You can work out very accurate theoretical dps though. Its rather complicated and for the sake of comparison you generally make set assumptions like max might and vuln, uninterrupted dps rotations and mob has 2600 armour. You will never reproduce the exact numbers you calculate ingame because their are too many variables and they are impossible to fully control. But you can get some pretty close numbers and you can use them to calculate the difference in dps in the optimal conditions.
Ive done a full dps calculation for a necro build including rotations, cast times, after casts and all sorts and mathematically it was completely correct. It was slightly better than what you get ingame because i didnt factor in buff fluctuation and dodging or interrupting the rotation. It can be done, just because you havent done the research doesnt mean it cant…
… since most skills that apply vuln have close to no cooldown and can keep their vuln up on a boss at least for 50% of their downtime (so 5 people each being able to apply 10 stacks of vuln constantly…
OH! I know how about everyone who is upset about losing their levels gets a special set of town clothes only available to them. It’ll be a onesie that says fractal qqer and a pacifier or a rattle for your “toy” slot.
You can always use lightning whip to get rid of the shield. Seeing as everyone should be auto attacking to remove the shield (channeled skills only remove 1 stack).
I hope the main point anet takes from all this is that we like to have more communication and warning if they are going to take stuff away or completely revamp stuff. 1 week notice on fractal reset is just ridiculous. Im still angry about TAFU being replaced. They didnt even give us proper warning of that either, they just deleted it and put the new horrible path in instead.
So thats why we specifically include vuln traits in our dps builds? Because it has no team synergy and doesnt improve group dps? Maybe I should stop using vuln because it obviously has no use!
Do any of your team members actually pay attention to when you put up invulnerability, and use their most devastating attacks then? Or do they just go through their usual skill rotation, till the boss drops dead? Because the latter is my personal experience with “team synergy”.
Yes. Good players shouldnt be using axe 2 on warriors, sword 2 or focus 4 on guard all the time. They should only use them when the vuln drops to about 20. I understand many people dont pay attention to this, but thats often because not many groups can max vuln anyway so spamming them on cd becomes pretty much the best thing to do in a lot of situations. Against trash mobs you definately shouldnt be wasting vuln attacks though, theres no unshakeable to screw it up.
You also take away the benefits of having a group that is good maxing vuln for a short duration but cant sustain it constantly. Ironically this would make necro even worse for vuln stacking because of its bursty nature. Which im sure you dont want.
I don’t quite understand your point here. Maybe you can elaborate?
Basically if you have a group that can stack 25 vuln instantly all that bonus damage gets wasted on one attack especially if they cant reapply that much vuln for quite some time (high cd vuln like on my mark, well of suffering and reapers touch). If you have say an engi that applies constant vuln, or several warriors. The damage is spread out to multiple attacks. Which results in better overall dps. With it going to one attack theres a chance that it gets wasted on a really weak hit.
Necros dont have any sustained vuln except axe auto. But thats pretty terrible sustained vuln. Necros best vuln is from well of suffering and reaper’s touch which are both bursty vuln stackers. Basically it becomes a situation where the best type of vuln is vuln on crit traits. And all other vuln abilities are only good for boosting something like a backstab hit. Its a pretty flawed revamp of vuln basically. But its a creative idea so Ill give you that.
Theres no easy solution for bleed cap on world bosses. But the only place its an issue is on world bosses with a huge zerg. Something should be done but they have said removing the cap is not an option due to limitations. Which is why im suggesting alternatives that dont inbalance conditions in other areas but also help reduce the issue on world bosses.
There are. Its just the selling adverts stay on the lfg for longer because they fill slower. My group occasionally takes some pugs along as a charity and we get the slot filled almost instantly. Im sure if you created your own group you would fill it very fast.
So it’s not fine. If it ONLY stacks up nicely in dungeons, then it’s broken everywhere else. Any group event out in the open world has you instantly hitting the vulnerability cap without even firing a single shot.
It makes vulnerability irrelevant. You might as well not have vulnerability skills at all in the game, and have every boss in the game have a stack of 25 vulnerability on them by default. Because that’s what it feels like.
