Guild Wars 2

yolo swaggins.2570:

Zenith.7301:

Steal is a class mechanic, not a utility skill. Ranger pet skills have cast times. Warrior burst skills have cast times. Mesmer illusions need to run to a target if they’re not sitting in melee range.

Steal is often coupled as a teleport with backstab for burst, or to cover a cloak and dagger animation in WvW where D/D is used.

You’re complaining about powerful effects with no tells but the thief has plenty of his own.

I’m sorry to interrupt your “woe is me” thief parade, but TCG/oRNG/Abjured all run a thief. Guess how many mesmers/rangers/any class that isn’t thief or ele they run?

<1% of the thief population is not in any way a valid sample size to use to strengthen your point. Secondly there are plenty of tells. Anyone with situational awareness and an average reaction time can make backstab fail to deal that much damage almost every time it happens.

So if you are having such a hard time with thief’s sole source of competitive dps, then get some. Or better yet, play a thief yourself and be OP. It isn’t hard.

Already play a thief. Leveled him to 80 from PvP actually. As I did for several alts and I have all professions at 80.

I’m glad you made a tangent attacking my playing skills to divert from the fact that some thief skills have no tells.

It’s just cute how superior you act about mesmer shatters having no tells when your class is full of cheese of its own.

Maybe it will pass with time just as you whined about passive spirit rangers until they too were nerfed into irrelevance.

ChoChoBo.6503:

Zenith.7301:

Thief steal has no tells. It’s virtually a mechanic without counter, unlike others who have a cast time and animation a thief just ports instantly to you and gets an item without counterplay, in the case of a mesmer 10 seconds of every boon, which is just dumb but it’s not just the mesmer steal that’s dumb.

A thief is in no position to whine about the lack of tells, they’ve got so many skills without tells to begin with.

how is Steal a burst though? if you want to talk about skills without tells in general, what about meditations, cantrips, shouts, readied mantras oh this list is long.

It’s not like Steal and readied Venoms are themselves burst skills.

Steal is a class mechanic, not a utility skill. Ranger pet skills have cast times. Warrior burst skills have cast times. Mesmer illusions need to run to a target if they’re not sitting in melee range.

Steal is often coupled as a teleport with backstab for burst, or to cover a cloak and dagger animation in WvW where D/D is used.

You’re complaining about powerful effects with no tells but the thief has plenty of his own.

I’m sorry to interrupt your “woe is me” thief parade, but TCG/oRNG/Abjured all run a thief. Guess how many mesmers/rangers/any class that isn’t thief or ele they run?

Cynz.9437:

Zenith.7301:

I knew you’d change topic away from “burst without tells” after realizing you precious burst has no actual tells, just guess work.

i am not going away from topic…. if you think that stealth burst from thieves is OP, sure let’s nerf it (it is not backstab that kills you 99% of the time, fyi…. but keep living in illusion that backstab is OP and reason why people run vamp runes lol)

You are changing topics.

You complained a burst not having any tells, presumably mind wrack, without realizing that thief burst is all the same, especially when you can stealth before hand and pull tricks like porting through a wall to burst someone down without them having direct line of sight to see you coming.

Thief burst has no tell. There’s no animation for a backstab under stealth.

Thief steal has no tells. It’s virtually a mechanic without counter, unlike others who have a cast time and animation a thief just ports instantly to you and gets an item without counterplay, in the case of a mesmer 10 seconds of every boon, which is just dumb but it’s not just the mesmer steal that’s dumb.

A thief is in no position to whine about the lack of tells, they’ve got so many skills without tells to begin with.

I knew you’d change topic away from “burst without tells” after realizing you precious burst has no actual tells, just guess work.

Cynz.9437:

Solori.6025:

Cynz.9437:

nerf mesmers, eles and co. first…… vamp is kind of needed with all the dmg flying around

He’s right.
First you need to nerf the burst of every class that has the potential to burst.
SOooo basically every class needs to not be able to burst.
Mostly thieves though.

there is burst and then there is ability to one shot things w/o any tell while having good survival/mobility/control in 1 build

lol a thief asking about burst without tells.

DeceiverX.8361:

I think you have no idea what DPS is.

Incoming expert talk

And then you have maul, which allows for the biggest damage on a single hit possible in the game. Yes, when traited and gear for properly, Maul can and will hit higher than a full-glass thief’s backstab.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
10/10

almost fell for this wonderful bait.

Captain Unusual.9163:

Zenith.7301:

Captain Unusual.9163:

Bhawb.7408:

Blood is Power isn’t a meaningful group utility when Warrior brings 25 might permanently solo, or just fire fields + blast finishers, and BiP is such short duration it actually hurts the might stacking due to pushing off higher duration mights.

You mean like the long duration might stacks from Phalanx Strength?

I hope you weren’t being sarcastic and implying PS warrior clones short might duration into the group. A PS warrior with strength runes is a guaranteed 25 might stacks every 100 blades, and the might won’t fall off thanks to 100b having such a short cd with forceful greatsword.

And forceful greatsword is just a chilling force on steroids with no low uptime conditional (necro doesn’t have the uptime of chill to the degree a warrior is critting).

PSEA warriors are horrendously broken. 25 permanent might stacks in one button pres, 170 power+ condi damage (banner), 170 precision+ferocity (banner), 150 power from empowered allies, and the best group resurrection skill in the game (since the ranger elite spirit was nerfed into oblivion despite the fact the spirit had a cast time to spawn and another cast time to rez, courtesy of the always wonderful spvp whine breaking one class/spec at a time).

