WvW roaming specs, damage is sooooooo fast and hits so hard.

Now before I start, I understand that full dps gear should do large numbers for a tradeoff in tankiness or survivability. However, what I have noticed is that with all the power creep in the game, roaming (im sure zerging as well, but I am only talking about roaming here for now) damage specs have all evolved to a full dps set.

95% of top roaming builds have, for as long as I can remember, gone marauder or berserker gear, while condis have the luxury of going full dire. Instead of a tradeoff, the top tier roaming classes that have emerged and been prominent for years are classes that can survive running full dps gear by;

1) surviving with invulns or other mechanics . For example, warrior passive stances on top of active ones, plus shield to boot. can run full zerker easily with dodges+shields+stances+more stances +evade frames on bulls charge/gs3. Or thief, who runs full marauder but can survive by just not being hit, with the extra hp on marauder basically just acts as a soft cushion for you to survive with other means, like dodges or permastealth.

2) Crazy crazy amounts of boons that further exacerbate the situation and increase their survivability/damage through the roof. Holosmith/boonbeast are the two large offenders that come to mind, with holo having high uptime of nearly every boon in the game including protection and quickness that just.... idk.

Basically, in wvw (again, I am refering to roaming/small fights here), you have pretty much zero flexibility. This makes me so sad. I have crafted a full ascended celestial set of medium armor for my engi, but compared to a roaming holosmith (or even scrapper), my damage output is seriously hindered, and the effects toughness/vital/healing power (and other stats from celestial) are barely felt during the many, many, many, crazily short time frame that it takes for "actual" roamers to blow me up. just BOOM, and dead. A reaper can rock up to me and the fight can be over in literally 3 seconds if I don't dodge everything. It didn't used to be like this. Even full condi builds used to not be able to stack 30+ stacks of confusion or ridiculous numbers of torment (i reach 20 stacks of torment easily on my rev on a player)... but nowadays its so easy (i have seen 37 stacks of confusion from one shatter combo in pvp, im assuming its doable in wvw aswell, if not stronger due to gear choices/food buffs etc).

This is just a rant, but at the same time I am hopeful that stats are reviwed for now. Its honestly a mess with what elite specs did to the game (holosmith compared to scrapper compared to core engi for example. Each being way way better than the next. who plays core power engi? WHY would you, when you have holosmith?) the only celestial build is weaver, and thats just unkillable gimmicks due to the amount of evades they got for that elite spec. Its beyond help haha I dont have any suggestions.

What would you do about damage in wvw? is it okay in your opinion? I think elite specs are the main offenders, but it is too late to change that (other than with OH WAIT ITS NOT AN ELITE SPEC ITS MEANT TO BE A TRADE OFF SPEC LUL -300 toughness for you berserker LEL type changes). I really wish damage stats for berserker/marauder were toned down by 10% and condi damge was reduced across the board by 15%... is that too much? too little?

You're aware they shaved damage coefficients on most skills by ~33% for SPvP/WvW a few months ago, right? (And made most of the CC skills in the game do single-digit damage?)

@LaFurion.3167 said:Now before I start, I understand that full dps gear should do large numbers for a tradeoff in tankiness or survivability. However, what I have noticed is that with all the power creep in the game, roaming (im sure zerging as well, but I am only talking about roaming here for now) damage specs have all evolved to a full dps set.

Um.....your mileage will vary. As a mostly roamer, no DPS set is for zerging, roaming needs to allow for hitting a zerg or a havoc and coming out the otherside. Roamer doesn't mean DPS only. That's a choice thing.

Edit: Side note, personally I spec to plan to solo a tower and some keep lords, and for bad lag, so again, mileage will vary.

Most Condi builds that fit into the top tier of Roamer are running Grieving stats mixed in. Basically, anyone running full tank Dire isn’t nearly as much of a threat except against players with low cleanse.

