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Why SnowCrows is destroying Raiding


Blumpf.2518

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@Kuma.1503 said:

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:This thread goes right back into why I believe sites like snowcrows need to list two different kinds of metas:
  1. The normal speed clear meta designed for players of peak experience who don't make mistakes. You could call this "the elite meta."
  2. And then a "safe meta" where the meta is designed for players who do make mistakes, that would gladly DPS a bit slower to be able to clear a raid. It is often that a normal speed clear meta build operating at 100% damage output, can sacrifice about 10% to 15% of that dps value, to literally "double or triple" it's own sustain value, simply by bringing 1 defensive utility + some trait swap to a defensive trait. And then of course the kinds of things can be done which the OP mentioned.

^ If this where to be done, LFGs could list as: "Elite" or "Safe" and players could have different standards within squads, but two different methods to be able to agree upon. It would make the communication of expectations a lot easier. People have said they wanted an easy mode for raids, well this would be the easiest way to achieve it, a community accepted alternative "Safe" meta that players can organize around, who want to play at that pace.

How about you provide the builds for what you deem to be the “safe meta”.

You don't have to think very hard to make such a build. Often times, all that needs to happen are a few trait swaps. Here are some examples I use on the classes that I play:

Daredevil:
  • Invigorating Precision - ~10% DPS loss. Massive sustain increase
  • Haste - Stunbreak, Helps maintain quickness when supports aren't doing their job
  • Swap
    deadly arts
    for
    trickery
    . Higher Vigor uptime = more dodges. Lower steal CD = more dodges. More Ini = You can afford to use vault as a dodge in a pinch. Less reliance on condi uptime on boss.

Weaver:
  • Master's Fortitude - Bigger Health buffer
  • Run
    marauder
    gear - If 11k hp is too squishy. Better to stay alive and deal ~10% less dps than to constantly go down.

Renegade:
  • Swap
    Shiro
    for
    Jallis
    . Mostly for fights where stability is beneficial. Has better breakbar damage if group CC is lacking.
  • Consider running Heal ren over Alac ren.

Scourge
  • A heal scourge will literally hard carry inexperienced groups. In a very "bad" group, you can run full Magi with mercy runes and you can literally pick up an entire raid over and over again. You can even pull downed bodies out of damaging AoE's. (My favorite build for carrying strikes through boneskinner)

Reaper
  • Soul Eater - Even more sustain on an already tanky build.

Holosmith
  • Elixir U - Stunbreak. Helps with boon uptime if supports aren't doing their job

Scrapper
  • Run Power scrapper in place of a Holosmith if Healers are poor. Barrier helps them maintain scholar rune uptime which makes up for the dps loss.
  • Heal Scrapper - Very good healing and cleansing build on fights where condis are a problem such as Sloth.

Firebrand
  • Run Saraph support FB in place of a DPS. Still dishes out respectable dps while pumping out good heals and boons.
  • Replace Balthazar runes with Firebrand runes for better boon uptime. Very helpful when running without an Alacrigade/Chrono.

not sure if you realise but you need take even more sustain because with no dps you gonna reach enrage timer and get +200% damage iirc. i'd advise you to add up 2healscourge on top of the 2 initial healers. also at that point you can add druid running lingering light for more heal and you can replace boon player by whatever bc there is no reason for them to work their well off for people to waste boon as they can't do anything.

it also mean that you can forgot about bosses wiping the group at enrage time (gors/sab maybe more not sure)loosing ~10% dps isn't true either. doubt any of the player will have a flawless rotation if they come any close to a rotation so i think it would be like the dps we sometime encounter in pug that fight their hardest to outdps the druid iboga.

about: why pug refuses that? well its simple: by the time you do your wing 1 with these "easier strat" pugs can clean w1-7.

if you want to do these strat go for it, gather 9 people that want to play the same way and go for it but i'd advise to keep it as a static because i doubt any pug stays more than 1 pull maybe 2 or 3 if you advertise it as training.

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@Fangoth.4503 said:

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:This thread goes right back into why I believe sites like snowcrows need to list two different kinds of metas:
  1. The normal speed clear meta designed for players of peak experience who don't make mistakes. You could call this "the elite meta."
  2. And then a "safe meta" where the meta is designed for players who do make mistakes, that would gladly DPS a bit slower to be able to clear a raid. It is often that a normal speed clear meta build operating at 100% damage output, can sacrifice about 10% to 15% of that dps value, to literally "double or triple" it's own sustain value, simply by bringing 1 defensive utility + some trait swap to a defensive trait. And then of course the kinds of things can be done which the OP mentioned.

^ If this where to be done, LFGs could list as: "Elite" or "Safe" and players could have different standards within squads, but two different methods to be able to agree upon. It would make the communication of expectations a lot easier. People have said they wanted an easy mode for raids, well this would be the easiest way to achieve it, a community accepted alternative "Safe" meta that players can organize around, who want to play at that pace.

How about you provide the builds for what you deem to be the “safe meta”.

