Infusion.7149

All the 24-28 bags are soulbound on use except for the boreal bags and any 32 slot ones. When in doubt you can check the wiki: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/28-Slot_Cowrie_League_Saddlebag

It's more that the burn is mostly the damage on cFB (to the tune of 70%) which has quick ramp and the rest of the damage is not mainly bleeding or some other slow condition. That coupled with the sanctuary skill that does 750 defiance bar damage at range, aegis on 12 cooldown, and tomes in case of emergencies at your disposal, are what cement it's place right now. Re: point 1. The bursting sigil stacking is likely an unpatched error on Arenanet's part. Other sigils do not exhibit this behavior. Re: point 2. The game isn't balanced around who gets more damage in arcdps , honestly. There was a brief period that condition damage wasn't counted at all in arcdps.

> @"Nephalem.8921" said: > > @"Infusion.7149" said: > > Even if there's only 50% uptime on thief it does respectably in that scenario and in actuality ~60% of power chrono damage is from the player (even more so if you run Seize the Moment , it's ~77%). Phantasms (not clones) flank around 60-70% of the time anyway. > > Doesnt matter if phantasms flank because they are not affected by mods from runes. only bare stats and some traits apply. thats why accuracy isnt good either and your scholar build used it. you want your phantasms to crit because mesmer has 2 damage mods that only work on crits. those are affecting your phantasms. 30% eagle vs 60% thief lets eagle runes win hard. > > > > > The only builds which need the precision and dont use thief/eagle are 1 weaver build and PI dh. virtues dh still uses thief. I dont see a problem with this. The effective scholar bonus is already closer to 4%-4.5% anyways. > > > > > > > > > > > According to who? > > Not Lucky Noobs, not Snowcrows, not discretize. Are we to take your word for it? That's as absurd as telling people without legendary armor or endless extractors to change their runes for every encounter for ~5% damage differences at best. > > > Do you mean my stated effective scholar bonus? arc logs that and i went through a couple of logs. highest was 4.88% and lowest 2.8%. Most of the time it was around 4.2%. > If you mean flame legion runes. both sites mention those. you know you could just have different sets with different runes. raids and fractals reward you with countless ascended chests. what are you using them for? > > > An ideal scale back of Scholar rune would put it roughly on par with whatever is next best rather than making it an outright poor choice. If this had been the goal in mind in the 2018 rebalance we would not even have this discussion. Most casual people would think 2% health bonus is the same as before (8.3% crit and 2% health bonus is ~ 10%) if they don't pay attention to combat math. > > > There are simply no other power fero mod runes and why should there? a single straight forward damage option is better than having 10 options nobody uses because mathematically one is the best. First of all it isn't "my build" , it is the output from an automated tool for a meta build. If you factor in 60% + of damage is from the player, thief runes still do respectably (within 2%). In addition, as I stated in the analysis it generally isn't worth it to run a mesmer without danger time (and without spotter on top of that) generally so that is only for illustrative purposes. "Win hard" is not an analysis in any scholastic environment, use numbers. _Superiority Complex_ doesn't affect Illusions. So unless you mean bleeding on crits from _Sharper Images_... Which site mentions Flame Legion runes as a top pick on the actual build pages for weaver? Please link that page. Just because it is in the calculator doesn't mean it is recommended. If your average / median (not sure what "most of the time" means in your wording) scholar bonus is 4.2% then it just reinforces Firebeard's argument that it is the superior choice for the majority of situations. Also if you are looking at this from the point of view from someone that has legendaries that is going to be different than your average player. Just because I have legendary gear shouldn't invalidate everyone that doesn't have it , plus plenty of people have alt accounts. There's loads of players still using exotics and even rares I found out. That's similar to telling players new to raids that investing into multiple sets of gear for it is going to be profitable when the ROI is going to be severely negative compared to open-world. A "single straightforward damage option" really ought not to be exceeding every other option by the entire amount of damage bonus on other runes even in extremely unfavored scenarios. That's basically what is happening on soulbeast , holo, daredevil, power DH, and likely power revenants even when you factor in your "most of the time" +4.2% (i.e. the entire bonus on ogre rune). Ultimately that is what Firebeard was trying to convey in a less eloquent manner I believe, although his target methodology of addressing it was probably to buff every other applicable rune that under-performs relative to Scholar.

I am pretty sure I've gotten some this past week. Sometimes you just have bad rolls.

Deadeye is actually in a poor spot right now unless you roam and don't actually PPT whosoever. If you roam you're better off playing PvP casually honestly , but then again if you're playing PvP then you can't just snipe people and expect to win outside deathmatch because capture points are a thing...

