Early look at the new meta

[Raizel.8175]

> @"Scar.1793" said:

> > @"Raizel.8175" said:

> > Flame Trap has long been fixed and with the state of conditions in PvE, Condition-Soulbeast - along with most condition-builds - has become rather crap (Hell, Power-Soulbeast is far superior now). A few condition-classes are still nice in certain scenarious (Renegade > huge hitbox abuse; Mirage (it's a Mesmer-subclass, what do you expect?)...), but even in raids, we're certainly getting back to the zerker-only-meta, which is quite sad and boring. ArenaNet should rethink what they want conditions to be in instanced PvE. As it is, it doesn't work at the moment.

>

> Yup more than 2 years of condi meta both in pve and pvp is certainly NOT boring and cheesy. Amirite?

 

Care to explain to me what Condi-Meta you mean? First of all: This is a PvE-subforum, so PvP doesn't matter and even in PvP, the exceptionally strong condition-classes were Mirage and - before it was nerfed into oblivion - Scourge. PvE? The same: Mirage is still exceptionally strong and Scourge was only really strong due to the Epidemic-abuse. Even then, due to encounter- and game-design, with the exception of some encounters, zerker-classes simply outshine condition-classes. It's just that easy. The only fights were condition-classes truly shine are SH and Matthias now. Epidemic-bouncing is dead, so Scourge will be replaced by Weavers and the like were Epidemic-bouncing was broken. All in all, I don't see a condition-meta. There never really was due to game-design (ramp-up-times, phasing, adds, etc. pp.). You can't equate condi-meta with Epidemic-abuse.

[Raizel.8175]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > > > @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > > > Nah, troll metas were when you could see tempests doing over 60k damage on actual bosses (and i don't mean MO).

> > >

> > > Don't know, auto attack Deadeye comes pretty close to that. I mean yes, it's not as insane damage wise but even the most drunk, brain dead, what ever person can keep up an auto attack rotation. The tempest rotation at least required some work. :/

> > Interestingly enough, of the few deadeyes i saw in raids today, one was doing over 30k, but the two others were at ~20.

> >

> > Now, i'm not going to argue thief isn't easy right now, but it seems to be at least a little bit harder than the much overexagerrated description you brought up.

>

> Compare it with eles. For every 30k one you see, there will be 2 at 20k and 3 more at 15.

 

I don't have the luck of having a static, so I have to PUG everything and in PUGs, I've rarely ever seen 30k Weavers. 20k-25k are already really, really good in fights where adds aren't involved. Now, 25k seems to be the utter minimum for Deadeyes and apparently, 30k-35k isn't all that hard to achieve either. I had a lot of DEs this week that asked if they could just try playing that class - even many "low-LI-players" - and most of them reached 30k-35k easily. DE is broken. xD

[Scar.1793]

> @"Raizel.8175" said:

> > @"Scar.1793" said:

> > > @"Raizel.8175" said:

> > > Flame Trap has long been fixed and with the state of conditions in PvE, Condition-Soulbeast - along with most condition-builds - has become rather crap (Hell, Power-Soulbeast is far superior now). A few condition-classes are still nice in certain scenarious (Renegade > huge hitbox abuse; Mirage (it's a Mesmer-subclass, what do you expect?)...), but even in raids, we're certainly getting back to the zerker-only-meta, which is quite sad and boring. ArenaNet should rethink what they want conditions to be in instanced PvE. As it is, it doesn't work at the moment.

> >

> > Yup more than 2 years of condi meta both in pve and pvp is certainly NOT boring and cheesy. Amirite?

>

> Care to explain to me what Condi-Meta you mean? First of all: This is a PvE-subforum, so PvP doesn't matter and even in PvP, the exceptionally strong condition-classes were Mirage and - before it was nerfed into oblivion - Scourge. PvE? The same: Mirage is still exceptionally strong and Scourge was only really strong due to the Epidemic-abuse. Even then, due to encounter- and game-design, with the exception of some encounters, zerker-classes simply outshine condition-classes. It's just that easy. The only fights were condition-classes truly shine are SH and Matthias now. Epidemic-bouncing is dead, so Scourge will be replaced by Weavers and the like were Epidemic-bouncing was broken. All in all, I don't see a condition-meta. There never really was due to game-design (ramp-up-times, phasing, adds, etc. pp.). You can't equate condi-meta with Epidemic-abuse.