So long as PSEA warriors and eles with persisting flames continue to exist as is, all other classes and their lesser might/fury generation skills will be obsolete and suboptimal.

They need to nerf ele fire field uptime and the might duration from blasting the field (or alternatively put a cap on the amount of blasts per field, it’s way too easy to cap might with a single field). And Phalanx Strength/Forceful Greatsword need a nerf as well, while the stat contribution from warrior banners need to be given to other classes as well so having a warrior in the party isn’t mandatory).

Are you grossly exaggerating, or am I missing something? Hundred Blades hits 9 times, and sure as hell doesn’t generate 3 stacks per hit.

You do with 3+ targets.

Against a single boss you still give the party 25 perma might because PS clones any might you gain into allies. You get 9 from 100b on a single target+3 for great justice.

A PSEA warrior runs with eles. An ele sets down lava font as part of his rotation. he generates 6 stacks of might from arcane brilliance and arcane wave on it, plus everytime somebody else blasts the field.

So those 6 stacks he aoe buffed the party with, you cloned unto the party for 12. This is a conservative estimate.

The point is your group will never run out of 25 might stacks with a PSEA warrior around. ESPECIALLY with cleave.

Either way 9 might stacks aoe on a single target from 100b is absurd, necro gets an aoe 8 stacks of might for 8 seconds on a 30 sec cd as a UTILITY SKILL.

Armor in this game is made with female human and norn in mind. In case you didn’t look at Luminescent or Dwayna armor, or mostly everything for that matter, males are an afterthought.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

If a weapon has 60% of its skills doing other things than DPS and its auto attack does low DPS, how can that then be classed as a DPS weapon? It makes no sense to do so. If maul was not on GS, it would almost be totally defensive, so with the added burst, it is utility. But lets not argue over nomenclature.

By your count necromancer dagger is also not a DPS weapon lol. Most classes in fact have more skills with utility in them and usually either the autoattack or an extra attack skill as DPS.

This is getting tiresome, really.

Iavra.8510:

Also remember that torch has to be balanced with Prestige stealth in mind, which probably means that its phantasm has to be weaker than iDuelist/iSwordsman.

…..what?

How does this even make sense? Other weapons bring strong utility as well.

The Prestige’s Strength is already balanced by the fact it has a whopping 30 sec cd, as opposed to the much lower cd’s of other weapons’ #4 skills.

I just don’t like the 80-90’s bland hairstyles. Some more modern short and long hairstyles please.

And not the hobo half bald ragged beard viking looks pls. Males in this game are already ugly and lacking sexy options compared to the options females have in this game.

Think John Stamos and Chris Pratt and the Hemsworth and Chris Evans pls.

I’d rather we get a breakbar through class mechanics/weak utility skills rather than replacing already solid traits.

Sword/dagger has 3 built in evades that also poison or cipple and create blast fields, and somehow its damage is not total garbage so why should greatsword be any different.

Nobody is asking they remove the evade. They’re asking they buff the autoattack.

DeceiverX.8361:

Zenith.7301:

I don’t even get why people call GS a utility weapon. Whirling Defenses or an extra blast finisher from call of the wild is far better utility to your group, and you still get leaps via monarch’s leap to blast water fields with.

This is the problem with a competing pvp versus pve population, what pvp people find valuable is completely worthless to a pve crowd.

…if you’re running PvE speed clears, sure.

A weapon devoted to not dying can just as equally be considered a utility weapon. A utility weapon performs roles that the other available ones cannot.

Ask any thief what their utility weapon is. Almost all of them will respond shortbow. PvP players will not say it’s because of its blasts but because it offers the best mobility and evades on the class. No other weapon is as defensive.

Guards say staff, because it enables offensive pressure through stacking might and swiftness.

Warriors say longbow because it offers ranged pressure and reliable CI procs.

Necros say staff because it offers long range and LF generation with AOE potential.

Mesmers say staff of torch because they offer durability in the forms of damage avoidance and stealth.

Eles will say staff because of its AOE potential and CC/direct group buffs.

See the trend? Utility isn’t just about stacking 25 group might and enabling some heals and pressing 1.

You do realize 1h sword uses whirling defense for reflects, path of scars for the group pull and monarch’s leap blasts water fields, right?

In fact most BM bunkers run not the greatsword but 1h sword particularly because its evades can be controlled and give you extra mobility and monarch leap is comparable to swoop.

Greatsword is used because it’s the only melee weapon with some burst, however miserable it is. It’s not like rangers are gonna run double bows or longbow/mainhand axe.

It’s a DPS weapon.

Iavra.8510:

The game needs less burning, not more…

Burning is only broken on classes that can stack it and maintain it to ridiculous degrees like engineer and guardian.

3 stacks every 6 seconds from iMage is not gonna break it. If they nerf burning, which may be necessary or make bleeding scale a lot better so at higher stacks it becomes the stronger condi as it was always meant to be (burning was infrequent and did high base damage, but bleed was meant to surpass it when ramped up, that’s not the case and it needs to be fixed), then they also need to increase the amount of stacks iMage does.

Point is, iMage should be doing damage competitive with that of a power phantasm, and in fact its potential should be slightly higher to account for the fact its damage is over time and over time effects should always deal more damage than burst skills.

Remember the pet being able to be renamed yet it goes away on pet switch? lol Still here after 3 years.

Either way they’re gonna have to allow us to select stats for pets or nothing besides jaguars and drakes will ever be picked in PvE. The sustained damage of any pet but jaguar is so horrendously low, and even with the pet jaguar it brings the ranger to low middle tier DPS out of all the classes.