Elite specs in particular may still be overtuned depending on the situation but I think Holo is much better than it was along with Soulbeast. Rev needs to have the resistance uptime sPvP changes mirrored to WvW but otherwise feels ok-ish (although it can still stack a lot of torment that can be cleansed).

The main interesting thing I get from your post is that you wish celestial stats were more effective. Celestial is hard to balance because it is so dependent on what profession is running the stats. As in, you need a “jack of all trades” build that can use all those stats and scales well on all fronts. That’s hard to do even for a fairly mixed build (like a Warrior running a Hybrid Zerker with some sustain healing built in) because often you want big damage or big sustain and smaller numbers mean you need to play both defense and offense well to take full advantage of healing over time with consistent damage pressure on enemies.

As you pointed out, the best roamers are good at active mitigation to cover their use of glassy stats. You may get a fat 40% chunk of their HP bar in one hit but then not hit them the rest of the fight.

I’d be curious to hear any roamers who run around in celestial chime in to talk about their builds, assuming they exist. It’s a fun stat set to think about.

You're talking from a power core engie perspective. That hasnt been good enough for... 6 years or something? The rifle is slow and had mediocre damage before nerfs, while no kit has really been strong enough to replace it as primary (grenades/bombs just dont work, flamethrower is easily ranged, etc).

@ASP.8093 said:You're aware they shaved damage coefficients on most skills by ~33% for SPvP/WvW a few months ago, right? (And made most of the CC skills in the game do single-digit damage?)

by most you mean a few select classes, while others got to keep their riduculously high damage output (notice how i said output, not skill damage. bc end of the day they still do ridiculous numbers). And the single digit damage on cc abilities was SO bad. Why does warrior hammer 5 do 9 damage, while a thief stolen ability from guardian can crit for 8k+? they didnt do it properly, as usual.

@"saerni.2584" said:Most Condi builds that fit into the top tier of Roamer are running Grieving stats mixed in. Basically, anyone running full tank Dire isn’t nearly as much of a threat except against players with low cleanse.

Elite specs in particular may still be overtuned depending on the situation but I think Holo is much better than it was along with Soulbeast. Rev needs to have the resistance uptime sPvP changes mirrored to WvW but otherwise feels ok-ish (although it can still stack a lot of torment that can be cleansed).

The main interesting thing I get from your post is that you wish celestial stats were more effective. Celestial is hard to balance because it is so dependent on what profession is running the stats. As in, you need a “jack of all trades” build that can use all those stats and scales well on all fronts. That’s hard to do even for a fairly mixed build (like a Warrior running a Hybrid Zerker with some sustain healing built in) because often you want big damage or big sustain and smaller numbers mean you need to play both defense and offense well to take full advantage of healing over time with consistent damage pressure on enemies.

As you pointed out, the best roamers are good at active mitigation to cover their use of glassy stats. You may get a fat 40% chunk of their HP bar in one hit but then not hit them the rest of the fight.

I’d be curious to hear any roamers who run around in celestial chime in to talk about their builds, assuming they exist. It’s a fun stat set to think about.

I guess this is true; I really would appreciate more celestial builds being viable. The only one that comes to mind is Yishis and his celestial scrapper videos (outdated of course), and the celestial "roamer" weaver, which is not more of a roamer, but an unkillabler killer of "noobs who trickle in and chase" him/her.

If not in wvw, what use is celestial good for? Not in open world, dungeons, fractals, raids.... pvp has its own gear system.... what exactly is the point of celestial? Maybe increase the numbers on the stats? I am aware that celestial gear has more stats already (14% i hear, while others are 5-7% better than exotic).

But yes, any celestial roamers please share your experiences!

What is this shaved damage we are talking about? I can get easily get hit for 50% of my hp on minstrel ele which means basically almost oneshot on marauder.I'm ok with the damage, but it doesn't come with a downside for most classes as the op stated. It's not a downside, when you have the option to stealth or being invulnerable to damage.A downside would be "You hit me for 12k and have to finish this fight now or die". That's not how it works with the fantastic four roaming classes. And never was.

