Infusion.7149

You shouldn't be testing with openworld, try on the golems or at least with food + buffs (alacrity/quickness mainly but also banners,fury, ranger spirits). Also keep in mind they have their rotations finetuned and using +5 stat infusions with legendary/ascended. In addition damage depends on target armor level.

Quickness is the main contributor since it halves activation time. I would say the best thing to do is upgrade your amulet and accessories first and get ascended rings with infusion slots as well (there can be up to 3 per ring) , provided you have an ascended weapon.

Full ascended berserker's is 2557 power when using scholar rune , which jumps to 2647 with +5 might infusions. Full exotic with an ascended weapon is 2335 power with a scholar rune. That's 10% difference roughly , before damage modifiers or the difference in critical damage percent. Keep in mind damage multipliers are multiplicative with respect to power, so for example with Bounding Dodger , that 10% is amplified by 10% and if you run Havoc Mastery another 7%.

I would do weapon + trinkets, then chest + leg in that order (roughly 50% of armor stats come from the chest+leg), with the boots/gloves plus headgear/shouldergear last.

Amulet: use the winterberries , use laurels or make Vial of Salt (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vial_of_Salt)

Rings: you can use laurels , use winterberries for one, or do fractals and spend the pristine fractal relics.

Accessories: I would not use laurels + a bunch ectoplasms unless you are big on trading post flipping or plan to drop money on gems to gold.

If accessories are an issue, I would look into using guild commendations for the accessories.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_trinket

Thanks for the guide, this combined with the advice from some other people that told me to take it slow allowed me to finally finish the JP part of the collection this year.

I didn't know that the candy cane beams could be easier with diagonal jumping , but that's in retrospect after reading through this entire thread.

Best tips from the guide: action cam (so you don't need to hold right mouse button), use middle path for the gift boxes, don't rush the snowball parts , and use the blue boxes for the ending.

If the quaggan path didn't exist I probably wouldn't have made it though and it still took me many tries (on Norn).

Seems some people don't know what a rework is (i.e. someone suggesting a rework based on thief pistol) and are fixated on golem DPS. If it's even semi-competitive as a class it doesn't need a rework , although naturally some classes will have traitlines that work better in PvP, WvW, or PvE. I'd rather not waste valuable manhours of Arenanet on something that may not even work out.

Sometimes it isn't so much that core needs improvement as much as elite specs are massively improving stats and PvE raids being one big HP sponge with an enrage timer. If anything some classes deserve chronomancer-style leveling of the playing field.

1. Core necro shroud : maybe have it all ranged in contrast to the short range of reaper but with higher damage on 2-5 in PvE along with PvE-only cooldowns. If cooldowns are over 15s the 10s shroud cooldown could be shorter in PvE. Maybe hitting multiple times to synergize with blood magic should be considered (Life transfer attempts this), or perhaps just to lower blind/weakness effectiveness on core necros. Traits and skills don't need as much work , maybe some stab and mobility (reaper's shroud has more mobility and reaper has pulsing stab in reaper's shroud). As much as people hate on death magic (probably PvE only players with focus on raids that have one enemy), people in open world can use it for sustain + LF and there's a toughness to power conversion such that toughness isn't as penalized.

------ Also utility skills in shroud should have cooldowns show as they do for firebrand, engineer, and eles with conjured weapons.

------ Necro elites see plenty of use in WvW and as much as people say necros overall have no utility, scourges put up barriers.

2. core rev : mostly a hodge podge unless you run power (devastation, invocation, salvation/retribution) , as condi builds are better with Kalla and likely also alacrity builds. It doesn't need a full rework but I feel core rev ought to have a F2 to maintain competitiveness with Herald and Renegade. Retribution (with dwarf) and Salvation (with Ventari) are usable on core rev due to recent changes. Rev shouldn't take the top spot despite the rigid utilities simply because every rev has access to herald/renegade.