I don’t even get why people call GS a utility weapon. Whirling Defenses or an extra blast finisher from call of the wild is far better utility to your group, and you still get leaps via monarch’s leap to blast water fields with.

This is the problem with a competing pvp versus pve population, what pvp people find valuable is completely worthless to a pve crowd.

Dodging a duelist mitigates part of the barrage. Dodging an iMage mitigates an entirety of its damage. I don’t get why you’re saying no one dodges iMage, any person that has played the game for some time is already conditioned to avoid phantasm attacks. You’re crating some cherry picked circumstance to paint your scenario in a better light, either way the iduelist does considerably more damage on a single target.

A 29% damage difference with an unlikely bleed proc on a slow projectile is not something I’d call insignificant. It is a meaningful difference.

I just don’t frequent WvW where I know I’ll get interruptions. There’s plenty of designated WvW spaces where most people go around dueling. I love BD as well, but I take PU for the simple fact that if I feel like taking a spin somewhere else in WvW while not dueling, PU is a far easier spec to disengage and reset. If people try to outnumber me, I simply stealth off to the sunset, though good for you that you’re not lazy like me and prefer to build for the challenge.

I also prefer to run power specs so my availability of gearsets and food to complement the different builds is limited. I’ve settled on a single loadout for PU for 1v1 giggles and a power spec for when I want to actually be useful for my team.

I still firmly believe torch should be an undisputed condition application offhand and the iMage needs buffing. If they nerf PU, I hope The Pledge gets retooled as well since the torch still feels too niche. It’d be nice if they buffed torch’s iMage at least so mesmer could rely on it for condi pve specs. I don’t see how 3-4 burning stacks instead of its single one would be too much relative to what the other power phantasms are putting out right now.

If anything most condi mesmer builds need some propping up to not be completely eclipsed by engineers.

Zephyr’s Speed will not override 25 stacks of might fulltime as well as fury.

And if it irks you so much there are calculations with BM instead as well. If you really think that will bump a 14% damage pet all the way to 30% I have a bridge to sell you.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

• While I disagree with Pyro on the value of the iMage itself, I agree with the rest of what he said, and I agree that you won’t notice iMage vs iDuelist much in pvp because they just don’t live long enough for that.

Zenith.7301:

It’s basically a troll stealth build that relies on your opponent’s massive stupidity to stay for that long an amount of time for you to wear him down.

Except that’s exactly what everyone is whining about! That massive amount of stealth! In WvW, it’s actually very strong! In fact, you admitted that yourself!
That’s the real problem with your claim, you see:

The torch offhand variants I find just overload on stealth at a great offensive loss, not worth it at all compared to the control and spike condi pressure from pistol offhand.

^ okay, so you say PU doesn’t use torch

The best part about PU mesmer is that you can just plagiarize thief behavior of never dying unless you’re dumb. With the silly amount of stealth and aegis+blink you have so much getaway potential that even if you don’t get a kill you can disengage at will and reset/try again later.

^ okay, so you say PU has a silly amount of stealth.

Understand that I’ve already proven that “a silly amount of stealth” requires torch. Period.
And then you went and suggested that “a silly amount of stealth” is just a “troll stealth build”.

So which is it, Zenith? Is the great thing about playing PU mesmer ripping off thieves with a silly amount of stealth? Or is that just a troll stealth build?

The truth is,
If you want to rip off thieves, you gotta run torch.
If the trick to beating condi necros is interrupts, you gotta run interrupts, and that means taking pistol…
and having no interrupt support, because I’m using Deceptive Evasion so I can’t use Mistrust (which sucks anyway), and I’m using PU so I can’t use Chaotic Interruption, and I can’t afford to drop Dueling or Chaos for Dom because Sharper Images is in dueling and PU is in Chaos, so I’m left with 0 interrupt support.

So…condi necros counter me.

Additionally, the ability to run away from an enemy doesn’t mean they don’t hard counter me. I can’t beat a diamond skin ele, period. If I’m trying to take a camp, kill a dolyak, kill a guard, cap the temple, whatever, and a diamond skin ele shows up, my options are:
1. run away
2. run away
3. Hope someone else shows up to help me.
That’s what a hard counter is, a build that by its very nature counters your strengths, not necessarily a build that means death the moment you see it.

So diamond skin eles and condi necros still hard counter me.
I’m gonna add condi thief to that list, because I just don’t have enough condi cleanse to beat them, and we’re evenly matched in the stealth game.

I think 16 seconds of stealth is a silly amount of stealth. We just operate by different notions of what is silly, and I’m sorry I didn’t clarify.

I just said I liked pistol better as an overall weapon. It’s just a great offhand whereas torch is an offhand with 1 good skill and 1 terrible one.

I think your build still wins out even if you can’t cap objectives. I’m seeing it from a perspective of 1v1 combat, not whether you can take objectives.

To me PU is poor for taking objectives anyways, it’s a slow damage build, anet keeps gutting condi mesmer for no reason, and your averag power interrupt build will be taking camps quicker.

The whole appeal of PU is that it’s a good 1v1 build with no glaring weaknesses to other classes and the ability to disengage well, which isn’t usually a mesmer strength. Both torch and pistol variants do well for different reasons, but against classes for which I need more pressure and interrupts, which are many, I prefer the pistol. That ranged stun is much more flexible than the prestige.

TLDR buff Phantasmal Mage!

Fay.2357:

Zenith.7301:

That offhand torch guts your condition pressure. You gain more stealth via torch, but at what price?

Guts your condition pressure? That’s not even flirting with reality.