> @"Nephalem.8921" said: > > @"Infusion.7149" said: > > **ENGINEER** > > * Holo - 17,549.25 Eagle | 17,531.09 Scholar 0% uptime | 17,290.56 Thief (not in top 50 results) ---> effectively even > Quite impressive concidering that precision is worthless on holo. > > > **RANGER** > > * Soulbeast Skirmishing (spotter self supplied but not needed) - 22,790.75 Eagle | 22,682.90 Thief | 22,682.68 Scholar 0% uptime ---> effectively the same, below 0.5% variance > Again precision is useless. > > > **MESMER** > > * Chrono with danger time - 18,741.26 Eagle | 18,549.05 Thief (Furious Stone) | 18,530.68 Thief | 18,092.60 Scholar 0% uptime ---> 3.5% effective scholar bonus to be even > > * Chrono without danger time - 16,249.63 Thief (Furious Stone) | 16,224.96 Thief | 15,949.73 Eagle | 15,190.22 Scholar 0% uptime ---> never can match thief rune (bonus must exceed 6%) > > > Its not that simple for mesmer. phantasms are 50% of your dmg and dont scale with mods unless stated by the trait. thats why thief runes are bad on mesmer. use eagle. also accuracy is unusable. Even if there's only 50% uptime on thief it does respectably in that scenario and in actuality ~60% of power chrono damage is from the player (even more so if you run Seize the Moment , it's ~77%). Phantasms (not clones) flank around 60-70% of the time anyway. > @"Nephalem.8921" said: > > **ELEMENTALIST** > > * Power weaver, fresh air - 15,746.60 Eagle | 15,642.85 Thief | 15,117.07 Scholar 0% uptime ---> 4% effective scholar bonus to be even > Yet flame legion are better because more than 10% of your damage are burning. > > **If the scholar bonus is reduced to ~3% then up to half of the builds would be marginally better using eagle due to the damage bonus on eagle.** Other runes aren't in the Snowcrows calculator and the gap to pack runes and others that are present in the calculator present larger differences. Eagle rune has a large ferocity bonus on top of the damage bonus as mentioned in my first post in this thread. > > The only builds which need the precision and dont use thief/eagle are 1 weaver build and PI dh. virtues dh still uses thief. I dont see a problem with this. The effective scholar bonus is already closer to 4%-4.5% anyways. > > > According to who? Not Lucky Noobs, not Snowcrows, not discretize. Are we to take your word for it? That's as absurd as telling people without legendary armor or endless extractors to change their runes for every encounter for ~5% damage differences at best. I've given A. the source of my calculations rather than some vague "excel sheet" , B. the ways to reproduce it. Having gone through the code used on the sites circa last year I have rather high confidence in them. No need to reinvent the wheel. For your elementalist build case, which is only one variant and the lower average bench, it can be replicated in discretize calculator by adjusting the damage split. With a 88% power and 12% burning split on discretize calculator with ferocity food, force, impact 3% (not even full 10%), no spotter , assassin's presence, empower allies, or bane signet , 0AR , the _Damage Indicator_ as specified by discretize: * Scholar with full current bonus 2,130.266 (effective power 24,392.242) * Scholar with full current bonus 2,130.266 (effective power 24,392.242) with 100 precision 70 ferocity food , so exactly the same * Thief 2,112.921 (effective power 24,165.401) ---> drops with precision food to 2,066.595 (effective power 23,625.808) * Eagle 2,130.252 (effective power 24,392.075) ---> with 50% uptime this would drop to ~2,033 damage indicator (effective power ~23,283) * Spellbreaker 2,098.075 (effective power 24,017.281) ---> drops with precision food * Flame Legion 2,063.155 (effective power 23,435.326 , 70% burn duration) ---> same thing with precision food * Ogre 2,044.436 (effective power 23,392.515) ---> same thing with precision food * Scholar w/o bonus 2,030.544 (effective power 23,230.707) ---> same thing with precision food * Strength 2,010.5 (effective power 22,997.283) ---> same thing with precision food * Pack 1,974.853 (effective power 22,582.028) ---> drops with precision food Note _superior elements_ is not checked off by default and assassin's presence (from renegades) is checked by default because discretize is oriented toward fractals. --- An ideal scale back of Scholar rune would put it roughly on par with whatever is next best rather than making it an outright poor choice. If this had been the goal in mind in the 2018 rebalance we would not even have this discussion. Most casual people would think 2% health bonus is the same as before (8.3% crit and 2% health bonus is ~ 10%) if they don't pay attention to combat math. Lack of _spotter_ can be supplemented by Bowl of Curry Butternut Squash Soup or other 100 precision food if not min-maxing. Lifesteal on ascended food isn't available but accounts for 162.5 DPS. If thief runes were more utilized it would actually be healthier than if eagle runes were heavily utilized simply for the fact that the crafting requires charm of skill rather than charm of brilliance. It also would put more emphasis on positioning rather than just overhealing.

> @"Jugglemonkey.8741" said: > > @"Infusion.7149" said: > > > @"Cynz.9437" said: > > > > @"Infusion.7149" said: > > > > I'd rather it always give quickness in PvE , with a negligible duration in PVP/WVW (1/4 second?). That would make boon daredevil relevant outside of a few select raids. > > > > > > Please no, the boon strip has its uses in PVE as well (e.g. bounties). > > > > Quickness instead of vigor > > That will hurt **DD** specs a lot more than you might think, given the poor state of acrobatics atm Who runs acro nowadays outside boon thief (as opposed to daredevil)? If mesmers can make do with 1 dodge, I'm sure 3 dodges is fine.

