by dealing with a downed teammate during which neither the downed player nor the person saving them is doing any damage at all.

Again, tho, I get that people have this emotional reaction, and I’m totally okay with that. Just make sure to post “no MF” in gw2lfg or when you’re calling in Lion’s Arch, and I’ll run a non-MF toon. (unless it’s AC or fractal 10 in which case I’ll just wait for another group…those are so easy there’s no point in running them if you’re not maximizing the return on your time)

Shatters.7315:

Xavori.3768:

However, most players make it perfectly clear they’re okay dragging along sub-80 people, or people who have non-exotic gear, or people who haven’t run the dungeon so many times they have every encounter and boss memorized. After all, it is a game. We’re playing to have fun, not tweak out the last .001% of productivity. So that whole argument about not contributing as much to the party…ya…completely hollow. It’s a weak attempt to try to rationalize what is truly an emotional, not rational, response.

Maybe it is, but its still very valid. When I am doing a dungeon with other people, i want them to be TRYING. That afk guy is gonna get kicked from my party. Somebody in full MF gear is afk for 33% of the time. I love taking sub-80 people to most dungeons, because they are often even more motivated then the rest. The people in MF gear are being so extremly selfish that i dont want them anywhere near my party.

Point is, its safe to assume that being in full MF instead of other gear is going to gimp your dps with ~30%. If everybody did that, the run would take 30% longer. Now include wipes because you couldnt kill X fast enough, people leaving because its taking to long, ect. I estimate the average dungeon with people in MF gear would take about 50% longer, depending on the diffuculty.

Long story short: It might be a emotional reaction, but taking people that are trying to the fullest, even when not level 80 or geared in full exotics, is in no way comparable to people in full MF gear. Intentionally being a liability to your group while you can also just equip your normal gear, is for solo players.

Uh. Zerker is 315 power/224 precision/16% crit damage. Explorer’s is 224 power/224 precision. The difference in 16% crit damage works out to about 2% DPS. The difference of 91 power is more complicated to work out because it’s multiplied by weapon and skill coefficient, but based on many dead golems in the mists, (knight’s versus zerker), it’s about 3% DPS.

In my case specifically, I lose a few more percentage with MF runes, but I get back some with ascended gear. The total difference between what my warrior could do in max DPS versus where her gear is now is ~6%.

This is nowhere near 30%. I suspect this is because I used spreadsheets and testing and you used colonic extraction in coming up with the numbers.

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Xavori.3768:

I’m a big proponent that people should benefit from working smarter, not harder (I suspect it’s an American culture thing).

Great, so why are you working stupider, and harder, by taking Explorer’s and not Berserker’s?
Taking Berserker’s lessens how much work you need to do, and is thus the smart thing to do.

I play exactly the same in zerker’s and explorer’s on that warrior. It’s why I switched in the first place. Neither gear gives me any extra survival beyond my own skill, and the time saved with the extra ~6% DPS can be more than lost to something like a graveling scavenger deciding to leapomnonnom at a moment when I’m out of endurance.

If I was going to switch out of explorers on that toon, I’d go knights rather than zerker just to open up more content I’d feel okay using her on. However, since I have a whole pile o’ other toons, there isn’t much point. In the meantime, she pays for more character slots and the gear those alts use, and it only eats up about an hour a day to feed my alt habit.

Oh, she pays for WvW too. At least until someone convinces the devs that smart WvW play should be able to pay for itself…

SneakyErvin.3056:

Xavori.3768:

RoRo.8270:

I’m still having a hard time figuring out how people can defend magic find gear in fractals and dungeons. They intentionally get a full set knowing it only benefits them while reducing their survivability and damage thus increasing the time to complete a run.

What difference in time? You mean the fact my MF warrior is more efficient than the average ‘other’ warrior you could get?

On my MF warrior in head to toe MF exotics, it’s likely you’ll complete most dungeons faster than on my hammer-shouts warrior who is also head to toe exotics because my MF warrior has much better DPS and doesn’t need the extra toughness and vitality my tank has for most dungeons.

My MF warrior also likely has better stats than the average AC pug or 20 and below fractal player because she is head to toe exotics rather than mixing in some yellows or even greens and blues.

I’m also a very solid player who knows all the dungeons I run her in. You’d lose more time by taking an average player versus me.

Now sure, high level fractals or some of the Arah paths, no MF. But when a normal party is such overkill for the difficulty of the rest of the dungeons, why not maximize the return on time invested (and yes, I’d happily run AC explore in a party of 5 warriors in exotic MF gear)?

You think highly of yourself. I can safely say, I’m not suprised you wear MF kind when you go on boasting like that about your own skill.

Modesty goes a long way.

A long way where?

I wear MF gear on that warrior specifically because my skill as a player makes it practical. I’m good at the game. Using MF gear lets me get higher rewards to go with my higher skill. I’m a big proponent that people should benefit from working smarter, not harder (I suspect it’s an American culture thing).