Offhand torch gives you an aoe blind (confusion), an aoe burn, and a bouncing projectile burn that is admittedly of questionable value.

Offhand pistol gives you a stun and a single target volley that will apply bleeds.

You absolutely get a similar amount of condition pressure from torch as you do pistol. In fact, in an aoe environment you get far more condition damage from torch than from pistol. On top of that, you gain far more access to stealth and associated boons, as well as more condition removal as well.

Zenith.7301:

Basically our differences are how much of a bunker you want to build as. I don’t just choose PU for the stealth duration, I choose it for the aegis and protection I gain.

With just decoy and mass invis, you’re not gonna be getting much of any defensive boons from stealthing…because you have extremely limited access to stealth. Saying ‘oh, I just take it for the boons’ is ludicrous because without stealth you get no boons.

Zenith.7301:

I just don’t see the appeal of offhand torch+ pledge, the phantasm does absolutely horrendous damage,

The duelist isn’t going to be breaking any direct damage records either when you’re running full rabid. The duelist will apply ~6 bleeds (generously) on your target, while the Mage will apply one burn. Yeah, the Mage does less damage, but not that much less. Additionally, the duelist is single target only, while the Mage (and the prestige) can hit multiple enemies at once. Basically, you’re wrong.

Zenith.7301:

and every time you have far less bleeds on a target,

So what? You’re trading single target bleed application for multi-target burn application. I’ll take the burns any day of the week.

Zenith.7301:

no real CC outside chaos storm and diversion.

So what? It’s not an interrupt build, you don’t need to be pumping out hard cc. In fact, hard cc interacts destructively with your main damage: confusion and torment. Chaos storm and diversion provide plenty of interrupts if you use them intelligently.

Zenith.7301:

It’s basically a troll stealth build that relies on your opponent’s massive stupidity to stay for that long an amount of time for you to wear him down. Offhand pistol provides a spike in condi application.

As I’ve just shown, you’re simply wrong in every way. Offhand pistol doesn’t really provide a noticeable spike n condie application (this is a shatter build remember, spike condie application is built into the playstyle if you’re intelligent).

The only single thing the offhand pistol really gives you is better synergy for a hybrid build using sinister or rampager gear. However, I’m assuming that we’re not discussing that sort of build here, so that point is irrelevant.

I’m not taking PU for aoe purposes. I’ll build power if I want to run anything not 1v1 related.The phantasmal mage comes with the disadvantage of a slower projectile. It’s a terrible phantasm.

I also wouldn’t go around throwing statements like “not even flirting with reality” when you compare a 1 stack of 6 seconds of burn as not that much less damage than 6 stacks of 5 second bleeds.

6 seconds of 1 burning stack at 2500 condition damage is 3159 damage.

5 seconds of 6 bleed stacks at 2500 condition damage is 5160 damage. A 39% damage difference.

Yeah, the Mage does less damage, but not that much less.

I don’t think I want to continue a discussion with you by this point.

I think the chill should be 3-4 seconds tbh.

That offhand torch guts your condition pressure. You gain more stealth via torch, but at what price?

Basically our differences are how much of a bunker you want to build as. I don’t just choose PU for the stealth duration, I choose it for the aegis and protection I gain.

I just don’t see the appeal of offhand torch+ pledge, the phantasm does absolutely horrendous damage, and every time you have far less bleeds on a target, no real CC outside chaso storm and diversion. It’s basically a troll stealth build that relies on your opponent’s massive stupidity to stay for that long an amount of time for you to wear him down. Offhand pistol provides a spike in condi application.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

The number in pvp would be higher (percentage wise) not lower as connection issues are the same in wvw but one is able to use consumables to boost damage.

How are you going to compare pet damage to ranger damage when the ranger is receiving benefits from fury and might while the pet isn’t (This damage is increased by the vulnerability from open strike).

I’m glad he has video so we can see whats going on . Its one of the reason I don’t take even groups like [DNT]’ s as gospel. I think they have even stated they don’t calculate pet damage.

The 30% percent seem about right. This percentage doesn’t have to be based of the the highest weapons sets dps. Fractoring that we were given about a 15% dps increase with the patch and the GS is 12% lower than LB/S-A and Beastmaster was not used, 30% sound right.

…….Except right in that link they do calculate pet DPS. This is hopeless. I can only hope this game gets DPS meters at some point so people like you can stop spewing this crap.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Zenith.7301:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Zenith.7301:

Coarr.3286:

the missing dps comes from our pet :P

No, it does not.

Do you even care to run DPS spreadsheets, or just pull this out from thin air?

Pets comprise about 20% of our damage at best and the difference between ranger greatsword autoattack and warrior/guardian autoattacks are far greater than 20%.

Can you please show us said spreadsheets so we can put this to bed once and for all?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2bem98/pve_nonfgs_dps_for_each_profession/

Next time do some of the homework yourself, I’m getting tired of being asked by people to go searching up again old knowledge as an attempt to shut down discussion.

You asked the question about DPS spreadsheets, meaning you either made one or know where one is, since you were having a go at someone else for having not read one, its only decent that you do. Burden of proof and all. Since you made out you had that knowledge, its not unfair to expect you to pass it on.
Well, being over a year old, yeah, that is old knowledge. But I didn’t ask to shut down the discussion, I asked so I could read it too, because a lot of numbers are bandied around with regards to how much damage the pet does, so having access to exact math would be nice, to know definitively.

Too bad its too old to be accurate.

This is ignorant.