## SNOWCROWS GEAR OPTIMIZER OUTPUTS for a 10 man squad _With only 10 man buffs (banners + frost spirit) and **0% scholar uptime** No empower allies , assassin's presence , spotter or other 5 man profession buffs_ ... because someone said "less reliable parties"... **ENGINEER** * Holo - 17,549.25 Eagle | 17,531.09 Scholar 0% uptime | 17,290.56 Thief (not in top 50 results) ---> effectively even _Sword has 5% weapon strength variance_ **RANGER** * Soulbeast Skirmishing (spotter self supplied but not needed) - 22,790.75 Eagle | 22,682.90 Thief | 22,682.68 Scholar 0% uptime ---> effectively the same, below 0.5% variance * Soulbeast Marksmanship - 23,455.40 Thief (Furious stone) | 23,441.08 Thief | 23,123.14 Eagle | 22,062.12 Scholar 0% uptime ---> never can match thief rune (bonus must exceed 6%) _Axe weapon strength variance is ~10% ; longbow ~ 8% ; dagger ~3%_ **THIEF** * Daredevil - 20,353.32 Eagle (Keen observer unchecked , Twin fangs set to 0% scholar uptime) | 20,146.47 Thief | 19,589.93 Scholar 0% uptime ---> even without scholar bonus ~40% > 90% health is sufficient to be even due to Twin Fangs _Staff has 6% weapon strength variance_ **GUARDIAN** * Power DH - 17,582.44 Eagle | 17,487.26 Scholar 0% uptime ---> effectively the same, below 0.6% variance * Power DH Perfect Inscriptions (discretize build basically) - 17,896.73 Eagle | 17,853.46 Thief | 17,198.80 Scholar 0% uptime ---> 4% effective scholar bonus to be even _Sword and Greatsword have 5% weapon strength variance_ **MESMER** * Chrono with danger time - 18,741.26 Eagle | 18,549.05 Thief (Furious Stone) | 18,530.68 Thief | 18,092.60 Scholar 0% uptime ---> 3.5% effective scholar bonus to be even * Chrono without danger time - 16,249.63 Thief (Furious Stone) | 16,224.96 Thief | 15,949.73 Eagle | 15,190.22 Scholar 0% uptime ---> never can match thief rune (bonus must exceed 6%) _The above is why unless you stack mesmers with slow sources (and use Chronophantasma) the damage is only on par with other meta classes._ **ELEMENTALIST** * Power weaver, bolt to the heart - 16,890.68 Eagle | 16,760.95 Thief | 16,202.02 Scholar 0% uptime ---> 4% effective scholar bonus to be even (80% uptime with current bonus) * Power weaver, fresh air - 15,746.60 Eagle | 15,642.85 Thief | 15,117.07 Scholar 0% uptime ---> 4% effective scholar bonus to be even * Power tempest - 11,619.65 Thief | 11,464.93 Eagle | 10,948.71 Scholar 0% uptime ---> never can match thief rune even in current state without spotter (bonus must exceed 6%) _The power loss is blunted by Power Overwhelming trait used on weavers._ **WARRIOR** * Power berserker - 20,500.99 Thief | 20,228.71 Eagle rune | 19,368.31 Scholar 0% uptime ---> never can match thief rune (bonus must exceed 5%) **NECROMANCER** * Power reaper - 17,842.09 Eagle | 17,161.21 Scholar 0% uptime ---> 4% effective scholar bonus to be even **REVENANT** * Power "boon" herald - 17,768.52 Eagle | 17,305.52 Scholar 0% uptime ---> 2.7% effective scholar bonus to be even (easy on rev) ---- **If the scholar bonus is reduced to ~3% then up to half of the builds would be marginally better using eagle due to the damage bonus on eagle.** Other runes aren't in the Snowcrows calculator and the gap to pack runes and others that are present in the calculator present larger differences. Eagle rune has a large ferocity bonus on top of the damage bonus as mentioned in my first post in this thread. The key difference in calculators is the sigils and runes aren't specified. Snowcrows' calculator will more likely drop impact for accuracy and in this scenario spotter was omitted.

> @"Firebeard.1746" said: > You tell people barely clearing content that they're doing worse now because of your sensibilities. The high-end PVE in this game is hard enough without nerfing some of the meta tools for it. If they are nerfing scholar's they need to nerf every boss/encounter in the game accordingly. > > Also, just as a bit of clarification: The thief numbers are assuming 100% flanking uptime, correct? That bonus, if halved to match scholar doesn't compete. Just pointing it out to the person trying to tell me that precision is stronger. It's not. The popular precision runes just have good 6-tier bonuses. If you want more rune diversity, either you would need to buff everything or nerf scholar rune bonus. The scholar rune without bonus is competitive enough already after the 2018 rebalance, as shown above. Even if the bonus were 2 or 3% it would be high performing. The thief rune bonus is assumed 100% uptime on both discretize and snowcrows. Even with 0% uptime if you are far from crit cap of 100% crit chance it is decent enough compared to other options. With a 50% uptime it is about on par with spellbreaker runes in most cases. There's a 9% or so spread between the non-meta options and Scholar , which is going to be larger than any shave to Scholar rune bonus could possibly achieve. There does not need to be any adjustment to raid bosses or encounters because they are mostly designed before Scholar had powercreep in the 2018 rune rebalance which boosted the base ferocity stat. This in turn means if scholar uptime is extremely low or non-existent then the damage increased roughly 3% for all groups running the rune. Average benchmarks for all classes have also generally gone up except for staff weavers (due to meteor shower nerf) and ascended food was added. Plus some of the hardest ones are typically condi comps anyway (for example Twin Largos , Soulless Horror , Sunqua Peak). Dragon Response Missions and Strikes are definitely not balanced with optimized comps running scholar runes as baseline ; fractals don't really have a timer at all.

