Dadnir.5038

To be fair, every single weapon power damage is "bad" in sPvP if you don't heavily invest into power damage since the feb 2020 patch. It's not just necromancer's dagger. More accurately, dagger main hand never had "strong damage", ANet simply nerfed both damage and healing source by 30% like they did for every professions of the game. The loss of stunbreak+stability might be harsh but ANet specifically said that they wanted the necromancer to be weak against CC. The truth is that, within sPvP environment, the necromancer gained a lot of survivability thanks to this patch because ANet kept the LF pool at 67% of the necromancer's health pool instead of nerfing it to 46% and since LF is gained in %, it mean that the sustain through LF didn't get the 30% nerf that almost every other source of sustain in the game suffered. It might seem irrelevant but in truth the current necromancer is like a pre 2020 feb patch necromancer that would have it's LF pool to health rate at 100% instead of 67% with foes having a 30% decrease in damage. Basically, the shroud can take 60% to 70% more hits than it could pre patch. NB.: To be clear, I do not like the feb 2020 patch but, objectively, it wasn't a "loss" for the necromancer (whatever builds used). In any way, the necromancer gained more survivability out of this patch than any other profession ot the game. And it's true whether you play a glass build, a bruiser build or a support build.

> @"Tridentuk.1625" said: > @KrHome.1920 > > How the hell did you get 39k dps at 1k range out of thief? (not that I'm looking to get ideas or anything................ o_O) > > I currently run my pvp condi pd in PvE, partly cos I want to continuously be practicing my mechanics for pvp/wvw, partly cos I like the tankiness as I'm learning fractal mechanics, partly cos I'm poor.... > I get 13k out of it, and I'd expect to do a lot more once I switch to a more meta pve build but 39k from rifle deadeye? that would be broken You do it like that: https://snowcrows.com/raids/builds/thief/deadeye/rifle/

All those skills on these e-specs are nice but... - What do the bladedancer steal? - What about the Dragoon in sPvP where there is no mount? - Don't you think that 4 kits to replace guardian's virtue after the 3 tome of FB are a bit to much "favoritism"? - Tidecaller lack at least a F2. - Golemancer lack it's belt skills. A golemancer should probably replace all it's toolbelt skills by a golem, not have a whole lot of different golems as utility skills. - Sage shouldn't modify conjure weapon, they are core skills, it would set a precedent that's just... wrong. - Do dreamwalker have new shatter? Or is it just a set of optional utility and an off-hand? - Huntsman make sense. - Wraith feel dangerously OP due to stealth and the basically free movement when leaving shroud. A question worth asking: can you stomp and damage the body that the wraith left?

As far as I know there already exist _repair kits_ so that you can "pay" for your repair while out on the field. I don't think it is necessary to add a layer of roleplaying based on secondary professions for things like repair. I mean, raids already have quite some requirement, if you add specific secondary professions on top of them you'll have some people despairing. Imagine how ridiculous it would be to see: "LFG experienced leatherworker bannerslave 500 LI min"?

I think you can do well enough with your build. You won't be especially effective against the more "mobile" builds and you might find the CC builds difficult to bear, thought. But that's the risk of playing a necromancer.

> @"kharmin.7683" said: > I still don't see how a hammer can be thematic for a ranger. To me, it is too large and bulky of a weapon, better served for more fighter-type classes than ranger. Just my opinion. > Just imagine a big wooden club and it's thematically fitting.