You don't have to think very hard to make such a build. Often times, all that needs to happen are a few trait swaps. Here are some examples I use on the classes that I play:

Daredevil:
  • Invigorating Precision - ~10% DPS loss. Massive sustain increase
  • Haste - Stunbreak, Helps maintain quickness when supports aren't doing their job
  • Swap
    deadly arts
    for
    trickery
    . Higher Vigor uptime = more dodges. Lower steal CD = more dodges. More Ini = You can afford to use vault as a dodge in a pinch. Less reliance on condi uptime on boss.

Weaver:
  • Master's Fortitude - Bigger Health buffer
  • Run
    marauder
    gear - If 11k hp is too squishy. Better to stay alive and deal ~10% less dps than to constantly go down.

Renegade:
  • Swap
    Shiro
    for
    Jallis
    . Mostly for fights where stability is beneficial. Has better breakbar damage if group CC is lacking.
  • Consider running Heal ren over Alac ren.

Scourge
  • A heal scourge will literally hard carry inexperienced groups. In a very "bad" group, you can run full Magi with mercy runes and you can literally pick up an entire raid over and over again. You can even pull downed bodies out of damaging AoE's. (My favorite build for carrying strikes through boneskinner)

Reaper
  • Soul Eater - Even more sustain on an already tanky build.

Holosmith
  • Elixir U - Stunbreak. Helps with boon uptime if supports aren't doing their job

Scrapper
  • Run Power scrapper in place of a Holosmith if Healers are poor. Barrier helps them maintain scholar rune uptime which makes up for the dps loss.
  • Heal Scrapper - Very good healing and cleansing build on fights where condis are a problem such as Sloth.

Firebrand
  • Run Saraph support FB in place of a DPS. Still dishes out respectable dps while pumping out good heals and boons.
  • Replace Balthazar runes with Firebrand runes for better boon uptime. Very helpful when running without an Alacrigade/Chrono.

not sure if you realise but you need take even more sustain because with no dps you gonna reach enrage timer

Nah.

DPS is so high nowadays, you can EASILY chop 10% - 15% off a normal meta group and not worry about enrage timer at all.

Back when raids first released in HoT, yeah that was different. Not running absolute full DPS was a problem then.

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:This thread goes right back into why I believe sites like snowcrows need to list two different kinds of metas:
  1. The normal speed clear meta designed for players of peak experience who don't make mistakes. You could call this "the elite meta."
  2. And then a "safe meta" where the meta is designed for players who do make mistakes, that would gladly DPS a bit slower to be able to clear a raid. It is often that a normal speed clear meta build operating at 100% damage output, can sacrifice about 10% to 15% of that dps value, to literally "double or triple" it's own sustain value, simply by bringing 1 defensive utility + some trait swap to a defensive trait. And then of course the kinds of things can be done which the OP mentioned.

^ If this where to be done, LFGs could list as: "Elite" or "Safe" and players could have different standards within squads, but two different methods to be able to agree upon. It would make the communication of expectations a lot easier. People have said they wanted an easy mode for raids, well this would be the easiest way to achieve it, a community accepted alternative "Safe" meta that players can organize around, who want to play at that pace.

How about you provide the builds for what you deem to be the “safe meta”.

You don't have to think very hard to make such a build. Often times, all that needs to happen are a few trait swaps. Here are some examples I use on the classes that I play:

Daredevil:
  • Invigorating Precision - ~10% DPS loss. Massive sustain increase
  • Haste - Stunbreak, Helps maintain quickness when supports aren't doing their job
  • Swap
    deadly arts
    for
    trickery
    . Higher Vigor uptime = more dodges. Lower steal CD = more dodges. More Ini = You can afford to use vault as a dodge in a pinch. Less reliance on condi uptime on boss.

Weaver:
  • Master's Fortitude - Bigger Health buffer
  • Run
    marauder
    gear - If 11k hp is too squishy. Better to stay alive and deal ~10% less dps than to constantly go down.

Renegade:
  • Swap
    Shiro
    for
    Jallis
    . Mostly for fights where stability is beneficial. Has better breakbar damage if group CC is lacking.
  • Consider running Heal ren over Alac ren.

Scourge
  • A heal scourge will literally hard carry inexperienced groups. In a very "bad" group, you can run full Magi with mercy runes and you can literally pick up an entire raid over and over again. You can even pull downed bodies out of damaging AoE's. (My favorite build for carrying strikes through boneskinner)

Reaper
  • Soul Eater - Even more sustain on an already tanky build.

Holosmith
  • Elixir U - Stunbreak. Helps with boon uptime if supports aren't doing their job

Scrapper
  • Run Power scrapper in place of a Holosmith if Healers are poor. Barrier helps them maintain scholar rune uptime which makes up for the dps loss.
  • Heal Scrapper - Very good healing and cleansing build on fights where condis are a problem such as Sloth.

Firebrand
  • Run Saraph support FB in place of a DPS. Still dishes out respectable dps while pumping out good heals and boons.
  • Replace Balthazar runes with Firebrand runes for better boon uptime. Very helpful when running without an Alacrigade/Chrono.

not sure if you realise but you need take even more sustain because with no dps you gonna reach enrage timer

Nah.