In the previous anti-MF gear threads, it was made abundantly clear that people just don’t like someone else getting more reward for the same amount of time spent on a task. It isn’t at all about efficiency or how much you actually contribute to the group for most. If it was, every AC run group would consist of nothing but level 80 warriors in full exotic zerker gear using max damage consumables.

However, most players make it perfectly clear they’re okay dragging along sub-80 people, or people who have non-exotic gear, or people who haven’t run the dungeon so many times they have every encounter and boss memorized. After all, it is a game. We’re playing to have fun, not tweak out the last .001% of productivity. So that whole argument about not contributing as much to the party…ya…completely hollow. It’s a weak attempt to try to rationalize what is truly an emotional, not rational, response.

This is also why I’m completely okay with people announcing they want no MF gear in groups. I have almost 20 alts. Only one has MF gear. If they don’t want MF, I’m totally okay with playing one of my others. It’s about fun, and I get that there are people who have that purely emotional reaction to the idea that someone might be getting more digital goodies than they are.

But while there are some who have that reaction, most just don’t care. Every single one of these threads has just a few people who go ballistic about MF gear. The vast majority of forum participants, who make up a tiny subset of the GW2 population anyway, just don’t care. Most people aren’t going to obsess about shaving 30 seconds off a Howling King fight, especially since that amount of time doesn’t even exceed the variation caused by the random number generator’s contribution to fights. They’re not going to stress that another player is trying to maximize his loot in order to pay for his altaholic problem.

My suggestion. If you do care about not wanting MF in your group, just say so up front. Most players will respect that, and those that won’t likely have far worse problems they bring with them than what gear they’re wearing. I’d suggest giving serious thought to why it is you care so much about MF gear when you obviously don’t care about all the other ways in which players “hurt” the group’s productivity.

Well, I would suggest that except serious thought doesn’t really have much place in a game. Moar funz. Less serious.

RoRo.8270:

I’m still having a hard time figuring out how people can defend magic find gear in fractals and dungeons. They intentionally get a full set knowing it only benefits them while reducing their survivability and damage thus increasing the time to complete a run.

What difference in time? You mean the fact my MF warrior is more efficient than the average ‘other’ warrior you could get?

On my MF warrior in head to toe MF exotics, it’s likely you’ll complete most dungeons faster than on my hammer-shouts warrior who is also head to toe exotics because my MF warrior has much better DPS and doesn’t need the extra toughness and vitality my tank has for most dungeons.

My MF warrior also likely has better stats than the average AC pug or 20 and below fractal player because she is head to toe exotics rather than mixing in some yellows or even greens and blues.

I’m also a very solid player who knows all the dungeons I run her in. You’d lose more time by taking an average player versus me.

Now sure, high level fractals or some of the Arah paths, no MF. But when a normal party is such overkill for the difficulty of the rest of the dungeons, why not maximize the return on time invested (and yes, I’d happily run AC explore in a party of 5 warriors in exotic MF gear)?

cargan.5689:

Xavori.3768:]Rangers are OP because 20,000 point AoE’s from 1500 away is a great way to ruin a bunch of people’s day. Or because they throw traps at people. Or because while you’re chasing the ranger in circles, his pet kitty is smapping you upside the head for 5k+ a shot.

Edit for accuracy: Rangers are OP because of one 200point AoE that if your awake you can walk out of. Or because they throw traps at person (they arent big enough to hit people ). Or because while you’re chasing the ranger in circles, his pet kitty is running 20feet behind you because it cant attack a moving target.

Before you try to juvenile feline all over my post, have you actually played a full on zerker longbow ranger? I have one. She racks up kills faster than any of my other toons. Even faster than my totally OP thief or dagger/dagger elementalist (‘cept I’m signet/aura rather than arcane/cantrips cuz I’m that much more leetzor).

Or how about a cat-specc’d beastmaster. I have one of those, too. I was making myself giggle in WvW by sending my cat after the people trying to use an arrow cart to keep my guys from getting across a bridge. You’d think after the first three guys died to kitty paws, they’d maybe focus fire on the cat rather than the ranger dancing just out of range. As for the kitty chasing bit…rangers have a plethora of cripples. Pick one.

I haz no snarky comeback for the people-person thing. First, I thought that one was phunny. Second, ’tis true

I have three rangers. They all rock.

One is a faberge cannon using longbow. 20k barrage. 2-2.5k per autoattack. 10k total on rapid fire. All with piercing and all from 1500 range. Close to thief-like burst damage but without the whole being in melee range risky part. (fyi: this toon gets more of my WvW badges than any other, and I do have every single class and built for WvW)

One is a tank ranger with kitty from hell. This is sneaky fun in PvP as people just assume pets are harmless and kill the ranger first and whatever. Thing is, my ranger is really hard to kill while the kitty is traited and buffed to hell and back. Also, it’s funny as hell to sit out of range of the arrow cart as your kitty cat goes and claws the cart’s operator’s eyes out.