Something has to be done about vulnerability, so that it has lasting value during a battle, even if you reach the cap, and want to add more.
Im struggling to understand why you are trying to justify that vuln is bad because it max caps on world bosses. Ofcourse its going to max cap on world bosses with 100’s of people hitting it. You cant remove the cap otherwise the bonus damage everyone will recieve will be something like 500% increased damage.
There is no such thing as debuff support and team synergy in PVE. It’s a total mess. Everyone spams their skills at random, until you reach the cap. That’s it.
So thats why we specifically include vuln traits in our dps builds? Because it has no team synergy and doesnt improve group dps? Maybe I should stop using vuln because it obviously has no use!
Something would have to be changed about the importance of something like vulnerability. It is not something every class should have equal access to, to fix some of the current class unbalances. And it should have a bigger impact at lower quantities. For example, it could work similar to aegis, where it triggers on the very first attack on a target, and applies bonus damage, and then it is gone. This would remove the stacks of vulnerability faster. But to make up for the loss of stacks, the effect should be stronger. This would force players to time their synergy better. In a dungeon, this would mean a warrior would wait for vulnerability, before hitting his 100 blades.
This idea isnt too bad but then you will introduce further imbalances like people taking slow larger burstier attack builds and scrap fast attacking builds like dagger necro. You also take away the benefits of having a group that is good maxing vuln for a short duration but cant sustain it constantly. Ironically this would make necro even worse for vuln stacking because of its bursty nature. Which im sure you dont want.
Also going back to using this on world bosses. You would get some people doing something like 500% bonus damage on a single hit every now and again. It would be unbalanced and unfair. I admit bleed cap and vuln cap are a problem on world bosses but they need to be resolved in better ways. Id suggest raising the cap to 100 for both vuln and bleed (only on world bosses) and making higher duration/condi damage take priority.
Seems pretty clean to me. Im not sure what you see as messy. Everything works clearly, its just that things like unshakeable unbalance some classes. Bleed cap is fine so long as they change it so high condi damage stacks take priority.
If you add a check for every boss you stop people from replacing members if someone has to leave. You also stop people from being to swap characters. You basically ruin the dungeon experience for everyone just because you are hellbent on stopping something which anet have said is perfectly fine.
Just because you dont agree with it doesnt mean you have a right to stop it. Some people dont have the time to run/learn arah but they want the tokens. They have excess money so they should be able to spend it however they please. It doesnt effect you. The only effect is the amount of selling posts on the lfg tool. But fyi this can be fixed if anet simply fix the kittening lupi skip properly and the underwater exploit…. Even with loads of selling posts you can still find groups for arah. Just post your own or keep refreshing.
Vulnerability is fine. It only stacks up nicely in dungeons with a decent group. Its actually pretty hard to get sustained 25 vuln with unshakeable. If you make it individual you ruin another aspect of debuff support and team synergy. This is another reason why I dont think bleed cap should be removed. You start to make things look messy and how would traits like target the weak work on a boss that has 3 sets of bleed stacks.
I hate looking for an Arah party, and seeing ONLY people selling slots for gold. Seriously, no one does this dungeon without trying to turn it into a business?
How else do we compete with champ farmers while avoiding losing brain cells?
Bob not being online and forcing me to pug a slot. I HATE PUGZ.
Something else, hmmm…. spoj being a nub and, hmmm… people not ressing. Yeah, hate that.
I’m a much happier person now I have a teeeeam. Thx guys.
Im feeling the love! <3
You forgot to mention bob going afk every 5 minutes when he is online.
Hes referring to you actually listening to good advice. Many people turn a blind eye and refuse to accept that clerics or w/e is not as helpful to a team as dps. So basically you have restored the faith we have in humanity.
Proof of how helpful we can be when people are open minded and respectful of advice given. Sadly this is a rare occurance in the guard forums and ive never seen it in the mesmer forums.