> @"quaniesan.8497" said: > Absolutely not. Even putting the side the argument that it's anti-thematic for rangers as much as a thief with scepter, it's redundant with long bow and short bow for both direct and condi damage. I'd go with dual swords instead. Scepter isn't "anti-thematic" with thief. If you want an anti-thematic weapons for thief, you got greatsword and hammer that are fine examples since they are considered "heavy weapons" not befitting of a profession whose thematic lean on being "agile and stealthy". GW's assassin, whom thief seem to be the successor, had quite an array of spell/curse/enchantment making a spell casting e-spec a possibility. Right now thief leant more on the "mechanic/industrial" side (especially with DE) but it got the leeway to move toward "magic". Sword off-hand on ranger wouldn't be surprising but I'm not sure it would be a "satisfying" or even "defining" e-spec weapon (Core Ranger already got a sword main-hand). Hammer, scepter, shield and/or focus would all be more thematically defining for an e-spec than a bland sword off-hand. While riffle and pistol don't feel to fit right with the "nature" thematic of the ranger.

> @"Lan Deathrider.5910" said: > > @"Dadnir.5038" said: > > That said, you can very well say that the fight was lost after 5 seconds of the log showed when he used _renewed focus_ and that would be true. But 16k damage over 5 seconds isn't really unreasonable right? That's just a bit more than 3k dps. > That 16k would have been within 2-3s if the Berserker was spamming F1s and Blood Reckoning, so 5k-8k dps. > > That said I do think OP is being disingenuous since he got hit by that Berserk attack while already below 75% hp, which means they aren't showing full context of the fight, but a Berserker YOLO spamming F1 and Blood Reckoning can down a noob quickly. > In fact, this set of screenshot say a lot: OP: - Class: core guardian - healing skill: shelter - Elite skill: renewed focus. - Utility Skill: Judge intervention - Main-hand weapon: sword - Amulet: Carion (retaliation consistently ticking at 171 mean 900 power, low crit rate mean no precision, healing potency mean 0 healing power). It put the guardian a 20k HP already which support the hypothese of a longer fight and give sense to the "lesser symbol of wrath" at the beginning of the screenshot. - Traitline: Zeal (lesser symbol of wrath) - I'd say he use _virtue of Justice_ that give him might just after the berserker enter _berserk_. Opponent: - Class: Berserker - Weapon: Axe/Axe and Greatsword - Traitline: Berserker (easy one, we can even deduce _savage instinct_), Discipline (weapon swap rate) and Arms (the bleed proc from bloodlust) - He got pretty good condi management since he only start to take damage from burn after _judge intervention_ I'd bet on some resitance and a cleanse after OP wasted it's _virtue of justice._ - Unblockable frame which basically point out to _signet of might_. - We can thus expect a signet build, capitalizing on _healing signet's_ resistance to carry the berserker through burn, followed by _signet of stamina_ to purge conditions and then _signet of might_ to be unblockable All in all, it mean that we got a condi guardian being taken down by it's perfect counter after a 5s signet berserker burst when he reach below 75% health.

> @"Lan Deathrider.5910" said: > Decapitate recharges instantly if it hits fwiw: > https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Decapitate > > The time it took to down OP was most likely 2s since he ate Decapitate and a full Arc Divider. The berserker did 16,023 damage in that time which is a great deal for any guardian to eat, and seeing as there are no strikes back in the combat log prior to the downed skill the OP was down and the berserker was kitting before swapping back to axe to finish the downed guardian. > > You can split hairs and consider the downed time for the total amount, but the time to down OP looks less than 5s to me considering Berserk Mode gives quickness, but what do I know I right? A bit more than 5 seconds, you can track it with resolve heal over time and regeneration after he break the virtue. That's assuming he get down by the GS swing thought, If we consider that he used _renewed focus_ after GSswing before being downed by _cyclone axe_, which seem to be hinted by the fact that he get a tic of resolve passive from virtue of resolve being back, that give us a fight closer to 8-9s. And we don't know when exactly the fight began since it start by the op having 2 different symboles dealing damage to the warrior among which one proc when hit below 75% health which can easily lead us to add a good extra second to this total for already around 10s of fight. But maybe I'm wrong and regen and resolve passive tic more than once per second. Maybe there is an exploit to proc _lesser symbol of wrath_ without taking a hit while below 75% health. Maybe you can use _renewed focus_ while down. That said, you can very well say that the fight was lost after 5 seconds of the log showed when he used _renewed focus_ and that would be true. But 16k damage over 5 seconds isn't really unreasonable right? That's just a bit more than 3k dps.

