HoT = Dark Souls ? Casual Gamer perspective.

[Safandula.8723]

Just get good man

[Laila Lightness.8742]

If ranger get a nice soldier gear set and a bear with a lb to pew pew and put on signet of stone heal as one ,signet of hunt , signet of heal , ignore espec its way easier to stay core and use doylak runes you wont need other weapons

[Rokeb.3815]

I am also a 'casual' player, I've recently returned to GW2. I did buy it shortly after launched, but my first character was an engineer and I didn't every figure out what I was doing so ending up giving up.

A lot of the veteran players commenting have completely forgotten what it like for newer players.

Yes, HoT is MUCH harder than the core game that you've likely just come from. Core Tyria is no where near as punishing for small mistakes. HoT forces you to become much more of a 'twitch' player - as positioning and dodging are suddenly much more important (I'm looking at you Mordrem Snipers! )

The farcical complaint that 'HoT isn't even hard with mounts!' is equally naive - so you have to skip the first expansion - start the second expansion and come back and THEN play the fist expansion? What kind of game play design is that?

HoT is totally playable - even enjoyable eventually. However, in terms of game design - the leap from core Tyria to HoT is a huge one - and often needlessly frustrating.Invisible 'gating' of areas - ie you need to have masteries to get to a certain point, making the hero points group content (sure vets can solo them with ease - but a potential new player??) If I didn't find a nice hero point train early on in HoT, I probably would have quit the game again.

Don't even get me started on the last chapter of the story.. still trying to complete that. Casual players (like me) don't have HOURS to time to do one mission.From the wiki "The final fight with Mordremoth features mechanics that can lead to instant death and a reset of the long boss fight if you make an error"

Spending hours on the same mission over and over with no progress isn't challenging or rewarding - IT's TEDIOUS. I swear if I get a server disconnect AGAIN during that fight I'm going to rage quit for sure.

[Croc.1978]

@Asum.4960 said:A proper damage oriented build can "oneshot" (time to kill under 3 seconds) over 95% of mobs in OW, including veterans and such, making it sheer impossible to die unless oneshot yourself, which rarely if ever happens outside of massively upscaled group events - especially if combined with pulls to bunch mobs up or other disables, you often won't ever even get hit once in hours of OW gameplay, completely trivializing it.

Seriously? Can you point to any youtube vids that show people actively playing HoT maps and not getting hit by anything for hours? I would really be interested in seeing what it takes for that kind of play.

Also: why do so many top-rated OW builds on metabattle.com emphasize Retaliation? Should be a total waste if you never get hit (or only during the occasional bossfight), shouldn't it?

@Asum.4960 said:Running defensive gear does make the game (OW and Story) more fun imo, because you actually get to play and experience it rather than everything you touch just instantly evaporating, but it takes a lot more effort and time than just oneshotting things and it's not something I would recommend to people who are already struggling.

@Asum.4960 said:Those HoT mobs ain't so tough when you casually press 1-3 buttons and they are on the floor before finishing a single attack animation.

To be honest, while spending a couple hundred hours in HoT maps I never witnessed someone dominating the game in a way that comes close to what you describe here (or at least what I imagine it to look like when I read your description). Again: can you point to some vid showing the playstyle you're talking about here?

Sure, I occasionally see someone bursting down a veteran really fast and I think "Hey, nice!". But usually, when there is some stuff still standing after the burst, it gets a bit tedious until their dps skills are off cooldown again and one realizes that actually we're all on equal ground here.

And a final question: do you really think that it's a good idea to send a casual player into Verdant Brink for the very first time with 11.6k health (Thief / Ele / Guardian glasscannon build)?

[Croc.1978]

@Laila Lightness.8742 said:If ranger get a nice soldier gear set and a bear with a lb to pew pew and put on signet of stone heal as one ,signet of hunt , signet of heal , ignore espec its way easier to stay core and use doylak runes you wont need other weapons

Cool, I have to try that out some day.

[Asum.4960]

@Rokeb.3815 said:A lot of the veteran players commenting have completely forgotten what it like for newer players.

That might be true, but those same veterans also did just fine in a new pre Nerf HoT with less player powercreep once.The jungle is supposed to be a hostile environment especially until it's features are mastered through the mastery system, and ofc content is harder for new players who don't have a grasp on the game mechanics yet, but that's the very purpose of at least semi challenging content, to make players want to master those systems to advance.The solution can't be to be eternally stuck in tutorial like difficulty to avoid any and all possible frustration.It's okay to struggle, you just got to learn from it.