Right there in the link the jaguar is calculated at 1600 dps max of the ranger’s best DPS spec sitting around 8k+ DPS. That’s 20% of the damage. Drake peaks at 1100 DPS, that’s 13.75% of the total DPS.

With the specialization changes the ranger’s DPS went up. The pet received 150 power and precision and ferocity, let’s treat that as a generous 10% performance boost.

Standard ranger 1h sword zerker DPS build is doing now 14-15k DPS, condi build is doing close to 16-17k DPS.

So a jaguar with a 10% boost now does ~1800 DPS at peak performance. That’s 13% of your damage on the lower range greatsword 14k DPS build. Even if by some miracle the specialization bumped pet damage by 20%, it’d still make up 14% of our DPS.

The ranger’s damage with the specialization went up considerably more than the pet did.

I’m glad you’ve managed to update your views with some research of your own.

The fact is, pets are terrible designed. They cannot reach our ferocity levels, meaning their percentage of our damage does not have as much crit damage, they do not benefit from food, they do not benefit from sigils or runes, and they don’t upgrade with ascended armor stat increases.

We need a kitten minor just so we can share boons with them, which should be baseline.

Even worse, our most competitive DPS pet, the jaguar, still does too low damage to allow us to compete, it does not cleave (only the much less damaging drakes do), and is far more fragile.

We begged arenanet in beta to make pets not a class mechanic of the ranger and they had the nerve to stick us with it and then abandon the feature to neglect. We didn’t even gain proper control of whn our pets use their other abilities besides f2. Liadri and Glint’s instance was the clearest example that they didn’t even care to design with the ranger in mind.

I don’t even understand why they’re so incapable of letting pets scale and benefit from everything the master has. Mesmers have something close to this with phantasms, who scale off their power/crit/crit damage values, only missing out on sigils and trait % damage modifiers.

With the introduction of full ascended people will have a ~10% boost that benefits all their damage sources, and yet a best case scenario of 14% of the ranger’s damage will NOT gain any benefit from ascended stat gear.

More importantly, what this tells you is if in PvE any pets besides drake/jaguar are to see any use, their horrendous DPS will need to be brought up to jaguar levels of mediocrity. Moa and Bear and ranged pets do such pitiful damage, bear and moa do less than a single stack burning tick, it’s just terrible.

Which is why it’s weird someone would bring up winning 1v1 against thieves in spvp.

Thieves are handicapped in spvp. Their best dueling builds are not their best team builds.

Stealth spam hurts your team as it loses you points, and bumbling around doing constant resets does you no favors as the opponent is standing on point while your team is fighting undermanned.

Basically, evaluating a thief as a 1v1 class in spvp is a flawed perspective. It is plain obvious to anyone however that thieves are much more useful to a spvp team. Virtually all the teams in the championsjips (TCG,Abjured,oRNG) had a thief in their team. You can’t say the same about ranger or necromancer for that matter.

It doesn’t mean the ranger is not viable, Hiro is doing fine. He just probably has to put in far more effort to achieve the same results a midling thief or d/d ele can achieve.

TLDR Buff rangers!

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Zenith.7301:

Coarr.3286:

the missing dps comes from our pet :P

No, it does not.

Do you even care to run DPS spreadsheets, or just pull this out from thin air?

Pets comprise about 20% of our damage at best and the difference between ranger greatsword autoattack and warrior/guardian autoattacks are far greater than 20%.

Can you please show us said spreadsheets so we can put this to bed once and for all?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2bem98/pve_nonfgs_dps_for_each_profession/

Next time do some of the homework yourself, I’m getting tired of being asked by people to go searching up again old knowledge as an attempt to shut down discussion.

Solandri.9640:

TheFantasticGman.9451:

Something extra to think about when with banners you don’t have to. Why make it intentionally harder than it has to be? Just seems silly. Banners are simply better because they can’t die, they’re mobile, and they are 100% the entire time they’re up.

Actually, banners last 90 sec on a 120 sec cooldown. So their uptime is less than spirits (provided the spirit doesn’t die).

My take on the banner/spirit comparison is just that – spirits can die. The thing that can be killed by the enemy should have a bigger effect than the thing that can’t. But it’s the other way around with banners having better effects (frost spirit excepted).

One of the great things about GW1 was that when you placed a spirit, you forced your opponent into a decision. Does he spend time killing the spirit to remove its effect? Or does he live with its effect and continue attacking you? That dynamic is gone from GW2 because of how weak ranger spirits are.

90 sec on a 120 sec cd is immaterial, most PvE fights don’t last beyond even 60 seconds. For all intents and purposes banner uptime on bosses is 100%.

What’s more, given that spirits die early often, they also have reduced uptime, and unlike banners their effects are on 10 sec ICD’s except frost spirit, with a 70% proc rate and the effects are often short duration.

Skullface.7293:

Darkness.9732:

Puck.9612:

Darkness.9732:

Everything is better than a ranger. We all know that.
If we could count all the players who quitted playing ranger…well you would accept my statement. Since we can’ t count them..there are still some rangers who have ^^ hope^^.
Loose that hope couse the first decent mesmer or ele or thief will stomp you in seconds.

You must have been a pretty crappy ranger if you were dying to thieves. No wonder you rage quit the game.

Said the best ranger in the universe @Puck I bet that you are the typical ranger who in 10 fights gets rekt 9 times and claims to be good^^
If ranger are so good…Can you tell me why in spvp finals or high level matches there are more thieves than rangers?^ Oh sorry my fault ZERO RANGERS.

Sorry to crush your fun but I have never lost a single straight 1v1 versus thieves with the build I am using with e Dream.