Should we ask to have the signets' passive permanent so it doesn't matter if we use the active? The truth is that It's your choice whether you use _wing of resolve_ active and lose the 25% movement speed, just like: - it's necromancer's choice whether he use _locust's signet_ active and lose it's passive 25% movement speed - it's elementalist's choice whether he use _signet of air_ active and lose it's passive 25% movement speed - it's ranger's choice whether he use _signet of the hunt_ active and lose it's passive 25% movement speed - it's thief's choice whether he use _signet of shadow_ active and lose it's passive 25% movement speed The guardian is not lacking in leaps and teleports and have access to mutiple reliable sources of swiftness in order to keep up the boon permanently. You even have a skill that allow you to recharge your virtues' CD. It's not like the guardian don't have back-ups to compensate for wing of resolve down time right? It's not like things like allies farting swiftness to no end, do not exist.

> @"Fueki.4753" said: > > @"Dadnir.5038" said: > > > @"Agrippa Oculus.3726" said: > > > If I have to answer the question in the title it's quite easy actually: it's the Warrior. Since launch of the game (2012) it's the _only_ class that has never gone out of Meta in PvE (endgame) content. > > > > It is not totally true. > > > > They were meta with great damage at launch of the game, but those damage took a serious nerf and they fell out of grace for a few month. Then they were blessed with _phallanx strength_ which gave them a second breath, yet, if it allowed them to enter and even be essential to casual groups, it wasn't enough to make them "meta" in front of the elementalist almost absolute dominion. After HoT release, they indeed ended up being meta but I believe their spot isn't very solid since banners lost a chunk of stats. > > I think Agrippa Oculus was referring to the banners, which have been used in every group instance META since the Berserker META in Septembre/Octobre of 2012. And that was the first META of the game. No, core wasn't really fond of banners, and I've played more than enough donjon and fractal within core era to be sure of it. Banners start to really find their place in PvE with raids and that was end 2015 with HoT. Before that it was of marginal use, meta group favoring comp with mostly elementalist for their frostbow and fiery GS with the occasional thief/mesmer to quicken the pace. I'm not saying that it wasn't used but not "meta" (and I played phallanx warrior in a 6-7 daily paths runs). Furthermore, the "berserker meta" took time to find it's place as well, it really became a "meta" around mai/june 2013. I'll be a bit excessive but the only profession that could be called "meta" in core was elementalist, other professions were either submeta (warrior, thief, mesmer and guardian), ignored by the playerbase (Engineer) or simply rejected (necromancer and ranger).

> @"Agrippa Oculus.3726" said: > If I have to answer the question in the title it's quite easy actually: it's the Warrior. Since launch of the game (2012) it's the _only_ class that has never gone out of Meta in PvE (endgame) content. It is not totally true. They were meta with great damage at launch of the game, but those damage took a serious nerf and they fell out of grace for a few month. Then they were blessed with _phallanx strength_ which gave them a second breath, yet, if it allowed them to enter and even be essential to casual groups, it wasn't enough to make them "meta" in front of the elementalist almost absolute dominion. After HoT release, they indeed ended up being meta but I believe their spot isn't very solid since banners lost a chunk of stats.