The problem is that core is so incredibly easy it never makes players learn the fundamentals to the game since it doesn't matter if you don't know what breakbars are, how important boons are, what gear to use, how to make a half decent build etc., one can still get through core without any issues.That's why HoT then feels challenging. Not because it is, but because nothing prepares players in GW2 to actually have to know how the game works until then.

Yes, HoT is MUCH harder than the core game that you've likely just come from. Core Tyria is no where near as punishing for small mistakes. HoT forces you to become much more of a 'twitch' player - as positioning and dodging are suddenly much more important (I'm looking at you Mordrem Snipers! )

On a proper build almost anything in core can be killed with a single button press, and that's not even hyperbolic in any way. So yes, HoT luckily is a lot harder than that and expects it's players to have a rough understanding of it's core mechanics, be it learning how to utilise boons and conditions properly, CC/Breakbars, circle strafing or even Projectile denial in some cases are hugely beneficial.I wouldn't go as far as saying it requires twitch like reflexes by a long shot, depending on build, but I suppose they help and can be learned.

The farcical complaint that 'HoT isn't even hard with mounts!' is equally naive - so you have to skip the first expansion - start the second expansion and come back and THEN play the fist expansion? What kind of game play design is that?

Nobody is saying you Have to, again, people have being doing HoT just fine when it still was a lot more challenging and players were a lot less powercrept in many aspects. But for people who are still struggling, getting Mounts first can help to trivialize the content, should you want to take that route. People are just trying to help, not telling anyone what you have to do.

HoT is totally playable - even enjoyable eventually. However, in terms of game design - the leap from core Tyria to HoT is a huge one - and often needlessly frustrating.

That I absolutely agree with. It is needlessly frustrating for new players and the core game should do a lot better job to teach players about the game mechanics by not being so afraid to challenge it's players now and again to telegraph the need to improve in a consistent non frustrating slow ramp.The struggle with HoT is almost purely a failure of the core experience to do so.All core teaches is that you never have to read your skills, learn what boons do, what your CC skills are, that you never have to think about your profession tools or ever adapt to any encounter and still breeze through everything, which is something that luckily doesn't work as well in HoT anymore, making for much more engaging gameplay, but unfortunately one new players aren't prepared for.

@Croc.1978 said:

@"Asum.4960" said:A proper damage oriented build can "oneshot" (time to kill under 3 seconds) over 95% of mobs in OW, including veterans and such, making it sheer impossible to die unless oneshot yourself, which rarely if ever happens outside of massively upscaled group events - especially if combined with pulls to bunch mobs up or other disables, you often won't ever even get hit once in hours of OW gameplay, completely trivializing it.

Seriously? Can you point to any youtube vids that show people actively playing HoT maps and not getting hit by anything for hours? I would really be interested in seeing what it takes for that kind of play.

Also: why do so many top-rated OW builds on metabattle.com emphasize Retaliation? Should be a total waste if you never get hit (or only during the occasional bossfight), shouldn't it?

I'm not aware of any youtube videos of people just breezing through HoT OW for hours, no. Also I should clarify that with "never getting hit" I meant more in the lines of never taking any serious damage that can't be immediately resustained or even falling below 90% health, not never taking even the slightest random hit - not that that isn't possible, but that's a lot more challenging. In effect it is essentially the same though.

I've never heard of or seen any Retaliation OW build as that seems like a terrible idea, considering how slow OW mobs are.I still remember testing some Spellbreaker OW builds and by far the most difficult thing about it was to actually trigger Full Counter as mobs simply wouldn't attack frequently enough to trigger it reliably during it's duration.Do you have a link to any of those Retal builds?

To be honest, while spending a couple hundred hours in HoT maps I never witnessed someone dominating the game in a way that comes close to what you describe here (or at least what I imagine it to look like when I read your description). Again: can you point to some vid showing the playstyle you're talking about here?

Sure, I occasionally see someone bursting down a veteran really fast and I think "Hey, nice!". But usually, when there is some stuff still standing after the burst, it gets a bit tedious until their dps skills are off cooldown again and one realizes that actually we're all on equal ground here.

Considering it wouldn't make for interesting content I doubt there are much OW play videos.Most good builds usually don't burst and done, but rotate between damaging skills for fairly consistent damage, although there are some notable exceptions ofc, like Reaper for example which drastically falls off in performance for the 10 seconds it has to drop out of Shroud.Although something called "Kill chaining" is a hallmark feature of any great open world build, meaning builds that can cycle cooldowns in a way were you never really have to slow down or run out of steam.