------ shield needs work but isn't core

**minor changes**

* core thief: it's weaker than daredevil for melee and deadeye in ranged

* core engineer: there's few reasons to run one over holo or scrapper. a big first would probably to make pistol stronger by increasing bleed stack and cutting duration (so it's not just grenades to proc the firearms line or bomb kit with explosives line) . Experimental turrets with rifle turret for fury won't compete with Druid or herald and core engi will use condi mostly.

* core ele : dagger /staff / scepter fire (auto in PvE) needs to be looked at a bit (scepter is still incredibly slow). Not so much the specializations (air or arcane for power , earth or arcane for condi)

----- air traitline changes helped core ele a bit but dagger users in PvE that can't swap for range have an issue in that conjure recharges are too long and lava axe is rarely used (ice bow was nerfed as well)

---- I'd like to see scaling of weapons increase but weaver stat bonuses cut a bit since weaver has inherent bonuses, plus possible ones from swiftness and single attuning (if traited). Tempest has access to additional damage and support with the tradeoff of needing "fresh air" if overloading air.

**probably not**

* core warrior: best example of good core class (20% damage bonus from peak performance , empower allies) at least for PvE

* core guard: decent, it's more that firebrand is stronger due to quickness + tomes , "Feel my wrath" elite skill could use an increase in potency or a PvE cooldown reduction since renewed focus is much stronger with tomes and aegis output is far better on firebrand

* core ranger: loses healing + might generation from Grace of the land , or damage bonuses in soulbeast traitlines ; I don't understand ranger complaints as you can play core ranger even if it isn't optimal. It's much stronger in situations where the enemies are fewer in number. Additionally the elite spec weapons don't have much potency (i.e. staff is for astral force not so much for the minor healing , it's probably weaker than guardian mace or ele staff)

---- in situations where spirits aren't used, the "protect me" skill should probably give the pet damage reduction as a portion of ranger damage comes from the pet

* core Mesmer: an alternative to mirage for condi , as axe isn't massively better than scepter + staff

Classes I tend to play:

* **Chrono** (with the changes to chronos there's no reason to run boonshare and mesmers are always strong roamers , zerging support via veil + heals on shatter) --- higher skill ceiling than mirage IMO as shatter is harder than spamming a bunch of condi clones; low kill count due to low number of ranged AoEs (over 60% of playhours on Mesmer, mostly in WvW)

--> well executed veils and portals are vital (don't make death trap portals)

--> golem rushing often requires Mesmer portals to be quick

--> Plan B : getting into a keep or SMC and waiting for enemies to leave so you can portal a squad into it is fun when it doesn't take ages (make sure to get scout participation sharing if you do this for longer than 15-20 min)

--> unpopular due to no need for stacking more than 1-3 per squad

* **Herald** (I roam with zerg build that provides 10-man perma fury and rarely die except to full condi builds when using dwarf+glint) --- lower skill floor , high kill count due to hammer , requires knowledge of terrain for CoR / hammer 2

--> far better for attacking towers and tier 1-2 keeps as well as defending

--> Elite skill's superspeed applies to golems and helps get people out of bubbles (superspeed is not a boon)

--> in a condi meta the mallyx resistance is extremely strong, in a power meta swapping to dwarf to provide a 50% damage reduction to power damage is really strong , if running healing gear Ventari heals even passively

--> doesn't stack well more than one per 5 or 10 people due to CoR limitations (you can't damage someone more than once per interval) although CoR is rather forgiving in terms of recharge time unlike meteor or necro wells

Maybe, depends on player/situation:

* Tempest/Weaver (it can roam a bit on non-staff, but is really weak to condi) --- higher skill ceiling ; very high kill count on staff , don't run full glass if you want this to be fun , the skill of playing elementalist is in positioning (i.e. precast meteor) and on weaver it's compounded by the dual-attunement swapping mechanism

--> as an elementalist on offense , sieging fortified structures is much more engaging than other professions since you can hit things with meteor even when they are located on the inner side of a wall

--> recent air traitline changes along with scholar rune changes make elementalists hit much harder with meteor and even fireball and chain lightning

--> damage stacks very well but is not fast (i.e. meteor, lava font, dragon's tooth if scepter, chain lightning, ice spike)

* Firebrand (it can roam on DH better , but vital for zerg) --- higher skill ceiling on firebrand than DH , can change outcome of battle if running mace+shield along with mantras (which requires a different gearing for roaming especially if you run meta full minstrel's)

--> running minstrel's is rather one dimensional since you only look at sustain and have little say in damage output other than burning.