 

 

The mention of PvP was to highlight the fact that condition was so buffed that out of the blue every stat related to condi was desired while power/zerker left to rot in openworld only.

 

And surprise surprise the best stats were/are Viper’s which came with HoT.

 

Now we got a few power builds coming back yes. But apparently either you were not there since HoT (or at release of vanilla like some of us) which was the beginning of a full condi meta besides very few classes (most of them lost the meta powerbuild on the way after a while, such as power warrior, they only became relevant again not so long ago with axes buff. Before it was condi-sword support).

 

The majority was, and from where I stand is still, conditions.

 

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Scar.1793" said:

> > @"Raizel.8175" said:

> > > @"Scar.1793" said:

> > > > @"Raizel.8175" said:

> > > > Flame Trap has long been fixed and with the state of conditions in PvE, Condition-Soulbeast - along with most condition-builds - has become rather crap (Hell, Power-Soulbeast is far superior now). A few condition-classes are still nice in certain scenarious (Renegade > huge hitbox abuse; Mirage (it's a Mesmer-subclass, what do you expect?)...), but even in raids, we're certainly getting back to the zerker-only-meta, which is quite sad and boring. ArenaNet should rethink what they want conditions to be in instanced PvE. As it is, it doesn't work at the moment.

> > >

> > > Yup more than 2 years of condi meta both in pve and pvp is certainly NOT boring and cheesy. Amirite?

> >

> > Care to explain to me what Condi-Meta you mean? First of all: This is a PvE-subforum, so PvP doesn't matter and even in PvP, the exceptionally strong condition-classes were Mirage and - before it was nerfed into oblivion - Scourge. PvE? The same: Mirage is still exceptionally strong and Scourge was only really strong due to the Epidemic-abuse. Even then, due to encounter- and game-design, with the exception of some encounters, zerker-classes simply outshine condition-classes. It's just that easy. The only fights were condition-classes truly shine are SH and Matthias now. Epidemic-bouncing is dead, so Scourge will be replaced by Weavers and the like were Epidemic-bouncing was broken. All in all, I don't see a condition-meta. There never really was due to game-design (ramp-up-times, phasing, adds, etc. pp.). You can't equate condi-meta with Epidemic-abuse.

>

>

> The mention of PvP was to highlight the fact that condition was so buffed that out of the blue every stat related to condi was desired while power/zerker left to rot in openworld only.

>

> And surprise surprise the best stats were/are Viper’s which came with HoT.

>

> Now we got a few power builds coming back yes. But apparently either you were not there since HoT (or at release of vanilla like some of us) which was the beginning of a full condi meta besides very few classes (most of them lost the meta powerbuild on the way after a while, such as power warrior, they only became relevant again not so long ago with axes buff. Before it was condi-sword support).

>

> The majority was, and from where I stand is still, conditions.

>

 

I have to agree with Raizel here.

 

What you perceived as condi dominance in pve was basically just condition builds becoming viable with HoT. Power damage was never useless (and we are talking raids only, fractals power was king always except for that short period of time where mob toughness was ridiculously high).

 

Did all classes have viable power builds? No.

Did all classes have viable condition builds? No.

Tempest/Weaver was almost the entire time best in slot for many bosses as power.

 

Even power mesmer was outperforming condition mesmer/chrono/mirage until mirage saw multiple buffs. Condition Scourge was broken on release and got fixed quite fast.

 

Some raid bosses favor condition builds (2-3 to be exact), the rest favor power builds and some strait out are power builds only (KC being the prime example).

[CptAurellian.9537]

> @"Raizel.8175" said:

> I don't have the luck of having a static, so I have to PUG everything and in PUGs, I've rarely ever seen 30k Weavers. 20k-25k are already really, really good in fights where adds aren't involved. Now, 25k seems to be the utter minimum for Deadeyes and apparently, 30k-35k isn't all that hard to achieve either.

The facts (aka raidar) strongly disagree except for a very few bosses.

 

[Raizel.8175]

> @"CptAurellian.9537" said:

> > @"Raizel.8175" said:

> > I don't have the luck of having a static, so I have to PUG everything and in PUGs, I've rarely ever seen 30k Weavers. 20k-25k are already really, really good in fights where adds aren't involved. Now, 25k seems to be the utter minimum for Deadeyes and apparently, 30k-35k isn't all that hard to achieve either.