> @"Blackrystal.3508" said: > what do you think about engi and ranger? I'll sum up all professions (personal opinion): - Elementalist: The profession that have the possibility to specialized itself the most. Pros: builds highly specialized with often good performances. Cons: You often sacrifice the most to reach your results, rotations tend to feel complicated, provide mostly common boons (aura tend to not really be attractive in PvE). - Engineer: In itself the profession is amongst the least popular to play for PvE players. Pros: Highly versatile. Cons: Optimale rotation feel complicated, top dps is often average at best. - Guardian: The profession in flavor atm. Pros: Pretty easy to play, provide optimals boons with low amount of sacrifice. Cons: top DPS is average on small hitbox foes. - Mesmer: A pretty strong profession in PvE whose builds tend to suffer from sPvP backlash. Pros: can provide essential boons/utility, pretty high DPS. Cons: Burst is inferior to guardian's, tend to sacrifice a lot for reliably providing it's boons. - Necromancer: Very popular profession amongst player. Pros: boon corruption, resilience, user friendly. Cons: low damage, lack of utility/boons for the group. - Ranger: A solid profession in PvE. Pros: Nature spirits, Spotter, boons output. Cons: Average damage. - Revenant: A solid support in PvE. Pros: Alacrity, Provide "high" life leeching to the group. Cons: lack of flexibility due to legend skillsets, average damage at best. - Thief: Strong but situational in PvE. Pros: Can simply carry a team based on the encounter, stealth/port can be very useful on some fractals. Cons: Not effective on all encounters, "frail". - Warrior: The bannerslave. Pros: Provide invaluable extra stats, easy gameplay. Cons: low damage output.

> @"serow.6524" said: > Voted No. > I'm hoping for scepter, as a Zoo Keeper where the Ranger gets Minions as utilities. I'd love to see a shepherd that summon sheeps as utilities. Add a wolf as pet to help drive the sheeps and the picture would be perfect!

I'd say that guardian is relatively "new" in regard of being meta, thought. Pre Hot, the safe bet was elementalist. Then, during HoT era, the safe bet was mesmer (due to their respective e-specs). PoF led to the current rise of the guardian but it could change with the x-pac coming in a bit more than half a year. So, in the short term (roughly 6-8 months), I do agree with Fueki, that guardian and revenant are good pick. On the long term they can very well fall back to a sub-meta spot.

> @"dontlook.1823" said: > Where are they? They used to come out at the end of each PvP season. We have been stuck in this stale meta for such a long time. I think June was the last time I saw balance notes. These are my favorite notes to read. They change traits, add new traits, replace old ones. They also address power creep. ANET said they would be visible about these things yet we haven't heard a word about them. Are they just putting all their eggs in one basket with EoD cause that would be a very unwise thing to do... I want answers ? They made hundreds of balance tweeks since June you know? We've had balance patchs every 2 to 3 months, the last in december. They addressed "powercreep" again and again (be it the necromancer, the engineer, the ranger, the guardian and thief, all of them had builds that rose and fell through 2020). Logically the next one should appear in february/march. Also, when they said they would communicate more, it was a month or 2 before massive lay off and not long before C-19 first outbreak. Do you really expect them to be more communicative with less staff to do the same amount of work? This kind of announcement is like new year vow, it's quickly forgotten if things goes south.

Such subforum would probably bring nothing much on the table. "High ranking" players often don't suggest better idea than "low ranking" one. If I recall correctly, a great part of the "high ranking" players advocated for the majority of the changes that brought sPvP where it is now, they were even satisfied by the result for a week to a month. I think, once, I've even seen one basically say "Sorry I was wrong to suggest that..." after the change were made.

> @"Teratus.2859" said: > This sounds like my kind of build tbh, I very much enjoy sustain based play hence my bias for my might heal warrior, zealot thief and mostly life siphon Minion builds. > > I haven't played around much with SB.. mostly because I dislike the fuse mechanic and now the restriction to 1 pet.. however this poison healing interests me quite a bit. > I'm going to have to play around with this trait sometime and see if it works out for me. > It's something I hadn't considered before as a backup for regen. > I also like the idea of a Ranger built around poison, could be fun. You can focus more on poison than the build showed. I mean, the trap trait increase trap's condi duration by 60% and reduce their CD by 20%. If you add alacrity on top of it, your viper nest end up with a 12 second CD... Light on your feet double the number of poison stack you inflict while flanking your target (making it to up to 10 poison stack per foe hit and you can hit up to 5 foes for a maximum of 50 poison stacks applied) and, with alacrity again, it's on a 5 second CD. for example.