Because people keep reiterating tired points without numbers, here's what you get with discretize's calculator set to 0AR and no infinite potion (i.e. no fractal potion contributions): Spotter , banner, and sigil of force+impact are used with fruitcake / superior sharpening stone and bane signet is unchecked because not every group is running DH. Starting with all specs of warrior because it's a special case where Thief rune is the defacto standard outside of fractals. Also by using Ogre rune and normalizing for the bonus scholar rune used to have we can compare versus the pre-change scholar rune. Power BS in _berserk mode_ , 0AR aka raid scenario with spotter not bane signet , 3% on impact sigil >! Thief 3582 >! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 3568 >! Eagle 3507 >! Scholar w/ bonus 3507 >! Spellbreaker 3466 >! Flame Legion 3386 >! Ogre 3373 >! Eagle , 50% uptime 3348 >! Scholar w/o bonus 3340 >! Strength 3323 >! Pack 3257 >! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 3243 Power BS not in berserk mode, >! Thief Rune 2679 >! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2664 >! Eagle 2622 >! Scholar w/ bonus 2622 >! Spellbreaker 2590 >! Flame Legion 2526 >! Ogre 2519 >! Eagle , 50% uptime 2503 >! Scholar w/o bonus 2497 >! Strength 2479 >! Pack 2435 >! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2422 Spellbreaker (magebane+ Pure Strike) >! Thief 3230 >! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 3215 >! Eagle 3169 >! Scholar w/ bonus 3169 >! Spellbreaker 3123 >! Flame Legion 3046 >! Ogre 3040 >! Eagle, 50% uptime 3025 >! Scholar w/o bonus 3018 >! Strength 2990 >! Pack 2937 >! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2933 Core warrior (leg specialist) >! Thief 2757 >! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2743 >! Eagle 2703 >! Scholar w/ bonus 2703 >! Spellbreaker 2665 >! Flame Legion 2600 >! Ogre 2594 >! Eagle , 50% uptime 2580 >! Scholar w/o bonus 2575 >! Strength 2551 >! Pack 2506 >! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2494 Soulbeast - marksmanship >! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2630 >! Thief 2629 >! Scholar 2586 >! Eagle 2585 >! Spellbreaker 2564 >! Ogre 2487 >! Eagle, 50% uptime 2568 >! Scholar w/o bonus 2463 >! Strength 2450 >! Pack 2412 >! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2391 Soulbeast - skirmishing >! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2705 >! Scholar w/ bonus 2655 >! Spellbreaker 2572 >! Ogre 2557 >! Eagle 2542 >! Thief 2533 >! Scholar w/o bonus 2528 >! Strength 2522 >! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2459 >! Eagle, 50% uptime 2427 >! Pack 2405 >! Exuberance 2346 Power DH >! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2627 >! Scholar w/ bonus 2596 >! Eagle 2596 >! Thief 2575 >! Spellbreaker 2550 >! Flame Legion 2484 >! Ogre 2484 >! Eagle, 50% uptime 2478 >! Scholar w/o bonus 2472 >! Strength 2438 >! Pack 2398 >! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2388 >! Exuberance 2300 Power Chrono - no danger time >! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2073 >! Thief 2002 >! Scholar w/ bonus 1960 >! Eagle 1960 >! Spellbreaker 1933 >! Flame Legion 1875 >! Ogre 1875 >! Eagle, 50% uptime 1871 >! Scholar w/o bonus 1867 >! Strength 1840 >! Pack 1820 >! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 1803 Power Chrono - with danger time >! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2388 >! Scholar w/ bonus 2360 >! Spellbreaker 2321 >! Eagle 2310 >! Thief 2275 >! Flame Legion 2258 >! Ogre 2258 >! Eagle, 50% uptime 2205 >! Scholar w/o bonus 2248 >! Strength 2215 >! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2171 >! Pack 2170 Power weaver - Bolt to the Heart w/ Superior Elements >! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 2647 >! Scholar w/ bonus 2612 >! Eagle 2555 >! Spellbreaker 2552 >! Thief 2528 >! Flame Legion 2506 >! Ogre 2503 >! Eagle, 50% uptime 2439 >! Scholar w/o bonus 2487 >! Strength 2459 >! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 2407 >! Pack 2387 >! Exuberance 2327 Power tempest - fresh air , signet of fire equipped >! Old Scholar (pre-2018) 1825 >! Thief 1813 >! Scholar with accuracy sigil 1813 >! Scholar 1795 >! Eagle 1795 >! Spellbreaker 1782 >! Ogre with accuracy sigil 1742 >! Ogre 1725 >! Strength with accuracy sigil 1716 >! Strength 1699 >! Pack 1677 >! Old Scholar w/o bonus (pre-2018) 1658 >! Exuberance 1600 There's no need to powercreep everything else when Scholar rune bonus can simply be toned down. Even without the health bonus it is high performing and within margin to Ogre rune (which is basically scholar rune +4% before the 2018 rebalance) and unlike other runes, it also has an effect on WvW. You can't flank or remove every boon in WvW all the time but with scrappers and minstrel firebrands in your squad you can definitely maintain high uptime on scholar's. For holosmith, if you're in any form of PVE party at all (this is the fractal/raid/strike forum, right?) with a banner from warriors there will never be a scenario where you want precision. I don't know where that notion came about. Berserker's in full ascended is 50.76% crit chance, +20% from fury, +15% from High caliber, +4.76% from banner (100 precision / 21 precision per %), +10% from Hematic Focus vs bleeding (which you generate even if nobody else does), is already 100% crit chance. Don't need a calculator to optimize that when there's absolutely no need for it. The same holds true for power daredevil running signet of agility (180 precision). Also, unless your revenant is falling asleep and/or running _Swift Termination_ over _Dance of Death_ the scholar uptime will naturally be high. Boon herald runs roiling mists which makes fury count for 40% crit chance , meaning you are at 90% crit chance while running full berserker's. Unlike renegade which loses a chunk of crit chance while dodging, that also applies to WvW. This is unlike power reaper where you could argue when it isn't in shroud then you need precision. However, if you're playing power reaper you're already putting yourself at a severe disadvantage from the beginning and all your heal classes will hate you because of how shroud works. The net effect of shaving down scholar rune would be also shaving down any large DPS differences between DPS classes that use it (i.e. everything not a warrior).