What I can recommend in terms of videos is Wooden Potatoes series on OW beginner builds

And a final question: do you really think that it's a good idea to send a casual player into Verdant Brink for the very first time with 11.6k health (Thief / Ele / Guardian glasscannon build)?

Marauder definitely is a good stat choice for those, although all of them have pretty good active defenses especially against the slow hitting "trash" mobs mostly found in Open World, be it Aegis, Blinds, ease of kiting, evade spam and CC's.

What I feel new player's often don't understand is that GW2 is about damage avoidance rather than soaking. Can't tell you how many for example Firebrand's I've seen in OW using Mantra of Solace after taking a hit to heal up (~1500 Heal, likely not enough to regain all HP lost), rather than using it before getting hit as intended, to gain Aegis and take 0 damage in the first place.

Also plenty of people just stand in front up mobs pressing random buttons while eating free hits, rather than just circle strafing around mobs causing almost all enemy animations to simply miss as they swing/leap into thin air.Little fundamental gameplay tricks like that make a huge difference.

[Healix.5819]

@Croc.1978 said:And a final question: do you really think that it's a good idea to send a casual player into Verdant Brink for the very first time with 11.6k health (Thief / Ele / Guardian glasscannon build)?

A glass thief is actually one of the easier builds to run through HoT with, specifically pistol/pistol (unload spam), which can burst regular HoT enemies from range before they can attack.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@Croc.1978 said:

@"Asum.4960" said:A proper damage oriented build can "oneshot" (time to kill under 3 seconds) over 95% of mobs in OW, including veterans and such, making it sheer impossible to die unless oneshot yourself, which rarely if ever happens outside of massively upscaled group events - especially if combined with pulls to bunch mobs up or other disables, you often won't ever even get hit once in hours of OW gameplay, completely trivializing it.

Seriously? Can you point to any youtube vids that show people actively playing HoT maps and not getting hit by anything for hours? I would really be interested in seeing what it takes for that kind of play.

It's not literally not getting hit, but it might as well be for all the damage this guy does to me. But like you say, that's just a video of bursting down a veteran. What happens when there are more?

Okay, but that's small stuff. What if it's a tough champion? What then?

Watch the health bar carefully. I never heal (aside from passive signet heals) and never rotate into water, but my health stays above 66%. Again, not literally not getting hit, but close enough. But there's a catch! I'm actually using the Soldier equivalent for condition-based builds: Dire (condi/toughness/vitality). Wearing a more offensive set like grieving actually lowers my DPS in high-pressure situations because I'm forced to play more defensively or, worse, rotate to water and heal.

Everyone's wrong and right at the same time! You definitely want to learn to evade and use your skills properly, damage is very important, but you still need to choose stats that fit your build and play style.

[battledrone.8315]

@Laila Lightness.8742 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:

@"LucianDK.8615" said:Theres nothing wrong with HoT. Its pretty easy now, and mounts trivialize the content.

this thread wouldnt exist if everything was "fine". i wont even TRY to hot anymore, not worth the trouble.it is also one of the few features, that other mmos havent copied, this is how you DONT do an expansion.and to get the mount , you have to play the NEXT expansion...debunked

Pof is still harder than core so i guess you should avoid any content not part of core tyria

yep, i have uninstalled again and went back to dcuo. pof was annoying too, but at least we got mounts. wont finish that either, it simply isnt worth the time and effort

[battledrone.8315]

@Fueki.4753 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:and to get the mount , you have to play the NEXT expansionYou are aware that you can do the expansion out of order, right?I'd even recommend doing PoF first, as its difficulty lies between HoT and core.

yep, and it simply shouldnt be this way. playing the expansions out of order is doable, but it is wrong on so many levels. both from a narrative perspective,and from a consumers perpective.

[battledrone.8315]

@serialkicker.5274 said:People need to stop using dark souls to describe any kind of difficulty. First, because dark souls didn't invent difficulty and second, it's by far not the most difficult game. Dark souls and gw2 have absolutely nothing in common. And HoT difficulty is fine in my opinion. Sure, there are a few BS kind of moves from champs, but still, no reason to go around nerfing anything.

@Asum.4960 said:If you are struggling in open world, here are a few questions you can ask yourself:

Does my build provide perma self 25 Might or close to it?Does my build provide perma 25 Vulnerability or close to it?Does my build provide me with 100% Critical Chance or close to it?

If the answer to any of those is no, fix it. Every profession is capable of it and it completely trivialises > 95% of open world content by allowing you to nuke it from orbit before ever getting hit by anything.If you are still struggling solo after that, especially in more sustained fights - be it champion hero points and such, you can look into more sustain, getting a source of Protection, Vigor, etc., as long as it doesn't come at the expense of oneshotting almost everything in OW. Anything beyond that is learn to play (and dodge).