DPS is so high nowadays, you can EASILY chop 10% - 15% off a normal meta group and not worry about enrage timer at all.

Back when raids first released in HoT, yeah that was different. Not running absolute full DPS was a problem then.

I thought this was for new raiders and people that cant do raids with the normal classes atm.

If they cant down them now, how are they supposed to do it with even less dps and more time to kitten up?

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:This thread goes right back into why I believe sites like snowcrows need to list two different kinds of metas:
  1. The normal speed clear meta designed for players of peak experience who don't make mistakes. You could call this "the elite meta."
  2. And then a "safe meta" where the meta is designed for players who do make mistakes, that would gladly DPS a bit slower to be able to clear a raid. It is often that a normal speed clear meta build operating at 100% damage output, can sacrifice about 10% to 15% of that dps value, to literally "double or triple" it's own sustain value, simply by bringing 1 defensive utility + some trait swap to a defensive trait. And then of course the kinds of things can be done which the OP mentioned.

^ If this where to be done, LFGs could list as: "Elite" or "Safe" and players could have different standards within squads, but two different methods to be able to agree upon. It would make the communication of expectations a lot easier. People have said they wanted an easy mode for raids, well this would be the easiest way to achieve it, a community accepted alternative "Safe" meta that players can organize around, who want to play at that pace.

How about you provide the builds for what you deem to be the “safe meta”.

You don't have to think very hard to make such a build. Often times, all that needs to happen are a few trait swaps. Here are some examples I use on the classes that I play:

Daredevil:
  • Invigorating Precision - ~10% DPS loss. Massive sustain increase
  • Haste - Stunbreak, Helps maintain quickness when supports aren't doing their job
  • Swap
    deadly arts
    for
    trickery
    . Higher Vigor uptime = more dodges. Lower steal CD = more dodges. More Ini = You can afford to use vault as a dodge in a pinch. Less reliance on condi uptime on boss.

Weaver:
  • Master's Fortitude - Bigger Health buffer
  • Run
    marauder
    gear - If 11k hp is too squishy. Better to stay alive and deal ~10% less dps than to constantly go down.

Renegade:
  • Swap
    Shiro
    for
    Jallis
    . Mostly for fights where stability is beneficial. Has better breakbar damage if group CC is lacking.
  • Consider running Heal ren over Alac ren.

Scourge
  • A heal scourge will literally hard carry inexperienced groups. In a very "bad" group, you can run full Magi with mercy runes and you can literally pick up an entire raid over and over again. You can even pull downed bodies out of damaging AoE's. (My favorite build for carrying strikes through boneskinner)

Reaper
  • Soul Eater - Even more sustain on an already tanky build.

Holosmith
  • Elixir U - Stunbreak. Helps with boon uptime if supports aren't doing their job

Scrapper
  • Run Power scrapper in place of a Holosmith if Healers are poor. Barrier helps them maintain scholar rune uptime which makes up for the dps loss.
  • Heal Scrapper - Very good healing and cleansing build on fights where condis are a problem such as Sloth.

Firebrand
  • Run Saraph support FB in place of a DPS. Still dishes out respectable dps while pumping out good heals and boons.
  • Replace Balthazar runes with Firebrand runes for better boon uptime. Very helpful when running without an Alacrigade/Chrono.

not sure if you realise but you need take even more sustain because with no dps you gonna reach enrage timer

Nah.

DPS is so high nowadays, you can EASILY chop 10% - 15% off a normal meta group and not worry about enrage timer at all.

Back when raids first released in HoT, yeah that was different. Not running absolute full DPS was a problem then.

if you rely on player that know how to play yes but if you know how to play you don't need to remove 10%. take a new player or player that have no idea how to play raid they can be outdpsed by more experienced player auto attacking so they need that "10%"

raid in a nutshell:high DPS = successfull at mechs => take close to 0 damagetaking damage = failing at mechs => DPS close to inexistantand fyi it still happens to see "dps" player at 2-4k dps when other are at 20k+

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@"Carcharoth Lucian.1378" said:I looked at it and all the builds here are meta or at least good (which is really close to meta) at one boss (at least). If a build fall under that, they are indeed removed from the website (like the power core warrior build was when anet buffed the berserker spec).if a build is marked as "good", it means they don't consider it meta. And what they do consider meta already is a bit wider than just M.E.T.A. (more on that further below). If you look at their valuations of things like power reaper or power spellbreaker, you will see that they consider those builds to be quite bad (and power reaper for example was there even before it was recently buffed - i don;t remember what its valuation was then, but it must have been even worse).And there's stuff like all healer builds apart from druid, which just don't get the "meta" evaluation almost by default - because SC considers running a second healer to be a subpar choice. Yet they still have those on site in case someone wants to be safer at the cost of effectiveness. That is also not a M.E.T.A. approach.