> @"LucianTheAngelic.7054" said: > > @"Dadnir.5038" said: > > > @"LucianTheAngelic.7054" said: > > > I'm glad the majority of the thread are able to put aside their balance prejudices though, and actually try to find ways to boost Herald's effectiveness so that it can sit in a better range with other specs, instead of continuing to keep it languishing very far behind like it continues to do. **The OP's suggestion to boost Shared Empowerment from 8s to 12s Baseline for PvE is a really good start,** as it still wouldn't be OP with those changes, but would at least be more able to keep up better with the other supports. I would probably take it a step further and boost both Facet of Strength and Shared Empowerment to 16s, considering it still takes quite awhile for the might to ramp up, unlike other supports like Druid which can just slap 25 onto 10 people no problem > > > > I'm not sure it's worth trying to compete against druid when it come to boons. Afterall, slap a diviner gear onto a druid and it become really easy to keep up fury, swiftness, protection, regen and vigor on 5 targets (by using a single skill and swaping pets). At this level, the fact that it can provide 25 might stacks on top of that is merely a matter of convenience (like saying: "don't bother, the druid will do it"). From the very beginning it's an uphill battle to try to compete with druid on these boons. > > > > Edit: When it come to support it's better to focus on the things that are more unique to the revenant/herald (facet of nature) or other boons (resistance/stability/alacrity) than focus on might. > > I disagree with this assessment. The 25 stacks of might for 10 people + Spotter & Spirits is *the* primary reason Druid is the premier raid support for years. The other boons and utility it provides as well as low heals are just a plus. > > By buffing Herald to be able to do 25 stacks of might (it can only do 14 at 100% boon duration currently) it becomes a viable replacement for Druid on par with Tempest (which can also do 25 stacks for 10 and is a viable Druid replacement due to that). It would still remain weaker than Druid overall, but would fit into more team comps easier > > I'm not sure, you really get my argument, so I'll rephrase it: "Is there really a need to fight druid on his turf? Is there really a need for Herald to try to somehow replace druid? Why exactly do you want something like that? Why have the herald grow in this direction when you have already the possibility to grow in different direction with less competition?" The Herald/revenant have access to support tools that the druid don't, why exactly would you push to promote the same tools that the druid use when you can turn yourself toward support tools with a more unique twist? Why would ANet do that?

The build sacrificing efficiency for survivability, I am not surprised that it's not listed as "meta". Why would it be? Unless you're looking for a spot as a "tank", being undying at the cost of 4-5k dps isn't looked kindly on.

> @"LucianTheAngelic.7054" said: > I'm glad the majority of the thread are able to put aside their balance prejudices though, and actually try to find ways to boost Herald's effectiveness so that it can sit in a better range with other specs, instead of continuing to keep it languishing very far behind like it continues to do. **The OP's suggestion to boost Shared Empowerment from 8s to 12s Baseline for PvE is a really good start,** as it still wouldn't be OP with those changes, but would at least be more able to keep up better with the other supports. I would probably take it a step further and boost both Facet of Strength and Shared Empowerment to 16s, considering it still takes quite awhile for the might to ramp up, unlike other supports like Druid which can just slap 25 onto 10 people no problem I'm not sure it's worth trying to compete against druid when it come to boons. Afterall, slap a diviner gear onto a druid and it become really easy to keep up fury, swiftness, protection, regen and vigor on 5 targets (by using a single skill and swaping pets). At this level, the fact that it can provide 25 might stacks on top of that is merely a matter of convenience (like saying: "don't bother, the druid will do it"). From the very beginning it's an uphill battle to try to compete with druid on these boons. Edit: When it come to support it's better to focus on the things that are more unique to the revenant/herald (facet of nature) or other boons (resistance/stability/alacrity) than focus on might.