@"saerni.2584" said:Most Condi builds that fit into the top tier of Roamer are running Grieving stats mixed in. Basically, anyone running full tank Dire isn’t nearly as much of a threat except against players with low cleanse.

Elite specs in particular may still be overtuned depending on the situation but I think Holo is much better than it was along with Soulbeast. Rev needs to have the resistance uptime sPvP changes mirrored to WvW but otherwise feels ok-ish (although it can still stack a lot of torment that can be cleansed).

The main interesting thing I get from your post is that you wish celestial stats were more effective. Celestial is hard to balance because it is so dependent on what profession is running the stats. As in, you need a “jack of all trades” build that can use all those stats and scales well on all fronts. That’s hard to do even for a fairly mixed build (like a Warrior running a Hybrid Zerker with some sustain healing built in) because often you want big damage or big sustain and smaller numbers mean you need to play both defense and offense well to take full advantage of healing over time with consistent damage pressure on enemies.

As you pointed out, the best roamers are good at active mitigation to cover their use of glassy stats. You may get a fat 40% chunk of their HP bar in one hit but then not hit them the rest of the fight.

I’d be curious to hear any roamers who run around in celestial chime in to talk about their builds, assuming they exist. It’s a fun stat set to think about.

I've been messing around with celestial and soldier/crusader builds for deadeye recently, and they make a nice change of pace from the more traditional glassy builds. They are not as effective as my zerker P/D rifle deadeye in terms of just killing things dead, but they have their uses.

The soldier/crusader build is basically the old valkyrie D/P rifle SA/CS/DE scholar rune build with more baked in toughness;

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PawAQhrlFwgYbsOmJWWPvvKA-zVhYCh2LYIEhwg8Ej6FYhkZR1aE0bqa7BIg/WqyMC-w

It's really nice to run alongside a glassy build like zerker P/D rifle DE to provide safer stealth engages without blowing all your utilities, and it still does comparable damage to a marauder setup if you get caught out before swapping builds.

The celestial build I'm running with SA/DA/DE and fireworks runes, using P/D and rifle;

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PawAQpjlFwyYbsOmJOuOvvKA-zVZYVh7TMCWgsRNcIZqoaVE0rUVxHAx1DPG8YpKzI-w

Between fireworks runes, even the odds, M7 and strength sigil, you can get 25 might pretty happily as long as you keep attacking, and I've seen it get 4k total condi ticks while dealing consistent power damage. I started messing with this for open world and story instances, but it's a surprisingly decent build in general against a lot of things, you won't be one shotting people with it but it is fun to play.

@"diomache.9246" said:What is this shaved damage we are talking about? I can get easily get hit for 50% of my hp on minstrel ele which means basically almost oneshot on marauder.I'm ok with the damage, but it doesn't come with a downside for most classes as the op stated. It's not a downside, when you have the option to stealth or being invulnerable to damage.A downside would be "You hit me for 12k and have to finish this fight now or die". That's not how it works with the fantastic four roaming classes. And never was.

Well, Ele has very little health even with full Minstrel gear... like Warrior baseline HP and with 3k armor you'll still get hit the occasional +10k Maul/Vault/MemeFlame if they aligned their stars right. Bear in mind that these used to be +15k numbers.

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@"diomache.9246" said:What is this shaved damage we are talking about? I can get easily get hit for 50% of my hp on minstrel ele which means basically almost oneshot on marauder.I'm ok with the damage, but it doesn't come with a downside for most classes as the op stated. It's not a downside, when you have the option to stealth or being invulnerable to damage.A downside would be "You hit me for 12k and have to finish this fight now or die". That's not how it works with the fantastic four roaming classes. And never was.