And what builds are better than the ones marked as meta? (they are maybe the new meta?).If you have several dps builds marked as meta at one boss, but some are clearly better than the others, then at least some of those meta builds are not M.E.T.A.That's the point i am trying to pass to you. That even SC, that are quite stringent in their meta requirements, and often ignore builds that are still considered meta by the community at large, mark as meta a number of builds that are not "most efficient". Their "meta" requirement apparently lies not in being most efficient, but merely in being a cut above just "good".

By the way, it is rather well known that their version of the "most efficient" tactics is quite different than what the most groups are running. A look at the benchmark table should also tell you something.

I (and no one here) never said that the most efficient tactics was the most used ones. Of course, a lot of pug squads (if not all) don't use M.E.T.A. squad composition and prefer safer off-meta comp (like take 2 healers instead of one) and accept a lot of off-meta builds. I never see the 7 power chronos meta on xera for example, but that doesn't mean that this peculiar setup is not the "most efficient tactic available". It still is.So, why SC has far more dps builds than that marked as meta at Xera? "Most efficient" means exactly that. If you have several setups on boss that are considered meta, and one is just a sliver better, only that one can be m.e.t.a. By definition the others are no longer "most efficient", because they fall below that one. And so, if they are still marked as meta, it measn that this "meta" evaluation is
not
the same as "most efficient tactic available" acronym would suggest.(and some of the "meta" marked builds are not just "a sliver" worse, btw)

So, to better phrase my sentence you quoted, so the meaning will be more understandable:It is rather well known that their version of the "most efficient" tactics is quite different than what the most groups are running. But the site doesn't concentrate on what SC themselves are running, but includes all those popular setups that in SC's eyes would fall below being "most efficient".

Most people (myself included) just want to clear the content and have fun while doing it.Indeed. And SC knows that, and their evaluations of builds (even those they tag as meta - with the possible exception of healers) reflect that.

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@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Carcharoth Lucian.1378" said:I looked at it and all the builds here are meta or at least good (which is really close to meta) at one boss (at least). If a build fall under that, they are indeed removed from the website (like the power core warrior build was when anet buffed the berserker spec).if a build is marked as "good", it means they
don't
consider it meta. And what they do consider meta already is a bit wider than just M.E.T.A. (more on that further below). If you look at their valuations of things like power reaper or power spellbreaker, you will see that they consider those builds to be quite bad (and power reaper for example was there even before it was recently buffed - i don;t remember what its valuation was then, but it must have been even worse).And there's stuff like all healer builds apart from druid, which just don't get the "meta" evaluation almost by default - because SC considers running a second healer to be a subpar choice. Yet they still have those on site in case someone wants to be safer at the cost of effectiveness. That is also not a M.E.T.A. approach.

And what builds are better than the ones marked as meta? (they are maybe the new meta?).If you have several dps builds marked as meta at one boss, but some are clearly better than the others, then at least some of those meta builds are not M.E.T.A.That's the point i am trying to pass to you. That even SC, that are quite stringent in their meta requirements, and often ignore builds that are still considered meta by the community at large, mark as meta a number of builds that are
not
"most efficient". Their "meta" requirement apparently lies not in being
most
efficient, but merely in being a cut above just "good".

By the way, it is rather well known that their version of the "most efficient" tactics is quite different than what the most groups are running. A look at the benchmark table should also tell you something.

I (and no one here) never said that the most efficient tactics was the most used ones. Of course, a lot of pug squads (if not all) don't use M.E.T.A. squad composition and prefer safer off-meta comp (like take 2 healers instead of one) and accept a lot of off-meta builds. I never see the 7 power chronos meta on xera for example, but that doesn't mean that this peculiar setup is not the "most efficient tactic available". It still is.So, why SC has far more dps builds than that marked as meta at Xera? "Most efficient" means exactly that. If you have several setups on boss that are considered meta, and one is just a sliver better, only that one can be m.e.t.a. By definition the others are no longer "most efficient", because they fall below that one. And so, if they are still marked as meta, it measn that this "meta" evaluation is
not
the same as "most efficient tactic available" acronym would suggest.(and some of the "meta" marked builds are not just "a sliver" worse, btw)

So, to better phrase my sentence you quoted, so the meaning will be more understandable:It is rather well known that their version of the "most efficient" tactics is quite different than what the most groups are running. But the site doesn't concentrate on what SC themselves are running, but includes all those popular setups that in SC's eyes would fall below being "most efficient".

Most people (myself included) just want to clear the content and have fun while doing it.Indeed. And SC knows that, and their evaluations of builds (even those they tag as meta - with the possible exception of healers) reflect that.

I will correct myself then : SC website provide us M.E.T.A. builds + "good" builds (which are a bit less efficient than M.E.T.A.).

(and some of the "meta" marked builds are not just "a sliver" worse, btw)Which ones?