> @"Cynz.9437" said: > > @"Infusion.7149" said: > > I'd rather it always give quickness in PvE , with a negligible duration in PVP/WVW (1/4 second?). That would make boon daredevil relevant outside of a few select raids. > > Please no, the boon strip has its uses in PVE as well (e.g. bounties). Quickness instead of vigor

> @"Nephalem.8921" said: > > @"Infusion.7149" said: > Nice effort but you made quite a lot of errors. In fact the slb build without scholar has higher effective power than the scholar one. Scholar takes skirmishing while thief rune build takes marksmanship. Obviously using a rune with precision does nothing on an already critcapped build. > 15% critical dmg are NOT 15% dmg. the 8.3 critdamage from 6th bonus translate to ~4% or less total damage. Closer to 3% for high ferocity builds. There will always be one best offensive rune. The difference between them is way smaller than you think. Ferocity is the weakest stat of the 3 offensive power ones. Other runes are stronger as soon as a build needs a lot of precision. Thief runes 6th bonus is far stronger than scholars bonus. Its just the random condition dmg that makes them not best in slot for everyone. > Scholar runes were uncontested meta years ago with the 10% dmg mod while above 90% health. there are a lot of competetive options now and scholar is not in all cases optimal. Fractals are an outlier because you just fix low critchance with more ar instead of using another rune with precision. > Also even on critcapped builds flame legion pulls ahead for fresh air weaver and you always have to factor in the 5% scholar bonus. burning will have a 100% uptime, your health threshold wont. > In fact strength 6th bonus was 7% at first but it got nerfed because it was too strong compared to other runes. > If I made "a lot of errors" feel free to replicate it. There's quite a bit of conjecture here rather than hard numbers. https://old.discretize.eu/ https://snowcrows.com/gearoptimizer/ The old scholar rune without the 10% health bonus is the same as deadeye rune basically or ogre with 10% conditional instead of 4% flat bonus with ~500dps on top from the rock dog. The 8.3% from ferocity is tacked on via distributive law of mathematics so the lower your scholar uptime is the better the current iteration is. All damage multipliers compound off it. You'd see lower damage on just about every build while the damage _with_ the bonus was a bit higher (to the tune of 1% for Power DH , closer to 2% for Power BS and Soulbeast). Strength runes were not reworked in the 2018 rune patch, they were reverted from 7% to 5% after a brief time of several months at 7% bonus in 2014. Right now in WvW you're more likely to see scholar rune on a power damage character than any other rune. So this idea that it isn't used in WvW is false. The only time it isn't used is if people are trying to build in toughness then durability, trooper , or monk runes for supports are used. That's not counting fringe tactics such as speed runes on everyone with swiftness or a full squad using golemancer runes. For a while "primarily fire" staff weavers that used _Pyromancer's Puissance_ ran the Strength rune but after the changes to the trait to benefit PvE it is highly unlikely to re-emerge.