--> it's essentially the backbone of any zerg

* Scrapper (it can roam or zerg on hammer) , not so much with gyro change on Final Salvo --- higher skill cap , playing this in a zerg is not fun if you camp med kit but can be alright if you run rapid regen and only swap to kits when extra healing is needed

--> I've never run this with full minstrel's so I'm glad I didn't after the gyro change

--> probably one of the worst stacking classes due to the way medical dispersion field is working

* Spellbreaker (it can roam or zerg with hammer) , not so much with full counter nerf --- lower skill floor , dropping well placed bubbles is fun but nothing much other than positioning

--> does not stack very well, more than a few bubbles isn't very helpful and requires good coordination/timing

Classes I don't find fun:

* Scourge / Reaper : dropping wells and pushing barriers is pretty boring , you get tons of kills due to boon corrupt and marks on staves though

--> there's so many players playing this it's cliché

--> scourge roaming is a terrible experience due to lack of stability on scourge other than trail of anguish as well as loss of shroud (which means all you get is barriers to stop you from being downed)

--> stacks extremely well due to well of corruption removing one boon per tick

* Soulbeast / Druid: druid is weaker than firebrand in WvW zerging , Soulbeast is typically gimmicky "Sic Em" abuse with stacking modifiers, longbow users are hampered by projectile hate

--> soulbeast stance sharing can be potent if conditions become meta

* Deadeye / daredevil Thief : I find initiative & stealth spam gimmicky and the lack of AoE except on staves (shortbow condi is easily cleansed) makes it difficult to get a proper place in a zerg

Having the option of being able to roam or zerg is essential when waiting on queues.

I can't see anyone who was running full commander's or minstrel's having as much fun post patch if they still even play chrono. You see far more druids, whose boons are brain dead because you just have to plop some spirits down for boons.

SoI is really clunky and I feel that party alacrity should have an alternate source other than the well and shield skill. Bountiful Disillusionment was gutted as that was a major offender.

If all you want is fury, heralds have 100% uptime + assassin's presence (more crit damage) and druids with the newly patched Storm spirit with the Nature's Vengeance trait also put out fury. In fact the banner skill #2 on discipline has fury too.

Alacrity can be obtained from revenants running Natural Harmony (when Serene Rejuvenation is traited) , plus running renegade offers Orders from above for the same energy cost.

Arenanet _could have_ expanded the alacrity/quickness wells to apply boons per tick (rune of chrono's quickness is only applied to the chrono) and in a bigger radius as the wells' damage is horrible.

For higher aegis uptime perhaps other signet cooldowns could be cut further , but I suppose that's what firebrands are for.

Do you mean core engineer?

The sword holo or hammer scrapper are pretty easy to play in comparison to core engi. Scrapper gets access to stealth and barriers so it's mostly support, holo gets access to higher damage and Photon forge.

I like playing hammer scrapper in open world due to the sustain , it's really relaxed in comparison to core engineer. It's also used in Wvw with rapid regen + medical dispersion field.

Holo has access to a bit of support via the utilities and you can bring bunker down even on core engineer. It's main use is damage.

Due to grenades and pistols being more used for condi that's the main use for core engineer. To maximize damage you need to rotate through kits much like other classes rotate through weapons (except elementalist which mainly uses fire/air attunement in PvE).

> @"RedShark.9548" said:

> > @"nativity.3057" said:

> > Guardian for zerg only if you like supporting.

> > I don't have fun playing support Firebrand, so Spellbreaker, Rev, Necros, and maybe even Ele are good choices for dps fun.

> > Of those choices, I find Spellbreaker and Ele to be the most fun.

> > You'll definitely find more parties (commanders willing to deal with pugs) as Firebrand.