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@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Carcharoth Lucian.1378" said:I looked at it and all the builds here are meta or at least good (which is really close to meta) at one boss (at least). If a build fall under that, they are indeed removed from the website (like the power core warrior build was when anet buffed the berserker spec).if a build is marked as "good", it means they
don't
consider it meta. And what they do consider meta already is a bit wider than just M.E.T.A. (more on that further below). If you look at their valuations of things like power reaper or power spellbreaker, you will see that they consider those builds to be quite bad (and power reaper for example was there even before it was recently buffed - i don;t remember what its valuation was then, but it must have been even worse).And there's stuff like all healer builds apart from druid, which just don't get the "meta" evaluation almost by default - because SC considers running a second healer to be a subpar choice. Yet they still have those on site in case someone wants to be safer at the cost of effectiveness. That is also not a M.E.T.A. approach.

And what builds are better than the ones marked as meta? (they are maybe the new meta?).If you have several dps builds marked as meta at one boss, but some are clearly better than the others, then at least some of those meta builds are not M.E.T.A.That's the point i am trying to pass to you. That even SC, that are quite stringent in their meta requirements, and often ignore builds that are still considered meta by the community at large, mark as meta a number of builds that are
not
"most efficient". Their "meta" requirement apparently lies not in being
most
efficient, but merely in being a cut above just "good".

By the way, it is rather well known that their version of the "most efficient" tactics is quite different than what the most groups are running. A look at the benchmark table should also tell you something.

I (and no one here) never said that the most efficient tactics was the most used ones. Of course, a lot of pug squads (if not all) don't use M.E.T.A. squad composition and prefer safer off-meta comp (like take 2 healers instead of one) and accept a lot of off-meta builds. I never see the 7 power chronos meta on xera for example, but that doesn't mean that this peculiar setup is not the "most efficient tactic available". It still is.So, why SC has far more dps builds than that marked as meta at Xera? "Most efficient" means exactly that. If you have several setups on boss that are considered meta, and one is just a sliver better, only that one can be m.e.t.a. By definition the others are no longer "most efficient", because they fall below that one. And so, if they are still marked as meta, it measn that this "meta" evaluation is
not
the same as "most efficient tactic available" acronym would suggest.(and some of the "meta" marked builds are not just "a sliver" worse, btw)

So, to better phrase my sentence you quoted, so the meaning will be more understandable:It is rather well known that their version of the "most efficient" tactics is quite different than what the most groups are running. But the site doesn't concentrate on what SC themselves are running, but includes all those popular setups that in SC's eyes would fall below being "most efficient".

Most people (myself included) just want to clear the content and have fun while doing it.Indeed. And SC knows that, and their evaluations of builds (even those they tag as meta - with the possible exception of healers) reflect that.

I think its important to point out that a number of builds listed as "meta" for specific bosses are "meta" because stacking that class lets you replace a support, usually stacking chronos or guardians to replace quickness, but sometimes to replace other classes. For example on cairn condi soulbeast is listed as meta because they stack them to share vulture stance for lifesteal and that removes the need to bring a healer.

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Youre all talking about "efficiency" or "effective" as if it was the same for everyone, but you dont realize that this can mean very diffrent things depending on who you ask.For snowcrows an "efficient" build is a build that does more DPS than other builds and helps them kill the boss as fast as possible. If thats your goal, the build is "effective" cause it will reach that goal.Now if you have a lfg raid and play an "efficient" snowcrows build, but your goal is not a new speedkill record, or worse, youre not able to kill the boss while playing that build, this build is now not "effective".

"Efficiency" and "Effective" very much depends on the intention what you want to achieve. The normal LFG raiders goal is to kill as many bosses as possible in the time theyre playing. A raidwipe costs a lot of time, especially a wipe if the boss has low hitpoints. Two wipes with a snowcrows build easily cost you 10 Minutes of Raidtime and will probably lead to people leaving the raid, so that you have to find new people, which costs time again. And then a DPS focussed build is neither efficient nor effective.By playing a safer or more group supporting build you couldve prevented the wipes which wouldve saved time and wouldve prevent people from leaving the raid.In this situation the 95% of max possible DPS build that has more group support is more efficient and more effective. Often all thats required for that is changing some traits or skills. The equipment can be the same.

Therefore, for the normal raiders who only want to kill some bosses, the dps focussed snowcrows builds are not the most effective builds in achieving that. In fact they will often prevent that cause the raid is so squishy that a lot of unneccesary wipes will happen.

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@"Blumpf.2518" said:Youre all talking about "efficiency" or "effective" as if it was the same for everyone, but you dont realize that this can mean very diffrent things depending on who you ask.For snowcrows an "efficient" build is a build that does more DPS than other builds and helps them kill the boss as fast as possible. If thats your goal, the build is "effective" cause it will reach that goal.Now if you have a lfg raid and play an "efficient" snowcrows build, but your goal is not a new speedkill record, or worse, youre not able to kill the boss while playing that build, this build is now not "effective".

"Efficiency" and "Effective" very much depends on the intention what you want to achieve. The normal LFG raiders goal is to kill as many bosses as possible in the time theyre playing. A raidwipe costs a lot of time, especially a wipe if the boss has low hitpoints. Two wipes with a snowcrows build easily cost you 10 Minutes of Raidtime and will probably lead to people leaving the raid, so that you have to find new people, which costs time again. And then a DPS focussed build is neither efficient nor effective.By playing a safer or more group supporting build you couldve prevented the wipes which wouldve saved time and wouldve prevent people from leaving the raid.In this situation the 95% of max possible DPS build that has more group support is more efficient and more effective. Often all thats required for that is changing some traits or skills. The equipment can be the same.