> @"XenoSpyro.1780" said: > That's all Scholar is, a raw damage boost. Fireworks with my traits gives me 100% vigor uptime. 5% damage doesn't mean anything if you're lying on the ground. The damage bonus from scholar is **15%** from ferocity if you are crit capped (100% crit chance) even without the +5% > 90% health bonus. ---- All that needs to happen is lowered >90% health damage bonus on scholar's. It was shaved from 10% but then 125 ferocity was added to it (which is 8.3% if at crit cap) which made zero sense to me. The only time you would not use scholar is if you can use thief runes. It isn't practical in fractals when you have AR to supplement precision. Likewise eagle runes have only 50% uptime on the 10% bonus unless it's trash mobs. Some of the prevalent power runes that might have seen use if the bonuses were more even: * Spellbreaker (175 power, flat 7% vs boonless and also 100 precision) --- when you run power chronos boons are more or less nonexistent unless they are reapplied constantly * Eagle (175 precision, 225 ferocity = 15% crit, 10% damage bonus vs <50% health) * Golemancer (300 ferocity , 100 precision ... no damage bonus) --- this should not be improved as it is a dungeon rune I think * Mesmer (175 power, 100 precision, 10% damage bonus vs dazed) * Thief (300 precision, 100 condition damage, 10% flanking bonus) --- this only became relevant after the extra 125 precision was added as 6th bonus * Flame legion (175 power, burning modifier relevant for guardians since it's more or less 7% damage bonus always) * Strength (175 power, 5% damage bonus under might) --- this could be a little more generous given it has no ferocity bonus * Ogre (175 power, 100 ferocity = ~6.7% crit , 4% flat damage bonus without conditional) * Infiltration (175 power, 100 precision, 10% damage bonus vs <50% health) --- similar to eagle rune * Pack (175 power, 125 precision , but lack of damage bonus makes it iffy for group scenarios and fractals) * Deadeye (175 power, 100 ferocity and a semi-useless 6th bonus) * Dragonhunter (175 ferocity, 100 power) * Rage (175 ferocity, 5% damage bonus) --- needs help * Divinity , _for reference_ is +78 to all stats and a flat 10% health bonus (of those stats only three matter: power , precision, and ferocity for a total of 234 total stats added) For example on power soulbeast if you punch it through the snowcrows calculator with spotter+banner+ assassin's presence (no empower allies), _where they don't mention quickness or 25 vulnerability_: >! 24.5K scholar with health bonus >! 23.5K eagle rune 50% uptime >! 23.4K thief rune (flanking) >! 23.4K scholar without health bonus >! 22.7K golemancer rune or mesmer rune with 20% daze uptime It's a similar scenario if you run it through discretize's calculator with 150AR assuming standard buffs , slaying potion , force + impact sigils using marksmanship instead of skirmishing: >! ~3.67K Scholar with active bonus (effective power 37,605) >! ~3.64K Spellbreaker (effective power 37,364) >! ~3.63K Eagle , only versus <50% targets (effective power ~37,261) >! ~3.62K Thief (effective power 37,116) >! ~3.55K Flame Legion (effective power ~36,438) >! ~3.53K Ogre (effective power ~36,230) >! ~3.5K Scholar without active bonus (effective power ~35,815) >! ~3.5K Strength (effective power ~35,757) >! ~3.42K Pack (effective power ~35,134) With the soulbeast raid build (skirmishing variant) in discretize: >! ~3.56K Scholar with bonus (effective power ~36,476) >! ~3.45K spellbreaker / Flame Legion >! ~3.43K Ogre >! ~3.4K Eagle >! ~3.39K Scholar without bonus (effective power ~34,739) >! ~3.39K Strength >! ~3.2K Pack Put Berserker through discretize calculator with the minimum 150AR (ideally you want more for warriors that need precision): >! Thief: 4.93K , assuming you can flank >! Eagle with bonus: 4.92K , only versus <50% targets >! Scholar with bonus: 4.92K >! Spellbreaker: 4.87K >! Flame Legion: 4.77K >! Ogre: ~4.74K >! Scholar without bonus: ~4.69K >! Strength: ~4.68K >! Pack: ~4.6K Power DH's discretize results: >! Scholar with bonus: 3.68K >! Spellbreaker: 3.6K >! Eagle: 3.59K >! Thief: 3.54K >! Flame Legion: 3.53K , not factoring in burn duration >! Ogre: 3.53K >! Scholar without bonus: 3.5K >! Strength: ~3.47K >! Pack: ~3.37K >! Exuberance: ~3.27K

I'd rather it always give quickness in PvE , with a negligible duration in PVP/WVW (1/4 second?). That would make boon daredevil relevant outside of a few select raids.