I used to hit ele for 28-30k with Death's Judgement before the damage reduction in Feb. Just saying ^^

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@"diomache.9246" said:What is this shaved damage we are talking about? I can get easily get hit for 50% of my hp on minstrel ele which means basically almost oneshot on marauder.I'm ok with the damage, but it doesn't come with a downside for most classes as the op stated. It's not a downside, when you have the option to stealth or being invulnerable to damage.A downside would be "You hit me for 12k and have to finish this fight now or die". That's not how it works with the fantastic four roaming classes. And never was.

I know. I used to do the same with Arc Divider. Maul can still get +24k though on Soulbeasts right now. Also, why does it feel like threads like these are always started by Eles...

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@"diomache.9246" said:What is this shaved damage we are talking about? I can get easily get hit for 50% of my hp on minstrel ele which means basically almost oneshot on marauder.I'm ok with the damage, but it doesn't come with a downside for most classes as the op stated. It's not a downside, when you have the option to stealth or being invulnerable to damage.A downside would be "You hit me for 12k and have to finish this fight now or die". That's not how it works with the fantastic four roaming classes. And never was.

Ele is my least played class. I play Engi in case you didnt pick up on it lol

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@"diomache.9246" said:What is this shaved damage we are talking about? I can get easily get hit for 50% of my hp on minstrel ele which means basically almost oneshot on marauder.I'm ok with the damage, but it doesn't come with a downside for most classes as the op stated. It's not a downside, when you have the option to stealth or being invulnerable to damage.A downside would be "You hit me for 12k and have to finish this fight now or die". That's not how it works with the fantastic four roaming classes. And never was.

I know, right? xD And yeah, soulbeast is the main class that can still get close to those kind of numbers, but that's because their damage was just insane before the patch. You could dodge maul twice (both of which could down you) then get one shot by a 25k worldly impact lol.

Honestly though, I like the new damage levels. There is actually a point to playing tankier builds now, and full glass builds still hit hard enough to be a major threat.

@LaFurion.3167 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@"diomache.9246" said:What is this shaved damage we are talking about? I can get easily get hit for 50% of my hp on minstrel ele which means basically almost oneshot on marauder.I'm ok with the damage, but it doesn't come with a downside for most classes as the op stated. It's not a downside, when you have the option to stealth or being invulnerable to damage.A downside would be "You hit me for 12k and have to finish this fight now or die". That's not how it works with the fantastic four roaming classes. And never was.

Still on the low end of HP. Core, Scrapper, or Holo? Core you're kind of in a pickle, but Power Scrapper can get sick levels of barrier and Holo is still stupid imbalanced.

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@LaFurion.3167 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@"diomache.9246" said:What is this shaved damage we are talking about? I can get easily get hit for 50% of my hp on minstrel ele which means basically almost oneshot on marauder.I'm ok with the damage, but it doesn't come with a downside for most classes as the op stated. It's not a downside, when you have the option to stealth or being invulnerable to damage.A downside would be "You hit me for 12k and have to finish this fight now or die". That's not how it works with the fantastic four roaming classes. And never was.

I made an unconventional marauder power build for scrapper to suit my roaming needs. And like I said I have made a full celestial set using pistol/shield (also going to try pistol pistol, and also have a rifle) for a core engi build I am tinkering with right now.

I absolutely refuse to play holosmith. That "elite" spec is a GOD spec that shouldnt exist. Press 1 button and you have the equivalent of full berserker gear just from the prof mechanic, not to mention it has no cd (while reapers shroud does), WHILE BEING ABLE to use utility skills. No. Just no. I hate holosmiths.

@LaFurion.3167 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@LaFurion.3167 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@"diomache.9246" said:What is this shaved damage we are talking about? I can get easily get hit for 50% of my hp on minstrel ele which means basically almost oneshot on marauder.I'm ok with the damage, but it doesn't come with a downside for most classes as the op stated. It's not a downside, when you have the option to stealth or being invulnerable to damage.A downside would be "You hit me for 12k and have to finish this fight now or die". That's not how it works with the fantastic four roaming classes. And never was.