Marauder, Diviner's or Berserker's are usually the best gear sets to choose from or mix and match for OW, and Runes like Firework's do wonders for the extra Might, Fury and Vigor, as well as the base movement speed for convenience. If that's not needed Runes like Durability provide nice alternatives with some Protection.

And I will say it again and again, the problem is not that HoT is difficult (it isn't), it's that everything else is so incredibly easy that players never have to learn even the most basics of build craft or gameplay skill, which causes them to then struggle with even easy to moderate content.If 1-80 can be played blind and naked, soloed by a Ranger Pet, it's no surprise people struggle when HoT suddenly is an actual video game you need to play and think in to learn and overcome, both in terms of your own setup and skill, as well as enemy abilities.

I know it's never going to happen, but I truly wish Anet would have another look at the core experience again someday and progressively scale the difficulty up as zone levels progress, so players can naturally improve and learn in a fun bit by bit way without hitting a frustrating wall afterwards.

you do realize, that they have NERFED core? and i certainly wont grind metas, so i can pay farmers for the good runes .if it isnt doable, with the gear i have, then i simply wont do it. THEY promised a game without gear grind

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Croc.1978 said:

@"Asum.4960" said:A proper damage oriented build can "oneshot" (time to kill under 3 seconds) over 95% of mobs in OW, including veterans and such, making it sheer impossible to die unless oneshot yourself, which rarely if ever happens outside of massively upscaled group events - especially if combined with pulls to bunch mobs up or other disables, you often won't ever even get hit once in hours of OW gameplay, completely trivializing it.

Seriously? Can you point to any youtube vids that show people actively playing HoT maps and not getting hit by anything for hours? I would really be interested in seeing what it takes for that kind of play.

I've done map completion starting with a level two character while using an HP train to do the HPs. Everything aggros you from 2K+ range and every hit is an instant kill - no downstate. HoT maps are not that difficult once someone learns how to play the game which includes knowing the class that they're playing as well as any mechanics for the various enemies that they're encountering. An example is that any class can solo a veteran vinetooth without taking any damage if they have good timing.

[Asum.4960]

@battledrone.8315 said:yep, i have uninstalled again and went back to dcuo. pof was annoying too, but at least we got mounts. wont finish that either, it simply isnt worth the time and effort

you do realize, that they have NERFED core? and i certainly wont grind metas, so i can pay farmers for the good runes .if it isnt doable, with the gear i have, then i simply wont do it. THEY promised a game without gear grind

Sounds to me like you just don't really enjoy the game and refuse to engage with it to a point where you neither want to learn how to play it well, nor work for any gear - which is far from a grind in GW2, and have already moved on, which while fine, I'm not sure why you are still here complaining about it.

[Nephalem.8921]

@Croc.1978 said:

@zombyturtle.5980 said:Answering your question, no I would have no issue surviving in soliders, everything would just take 2-3x as long.

Come on, don't exaggerate. If the wiki and my calculations are correct: going from full Soldier's (5% crit chance & 150% crit dmg) to full Berserker's ascended gear (51% crit chance & 214% crit dmg) translates to about 54% more damage (assuming everything else stays the same), not 100% - 200% as you claim.

You can achieve the same for instance with two +20% and one +10% damage multipliers from traits (granted, it's mostly conditional, but still). It appears to me that this community has an unhealthy and unwarranted fixation on critical hits.

You are completely ignoring precision and ferocity from traits and runes. Weaver and soulbeast can both have more than 300% critical damage. This does nothing without critchance. You are also ignoring potential on crit proccs like adrenaline on warrior. That hurts axe dps especially hard since it can spam axe burst skills with enough critchance but has to auto attack a lot without crits.Factoring those in you are closer to those numbers. Add some defensive runes/sigils on top and even a defensive trait over an offensive one and you reach the 3x mark pretty quickly.

[Asum.4960]

@Croc.1978 said:

@zombyturtle.5980 said:Answering your question, no I would have no issue surviving in soliders, everything would just take 2-3x as long.

Come on, don't exaggerate. If the wiki and my calculations are correct: going from full Soldier's (5% crit chance & 150% crit dmg) to full Berserker's ascended gear (51% crit chance & 214% crit dmg) translates to about 54% more damage (assuming everything else stays the same), not 100% - 200% as you claim.

You can achieve the same for instance with two +20% and one +10% damage multipliers from traits (granted, it's mostly conditional, but still). It appears to me that this community has an unhealthy and unwarranted fixation on critical hits.