> > But it's really a matter of what you enjoy the most. Don't roll Firebrand just to join a squad. You'll burn out quickly.

> >

> >

> > Roaming is even more based on personal preference. You can go Mesmer/Thief/Ranger for optimal roaming, but if you don't have fun, is it really worth playing those classes just because it's the "best" at what it does?

> >

>

> Warrior isnt rly fun in zerging anymore, most of the time you just stand in your squad, watching as your and the enemy zerg are throwing trash at each other on long range, until one side gets weak enough for the final push. So 80-90% you are just standing around doing nothing.

> (atleast on the meta spellbreaker, most ppl dont like worker warrior with sword/horn afterall)

Then your commanders need to push faster , sustain better instead of pirate shipping, or learn to use portal.

Play Asuran rev in WvW all the time when I'm on rev.

DH is superior for roaming due to damage modifiers (Pure of sight / big game hunter) + spear of justice (reveal + burn). Also hunter's ward is probably the most annoying thing to get caught in besides gravity well.

Resolve is a tradeoff however, you obtain a larger heal and leap but the cast time makes it interruptible.

I honestly don't think Arenanet will allow another class other than scourge to share barriers. I was surprised that they added barrier to scrapper function gyro in the February 2018 patch.

Most people run the hammer trait for the stability on evade. Bulwark gyro is run quite often already, along with blast gyro.

What isn't run often is the heal gyro. It used to have no cast time.

While what you propose for the gyros is nice, the gyros go from defensive to offensive for the purge gyro and I don't think they'd put protection on heal gyro when it has it from toolbelt. Having gyros affect 10 targets is already quite an upgrade.

As for the rapid regen slot, I always thought that people not running support ran Mass Momentum or expert examination.

I could see using it on firebrand more so than on revenant unless you're running alacrity from Centaur (relatively short but low cooldown gated by energy cost) or Kalla's Orders.

Tried in two browsers so you're missing gear or put a wrong link probably.

I would say there's little reason to run hammer with condi spec over pistol though unless you're using it for blocks. I'm guessing you're using Tools instead of firearms (more condi focused) due to toolbelt recharges , though I would experiment with firearms more than tools traitline.

Most commanders will want you to do party healing in some fashion so if you go that route some plaguedoctor pieces might not be bad. You'd have to drop Tools for *Medical Dispersion Field* in the Inventions line if not bunker down (only use with precision).

I know of at least one player that only plays Mesmer **and** only plays WvW. So this idea of warranting a spot is irrelevant unless you have people that play Mesmer only when it is OP or if you have a hard limit on number of players (GvG).

Mesmer will still have a place in WvW until another class can invis 20+ people better or portal people in and out of keeps or across chokepoints. There's plenty of classes that can do damage, but no class can turn the tide like a mesmer portal behind an unsuspecting group or via wasting all the enemy damage via fake veil push. You just don't stack one to two per party (guardian) or one per 5-10 (herald). You certainly don't stack them pretending they're scourges. People that actually have been playing Mesmer will keep playing it instead of complaining about every patch. Before Desert BL changes (marked debuff) I used to hide in keeps for multiple hours waiting for a commander tag (before "scout" designation in squad shared rewards) to flip keeps so Mesmer is truly a thankless profession.

Besides that, mesmers in roaming are one of the stronger classes. Not every class has to be optimal for zerging.

Been playing Mesmer since prelaunch , before people bandwagoned on Mesmer after chrono came out and the Mesmer rework. Before boon share mesmers still ran veil+portal.

It's no different now , except you get gravity well if chrono, mantra of concentration that's been improved , and a revamped mimic. There's also feedback , mantra of resolve, and null field.

Keep in mind with no investment in healing power you get healing from inspiration traitline by shattering (making scepter auto better as well as all clone traits such as Chronophantasma , Illusionary reversion, and deceptive evasion) , which makes *Illusionary Inspiration* more useful if you decide to run that (for non shatter focused builds), and blurred inscriptions is free aegis for your party if you run the signet heal , Signet of Midnight/Signet of Domination on condi builds.