You’ll very soon see me playing in high level matches in ESLs. We were the first team to beat Abjured after 30 weeks in a match last week and I’m pretty confident we can do it again.

Unfortunately spvp thieves are NOT WvW thieves. WvW thieves have far higher crit damage, are not limited to fighting on points so they can reset at will and drag out a fight to run you out of cooldowns without anything to lose since you aren’t competing over points, and they have access to some broken items like potions and food not available in spvp.

Thieves are much weaker in spvp than they are in WvW. So are cele D/D eles for that matter and they were already obscene in spvp.

Coarr.3286:

the missing dps comes from our pet :P

No, it does not.

Do you even care to run DPS spreadsheets, or just pull this out from thin air?

Pets comprise about 20% of our damage at best and the difference between ranger greatsword autoattack and warrior/guardian autoattacks are far greater than 20%.

I wouldn’t say hardcounter. I don’t see a PU mesmer dying to a diamond skin ele unless he wants to, you just can’t kill them either.

Necro is also not too bad, they’re interrupt bait and being PU condi doesn’t lock you out of your interrupt options considering most PU run offhand pistol and staff so you’ve got plenty of interrupts. The torch offhand variants I find just overload on stealth at a great offensive loss, not worth it at all compared to the control and spike condi pressure from pistol offhand.

The best part about PU mesmer is that you can just plagiarize thief behavior of never dying unless you’re dumb. With the silly amount of stealth and aegis+blink you have so much getaway potential that even if you don’t get a kill you can disengage at will and reset/try again later.

It cuts both ways though, PU mesmer or any condi mesmer for that matter has such a condition ramp up that any opponent who’s not obsessed with winning 1v1’s can just disengage from you and you won’t be very successful chasing as PU, staff projectiles are slow and sword ileap is unreliable for catching people who run away.

Captain Unusual.9163:

Bhawb.7408:

Blood is Power isn’t a meaningful group utility when Warrior brings 25 might permanently solo, or just fire fields + blast finishers, and BiP is such short duration it actually hurts the might stacking due to pushing off higher duration mights.

You mean like the long duration might stacks from Phalanx Strength?

I hope you weren’t being sarcastic and implying PS warrior clones short might duration into the group. A PS warrior with strength runes is a guaranteed 25 might stacks every 100 blades, and the might won’t fall off thanks to 100b having such a short cd with forceful greatsword.

And forceful greatsword is just a chilling force on steroids with no low uptime conditional (necro doesn’t have the uptime of chill to the degree a warrior is critting).

PSEA warriors are horrendously broken. 25 permanent might stacks in one button pres, 170 power+ condi damage (banner), 170 precision+ferocity (banner), 150 power from empowered allies, and the best group resurrection skill in the game (since the ranger elite spirit was nerfed into oblivion despite the fact the spirit had a cast time to spawn and another cast time to rez, courtesy of the always wonderful spvp whine breaking one class/spec at a time).

So long as PSEA warriors and eles with persisting flames continue to exist as is, all other classes and their lesser might/fury generation skills will be obsolete and suboptimal.

They need to nerf ele fire field uptime and the might duration from blasting the field (or alternatively put a cap on the amount of blasts per field, it’s way too easy to cap might with a single field). And Phalanx Strength/Forceful Greatsword need a nerf as well, while the stat contribution from warrior banners need to be given to other classes as well so having a warrior in the party isn’t mandatory).

Fancypants.9705:

Maybe a lot of people are busy in the Silverwastes and skip dungeons?

Can’t blame them. In about a day of chest farming I was able to craft a full set of ascended light armor with the amount of dragonite ore raining down on me and the money from farming buying the time gated mats.

Dungeons just can’t approach that. Especially fractals.

Sad thing is they’re more likely to nerf Silverwastes rewards than buffing dungeons/fractals.

Gotta keep the gold grinds or people won’t buy their gems to convert into gold.

The only boss I dislike meleeing is Archdiviner at the end of Cliffside since his melee “cone” actually hits behind him. He cheats, the kitten…

Mossman can be annoying with particle effects but as long as you can have an earth ele/bear take his attention meleeing him from the back is pretty safe.

If you want a safe class to melee with, pick D/F or staff elementalist. D/F ele’s autoattacks except for earth are all outside the range of a boss’s melee, so you can melee perfectly safe. Staff is easy to melee with because it’s actually a ranged weapon that does more damage than any melee weapon, but it allows you to stand close to melee for boon stacking but just enough distance away from the boss’s melee range.

Definitely do not try to melee with ranger as your introductory experience. 1h sword is a nightmare on some bosses.

It’s really sad when people are making compromises about staff to be just as kittentaff ele earth auto instead of worse lol.

Necro staff as well as any weapon that isn’t greatsword needs sizable buffs, period.

Ranger is alright, other classes are just better at anything the ranger can do. The problem lies as well with a pet that is made of wet tissue if you’re not running a drake, the pets outside drakes don’t cleave. The pets do not upgrade stats based on acquiring ascended gear, they do not benefit from food, or runes, or sigils.

Rangers is just a less mediocre necromancer. People say the same thing with necromancer— that it completes content perfectly fine— but the fact is necromancer also doesn’t excel at anything. So when you have classes that excel at nothing, that come with a good amount of inconvenience (pets and 1h sword for ranger, lack of active defenses for necromancer), and you stack them next to a class that brings 5 stat boosting auras (banners), can stack perma 25 might on the group and does more damage than a ranger, there are issues.

Just play what class you want to play. You may get kicked constantly on PuG’s or find a barrage of LFG’s asking for only ele/guard/warrior, but you can still get runs for all content on any class if you’re patient.

