Blood Red Arachnid.2493

> @"Cyninja.2954" said: > > As does overconvidence in ones own superiority. > > For me personally the experience I've made over the years: > The smartest people I have met where most often the ones least interested or driven in showing it off to others or proving they are smarter. They usually just did their thing and where grounded enough in their ability, and often surrounded by peers, that spending time on showing off would have been counterproductive. > > In this case it was already established that this thought excercise is nice for wasting some time, but pretty useless as far as actual game usefulness (if sticking to only healing and theory). It isn't useless. I did something similar when comparing Marshalls to Marauders for WvW Ele. To see how much theoretical health the additional healing power would give me. I didn't do it as a heal-per-second thing, insomuch as I worked under the assumption that I would get to use all of the big heal + barrier skills within a single fight and went from there. I didn't save the numbers, and they'd all be different now because this was nearly a year ago, but I remember the conclusion: the extra heals quickly eclipses the 5k lost health, and would keep going further with regen, soothing mist, and other skills coming off cooldown. So I bought the set, and my predictions were true. I gained the ability to fight people into stalemates, I started winning against tanks builds that I formerly lost against, and soloing the champions became a whole lot easier. I could do the same math today. I just have to find the health per second that perma-regen and soothing mist give me, sum up the total health bonus of all of the big heals/barriers, and then divide the difference between that and the Marauder health bonus by Health/Second to get when Marshalls will eclipse Marauder. It's not the exactly same, but that's what I mean by cross-application.

> @"AliamRationem.5172" said: > > @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said: > > This reminds me of how we used to do DPS calculations before meters were allowed, and before there was raid training golem. It involved a lot of spreadsheets, and having to deal with similarly math-challenged individuals. > > > > Personally, I prefer to keep it singular. When doing comparisons, it is much easier to focus on how much healing is being done to a single ally, rather than a group. For one, it is easier for the average layperson to understand, because that is how much healing they will personally receive. This is also important, because the amount of damage that a skill person does or receives is also calculated on the individual. It makes comparing like numbers easier. Second, it is much easier to scale up for groups than it is to scale down. The issue of target counts is best addressed after the fact. > > > > That's right. If any of us plebs question the relevance of your extensive theorycrafting it's because we don't understand basic math...not because not a bit of any of it has any practical application at all. Saying something true satirically doesn't make it less true. Cross-application is part of mathematical literacy.

This reminds me of how we used to do DPS calculations before meters were allowed, and before there was raid training golem. It involved a lot of spreadsheets, and having to deal with similarly math-challenged individuals. Personally, I prefer to keep it singular. When doing comparisons, it is much easier to focus on how much healing is being done to a single ally, rather than a group. For one, it is easier for the average layperson to understand, because that is how much healing they will personally receive. This is also important, because the amount of damage that a skill person does or receives is also calculated on the individual. It makes comparing like numbers easier. Second, it is much easier to scale up for groups than it is to scale down. The issue of target counts is best addressed after the fact.

I don't know, I think he might have a point. If the roaming meta consists of A) Immob Druid B) The one class that natively beats Immob Druid C) Everyone else having to build specifically around fighting Immob Druid Then it means the spec is overpowered.

It depends on the server and the meta. I currently know neither, but there's a few things I can comment on. a) Health regen is good in war of attrition, battleship metas, and condi metas. It's bad in hammer-train metas and power metas. b) Healing bonus is generally bad for zergs, and I question if anyone should even bother making it. c) Damage reduction is good in general, but crucial for hammer-train and power metas. d) Condi reduction is good in condi metas only. e)Life leech is the same as Health regen, except it is dependent on competency. That whole "dependent on competency" thing is a big deal. See, DPS food is only good if the group is good at doing DPS. Adding power and ferocity is useless for a teammate who spends their time running around panicked. Because of this, if you're wading into the unknown there are two foods that I would recommend: Plate of Clear Truffle and Sesame Ravioli Health Regen +100 Vitality +70 Toughness Spherified Sesame Oyster Soup: Health Regen +45 to All Attributes The philosophy is simple: survival is important no matter how competent you are, what build you are running, or what role you're playing. You can't do anything while dead, and it is a given that the enemy is trying to kill you. Sesame Ravioli isn't the best in ideal circumstances, but it makes for a good baseline food. Spherified Oyster Soup beats out Ravioli with more competent groups, because damage matters more significantly and it gives more points overall. For competent groups and organized groups, there are two more options: Peppercorn Crusted Sous-Vide Steak -10% Incoming Damage +100 Power +70 Ferocity Clove-Spiced Pear and Cured Meat Flatbread -20% Condition Duration +100 Condition Damage +70 Expertise Pick one, depending on whether it is a condi meta or a power meta.