I prefer the old animation. Im sure they could of fixed any clipping issues while maintaining the same general animation if they really tried. If not, then screw a few clipping problems. Id rather have the better animation, which was fine for clipping most of the time.
Definately invest in a focus. The shield doesnt really have much use in pve. There are a few instances where it can come in handy, but its not needed anywhere. Sword focus is really good for dps and focus is so good for survivability. Good luck with beserker, its definately the right choice to dive into the deep end and learn the hard way. I wish I was told to do that.
Also dont put ruby orbs in weapons. You want to use sigils. I believe the guide swiftpaw linked has some info about what sigils to take.
Necro is really durable in fractals. But there are some fights where the extra evades and blocks from a warrior make it much easier to survive than with a necro.
I really hope the clown car is changed. Rest of the dredge fractal is bearable. Bombs takes too long but its not so bad. I dont really have a problem with any other fractals except for cliffside being a bit too long overall.
I actually love the clown car, its probably not intended to be like this but to me, its a phase where you just nuke down mobs who gets killed before they can even let off 3 attacks and you get tons of loot.
The problem for me is that at the entire fractal is a huge suicide run. You HAVE to die at the start, and throughout the encounter, you just will die from way the mechanics of most of the fractal works.
O.O
What lvl do you do it on? Its incredibly boring, takes way too long and if you camp at the front and kill as they spawn they are always invuln for ages. And they do hit you while being invuln.
You should change it to 10/25/0/25/10. Master of consecrations is incredibly useful. More so than pure of voice. Provides a variety of really good support, including reducing cd of purging flames.
It makes sense that they reset to 30 because they are introducing instabilities and leadersboards at lvl 30. It doesnt make sense that they are introducing instabilities and leaderboards at lvl 30 instead of lvl 50. Which is why the reset is kitten ing a lot of people off.
putting them at 50 would be compounding the bad game design of 20-50, and would be putting the boring mechanical/ridiculous difficulty ahead of the more interesting unpredictable/or conditional difficulty.
True but they should of thought of that when they intially designed it. They are now punishing us for their own design flaws and short sighted progression. Thats a big no no imo.
I really hope the clown car is changed. Rest of the dredge fractal is bearable. Bombs takes too long but its not so bad. I dont really have a problem with any other fractals except for cliffside being a bit too long overall.
It makes sense that they reset to 30 because they are introducing instabilities and leadersboards at lvl 30. It doesnt make sense that they are introducing instabilities and leaderboards at lvl 30 instead of lvl 50. Which is why the reset is kitten ing a lot of people off.
Yeah its pretty disgusting what some people reply with. Dont know any so called “elitists” who resort to such low insults. Ive seen a few lose their temper slightly and insult the odd person (myself included). But nothing quite so personal or even that offensive.
The funny thing is the the aggressive posts and insults usually come from those that we are trying to give information to first. Ive given really polite feedback before only to be completely insulted on a personal level just because the guy didnt like me or didnt agree with my mind set towards the game. I replied rather politely saying that was uncalled for and he reported me and got me infracted somehow. Some of the people who actively accuse “elitists” of being jerks are far more offensive and insulting and really should take a closer look at what they post. I tend to avoid reporting partly because stuff on the internet doesnt bother me but also because I prefer others to see how rude and deluded those people really are despite not being “elitists”.
The leaderboard should show the primary class of the user.
Interesting idea but atleast for me within my group thats going to fluctuate a lot. Ill probably be the one swapping to thief/ele/necro alot when needed.
Most path 2 sellers do solo but they usually exploit alot and skip lupi. There are many legit sellers in rT, HC, DnT that solo the paths and sell. Just because you’ve heard rumours that people get kicked so the slots can be sold doesnt mean its true. I think you will find that the instances of that happening are about 1%.
Anet specifically said its ok to sell this service as long as no exploits are used and no scamming comes into play.
But thats the thing i believe that type of slot is only available to those who have used the recipe. So we dont lose anything. If not then yea we have a right to be kitten ed.
Think of it this way. You can only cut someone so much so they bleed out at a certain rate. But you can beat them with clubs as much as you want and each blow will do more damage. Cutting the same place multiple times isnt going to make it bleed much more, theres a maximum rate at which someone can bleed out.