Robert Gee.9246:

Having condition transfer on shroud was something I was playing with when doing the trait revamp. Plague Sending originally used shroud 1 as its trigger condition rather than critical hit. I ended up changing it because shroud 1 already had several traits that affected it and I didn’t want to overload it, plus the curses line had several traits that affected shroud in some way already. I think it would be a bit overpowered though if Life Blast could transfer conditions on every hit though.

On the topic of increasing the cast speed of Life Blast: I think we would need to lower the damage multiplier if we wanted to increase the cast speed. The damage per second on that skill at its current cast time is already about as high as we are comfortable with. It’s a tricky skill to balance because we’d need to also look at adjusting all the traits that affect it.

A dagger autoattack build outDPS’es a life blast build. How is that right? You need to build up life force and it’s a finite amount of time you can spam life blasts on death shroud, which also require closer range.

If a mere mainhand dagger autoattack can OUTDPS Life Blast, which comes from a resource that needs to be built, removes access to utilities and doesn’t work with signet, what is the point of death shroud if it’s only a form used to turtle in?

Kidel.2057:

Since VB is not as you described and deeper and higher areas have been said to be more difficult, I don’t think so.

Berserker may even not be the best meta for pve after hot.

In which case it will be sinister, another glass build.

Kidel.2057:

do you mind a question? Since when PvE = dungeons or meta group?
good thing I directly mentioned “Verdant Brink” and “trash mobs”. I should probably also add exploration, solo play, pug groups, group events and so on.

Why would any trash mob or dynamic event matter? You could go in naked, mash your 1 button and pick up your loot bag/chest even if defeated while doing so.

Open world pve is irrelevant.

Kidel.2057:

Zenith.7301:

Using Impossible Odds is questionable as well based on whether chronomancer will be able to provide sufficient quickness. With 2x time warp, 2x well of action, and signet of inspiration, most bosses will be dead before your quickness uptime wears off.

And in general, the Shiro legend is not very good in PvE, it has mostly single target and mobility skills. Most people will probably resort to Glint and Jalis/Ventari legends for the group utility in PvE.

I don’t really get why people say that Shiro is not good in PvE.

Life siphon, superspeed, quickness, 3s aoe stun, dodge+stunbreak+(some) condi removal, leap.

Honestly I find Shiro the most useful legend for pve. Maybe for some bosses you may want to swap to Jalis or Ventari (I think that’s what the class design is about), but Shiro is very useful for Verdant Brink, trash mobs and many bosses (Quickness is the best boon in the game).
And I believe we’ll get many bosses with defiance bar in hot.

Superspeed is pretty much useless in a meta group, the mesmer will be porting you to the next location. Same applies for quickness, mesmer can give you 24 seconds via double time warp, and 7 seconds from wells, which he can copy onto allies for double gains with signet of inspiration.

So you’re stuck with a leapback stunbreak, not that great in pve, and your health siphon heal. Meanwhile Ventari provides projectile destruction and condi clears for the group; jalis provides aoe weakness+stability, a taunt+slow, and 20% reduced damage intake with the hammers.

Shiro’s traitline is pretty great for PvE, in fact it’s our best one followed by Invocation. It’s just the shiro utilities that are not amazing. Doesn’t mean you won’t use it at some point, but in a game all about boosting the group’s offensive and defensive potential, shiro is a very selfish legend.

Knox.8962:

Zenith.7301:

Using Impossible Odds is questionable as well based on whether chronomancer will be able to provide sufficient quickness. With 2x time warp, 2x well of action, and signet of inspiration, most bosses will be dead before your quickness uptime wears off.

And in general, the Shiro legend is not very good in PvE, it has mostly single target and mobility skills. Most people will probably resort to Glint and Jalis/Ventari legends for the group utility in PvE.

I’m just going to assume that in HoT bosses don’t fall over and hand out loot in under 30s.

I can only hope, but that presumes an immense HP sack, moreso than even fractal 50 bosses.

In the end they’re either going to have to give bosses more armor/condi resistance, or nerf the incredible synergy of 25 might stacks (still gives too large a damage increase for how easy it is to keep up) and 25% extra damage from vulnerability plus the ferocity stat on zerker/assassin toons.

Using Impossible Odds is questionable as well based on whether chronomancer will be able to provide sufficient quickness. With 2x time warp, 2x well of action, and signet of inspiration, most bosses will be dead before your quickness uptime wears off.

And in general, the Shiro legend is not very good in PvE, it has mostly single target and mobility skills. Most people will probably resort to Glint and Jalis/Ventari legends for the group utility in PvE.

Remember guys, mesmer is overpowered, but 2 of the top 3 teams aren’t running one. Time to get mesmers nerfed some more.

All of them had thieves. All of them had eles. 2 out of 3 had engineers.

Clearly mesmer was a problem class.

skowcia.8257:

Well..too bad i dont run dungs nor i am pve oriented..

And which class doesnt have sustain lines? Everyone in pve goes for the highest possible damage ignoring the most important aspect of this game – fun. Retribution and salvation are not created for dps boost. Retri is for self sustain and salv for some sustain+support like every other line.

For dps you have devastation, invocation and herald.

Which are the lines I mentioned revs in pve taking ;p

Look at a sustain line such as the mesmer’s Inspiration. It actually brings great utility — more reflects, aoe condi cleanse, superspeed/resistance on glamours.

Ventari’s line should be more like Inspiration or Ele’s Water/Arcana. Hell, even guardian’s lines are better.