If you decide to go with mirage , you can still run portal , veil, and mantras but the cooldown won't be affected by alacrity or continuum split. The nature of clones makes condi more potent (especially staff clones).

That said it would be nice if the idea of the wells applying every tick similar to necro wells were implemented. In their current state you need 3 seconds delay which is only acceptable in PvE.

Shocking speed could get a rework instead but it would have to compete with 10% damage from *Perfectly weighted* & the synergy with *mass momentum*.

Gyros ought to have higher speed I think and the pathing shouldn't be ground dependent due to flying/floating.

I hope you are aware *Rapid regen* is a backbone for WvW scrappers. It's the reason you'd run scrapper over holosmith (which can still run Medical Dispersion field/bunker down and med kit). Because you grant boons with hammer auto even if you aren't in med kit , it makes the Alchemy traitline stronger.

Honestly I would go with revenant or engineer rather than thief , maybe even firebrand (nerfed recently though). Thief is rather skill spam due to initiative mechanic, whereas revenant and engineer get their extra skills from kits/toolkit plus legends respectively. Revenant has its own problem in that utilities are rigid in nature but at least you get 2 legends.

Winter break for some people probably

There could have been reskinned maps with some random terrain thrown in the middle where it doesn't matter as much.

Desert BL in its initial iteration is an example of what happens when PvE stuff is used as a basis for WvW, it was very laggy with the laser event and it was hard to transverse from keep to keep for most players.

You're thinking about WvW from a "more shinies" PvE mindset , which is bound for failure.

I don't post often but your friend must not play WvW often if they think this is a good idea.

If there is to be more class diversity each class needs to be well balanced overall.

The problem right now is you need guardians (firebrands/core) for stability and support, scourges for frequent condi removal + barriers (capped at 50% of HP) and ranged boon corrupt , reapers for even higher power damage with boon corrupt, revenants for 10 man fury and ranged damage (with last patch they can also fulfill healing more) as well as rite of the great dwarf, weavers/damage tempests for blowing up siege on inside edge of walls or in certain chokepoints where CoR utterly fails due to elevation changes.

Mesmers are taken for veil , mantra of concentration, and gravity well, depending on build the blurred inscriptions' distortion provides aegis too. In their current state it isn't good for boon share since bountiful disillusionment doesn't share. Mirages are rampant in roaming largely due to elusive mind and other things that are extremely annoying for people to play against.

Spellbreaker warriors are largely taken for bubble (Winds of Disenchantment) and the PBAOE boon strip, and before that it was for banner to res people not fully downed. Scrapper engineers are largely taken for condi clear and/or healing , while in roaming holosmiths are often seen.

That leaves rangers and thieves. Druids , while popular in PvE don't have the sustain of guardians ; spirits are vaporized in larger fights. Druid's Celestial Avatar has zero damage compared to a minstrel's firebrand with mace except for the pulsed damage from Natural Convergence. Soulbeast is often seen as a roaming class due to the removal of the pet which is a liability often times in WvW. In a group comp maybe stance-share could work , longbow hits scourges hard if there's no projectile hate or terrain obstruction. Thieves typically come in two varieties: daredevils with unhindered combatant / Bound and deadeyes spamming rifle (in conjunction with Death's judgement).

If there is to be higher class diversity then likely firebrands' Epilogue- Eternal Oasis needs to be toned down from 20% and Chapter 1 Desert Bloom needs to be trimmed further. Most run Loremaster to retain Virtues passives while they are on cooldown. In theory , druid's Glyph of Empowerment is close.

Scourge's sand cascade would also need to be cut down in base barrier (or increased from 10s cooldown) and so would Sand Flare (which has a wrong tooltip).

To address the power creep from the runes/sigil changes would be a separate matter as scholar runes do more damage now due to the ferocity bonus (90%HP is harder to keep up in WvW than PvE); durability runes gained even more HP on classes with high HP such as warrior. There's outliers in rune of the elementalist (likely was buffed too much for condi) and sanctuary rune (basically broken with large groups but not wonderful otherwise) as well.