There's legendary WvW armor, ring , and backpiece, plus you can get legendary weapons off the Trading Post. There's ascended trinkets that are stat selectable. The biggest stat bonus is from an ascended weapon (~5%). Armor isn't as large a contributor. Trinkets + ring can be obtained via mist trinkets or going to Bjora Marches for maybe 15 minutes to get eternal ice for trinkets. I think the WvW mastery system could use toning down in terms of the ranks required for someone to have a full experience but the idea that ascended is not accessible is ludicrous. If you only WvW you can get legendary armor (by WvW upgrade), weapon (off trading post), rings (slumbering Conflux + Conflux), and backpiece. If you want to propose legendary WvW equipment, the only things it's truly missing are: Amulet - PvP only right now. Given no infusions are put into it this isn't a priority , just get eternal ice shard Asgeir's Amulets. Trinkets - this is PvE only (with many Jumping Puzzles) and only comes one-off so you can't gear more than one character with it anyhow If we ever get legendary trinkets then I'd rather have no effect by the way.

There's ways to obtain them in every game mode. I doubt there will be additional methods.

Complaining about 1K damage using diviner gear on a skill that immobs that may be further nerfed due to PvP complainers isn't wise. Shackling wave currently has a 1.0 coefficient so 1K damage is inline with what you would expect on a target with any damage reduction (tooltip is based off of 2597 armor). If you want a proper test regime you should be using armistice bastion golems. Karka potions, food/utility, protection, keep bonuses, etc all skew results in actual borderlands. P.S. all damage was reduced around 33-40% across the board in the February 2020 patch.

Not sure which mode you're talking about but regardless it's a terrible idea. Most people don't want necromancers already in PVE and roughly half the classes (even full condi scourges) apply burning. Reapers apply chill on greatsword autos. You'd also basically tell all the rangers to drop Frost Trap and any elementalists to not use water attunement. People already complain about reapers, if a change such as this were implemented you'd basically be trolling if you join any guardian's party on reaper. Negating burning means even non-burn guardians lose _Fiery Wrath_'s 7% bonus and _Radiant Power_'s 10% crit chance bonus (a minor trait I might add). If you want to nerf burning, go reduce stacks and lengthen durations or put internal cooldowns on the skills and/or traits (such as Permeating Wrath which is likely the culprit for PvP or WvW burn guards , Radiant Fire, King of Fires, or Burning Rage). Originally burning wasn't meant to stack intensity. A skill such as Sword of Justice could simply be tuned such that _Eternal Armory_ doesn't trigger four times ; vulnerability could be reduced or removed from the skill. Adjusting all burning and chill to negate each other is akin to carpet bombing an entire island when a small radius laser guided missile is more applicable.

People do fractals to finance WvW, not the other way around... It's always been that way. In addition, even if the drops in WvW were anywhere decent (they really aren't) you would want to make legendary WvW trinket and armor in the longterm.

> @"Firebeard.1746" said: > That's interesting because I've always seen Siren's as a soft DPS check too, if those adds don't go down it's a wipe. There was once when i was carried by some crazy DPS god who's ignored them, but I've literally had to teach tons of teams to keep them down or we'll be overwhelmed because they couldn't do Hyperfocused DPS god. > > Though a way the devs could take emphasis off DPS is to trigger events/mechanics on certain boss health %s. Like instead of doing the adds on a timer like Siren's, do it at boss health intervals so your team could end up getting zerged. And maybe not despawn adds on boss death. That's why every decent fractal build has cleave and people generally don't run single or two target weapons such as rifle deadeye or dagger soulbeast. Current meta classes such as soulbeast (unless the person camps longbow) and banner berserker cleave 3 targets. Siren's Reef is basically a scenario where Photon Forge shines because it cleaves 5 targets with 240 range and benchmarks 25K or so just on PF auto; likewise condi firebrand with F1 resets on every mob death.

It's due to role compression and how strong aegis from mantra of solace is on 12 base cooldown as well as sanctuary as a CC skill. Theoretically you could run chrono+druid as older times or even chrono+alacrity renegade but the alacrity uptime is going to be much poorer with chrono+druid unless you run full boon chrono. That's not even counting the fact that chronos suffer immensely when things die quickly because they don't get to make full use of their shatters and slow uptime will be terrible. Typically you need a few seconds for the phantasms to do their full damage so chrono functions more similar to a fast ramping condi build. The best way to fix this without completely breaking the game (or touching fractals) is to make boon daredevil viable in fractals by having a 80-100% Boon duration daredevil with _Improv_ (Deadly arts) + _sleight of hand_ be able to upkeep quickness. The quickness could be tacked on to _Bountiful Theft_ or less ideally, _Thrill of the Crime_. The damage isn't insane and it can't legitimately heal on par with HB. Class by class , thief is in the worst spot right now I would think. **Requested or wanted** * Firebrand: people will run 4 of them in 100CM due to sanctuary and aegis spam * Renegade: breaks CC bars quickly, alacrity , boon rip , situational soulcleave healing + high self sustain * Berserker Warrior: "BS" wanted in most parties and in CMs other than 100CM because banners provide a sizable stat bonus ; if the warrior is decent they will have double maces for CC * Soulbeast Ranger: wanted as soulbeast in most CM parties and decent cleave + burst , frost spirit, _spotter_ or One Wolf Pack sharing ; can "abuse" axe reflects sometimes vs projectiles such as on 98CM / 99CM **Not requested** * Ele - Weaver: wanted for old CMs by people that adhere to rigid meta, unwanted elsewhere but decent cleave ; struggles with No Pain no Gain , Social Awkwardness, Flux Bomb, and condi heavy enemies ; the rotation is difficult so it means that people that want optimal performance are better off with other classes * Engi - Holo: high cleave, decent power burst, self sustain on photon forge and using AED ... only can boon rip with Throw Mine or sigils * Engi - Scrapper: okay damage with high sustain, it's been benchmarked around 15% less damage than holo but roughly on par with a power reaper with all offensive utilities ; stealth skips via stealth gyro * Ele - Tempest: high cleave , high self protection generation , water variant can maintain scholar uptime easier, can work around Social Awkwardness and Flux Bombs ... against smaller hitboxes or fights without adds it loses out damage * Guard - DH: high power burst, slight self sustain via Wings of Resolve and Virtue of Resolve ; respectable overall damage * Mes - Chrono: ramp time on clones and phantasms, against adds it has very low slow uptime but can generate party quickness using Seize the Moment (StM) * Mes - Mirage: usable in 100CM but not ideal elsewhere if you run it as condi due to the way confusion and torment work * Necro - Reaper: workable in most fractals with adds even if it is not best DPS , can work around instabilities and remove boons in <20s interval without taking extra utilities or traits ; self quickness if your firebrand is not great * Necro - Scourge: workable in most fractals with many adds, usable in 100CM even if not meta * Daredevil - there's nothing that really warrants bringing one right now unless the fractal level has a skip ; since condi thief is not really a thing it is largely unusable for 100CM