Therefore, for the normal raiders who only want to kill some bosses, the dps focussed snowcrows builds are not the most effective builds in achieving that. In fact they will often prevent that cause the raid is so squishy that a lot of unneccesary wipes will happen.

Conversely: the best defense is a good offense.

Higher DPS means a boss dies quicker. The quicker a boss dies, the less likely someone is to make a mistake that leads to a wipe.

Players should strive to do the most DPS possible for them. IE: a person with low reflexes (either age related or disability) will have to choose a build that's not dependent on super fast reflexes.

SnowCrows isn't harmful to raiding. They give a good starting point for people looking to do raids. They follow the "best defense is a good offense" approach and offer builds that focus on DPS.

People and ANet are the reason raids are dying. People have to actually want to learn for any build site (or any offered help) to be effective. This is a portion of the raiding community. These players who do not care to improve gradually reduce the number of veterans who PUG or are willing to critique builds and provide help unsolicited. Players who rudely tell someone to go watch a video and refuse to help in any other fashion hurt raids as this makes new players less likely to try to ask for help again - they may not learn the best through watching a video. It also puts off players who want to try out of fear that that's who they'll run into. ANet not putting out raiding content in a consistent manner hurts raiding. Players get tired of waiting for new raids and will only do the same raid over and over again for so long before they move on.

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@"Blumpf.2518" said:Youre all talking about "efficiency" or "effective" as if it was the same for everyone, but you dont realize that this can mean very diffrent things depending on who you ask.

You're complaining people are hung up by definitions for meta derailing the thread ... then you re-open with a discussion about the meaning of some pretty common words. Don't do that to yourself.

If you want to stick to the topic, just discuss the points people have made to you that haven't addressed:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@"Blumpf.2518" said:Why dont you continue your metaphysic metadiscussion in another metathread, so that the rest can get back to topic.

I agree, so:Sites like snowcrows isn't destroying anything, it's "barely" providing information about efficient builds/comps. If anything "destroys" raiding, it's the player attitude and pretty much nothing else. In the past sites like that didn't exist (or at least weren't so popular) and yet other mmorpgs still developed their meta comps/builds which were spread ingame or on their respective forums.

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@"Blumpf.2518" said:Youre all talking about "efficiency" or "effective" as if it was the same for everyone, but you dont realize that this can mean very diffrent things depending on who you ask.For snowcrows an "efficient" build is a build that does more DPS than other builds and helps them kill the boss as fast as possible. If thats your goal, the build is "effective" cause it will reach that goal.Now if you have a lfg raid and play an "efficient" snowcrows build, but your goal is not a new speedkill record, or worse, youre not able to kill the boss while playing that build, this build is now not "effective".

"Efficiency" and "Effective" very much depends on the intention what you want to achieve. The normal LFG raiders goal is to kill as many bosses as possible in the time theyre playing. A raidwipe costs a lot of time, especially a wipe if the boss has low hitpoints. Two wipes with a snowcrows build easily cost you 10 Minutes of Raidtime and will probably lead to people leaving the raid, so that you have to find new people, which costs time again. And then a DPS focussed build is neither efficient nor effective.By playing a safer or more group supporting build you couldve prevented the wipes which wouldve saved time and wouldve prevent people from leaving the raid.In this situation the 95% of max possible DPS build that has more group support is more efficient and more effective. Often all thats required for that is changing some traits or skills. The equipment can be the same.

Therefore, for the normal raiders who only want to kill some bosses, the dps focussed snowcrows builds are not the most effective builds in achieving that. In fact they will often prevent that cause the raid is so squishy that a lot of unneccesary wipes will happen.

you want to prove that SC build aren't adapted for LFG then go do your own LFG and impose these build and prove them wrong :). It's super simple you just have to click at proper spot like in: https://imgur.com/matFPGcIt will be much more constructive than being here and claiming that everyone is stupid by not using your build idea or claiming that a guild is destroying raid when they instead play an important on improving the PUG lfg standards and quality.So far i see only speaking about "oh it would be so much better" with nothing to support what is said.Maybe having proof that these build are performing better by actually killing a boss with a team composed of these build would be a good start. If you manage to do so don't forget to record logs so you can share your great discovery to the rest of the community and let them evaluate if its better than what SC offers.don't forget to make a benchmark video (with log) too so player that plan on using this can train themselves :)

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Raiding with pugs is not the only way to raid. The raiding community is great (Iots of toxic players out there, who cares...). Find a static group. Many raiding guilds are doing some training runs during the week, if you're not familiar with the class... they are eager to give you some feedback/advice.

If you're comfortable with the group and know your class well enough, go ahead move onto Snowcrows... No one is forcing you to use them.

PPL search for an epiSc for SH... yesterday we got it with Condi BS instead...