I too try to steer away from builds that are too cheesy. I had to shelf my Burn DH and Soulbeast for those reasons, wins were too easy.

If you're sticking with Pistol/Shield then try something likes this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PewAo6JlFwuYdMH2JO+OdNPA-zVJYiRH/hUkKoJhQ4SANONJYGA-w

You'll be able to perma maintain protection, so things should hurt less.

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@LaFurion.3167 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@LaFurion.3167 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@"diomache.9246" said:What is this shaved damage we are talking about? I can get easily get hit for 50% of my hp on minstrel ele which means basically almost oneshot on marauder.I'm ok with the damage, but it doesn't come with a downside for most classes as the op stated. It's not a downside, when you have the option to stealth or being invulnerable to damage.A downside would be "You hit me for 12k and have to finish this fight now or die". That's not how it works with the fantastic four roaming classes. And never was.

I find that surviving isnt a problem. As full ascended celestial (running shield) I am pretty tanky. My skill helps me to survive fairly... I was going to say easily, but it's not easy.

What I'm finding now, is that I don't do nearly as much damage to end a fight or swing the fight in my favor with a mix of damage from celestial, or from very good plays; my conditions arnt bursts, my power spikes arnt spikes... compared ofc to the roamer builds. I understand the game/opponent class well enough to sometimes survive and pull out a win, but more likely than not, the fights are lose a "streamlined" roamer builds that just go BOOM and dead, and flip around like a ninja while doing it. Example is soulbeast; rapid fire will 100-0 me if I am not careful (knockback - sicem combo). Then I kite/negate his smokescale merged teleport attack, dodge the worldy impact (all this while he has stab/quickness) and then he just goes greatsword puts down a smoke field and murders me in it with double mauls capable of hitting up to 10k+. That is my problem.

Another example is vs condi users. Condi mirage. Bear in mind I use cleansing and transference runes (or whichever the one that transfers a condi on hit, 6 sec cd).

Engi, a class mostly designed with condi in mind, I am playing a piano to try and apply my burst. Nothing I have stacks past 15 (maybe poison if I throw grenade, poison bomb hits, pistol cast goes off uninterrupted/undodged, and elixir gun 3).

The mirage just pew pew boom boom I have every std imaginable under the sun. See what I mean? Only holo has a chance out there ?

@"LaFurion.3167" said:Now before I start, I understand that full dps gear should do large numbers for a tradeoff in tankiness or survivability. However, what I have noticed is that with all the power creep in the game, roaming (im sure zerging as well, but I am only talking about roaming here for now) damage specs have all evolved to a full dps set.

The mantra for GW2 is:"The best survivability is to destroy the opponent before they can do any damage. "

IMHO it's an awful way to make a game, and combat is the game's worst feature because of this.

Core ranger damage was lackbuster. I wanted to one hit enemies with axe 3 like soulbest and i did hit like max 4k. Maul hit 8k sometimes. :s

@LaFurion.3167 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@LaFurion.3167 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@LaFurion.3167 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@"diomache.9246" said:What is this shaved damage we are talking about? I can get easily get hit for 50% of my hp on minstrel ele which means basically almost oneshot on marauder.I'm ok with the damage, but it doesn't come with a downside for most classes as the op stated. It's not a downside, when you have the option to stealth or being invulnerable to damage.A downside would be "You hit me for 12k and have to finish this fight now or die". That's not how it works with the fantastic four roaming classes. And never was.

Well, that is the problem with Celestial. It is an all-rounder stat set, and Scrapper isn't really the spec for it. To be honest the problem here is Soulbeast, a case in point where if a spec needed a stat penalty it is that one not Scrappers or Berserkers.

Longbow+GS on ranger is an extremely balanced weapon set combo to begin with, great damage in close and long range. Add Soulbeast in and all of that gets compounded in a major way.