> The facts (aka raidar) strongly disagree except for a very few bosses.

>

 

It hasn't even been a week, give it some time. And raidar isn't really representative as the percentage of the raid-community using it will probably be rather low, so I really wouldn't equate raidar-results with facts. But true, Deadeye is focussed on single-target-dps and thus only truly shines at certain bosses. It's still kinda broken. v:

[Feanor.2358]

Given that there are exactly two bosses where cleave is actually important, yeah, DE only truly shines on "few" certain bosses.

[ButcherofMalakir.4067]

....On the bosses where cleave is very much needed you can’t stack more than 2 Deadeyes and get good results. Examples can be Sloth and Xera where Deadeye’s single target dps is really good but has almost no cleave at all. Bosses that have have frequent phases and cleanse/prevent conditions from being applied hurt its dps as well because there won’t be enough time to ramp up the needed amount of unique conditions per phase. Examples can be Sloth and Samarog with Samarog being best example as the average conditions per phase will be 5-6. After trying it out in raids we think that this trade off makes it quite balanced. Nerfing its single target damage will only take it out of the meta again.

 

from SC benchmark statement.

[zealex.9410]

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > Nah, troll metas were when you could see tempests doing over 60k damage on actual bosses (and i don't mean MO).

>

> Don't know, auto attack Deadeye comes pretty close to that. I mean yes, it's not as insane damage wise but even the most drunk, brain dead, what ever person can keep up an auto attack rotation. The tempest rotation at least required some work. :/

>

> Don't get me wrong, I'm happy people get to use thief again in raids, but this is just silly. Meanwhile Renegade has a 58 step long rotation to pull off similar numbers.

 

Hey at least that will make gettimg into raids easier.

[Nephalem.8921]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> Given that there are exactly two bosses where cleave is actually important, yeah, DE only truly shines on "few" certain bosses.

 

You need some cleave for Gorse, Sab.

Lots of cleave for Sloth, Trio, Escort, KC, Xera, Deimos.

 

Thats more than a few bosses. And also lets be honest here. You wouldn't care if weaver would be top everywhere. But this is problematic since weaver has high burst, aoe and range. On dhuum for example weaver can continue dps during his teleports while deadeye can't. Weavers can cleave kc and statues.

 

I'm pretty sure you would also complain if condi engi would have 40k dps and weaver less. You just want weaver top everywhere which becomes clear in all of your posts.

Weaver is still optimal on some encounters and solid everywhere. It doesn't matter how "hard" it is to play when in the end it has everything with only restriction being low hp and 1! channel.

The rotation is not even that hard.

 

35k Thief dps on first vg phase is not even something special. Weaver could have 40k+ before the patch. Even holo could achieve at least 40k.

Thief also has almost no burst.

 

[Malediktus.9250]

hopefully deadeye will be hotfixed. such an easy no effort build shouldnt do this much dmg

[Sephylon.4938]

> @"Malediktus.9250" said:

> hopefully deadeye will be hotfixed. such an easy no effort build shouldnt do this much dmg

 

in 3-4 months give or take, and even then I don't trust anet to nerf them properly, they'll either become utterly uselss (even more than they were before) or nerf the wrong things and end up buffing them to 80k dps as a feature instead of a bug.

[Nephalem.8921]

> @"Malediktus.9250" said:

> hopefully deadeye will be hotfixed. such an easy no effort build shouldnt do this much dmg

 

And how would you buff them to keep them relevant? Dps is all they offer. Single target dps which requires flanking. Either give it top level dps or it wont be in meta at all.

[Malediktus.9250]

> @"Nephalem.8921" said:

> > @"Malediktus.9250" said:

> > hopefully deadeye will be hotfixed. such an easy no effort build shouldnt do this much dmg

>

> And how would you buff them to keep them relevant? Dps is all they offer. Single target dps which requires flanking. Either give it top level dps or it wont be in meta at all.

 

I would not buff them at all, I could not care less about thieves staying relevant in any game mode. Stupid class

[Nephalem.8921]

> @"Malediktus.9250" said:

> > @"Nephalem.8921" said:

> > > @"Malediktus.9250" said:

> > > hopefully deadeye will be hotfixed. such an easy no effort build shouldnt do this much dmg

> >

> > And how would you buff them to keep them relevant? Dps is all they offer. Single target dps which requires flanking. Either give it top level dps or it wont be in meta at all.