I mean... the guilds are asking for more ppl... one of them would certainly fit your schedule!

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@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:Sacrificing a utility slot to achieve some kind of 2% to 3% increase in DPS, rather than bringing a utility that literally doubles personal sustain is not efficient. It's a ballsy tactic that should only be used by players who can run the said given content perfectly without ever making mistakes.Hint: most of the utilities that "literally double personal sustain" do not actually increase personal sustain in any impactful way. And i don't think any utility actually literally doubles personal sustain even in theory (much less in practice). On the other hand sometimes lacking even that sliver of a dps more can result in a party wipe.

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@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:Sacrificing a utility slot to achieve some kind of 2% to 3% increase in DPS, rather than bringing a utility that literally doubles personal sustain is not efficient. It's a ballsy tactic that should only be used by players who can run the said given content perfectly without ever making mistakes.Hint: most of the utilities that "literally double personal sustain" do not actually increase personal sustain in any impactful way. And i don't think any utility actually
literally
doubles personal sustain even in theory (much less in practice). On the other hand sometimes lacking even that sliver of a dps more
can
result in a party wipe.

Bologna.

Take a utility like Dolyak Stance as example. It grants a -33% damage vs. power and condi that stacks rather than being overlapped by protection, removes all movement impairing condis, and is also a personal stun break. Dolyak Stance easily doubles sustain, not in terms of health bar or ability to consistently take damage to the face, but rather for when it matters. A lot of these "1shot mechanics" in raids are actually not 1shot mechanics at all, they are survivable. It's just that everyone is trying to run glass cannon DPS builds that make those mechanics look like 1shots. When players bring something like Dolyak Stance and save it only for the use of a "oh shit button" they survive through those mechanics rather than wiping to them. And INB4 "well bring more healers likes snowcrows says" because no matter how many healers you have, healing only ever comes AFTER a hit is absorbed. So glass cannons with low health and low damage mitigation tooling will get 1shot by a single hit and there won't be time to heal them. <- People are seriously overlooking this fact. Players need to be able to take the hit to be able to get healed after the hit. That's what skills like Dolyak Stance are good at offering newer/casual players.

Bringing something like Dolyak Stance is not only doubling personal sustain factor almost quite literally, but it is also removing 1shot mechanics that don't need to be 1shots. When players can survive the first hit they can be healed after, and that's what happens. Trying to bring Frost Trap for some kind of 2% 3% increase in persona DPS over Dolyak Stance is a silly notion.

And you guys keep defending your side of this debacle with "Well DPS kills faster so that means less chances of mistakes happening". Again, bologna. In the case of taking Dolyak Stance for a 2% to 3% drop in personal DPS, you're looking at:

  • Pros - Dolyak Stance gonna grant you an "oh shit button" to ensure you stay on your feet and aren't a drag to your team
  • Cons - Losing the 2% to 3% off top damage might add +10 seconds to your clear time. That 10s is not a large enough margin of time to worry about "mistakes being made because DPS was too slow" to justify losing Dolyak Stance. Having Dolyak Stance throughout the entire rest of the raid boss clear time before that last 10 seconds is clearly a quality of life safety net worth bringing for any player who isn't running with an elite crew who clears every raid boss perfectly.

Just about every class/build has some utility skill like this, that when taken it allows them to negate most 1shot effects and/or avoid them completely, for some simple drop in 3% top DPS or lower. These kinds of utility skills are good for new or casual players to bring. Which those kinds of selections, they can at least survive and stay on their feet while not being a drag to their team, and this gives them time to learn mechanics. Again, some kind of 2% 3% drop in DPS is diminutive and might add +10s to the end of a raid clear time, but it allows those new players the ability to stay alive to get there to that last 10s.

If I was PUGing, I'd much rather have a group of players with Dolyak Stances who stayed alive in a raid that took 40s longer, than a group of new/casual players who insisted on using full glass cannon DPS builds who weren't ready to be doing that who couldn't survive any of the phases and we had to keep restarting because of wipes.

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@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:And INB4 "well bring more healers likes snowcrows says" because no matter how many healers you have, healing only ever comes AFTER a hit is absorbed. So glass cannons with low health and low damage mitigation tooling will get 1shot by a single hit and there won't be time to heal them. <- People are seriously overlooking this fact.

If the squad need more damage mitigation, they can take an carry scourge along as second healer who will apply the barrier BEFORE a hit is absorbed (and for 10 people).

When players bring something like Dolyak Stance and save it only for the use of a "oh kitten button" they survive through those mechanics rather than wiping to them.

If they can "save it" that mean that they are able to identify and anticipate that mecanic and most likely avoid it even without the stance.A newby will most likely use it off-cooldown and won't save it for a specific time (need exp for that).