@"Nephalem.8921" said:You are completely ignoring precision and ferocity from traits and runes. Weaver and soulbeast can both have more than 300% critical damage. This does nothing without critchance. You are also ignoring potential on crit proccs like adrenaline on warrior. That hurts axe dps especially hard since it can spam axe burst skills with enough critchance but has to auto attack a lot without crits.Factoring those in you are closer to those numbers. Add some defensive runes/sigils on top and even a defensive trait over an offensive one and you reach the 3x mark pretty quickly.

Besides, those boni are multiplicative and can be taken on the Crit build for greater effect as well.Taking those same hypothetical +20%, +20%, +10% modifiers on a 100% crit chance for 300% Crit damage builds suddenly turns 2000 Damage into ~9600 damage, while taking them for the no crit builds will result in ~3200 damage.

Hardly "just" a 50% damage increase, and even without those modifiers, the crit build already is at a nearly 100% increased damage still.

That ramps up extremely quickly and makes the difference between fighting a tough mob for > 30 seconds or <10 seconds. Having to only survive for 10 seconds in turn means that it's much easier to cover with fewer defensive skills and Traits, meaning one can dip even further into damage modifiers/Utilities over mitigation/sustain - which can easily make the difference between nuking a mob in <5 seconds or spending >30 seconds fighting it.Doesn't take much to figure out which one will be more difficult.

That's kind of the problem with GW2's Trait design and how many bland multiplicative damage modifiers there are in it and multiplicative modifiers also being something a lot of people don't seem to understand. That's why 100% crit chance, high crit damage and grabbing as many % modifiers as possible is so important, as they all increase each other's effectiveness multiplicatively, leading to vastly higher performance (in the realms of +300%).Defensive stats on the other hand, in a sense, get less and less effective the more you have, opposite to offensive stats - and can be imitated with boons like Protection or circumvented with active damage avoidance in blocking (+Aegis) and dodging (+Vigor), skillful play like circle strafing, or just a very fast time to kill via high damage.

This is why we see proficient players laugh at/be disappointed in Story bosses as they sneeze them over in seconds, while others struggle with them in minute long fights in which they eventually just run out of cool downs and die, proclaiming them to be unbeatable on the forums and shouting for nerfs.

Now Condition Damage is a lot better designed and relies way less on multiplicative modifiers, so if you want to take defensive stats I highly recommend going for a condition build, although by nature of condition damage being tied to often longer durations than it takes a power build to already have killed a mob before the same amount of condition damage reaches it's full value (and overkills with new wasted applications), condition builds are usually vastly outclassed by power in terms of OW (excluding very tough/long solo fights).

[maddoctor.2738]

@Asum.4960 said:Taking those same hypothetical +20%, +20%, +10% modifiers on a 100% crit chance for 300% Crit damage builds suddenly turns 2000 Damage into ~9600 damage, while taking them for the no crit builds will result in ~3200 damage.

Well the question was between Berserker and Soldier, Berserker doesn't reach 100% crit chance nor 300% critical damage.Berseker has 51% critical chance and 214% critical damage compared to 5% and 150% from Soldier, leading to Berserker dealing 54% more damage than Soldier. A build with 100% critical chance and 300% critical damage will do 192% more damage than a build with Soldier gear, but that hypothetical build will do 90% more damage than a pure Berserker build.

This means you are comparing a buffed build with an un-buffed one, why not apply the same buffs to the Soldier build? To reach 100% critical chance, you added 46% critical chance to Berserker and to reach 300% critical damage, you added 86% critical damage. If you apply these modifiers to Soldier you get: 51% critical chance / 236% critical damage. Do note that this hypothetical buffed Soldier build does 7% MORE damage than a pure Berserker build. The buffed Berserker build (100/300) does 77% more damage than the buffed Soldier build (51/236)

Now I get the argument, someone using Soldier gear won't use offensive traits/sigils/runes/skills/weapons and further be behind in terms of damage, but if we keep everything the same and only change the gear, the difference is large (77% buffed / 54% un-buffed) but not prohibitive large. Of course this is about being solo, when in a group even a 54% damage increase WILL pile up and make a gigantic difference.

[Asum.4960]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Asum.4960" said:Taking those same hypothetical +20%, +20%, +10% modifiers on a 100% crit chance for 300% Crit damage builds suddenly turns 2000 Damage into ~9600 damage, while taking them for the no crit builds will result in ~3200 damage.