My heart is on the mesmer, to be honest, even destroyed, underpowered or anything else, I just love the feel of this profession (which is my first character created). Otherwise, I enjoy thief and elementalist. Thief, because it's a very convenient profession to move around be it in PvE or WvW. Elementalist because it's fun to play and you can make quite a few fun builds with it (who care if it's effective or not when it's fun?). Guardian and ranger feel dull to me. My opinion on both is that they are convenient, even quite strong to use, but I don't really enjoy playing them. Engineer, revenant and warrior are my black ducks. I just can't get a hold of engineer and revenant, engineer thematic don't call to me and that doesn't motivate me to try harder, while revenant thematic call to me but I just can't bring myself to like the gameplay. Warrior... I just feel it's theme and gameplay boring. Edit: My profession ranking (in regard of enjoyment): Mesmer, Necromancer, Elementalist, Thief, Ranger/Guardian, Warrior, Engineer/Revenant.

> @"Fenom.9457" said: > > @"Dadnir.5038" said: > > I don't think the ranger is really in need of yet another ranged weapon. > > > It’s all in the name "Ranger" is related to the verb "to range" with synonym such as to travel, to run through, to tour, to roam... etc. It's closer to the notion of "forester" or "gamekeeper". It's not related directly to the act of hiting a foe from a distance, it's part of the job but it doesn't define the job.

> @"Senteliks.2360" said: > Necro has mobility as a cripple compared to many other professions, I am trying to understand exact problem here? @"ollbirtan.2915" I can't tell whatever you are sarcastic or try to be, in your replies Well, the point is that it's arguable. If mobility is a matter of sustaining relatively high movement speed, the necromancer isn't lacking in any way. If mobility is a matter of having sudden short burst of movement bringing him from point A to point B in an instant he also does have reasonable amount of tools but with terrible QoL compared to other professions. Thus, you can easily say that other professions have worse mobility (sustained movement speed) than the necromancer and you can hardly say that the necromancer lack the tools to move "instantly" from point A to B or reduce quickly the distance from the necromancer to it's foe. However, it's not wrong either to say that the necromancer's mobility (gap closer) is terrible due to how it's tools work and which skill slots they use. It's a matter of perception and players priorities. The necromancer objectively don't "need" more mobility, an e-spec with a gap closer on it's e-spec weapon instead of it's shroud, maybe, but that's all.

> @"Smoosh.2718" said: > I honestly can understand everyones reasoning to give the ranger high health. They currently are one of the easiest professions to play, easy to get health back, two attack damage sources and the best downstate skills for sustain. (not to forget they can still command their pet to attack when downed). If anything Ranger should be borderline low health to medium health. It's mostly from a thematical point of view. Engineer focus on technology, he basically live in a polluted environment, it feel like it's a given for him to have less health than the ranger which have close ties with nature, living in a good environment and being empowered by it. If you look at it from a balance perspective, it might be easier to push the high health pool to the engineer but he would have to sacrifice something for that (maybe have it's current blocking skills give him barrier instead of blocking attacks). From a GW1 player point of view some of the profession's health pool are simply nonsense. The bigest example being the necromancer with it's high health pool when in GW1 the profession tend to try to have the lowest possible health pool in order to abuse %age health sacrifice (it's like the profession did a 180 from GW1 to GW2). Guardian which is more or less a successor of both the monk and the paragon should probably have had a high health pool (because monk 600HP). Imo, thinking about it, offensive runeset should reduce defensive stats (reduce vitality and toughness by 2.5% per rune for a total of 15% on a full runeset) and defensive runeset should reduce damage output by a %age (2.5% condi and power damage reduction per rune equiped). Support runesets should both reduce damage output by a %age and reduce defensive stats (same %age but both at the same time).