Boons being reapplied doesnt happen too often in fractals. Its more of an issue in regular dungeons (golem in coe or butcher in hotw). Necro spinal shivers is enough for the ettin and rabsovich in fractals. Mesmer however has way more options, either burst aoe (null field/shatter) or sustained single target boon removal (sword auto, sword clones and phantasmal disenchanter). And then theirs arcane thievery to steal the jellyfish’s 25 might stacks and copy them to your party.
Anyway if it was more important to remove boons in fractals then you would see necros more often because they have better aoe and dps than mesmers. Problem is the only scale where boon removal and condi damage really is worth while is when you get to scale 70-80 fractals. Which is being removed and they have said they are reducing difficulty of 30-50 which is a bit of a joke.
Im not saying there isnt a problem. I just think the cap is fine. Its the other issues surrounding conditions and control which need to be addressed. Removing the cap can just as easily imbalance the game.
Highest dps would be desperate power 30/25/0/10/5. Just like the pure axe build except you take deperate power instead of empowered. You would lose fast hands again though. :P
Yes the immunities are issues but the cap isnt an issue. You shouldnt be taking 2 or more condi specced players. Its just like in any other mmo, you dont take more tanks/healers than you need, it would be counter productive. If condi damage was higher it wouldnt create a new imbalance, it would simply shift the organised groups into building differently for different dungeons. Dungeons with lots of condi immunity would remain zerker only, others would take a condi spec. Theres nothing wrong with having some dungeons/encounters being anti condition. Surely you can agree a meta with 1 condi and 4 zerkers is better than 5 zerkers?
I havent heard anyone announce they are quitting yet. One of the guys i play with considered it as he is someone with fractal 80 and he was looking forward to the cap being raised. For the moment he said he will stick around to check it out and play it for the rewards if they are good enough. I think people are just angry about the nasty surprise and lack of communication. People will calm down and i hope for anets sake that what they have done isnt as big a fail as it sounds like.
If the recipe with 250 ectos is still required to unlock this new infusion slot then we have nothing to complain about. If however it is no longer needed then I wasted 750 ectos on upgrading b4 i transmuted to backpiece skins I wanted. I wont be happy if thats the case.
They are bad for serious play. But they can be lots of fun. Sadly people in this subforum dont like us having fun and decided to get the relevant threads deleted. Anyway heres some vids demonstrating the power of spirit weapons.
All our heals are average at best. So yeah CC is pretty much the only choice. Can use well for certain situations (colossus fractal). Blood fiend is pretty good if you know you arent going to need the active and you just want some more dps and a slight bit of sustain.
I personally think the cap should stay as it is. The only issue is for world bosses. The problem lies in potential dps, overwriting of higher condi stacks and ramp up time. One of the simplest ways to improve conditions in pve is too boost condi damage scaling by quite a lot. It would force teams to take 1 condi spec for the superior dps. The tradeoff would still be ramp up time and a condi cap so it would be balanced.
Sadly with the fractal revamp i doubt necros will be worth it anymore. Ill start recording more though, seems i dont lag too badly sometimes.
I wouldn’t be quick to judge on that. Of the new fractals, we know that Aetherblades are very boon-heavy, so necro boon stripping will be valuable (and necros are second to none in boon removal ability). Then there’s the fact that levels 31+ have some mechanic that changes how things work. Quite possibly, a few of these will favor necros.
Im pretty sure you are giving anet way too much credit for well designed pve content. Also mesmer beats necro at boon stripping by a country mile (lower cooldowns and can sustained boon removal). Necro can only strip and hope the mob doesnt immediately reapply the boons.
Besides even with the boon heavy dredge it was only worth having a necro for 70+ where the combination of their prot and toughness was so high that condi damage and boon removal helped alot. In 48 it was still faster to just use direct damage from other classes to cleave them down (ice bow on ele being really good for them).
I hope you are right and necro will get some more use. But im not holding my breath.