Well the question was between Berserker and Soldier, Berserker doesn't reach 100% crit chance nor 300% critical damage.Berseker has 51% critical chance and 214% critical damage compared to 5% and 150% from Soldier, leading to Berserker dealing 54% more damage than Soldier. A build with 100% critical chance and 300% critical damage will do 192% more damage than a build with Soldier gear, but that hypothetical build will do 90% more damage than a pure Berserker build.

This means you are comparing a buffed build with an un-buffed one, why not apply the same buffs to the Soldier build? To reach 100% critical chance, you added 46% critical chance to Berserker and to reach 300% critical damage, you added 86% critical damage. If you apply these modifiers to Soldier you get: 51% critical chance / 236% critical damage. Do note that this hypothetical buffed Soldier build does 7% MORE damage than a pure Berserker build. The buffed Berserker build (100/300) does 77% more damage than the buffed Soldier build (51/236)

Now I get the argument, someone using Soldier gear won't use offensive traits/sigils/runes/skills/weapons and further be behind in terms of damage, but if we keep everything the same and only change the gear, the difference is large (77% buffed / 54% un-buffed) but not prohibitive large. Of course this is about being solo, when in a group even a 54% damage increase WILL pile up and make a gigantic difference.

I was really just quickly going off the numbers thrown out by the quoted posts, which were easy in terms of math, to provide an example of how base damage scales with the ingame available modifiers, not doing an in depth analysis, which considering all the variables of each build in terms of modifiers is a fairly meaningless exercise to math anyway.But fair point.

Still the point I was trying to make stands. With perma Fury (if needed to cap crit chance) being baseline on any decent solo build plus all the damage modifiers on any given build as well as general Precision/Ferocity and flat Critical Chance buffing Traits, offensive stat sets like Berserker, Marauder and Diviner (which generally are able to achieve 100% Crit Chance and ~250% Crit Damage fairly easily) pull way ahead of defensive stat sets like Soldiers in terms of damage.Even "just" a ~70% increase in damage with the exact same build/modifiers isn't exactly minor, be it for group or solo play.

The about 100% increased effective HP of Soldier's vs Berserker's, while sounding great on paper, get's greatly devalued by the existence of active damage mitigation like dodges as well as general gameplay techniques like circle strafing and just CC'ing mobs, on top of the vast majority of OW mobs being long dead by the time even the Berserker's effective HP and active defenses are exhausted, and will therefor be a wasted investment for the overwhelming vast majority of OW encounters.

Point is, CC chaining mobs and killing them with ~70% increased damage much more quickly before they ever get to act much or penetrate your rapidly refreshing active defenses like dodges is much faster, safer and easier than sustaining for longer fights, encountering mechanics, getting CC'ed yourself, exhausting CD's and requiring more resustain etc., even with literally 100% extra effective HP.

All that said, the Build and mechanical skill of the player is indeed much more important than Gear, and if someone feels more comfortable with Soldier's then more power to them.The only thing I took issue with was the idea that multiplicative damage modifiers can be used to mitigate the damage difference between defensive stat sets and offensive ones, when in fact they just further widen the gap between the two - as they will be taken either way.

If someone is struggling with OW content like HoT, gear most likely isn't the issue though, although I do think that a player who dies a lot - even though it might be counter intuitive at first, is better served going more offensive in GW2 rather than piling up more defenses, extending fights needlessly and giving them more opportunities to mess up rather than less.

[Croc.1978]

@"Asum.4960" said:I've never heard of or seen any Retaliation OW build as that seems like a terrible idea, considering how slow OW mobs are.I still remember testing some Spellbreaker OW builds and by far the most difficult thing about it was to actually trigger Full Counter as mobs simply wouldn't attack frequently enough to trigger it reliably during it's duration.Do you have a link to any of those Retal builds?

Power Firebrand for instance devotes the whole Radiance trait line to Retaliation and is rated 5/5.

Of course I did not mean Retaliation as main damage source (like with the "thorns" builds of other games), I doubt this is even possible in GW2. But people trait Retaliation all the time to (supposedly) increase dps of their builds.

What I can recommend in terms of videos is Wooden Potatoes series on OW beginner builds

I know WP's videos and he sure knows his stuff. But based on all the forum threads complaining about difficulty and on what I see in game, I have some doubts if those builds are really suitable for beginners and not more for experienced people wanting to try something new.

Marauder definitely is a good stat choice for those, although all of them have pretty good active defenses especially against the slow hitting "trash" mobs mostly found in Open World, be it Aegis, Blinds, ease of kiting, evade spam and CC's.

Then we are absolutely in agreement here.