>

> I would not buff them at all, I could not care less about thieves staying relevant in any game mode. Stupid class

 

And this is why ignoring part of the community is also quite important for devs.

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Nephalem.8921" said:

> > @"Malediktus.9250" said:

> > hopefully deadeye will be hotfixed. such an easy no effort build shouldnt do this much dmg

>

> And how would you buff them to keep them relevant? Dps is all they offer. Single target dps which requires flanking. Either give it top level dps or it wont be in meta at all.

 

I have no problem with Thief having top level dps.

 

I do have a problem with this dps being achieved with almost only auto attacks. The current Deadeye dps is in no way justifiable compared to what other classes have to do in order to reach similar numbers. I'm not even going to get into Revenants with their 58 step rotation, that's blatant overkill.

 

Now I get that balance changes to thief might be challenging due to their core mechanic of initiative working differently than cooldowns. That does not warrant top level dps with no rotation. All other classes which were this basic in rotation were nerfed damage wise (power mesmer, power guardian, etc.) and none of those were even this basic rotation wise.

 

EDIT: for the record, I took my ascended equiped shelved thief (full ascended berserker weapons and armor, marauder trinkets, so not even full meta) and got 33.5k on my first golem rotation and 38.5k on my second without even trying. Realize I have not touched this class in over 4 years for any type of serious game play. That's how difficult this rotation is. No, this is not bragging, I've worked on Weaver and Tempest rotations and had those not down after over 1-2 hours of practice in the past.

[Belorn.2659]

I honestly don't care if DE is overpowered and should be nerfed. It is part of raiding to adapt when the meta change and it seems clear that the meta _has_ changed. Call it a bug, a feature, or a break from doing weaver, but as long we don't see the old meta return then this is the new one.

 

Preferable I would like to see the meta we had after PoF when "top" dps was spread out on multiple classes and all wing full clears groups had to balance swapping classes with the increased run time for loading. Those days optimal composition might had saved 30s on a boss but if people take 2m to change characters than it was a net loss when going from one boss to an other. Good times.

 

Anyway, seems the d/d DE version with Basilisk is the default DPS choice for any boss with CC aspects, and Thieves Guild when going pure dps. A full clear all wing run could look like: start out with DE with vg, gor, sab, sloth, trio -> swap to mirage for mat -> swap to weaver for kc -> swap to DE for xera -> swap to mirage for cairn -> swap to DE for mo, sam, deimos, sh, statues, dhuum. Could rearrange the wings to eliminate one swap.

 

As for cleave, D/D has a cleave of 2 targets for auto attack chain. If cleave is a problem on gor, sab, sloth, xera then what you have is a mesmer problem that is not using their focus.

[Grogba.6204]

> As for cleave, D/D has a cleave of 2 targets for auto attack chain. If cleave is a problem on gor, sab, sloth, xera then what you have is a mesmer problem that is not using their focus.

 

Or have your Weaver, Holosmith or DH melt the targets in the blink of an eye. As Deadeye you either have no control over the second target you hit (if number of targers > 2) or you you lose boss dps if you begin focussing the adds as now the boss might take the second hit... or not.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> EDIT: for the record, I took my ascended equiped shelved thief (full ascended berserker weapons and armor, marauder trinkets, so not even full meta) and got 33.5k on my first golem rotation and 38.5k on my second without even trying.

Golem is relatively easy. Try to do it on a boss that's not a dps golem, and it becomes a bit more tricky, though. Some of the reasons for that were even outlined in the SC commentary to the new benchmarks.

 

The solution, however, is not to nerf thief dps (it may be high, but it comes with so many downsides, that if you nerf it, power thief's going to drop out of meta again). The solution is to make other rotations more streamlined.

 

Seriously, it's not action game. Making the otations more convoluted won't make the classes more fun for (most) people.

 

(In other news, new weaver rotations sems to be quite easier than the one before).

 

 

[Raizel.8175]

> @"Belorn.2659" said:

> I honestly don't care if DE is overpowered and should be nerfed. It is part of raiding to adapt when the meta change and it seems clear that the meta _has_ changed. Call it a bug, a feature, or a break from doing weaver, but as long we don't see the old meta return then this is the new one.