But whatever you do, just remove those useless healing power/retaliation traits.

Switch healing power for vitality and I’d even be happy. Jalis could grant protection/blind/aegis/resistance instead of useless retaliation.

Or they could take my suggestion and merge healing power with vitality and boon duration with toughness.

Embolism.8106:

apharma.3741:

Like I say I think the main problem I’m having is if the thief hits first, then it’s usually GG for me and I should run. If I hit first I can usually put them on the defensive and kill them.

If it’s a question of hitting first, I find things like Runes of the Nightmare work great to mitigate enemy first strikes. I’m not sure if Mirror of Anguish works on Stoned but that could be an option if the problem is Basilisk Venom.

Often the damage will register before BV lands. BV is just there to delay the reaction, it also makes it easier to proc panic strike.

TBH they should change energy sigils to grant you a stack that makes it so your next dodge consumes no endurance. That way with RS you can bank that effect without overcapping endurance.

skowcia.8257:

Well i doubt road will ever come back to 5cd..or no cd at all. Getting all stacks at once would be better than standing in the field.. Overall road was overnerfed..cost, cd, duration. Thats a bit too much. And i like that taunt, but its not really viable in current state.

And who said cleric builds arent viable btw?
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Guardian_-_Bunker

That’s a pvp link…..this is a PvE discussion. If you bring a cleric staff guard to pve you deserve the kick.

Griffith.7238:

Zenith.7301:

My problem isn’t with the legends, it’s with their really lackluster traitlines of salvation/retribution.

There’s nothing remotely useful in those traitlines for PvE. Making Salvation healing power centric, especially a non-optional minor is going to kill that traitline in PvE as healing power is a garbage stat that costs too much offensive potential in the stat budget.

Nobody will ever take healing power into PvE, and as a result nobody will ever use Ventari’s traitline.

Same goes for the staff, it’s gonna be like the guardian’s staff in PvE. It will only be good in pvp if it keeps that terrible autoattack damage and meager healing.

If the challenging group content is actually “challenging” we might see a complete change of the meta.

Not really.

It will never be worth it to have healing power centric build. You do less than one third of the damage for a small benefit to infrquent heals, it’s never worth it. The boost from healing power stacking doesn’t even outheal a single autoattack from a mob.

Most of your healing actually comes from blasting water fields multiple times, which can easily be done by zerkers, and the most effective mitigation methods — blind, aegis, blocks/invulnerability, and protection are also usable by zerkers.

At best you might see a move to rabid condi builds if some extra toughness is necessary, but Clerict/PVT/Shaman builds will never be a thing under their current combat system.

Healing Power is a terrible stat that should be merged with vitality, or make it so you merge vitality with boon duration and healing power with toughness.

Brokensunday.4098:

Zenith.7301:

Vydahr.4285:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Vydahr.4285:

Also, another thing separating axe and scepter is that it takes time for a scepter attack to hit. Axe just hits, regardless of distance

What Scepter are you talking about? Necro scepter has no projectiles or travel time on any of its skills.

… I…. Apparently it’s been a reeeeeally long time since I used scepter. So, basically, then, axe is just so bad at its job that a condi weapon is better at it

Axe is better on a power spec. Scepter is better on a condi spec.

Axe is super terrible. Scepter is just mediocre relative to other classes’ condi weapons.

Either way, all weapons besides the reaper greatsword need buffing/retooling.

try using scepter on apower spec you will find that it deals more dmaage + condi than axe

No, you don’t. Check the coefficients in the wiki. Scepter has o.350/0.5 on all its skills except for feast of corruption, which has a 1.0 coefficient. All of them lower than those on the axe, as well as the base damage numbers.

It’s not a glowing endorsement on axe, but using scepter on a power build is a terrible idea.

Vydahr.4285:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Vydahr.4285:

Also, another thing separating axe and scepter is that it takes time for a scepter attack to hit. Axe just hits, regardless of distance

What Scepter are you talking about? Necro scepter has no projectiles or travel time on any of its skills.

… I…. Apparently it’s been a reeeeeally long time since I used scepter. So, basically, then, axe is just so bad at its job that a condi weapon is better at it

Axe is better on a power spec. Scepter is better on a condi spec.

Axe is super terrible. Scepter is just mediocre relative to other classes’ condi weapons.

Either way, all weapons besides the reaper greatsword need buffing/retooling.

DarkWasp.7291:

Well at least in PvE, Ranger is a top level DPS option.

• Sword auto is brutal
• Stability is very helpful
• Double Path of Scars is brutal
• Double Rapid Fire is brutal
• Two spirits that boost team DPS (Frost gives a 7% increase and Sun works great too)
• Great area condition cleanse
• Perfect candidate to use extra ele weapon summons

So when you hear PvE people saying it’s terrible, they obviously missed the potential.

…..lol

Ranger is “top level” if by top level you mean behind ele, thief, sinister engineer, and warrior.

Same potential damage as guardian, far less aoe and group utility.

So how can you call a class top if the only classes you are ahead of are mesmer and necro.

My problem isn’t with the legends, it’s with their really lackluster traitlines of salvation/retribution.

There’s nothing remotely useful in those traitlines for PvE. Making Salvation healing power centric, especially a non-optional minor is going to kill that traitline in PvE as healing power is a garbage stat that costs too much offensive potential in the stat budget.

Nobody will ever take healing power into PvE, and as a result nobody will ever use Ventari’s traitline.

Same goes for the staff, it’s gonna be like the guardian’s staff in PvE. It will only be good in pvp if it keeps that terrible autoattack damage and meager healing.