What I feel new player's often don't understand is that GW2 is about damage avoidance rather than soaking. Can't tell you how many for example Firebrand's I've seen in OW using Mantra of Solace after taking a hit to heal up (~1500 Heal, likely not enough to regain all HP lost), rather than using it before getting hit as intended, to gain Aegis and take 0 damage in the first place.

Yes, but it's also very hard to learn with all the stuff that is going on simulteaneously and all the things you have to pay attention to while playing. Heck, for a casual player even going from clicking skills to hitting keys is a huge feat, taking a lot of practice (went through that myself a while ago). They WILL stand there taking hits when they should circle, they WILL stand in big bad red on the ground when they should move out of it, they WILL fail to dodge the big telegraphed attack from that champion and they WILL forget to activate defenses when it's the right moment to do so. You veterans have completely forgotten how hard this is.

That's why I advocate NOT to recommend glasscannon builds to new players and casuals, but instead allow them some passive defenses (usually health, Marauder's is a fine compromise for most classes), giving significant more leeway for mistakes. They will die a lot anyway upon initially entering HoT maps, but will die a whole lot more if running glass builds, leading to frustration.

When they have become accustomed to the increased difficulty and have improved their skills somewhat, they can always switch to more offensive builds. In particular, changing prefixes on ascended armour / weapons and getting a new set of ascended trinkets is rather cheap.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Asum.4960" said:The about 100% increased effective HP of Soldier's vs Berserker's, while sounding great on paper, get's greatly devalued by the existence of active damage mitigation like dodges as well as general gameplay techniques like circle strafing and just CC'ing mobs, on top of the vast majority of OW mobs being long dead by the time even the Berserker's effective HP and active defenses are exhausted, and will therefor be a wasted investment for the overwhelming vast majority of OW encounters.

Point is, CC chaining mobs and killing them with ~70% increased damage much more quickly before they ever get to act much or penetrate your rapidly refreshing active defenses like dodges is much faster, safer and easier than sustaining for longer fights, encountering mechanics, getting CC'ed yourself, exhausting CD's and requiring more resustain etc., even with literally 100% extra effective HP.

All that said, the Build and mechanical skill of the player is indeed much more important than Gear, and if someone feels more comfortable with Soldier's then more power to them.

Agreed. I'm just a math freak and wanted to point out the actual numbers. I agree 100% that taking offensive gear in this game is usually better than defensive gear thanks to how dynamic/active the combat is. The first rule someone should follow in combat is to NOT get attacked, at all, second rule is in case you are attacked, don't allow the attack to connect, third and only as a last resort, take the hit and pray it doesn't kill you.

That said, using Marauder instead of Berserker on my Elementalist did improve my chances of Survival by a lot, and that's because Elementalist have a very low health pool, the extra health from Vitality is actually visible, so it also depends on your spec of choice.

If someone is struggling with OW content like HoT, gear most likely isn't the issue though, although I do think that a player who dies a lot - even though it might be counter intuitive at first, is better served going more offensive in GW2 rather than piling up more defenses, extending fights needlessly and giving them more opportunities to mess up rather than less.

True. On my Thief, in full Berserker gear, I can 1-2 shot kill mobs like Smokescales or Itzel Shadowleapers (mobs that give trouble to a LOT of "casual" players), meanwhile, if I used Soldier I wouldn't kill them in one shot giving them time to react and use their own skills against me. I gave the example of these two mobs as they both have powerful attacks that negate damage, especially melee (the smoke field of the scale and the backward evade and poison field of the Shadowleaper) both skills can be avoided easily by killing them in 1-2 hits before they can even react.

[Croc.1978]

@AliamRationem.5172 said:cool youtube vids

This is very impressive, especially the third video.

Ele with 3k armour? Must be a sight to behold when you play with other people and all the mobs beeline for the elementalist...

[Asum.4960]

@Croc.1978 said:

@"Asum.4960" said:I've never heard of or seen any Retaliation OW build as that seems like a terrible idea, considering how slow OW mobs are.I still remember testing some Spellbreaker OW builds and by far the most difficult thing about it was to actually trigger Full Counter as mobs simply wouldn't attack frequently enough to trigger it reliably during it's duration.Do you have a link to any of those Retal builds?

Power Firebrand

for instance devotes the whole Radiance trait line to Retaliation and is rated 5/5.

Of course I did not mean Retaliation as main damage source (like with the "thorns" builds of other games), I doubt this is even possible in GW2. But people trait Retaliation all the time to (supposedly) increase dps of their builds.

The Retal itself is almost completely irrelevant, it's only purpose is to give 25% Crit Chance via Righteous Instincts to obtain 100% Critical Chance (on top of pulsing Might) as well as a 10% Damage Modifier from Retribution.