Third ranger is a condition damage build that I decided to goof off with because in testing the previous two builds, I was always stacking bleeds without trying. Add in poison and fire traps, and you have a lot of options. Plus, you still have your pet to take a few shots for ya.

Elementalists are OP because you can equip as a tank and pick up traits that give you back a good chunk of damage. Plus, they are fast as lightning (literally) on the battlefield making them either impossible to catch when they run, or run away from when you’re hurt.

Thieves are OP because they can splatter a single non-bunker opponent before that opponent knows what hit them. They can also use stealth to get out of a fight provided they don’t get buried under AoE.

Warriors are OP because they wear heavy armor, can build for high damage, and still have very good toughness, health, and two regens. Add in a whole pile of options on group buffs, and they are just awesomesauce with sprinkles on top.

Mesmers are OP because portal. Oh, and because they can stack so many different conditions on their target even when using crit or direct damage builds. They also have access to stealth which combined with clone spam makes them a freakin’ pain to target.

Guardians are OP because you can’t kill them. You also can’t run from them as they have both a pull and an immobilize in their weapons skills. They even have the audacity to make everyone around them harder to kill which makes all their buddies OP too.

Rangers are OP because 20,000 point AoE’s from 1500 away is a great way to ruin a bunch of people’s day. Or because they throw traps at people. Or because while you’re chasing the ranger in circles, his pet kitty is smapping you upside the head for 5k+ a shot.

Engineers are OP because if they weren’t, why would they keep getting nerfed? Grenades has been hit twice already and is likely looking at getting it again come the AoE nerf which is proof positive that engineers were the mostest best killers on the battlefield.

Necros are OP because…um…err…

Was about to go hunting for a “what changed” announcement, but there it was front and center.

Very nice.

Pretty sure a full zerker longbow traited ranger kills lots of stuff attacking and defending structures. I’m pretty sure of this because that’s how I traited one of my rangers, and she does in fact kill plenty of stuff.

I’m also pretty sure a beastmaster ranger with kitties provides a horrible bad shock to thieves and whatnot who see a ranger and think “Ranger. Easy Kill.” I have one of those, too. See, she’s a tank, but her kitten is most definitely not. And since people ignore pets to beat on the ranger…

The stuff on traps has been covered.

Now, if you want to feel useless in WvW, try playing a necro. Thieves can shake off their attempts and condition damage while cutting them to ribbons. Warriors just obliterate all three of their health bars. Their minions tend to sit around watching while their master gets splattered. Mesmers happily throw clones and confusion at them.

Loosifah.4739:

First of all; clones suck. The only use for them is diversion or exploding.

Second, phantasms have pretty hefty CD’s.

You don’t play a mesmer, do you?

I have a clone-spitting phantasmal damage build that creates clones on dodges, clones with weapon skill, clones with utility skills. Cooldown on my weapon phantasm is 12 seconds.

My clones stack vulnerability and bleeds. My phantasms stick 7-8 bleeds per attack. I also have stealth because it’s a really mean trick to go invisible versus thieves.

If they fix necro minions within our lifetimes, that might be a difficult choice. As it stands, mezzie is way better.

Mezzie’s can be built to work very well melee or ranged, and have a host of utilities that are useful either solo or grouped. Necro’s have mediocre condition damage potential paired with a potentially a solid bunker build, but none of the survival tricks that you really need to work a bunker to its fullest.

Okay. I run AC path 2 almost every day in PUG’s and have no idea why you are ranking it up there with any of the Arah paths. My MF warrior goes melee versus the Ghost Eater no problem at all. My level 60 ranger went melee with him tonight no problem at all.

Conversely, Lupi and Alpha would turn either of those toons into so much goo…

If you can find an escort, go for it. You’ll also need someone else to distract the champ karka every time you want to mine because if it’s anywhere nearby, you’re dead.

Just for giggles, I took a level 60 thief to the rich ori vein to see if I could. Nope. Even a full shadows thief with all the possible stealth tricks can’t stealth enough given that level 80 mobs aggro level 60 toons from a LONG ways away.

Oh, and with the price of Ori dropping like it has been, this is a horribad way to try and make some extra coin. Getting said alt to level 80 and doubling up on AC explore paths would make you far, far more.

Just for giggles, I loaded up my MF warrior to check her stats.

Power 1902
Precision 2401
Toughness 1413
Vitality 1023
-
Attack 2926
Critical Chance 58%
Armor 2624
Health 19,442 w/ 2 regens
-
Magic Find (no luck stacks or food) 116%

Wanna bet I contribute more with her than most other players you’ll find in a PUG?