The other remaining weapons are mostly magic-themed such as focus, staff (unless you use in melee similar to rev and daredevil), and trident. I don't think shortbow would be a good fit compared to pistol. It would likely be offhand pistol though between those two choices. I don't think there's going to be another ranged warrior mainhand, there's one mediocre underperforming rifle for power and then the condi longbow.

Per snowcrows' slow uptime table you need only 10% slow uptime for Danger Time to pull ahead of IA. That's why they list 85% (with spotter/banner and fury) as the target crit chance especially when there's a chrono stack or other sources of slow such as DH. (see https://snowcrows.com/raids/guides/mesmer/chronomancer/power%20boon/ ) * Time Warp is 10% uptime with continuum split * Time Sink is 7% uptime There's also a 50% boon duration variant on Lucky Noobs. https://lucky-noobs.com/builds/power-chrono-support * note their bench with Inspiration instead of dueling comes in at 23K with 0% boon duration , which isn't that competitive with power quickness or condi quickness FB * If you add the modifiers from Dueling to this benchmark it would be +15% at a minimum from Superiority Complex's crit damage increase , and up to another 10% crit damage from Fencer's Finesse stacks (1% per stack). Your build in the first post has 100% crit chance without slow (3521 power and 245.73% crit damage under utility , _100 concentration +70 power_ food + 25 might and profession specific buffs). Full meta with food/utility it would be 3634 power and 265.4% crit damage ; danger time applies a 10% crit damage bonus. You lose roughly 15% damage on crits if you account for the 5% scholar bonus. You have self fury and might already so I don't feel pack rune is as strong in this situation , even if the druid isn't bringing the right spirits. If you uncheck danger time on the snowcrows calculator (i.e. aiming for 100% crit without slow) and check pack rune , you end up with the following: * 2 assassin accessories * Berserker's armor + backpiece * assassin's weapons * pack rune * force+accuracy sigils * Superior sharpening stone or similar (fruitcake) * +100 power +70 ferocity food So it isn't terrible , but keep in mind the limitations.

> @"zealex.9410" said: > > @"Infusion.7149" said: > > It's because they were not intended to replace CC skills. That was what was mentioned in their "guild chat" stream at least. > > Its not just the cc skills, its also weapons and consumables that are usefull. You can't change weapons once you're in combat as far as equipping. That's also counter to what the gemstore is for with respect to templates, Utility & Metabolic Primers and such. If you need a button for something that you need to use every 30 minutes to one hour I don't know what to say.

I doubt there will be refunds since then people can convert laurels into skirmish tickets. WvW infusions can be purchased for 5 laurels and 125 badges (which is paltry). It is far more likely a stat change recipe that doesn't require 2 Integrated Fractal Matrix would be introduced (ideally mystic coins as the raid infusions and Deldrimor ones require or other universal currency such as Ectoplasmic Stone). WvW infusions aren't useless or "worthless" if you play WvW. The issue at hand is they can't be used in fractals so a positive fix would be to introduce a 500 artificer recipe that adds +9 agony to them or to use the mystic forge for a recipe that adds +9 agony for a reasonable price (for example a WvW infusion combined with six normal +9 agony). +5 stat infusions in PVE with no appearance are upwards of 150 gold , cosmetic ones that may or not fit your appearance are 60g+ A change such as this would benefit WvW players that do not have a dedicated WvW equipment template (i.e. legendary armor+ trinkets) but also anyone that doesn't have full legendary (most WvW players on a second character). This would also help people that play fractals almost exclusively to fund and prepare for WvW (because you need fractal relics to infuse backpieces and any rings other than Mist Band that aren't 3 stat).