Yes, but it's also very hard to learn with all the stuff that is going on simulteaneously and all the things you have to pay attention to while playing. Heck, for a casual player even going from clicking skills to hitting keys is a huge feat, taking a lot of practice (went through that myself a while ago). They WILL stand there taking hits when they should circle, they WILL stand in big bad red on the ground when they should move out of it, they WILL fail to dodge the big telegraphed attack from that champion and they WILL forget to activate defenses when it's the right moment to do so. You veterans have completely forgotten how hard this is.

That's why I advocate NOT to recommend glasscannon builds to new players and casuals, but instead allow them some passive defenses (usually health, Marauder's is a fine compromise for most classes), giving significant more leeway for mistakes. They will die a lot anyway upon initially entering HoT maps, but will die a whole lot more if running glass builds, leading to frustration.

When they have become accustomed to the increased difficulty and have improved their skills somewhat, they can always switch to more offensive builds. In particular, changing prefixes on ascended armour / weapons and getting a new set of ascended trinkets is rather cheap.

Whatever works for people. My philosophy as stated is just that more damage = lower time to kill = less opportunity for bad plays = easier.Plus it encourages players to learn the active gameplay skills sooner rather than later. Relying on passive defense won't get you far in a skill based game like GW2, so might as well learn it properly.That's just me though, if someone wan't to run Soldiers and is feeling more comfortable with that, absolutely.Build and Skill are much more important than Gear. If they want to go that extra step of acquiring ultimately unnecessary defensive gear and learning to play with that first I have no issue with that.

That doesn't change my recommendation that ultimately more offense is easier though - even if harder to learn at first.

[Croc.1978]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Asum.4960 said:Taking those same hypothetical +20%, +20%, +10% modifiers on a 100% crit chance for 300% Crit damage builds suddenly turns 2000 Damage into ~9600 damage, while taking them for the no crit builds will result in ~3200 damage.

Well the question was between Berserker and Soldier, Berserker doesn't reach 100% crit chance nor 300% critical damage.Berseker has 51% critical chance and 214% critical damage compared to 5% and 150% from Soldier, leading to Berserker dealing 54% more damage than Soldier. A build with 100% critical chance and 300% critical damage will do 192% more damage than a build with Soldier gear, but that hypothetical build will do 90% more damage than a pure Berserker build.

This means you are comparing a buffed build with an un-buffed one, why not apply the same buffs to the Soldier build? To reach 100% critical chance, you added 46% critical chance to Berserker and to reach 300% critical damage, you added 86% critical damage. If you apply these modifiers to Soldier you get: 51% critical chance / 236% critical damage. Do note that this hypothetical buffed Soldier build does 7% MORE damage than a pure Berserker build. The buffed Berserker build (100/300) does 77% more damage than the buffed Soldier build (51/236)

This is pretty much exactly what I intended to write in reply to Nephalem and Asum, thank you. Minor nitpick: buffed Berserker build does 74% more damage than buffed Soldier build (54/236).

[Croc.1978]

@Asum.4960 said:

@Croc.1978 said:

@Asum.4960 said:I've never heard of or seen any Retaliation OW build as that seems like a terrible idea, considering how slow OW mobs are.I still remember testing some Spellbreaker OW builds and by far the most difficult thing about it was to actually trigger Full Counter as mobs simply wouldn't attack frequently enough to trigger it reliably during it's duration.Do you have a link to any of those Retal builds?

Power Firebrand

for instance devotes the whole Radiance trait line to Retaliation and is rated 5/5.

Of course I did not mean Retaliation as main damage source (like with the "thorns" builds of other games), I doubt this is even possible in GW2. But people trait Retaliation all the time to (supposedly) increase dps of their builds.

The Retal itself is almost completely irrelevant, it's only purpose is to give 25% Crit Chance via Righteous Instincts to obtain 100% Critical Chance (on top of pulsing Might) as well as a 10% Damage Modifier from Retribution.

Ah OK, thx for the clarification.

Otherwise case closed, everything to be said has been said.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@Croc.1978 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

cool youtube vids

This is very impressive, especially the third video.

Ele with 3k armour? Must be a sight to behold when you play with other people and all the mobs beeline for the elementalist...

Thanks! I like to have the mobs on me anyway. Deal more damage that way. And as long as they're in a nice, neat pile, so does everyone else! And it's not like they're going to hurt me, right?

[ruikarikun.9402]

HoT = Dark Souls ? Yes if you are new to game and no if you spend some time to your build.