Like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POgAENlZwAZhMPGKOcX6v6RkG-zVJYiRFfp0UEEWIURBUeCY70IgZAA-w

Not even an optimized Soulbeast, but with taking into account vulnerability stacks, this build can hit +22k with Sicem, and a Hilt Bash -> Maul combo. Close to 23K if there are max vuln stacks on the target, 25.5K with a sigil of impact instead of Rending and max Vuln Stacks. All against 2.6k armor.

Even a warrior will crap bloodstone bricks when hit for that.

Honestly Sic'em still needs the damage modifier reduced on Soulbeast. Something like 10% and not the 40% that it is now. Even then that 22k hit would be a 17.5k hit.

Still a glassy spec, but when you pew pew someone on Longbow from 1500 for 20k that rarely matters.

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:I used to hit ele for 28-30k with Death's Judgement before the damage reduction in Feb. Just saying ^^

That's the point. And you still risk nothing by hitting me for 12k out of stealth. So this is what this whole thread is about. Either Anet turns damage down from thieves, rangers, warriors, etc or take away their options of condi cleanse, stealth, port, invulnerabilities and put them in line with the weaker classes.There should be always a trade off to achieve balance.

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

@"saerni.2584" said:Most Condi builds that fit into the top tier of Roamer are running Grieving stats mixed in. Basically, anyone running full tank Dire isn’t nearly as much of a threat except against players with low cleanse.

Elite specs in particular may still be overtuned depending on the situation but I think Holo is much better than it was along with Soulbeast. Rev needs to have the resistance uptime sPvP changes mirrored to WvW but otherwise feels ok-ish (although it can still stack a lot of torment that can be cleansed).

The main interesting thing I get from your post is that you wish celestial stats were more effective. Celestial is hard to balance because it is so dependent on what profession is running the stats. As in, you need a “jack of all trades” build that can use all those stats and scales well on all fronts. That’s hard to do even for a fairly mixed build (like a Warrior running a Hybrid Zerker with some sustain healing built in) because often you want big damage or big sustain and smaller numbers mean you need to play both defense and offense well to take full advantage of healing over time with consistent damage pressure on enemies.

As you pointed out, the best roamers are good at active mitigation to cover their use of glassy stats. You may get a fat 40% chunk of their HP bar in one hit but then not hit them the rest of the fight.

I’d be curious to hear any roamers who run around in celestial chime in to talk about their builds, assuming they exist. It’s a fun stat set to think about.

Thanks, this gave me some neat ideas for updating my build.

I think Cele is trash in most contexts because your stats are spread too thin:

• Your Power and Condition Damage stats are only mediocre — getting good value out of your attacks requires really good Might access. (But your gear set doesn't actually have any boon duration by default.)
• Your Precision is also fairly low, so classes that don't have an absurd amount of extra critical chance (like Curses Scourge) aren't actually getting that many critical hits.
• Lack of Expertise means you're not getting the most out of your Condition Damage ticks — other condi builds have a much easier time "overloading" an opponent to force cleanses or outlast Resistance.
• The value of Healing Power really depends on what kind of sustained healing output your build has. It could be great or useless. (If all you're doing is popping a healing skill every 20 seconds, it's closer to useless.)

Successful Cele builds are few and far between, and they succeed thanks to various class-specific factors that counteract some of these weaknesses.

You're getting crushed by focused builds because their skills, traits, and stats are all aligned to a single gameplan. Whether that's bursting you in their Berserker/Marauder gear (incidentally: you have about as much hp as someone in Marauder gear, and your Toughness is mitigating maaaybe like 20% more damage, if you're lucky — don't think of yourself as tanky because you are not!!) or out-pressuring you in Trailblazer/Dire gear. From the sound of it, your ability to pressure them back is very limited.

Yeah, some things definitely seem too fast or completely unavoidable. I don't mean like bursting from stealth or teleports though, it's subtle stuff like getting hit by Explosive Entrance procs or Reaper flashing shroud so they can hitscan you with quickness boosted axe skills.