 

That's just stupid and one of the reasons why raiding is so niche and should remain niche. The game would be a lot more healthier if ArenaNet would finally balance classes in a reasonable way.

 

 

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > EDIT: for the record, I took my ascended equiped shelved thief (full ascended berserker weapons and armor, marauder trinkets, so not even full meta) and got 33.5k on my first golem rotation and 38.5k on my second without even trying.

> Golem is relatively easy. Try to do it on a boss that's not a dps golem, and it becomes a bit more tricky, though. Some of the reasons for that were even outlined in the SC commentary to the new benchmarks.

 

This applies to all rotations. The easier ones will have an even easier time to reach benchmark levels compared to harder ones which adds to the disparity.

 

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

>

> The solution, however, is not to nerf thief dps (it may be high, but it comes with so many downsides, that if you nerf it, power thief's going to drop out of meta again). The solution is to make other rotations more streamlined.

>

> Seriously, it's not action game. Making the otations more convoluted won't make the classes more fun for (most) people.

>

> (In other news, new weaver rotations sems to be quite easier than the one before).

>

>

 

True and I never said I expected people to play the piano just to reach decent numbers. Full auto attack rotations for top performance are nothing short of power creep in a different way. Dumbing down the game this much is not in any ones favor except for people who want short term rewards.

[Feanor.2358]

> @"Nephalem.8921" said:

> > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > Given that there are exactly two bosses where cleave is actually important, yeah, DE only truly shines on "few" certain bosses.

>

> You need some cleave for Gorse, Sab.

> Lots of cleave for Sloth, Trio, Escort, KC, Xera, Deimos.

>

> Thats more than a few bosses. And also lets be honest here. You wouldn't care if weaver would be top everywhere. But this is problematic since weaver has high burst, aoe and range. On dhuum for example weaver can continue dps during his teleports while deadeye can't. Weavers can cleave kc and statues.

>

> I'm pretty sure you would also complain if condi engi would have 40k dps and weaver less. You just want weaver top everywhere which becomes clear in all of your posts.

> Weaver is still optimal on some encounters and solid everywhere. It doesn't matter how "hard" it is to play when in the end it has everything with only restriction being low hp and 1! channel.

> The rotation is not even that hard.

>

> 35k Thief dps on first vg phase is not even something special. Weaver could have 40k+ before the patch. Even holo could achieve at least 40k.

> Thief also has almost no burst.

>

 

Nah. Sloth & Xera. Everything else you can handle with whatever you like. "Has adds" is not the same as "high cleave is important".

[Henry.5713]

Not sure why people are actually surprised about these changes. We have seen this again and again. Any top DPS build, no matter if it took three hands to execute properly, got nerfed sooner or later - just to be replaced by something much easier and yet crazier.

 

Other than that, warriors are basically back to BS for all enternity, Druids are Druids and Chronos are still Chronos. Nothing changed there. Second tier DPS builds got flipped a little but it remains questionable whether you'd want to bring any of them if you could just have another Deadeye as most players should be able to perform well enough with those unlike with Weavers. Would have been happy with the Epidemic change if it had been combined with actually damage buffs rather than additional nerfs.

People are going to simply adapt and move a few things around as they always have. It is nice to see thieves in the spotlight for a change, though it will most likely lower the overall skill ceiling given the beginnre friendly aspect of the current top damage build and the easily accesible CC it provides.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"Belorn.2659" said:

> A full clear all wing run could look like: start out with DE with vg, gor, sab, sloth, trio -> swap to mirage for mat -> swap to weaver for kc -> swap to DE for xera -> swap to mirage for cairn -> swap to DE for mo, sam, deimos, sh, statues, dhuum. Could rearrange the wings to eliminate one swap.

 

If only something like this would apply to Chrono and Druid, but I guess those will remain constant on all bosses

[Feanor.2358]

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > @"Belorn.2659" said:

> > A full clear all wing run could look like: start out with DE with vg, gor, sab, sloth, trio -> swap to mirage for mat -> swap to weaver for kc -> swap to DE for xera -> swap to mirage for cairn -> swap to DE for mo, sam, deimos, sh, statues, dhuum. Could rearrange the wings to eliminate one swap.

>

> If only something like this would apply to Chrono and Druid, but I guess those will remain constant on all bosses

 

Hey, you can swap your druids for something else on River of Souls. Not that you have to, but you can.