Honestly, I started skimming once he said that the teleport utilities are useless in WvW. It has been my experience and understanding that Lightning Flash, Blink, and Shadowstep are so mandatory for WvW they might as well be stapled onto the utility bar. Back when I could play the game, I ran Weaver in WvW. Lightning Flash was the most useful utility I had: (1) It let me escape from a losing fight (2) It let me avoid stun-locks and big bursts (3) It let me chase running enemies (4) It let me land big bursts on opponents (5) Most important for this particular scenario, it let me squeeze past zerg hordes into keeps. If I didn't have lightning flash, I would be Immobilized, CC'd, and burst down as I try to run through them. The same could be said of the other blink skills. So I can't help but wonder how little WvW experience the OP has.

I hate to be _that guy,_ but... for pugging Serpent's Ire, those CC consumables are almost necessary to carry players through it. I use the seed pods, which have a spammable knockdown.

I have two builds that I'll run the overworld with. The first one is a full damage build: Gear: Berserker Sigils: Force, Impact Runes: x6 Scholar Weapons: Sword + Sword, Greatsword Utilities: Signet of the Ether, Phantasmal Disenchanter, Mirror Images,Well of Calamity, Gravity Well Illusions: Persistence of Memory, Phantasmal Haste, Phantasmal Force Domination: Bountiful Blades, Egotism, Vicious Expression Chronomancer: Time Catches Up, Danger Time, Chronophantasma I change the off-hand weapon for whatever I might need. This build is a hybrid of Woodenpotatoes OW build and the Snowcrows raid build. This isn't done for any sort of preference, aside from convenience. The Illusions line is there to give me quickness and might, the domination line is there to buff the greatsword that I use as my main weapon, and the chronomancer line is still OP. The second build is the buff build. Gear: Diviner Sigils: Concentration, Force Runes: x6 Scholar Weapons: Sword + Sword, Shield Utilities: Signet of the Ether, Well of Recall, the rest depends. Dueling: Phantasmal Fury, Fencer's Finesse, Superiority Complex Illusions: Persistence of Memory, Phantasmal Haste, Phantasmal Force Chronomancer: Time Catches Up, Improved Alacrity, Seize the Moment. While this version doesn't have as much up-front damage, it has two distinct advantages. First, it maintains permanent boons instead of short bursts of quickness and might. Second, the build's able to give anyone near me permanent quickness and alacrity. This makes it a massive force multiplier for any impromptu zergs or passerbys. This ability is often understated, but I noticed a massive boost in strength whenever I bring the boon chrono to an event. I change utilities depending on circumstance, but I almost always have Well of Recall on my bar. This is a big deviation from the raid build, which just uses Berserker Gear and focuses only on quickness. I go with Diviners, both because I frequently find myself being the alacrity bot in fractals, and also because the randomness of the overworld makes it impossible to huddle everyone together for split-second timed buffs.

For PVE in general, I'm partial to a full Grieving Firebrand. The reason for this is because, unless you're fighting a champion level enemy or some really upscaled mobs, the time it takes to kill an enemy with a condi build is much longer than what it takes for a power build. Grieving Firebrand has the smallest (or one of the smallest) difference in performance. The extra power also helps against all of the old content with condition-immune enemies.

That's the price you pay for versatility. The way I see it, the Ele's mechanic is permanently a hybrid build, capable of doing direct damage, condi damage, and healing all at the same time. In theory it is OP, but practice in those things don't work without allocating a lot of attribute points into them. In PVE it doesn't have much of an impact, but in PVP the ele's hybrid nature can be quite scary. It waxes and wanes with the balance patches, but Celestial Ele and Marshall Ele have gained infamy for how dangerous they are.

Sounds like you'll want an elementalist. Particularly a dagger ele or a weaver. Bit of a warning, though: they're harder to play.

IMO this is one of those things that are common sense. Back when woodenpotatoes was doing his no-map challenges, he remarked something to the effect of "GW2 has such a rich environment, yet most players only ever interact with it once for map completion." To put this in comparison, back when I played Runescape one of the few stand-out moments I had with it was showing a newbie the blast furnace. Particularly, how the whole journey got waylaid for a bit once we hit the dwarven city of Keldagrim. The kid had no idea there was a gigantic metropolis just under his feet, and he had to spend some time running around just exploring the place when we got there. He actually typed out his amazement in chat. That is the sort of thing that I've never seen once happen in GW2. In a very broad sense, all of the obstacles and challenges you have to overcome in a videogame are inconveniences. The story is locked behind a boss, the treasure chest is at the top of a treacherous mountain, limited build points forces you to pick one ability over another, etc. If there wasn't some kind of problem to solve, then it wouldn't be much of a game. I can understand simplifying things like tedious inventory management or UI elements, but it is possible to make things too convenient. The waypoint system is one of those conveniences that has a negative trade-off. While it relieves you of the burden of having to fight through enemies and trudge through jungle to get to your destination, those lost things are gameplay elements. All of the interaction with the environment is sacrificed. No more plotting paths, getting caught up in unexpected events, learning to navigate dangerous terrain, carving economic niches from the environment, or striking up unlikely friendships. Instead, you just warp from big shiny-giving event to next big shiny-giving event, which have their rewards balanced assuming they'll be zerged in mass. I wouldn't fret too much about the negative feedback you're getting. All of the people who are still playing the game are the kind of people who don't mind all of these design features.