There hasn't been any mention of gear here, but IMO

* sigil of concentration (= 495 concentration) ,

* the 10% condition duration on the second tier of rune of the trapper (=150 expertise) if trying to balance PvE, and

* durability runes (20% boon duration maybe should only be on defensive boons such as protection/regen only)

* platinum doubloons when used in trinkets (40 concentration each) _and lower tier doubloons as a corresponding proportional change_

All ought to be looked at.

With leadership runes you lose at least 75 toughness/vitality stats versus durability and it is kept in check by divinity + traveler's + revenant runes although a reduction from 30% boon duration could also be warranted.

**For reference:**

Force = flat 5%

Accuracy = 7% x 21 = 147 precision

Malice = flat 6% condi damage

If you look at the "on kill" sigils which require 25 kills in PvE or 5 kills in WvW for example:

Bloodlust , Life , Corruption , cruelty, perception = 250 power / healing power / condition damage / ferocity / precision respectively

Bounty = 9 x 25 = 225 concentration

Benevolence = 12% healing , a bit more than transference's 10%

Tempest has been listed on metabattle + various raid oriented sites for overload air type of builds, but my issue with scepter (since launch day) is that scepter is pretty garbage at hitting anything that moves. Channeling air auto and tossing some delayed AoEs + overload isn't my idea of an enjoyable profession because gameplay outside of select bosses and DPS golems involves movement.

Dragon's tooth, shatterstone, phoenix, etc. all are delayed. Couple this with warhorn (lightning orb sometimes hits after things are dead , wildfire sort of rolls out so it isn't instant) and you have something that only works with the current "tank and spank" mentality with chrono.

Scepter + focus only appears to be stronger in low scale PvP scenarios (non roaming WvW is exempt) due to the ability to use focus knockdown or chill for CC to _try_ to keep people in the AoEs.

To be fair, celestial d/d ele is rare these days because celestial amulet has been nerfed and other classes experienced massive powercreep.

> @"ProverbsofHell.2307" said:

> > @"Glider.5792" said:

> > > @"Zawn.9647" said:

> > > > @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> > > > > @"ProverbsofHell.2307" said:

> > > > > The fact that our most viable PvE build is known as "bannerslave" is depressing as heck.

> > > >

> > > > It is a blessing and a curse, really:

> > > >

> > > > Guarantees us Warriors a constant Raid spot no matter how the meta shifts and evolves, but it is a dreadfully dull playstyle/build.

> > > >

> > >

> > > how does it play? you're only there to place banners and doesnt even matter what you do afterwards?

> > > or do we sacrifice weapon dps for cc/breakbars with mace?

> >

> > Warrior still does ALOT of dps (in pugs, you basicaly are the "DPS" if played properly). In fractals, there is alot of different build and weapon combos you use on warrior.

> > If you need CC you go with axe/axe + mace/mace.

> > If you dont need it you go axe/axe + greatsword.

> > Now if there is also "No pain no gain", there are ALOT of different possible options and builds to play, it just depends on the encounter and on your group. Like, with pugs i will most likely stick to dagger/axe + greatsword (possibly swap to mace/mace if realy needed, but its crap on spb), however with guild runs, there are soo many better stronger options, but they only work if the group is realy good.

>

> Never use off-hand mace, it's TERRIBLE. Use Mace/Axe and Axe/Dagger if you want CC. Go Dagger/Axe if you need boonstrip.

I feel like calling offhand mace terrible is a gross exaggeration since the damage coefficient is 1.5 and cooldown 12s on the mace 4 skill and it provides 15 stacks of vulnerability. Sure it isn't a high DPS option but it also brings 3s knockdown CC if you are running 2 banners (relegating you to kick/bull's charge).

Axe mainhand + dagger offhand has no CC unless you consider cripple a strong CC.

> @"Usagi.4835" said:

> Here's an idea. Make Harmonious Conduit aoe and grant 10% damage to 3-5 targets in a 240-300 radius? :tongue:

Would never be put in , allies' effect would probably include while "affected by aura" conditional