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Yesterday i watched a group doing Adina in a Stream. Boonthief, RenegadeHealAlac, Soulbeast, BS, 6x Dragonhunter.Speedkill setup with over 30k DPS for each damagedealer. They had 1 Pillarspawn each phase, so high was the DPS.Should have been an easy bosskill.But what happened? They wiped about 10 times with their speedkill setup before finally killing the boss and guess why?No Boon removal - Retaliation killed the dragonhunters within an instant.Low Heal - Damage to group could not be healed completely.Or people just walked into Adinas sandray attack. Their "skill" was only maxDPS based, but movement "skill" wasnt there.

Switching a Dragonhunter for a 2nd healer, maybe a necro who does shields on 10 people and brings projectile blocking poison cloud and boon removal or a chrono who just keeps 3 swordclones on Adina that remove Boons and brings a focus for projectile reflect wouldve solved their problem. The DPS would still have been superhigh to still only have 1 Pillar per phase. But instead of first trying the boss with a safe setup they wasted so much time with their speedkill setup and had a lot of unneccessary wipes and that only because they chose DPS over more sustain.

And thats what snowcrows is promoting, that DPS is better than everything else, which leads to situations like this.

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@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:Take a utility like Dolyak Stance as example. It grants a -33% damage vs. power and condi that stacks rather than being overlapped by protection, removes all movement impairing condis, and is also a personal stun break. Dolyak Stance easily doubles sustain, not in terms of health bar or ability to consistently take damage to the face, but rather for when it matters. A lot of these "1shot mechanics" in raids are actually not 1shot mechanics at all, they are survivable. It's just that everyone is trying to run glass cannon DPS builds that make those mechanics look like 1shots. When players bring something like Dolyak Stance and save it only for the use of a "oh kitten button" they survive through those mechanics rather than wiping to them.Anyone capable of timing those utilities right to survive said mechanics is good enough to actually do those mechanics well and not suffer that damage at all. Consequently, if you need that signet to survive, you probably aren't skilled enough to utilize it well anyway.

And INB4 "well bring more healers likes snowcrows says" because no matter how many healers you have, healing only ever comes AFTER a hit is absorbed. So glass cannons with low health and low damage mitigation tooling will get 1shot by a single hit and there won't be time to heal them. <- People are seriously overlooking this fact. Players need to be able to take the hit to be able to get healed after the hit. That's what skills like Dolyak Stance are good at offering newer/casual players.There aren't many such mechanics at all. Most damage you get is either pressure damage, something you can simply walk out of, or percentage-based damage that bypasses things like protection and dolyak stance damage reduction. Most of so-called oneshot damage is in that last category (and is often not a real oneshot - for example VG damage from greens mechanic is around 80% of your maximum hp). Hint: against that kind of damage, instead of damage reduction you're better investing in things like blocks/evades, or barriers (that generally are not counted in that hp percentage calculation). Additional points for that skill working for whole group (again, barriers, and for example guardian's Aegis). And, if you haven;t noticed, taking those types of utility is often quite much suggested for individual encounters.

Bringing something like Dolyak Stance is not only doubling personal sustain factor almost quite literally, but it is also removing 1shot mechanics that don't need to be 1shots.In reality, it does neither. It just gives you a false sense of security.

And you guys keep defending your side of this debacle with "Well DPS kills faster so that means less chances of mistakes happening". Again, bologna. In the case of taking Dolyak Stance for a 2% to 3% drop in personal DPS, you're looking at:

  • Pros - Dolyak Stance gonna grant you an "oh kitten button" to ensure you stay on your feet and aren't a drag to your team
  • Cons - Losing the 2% to 3% off top damage might add +10 seconds to your clear time. That 10s is not a large enough margin of time to worry about "mistakes being made because DPS was too slow" to justify losing Dolyak Stance.It's not about 10s more overall of boss fight. It's about for example wiping, because you lacked 1% damage to phase Gorse on third world eater (seen that one a lot). Or having to do an additional phase on KC. Or doing additional seals run on Dhuum final burn. And, as i saidl already, if you need that stance to survive, you will go down anyway.

Just about every class/build has some utility skill like this, that when taken it allows them to negate most 1shot effects and/or avoid them completely, for some simple drop in 3% top DPS or lower. These kinds of utility skills are good for new or casual players to bring.The new or casual players aren't good enough to use those skills well, because that would require a good knowledge of the fight. Knowledge that can be utilized far better by doing mechanics well, and avoiding that damage in the first place.

You are doing a lot of thinking based on pure theory, but you clearly lack enough raid experience to understand why in reality it doesn't work like that.

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@Carcharoth Lucian.1378 said:

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:And INB4 "well bring more healers likes snowcrows says" because no matter how many healers you have, healing only ever comes AFTER a hit is absorbed. So glass cannons with low health and low damage mitigation tooling will get 1shot by a single hit and there won't be time to heal them. <- People are seriously overlooking this fact.

If the squad need more damage mitigation, they can take an carry scourge along as second healer who will apply the barrier BEFORE a hit is absorbed (and for 10 people).

You guys are still missing the point here. You keep missing it missing it missing it. A Scourge + people who are also bringing personal damage mitigation like Dolyak Stance, just starts turning into hard defensive carry, where a group of trial new players could be pulled right through a raid boss into completion because that's how much defensive stature is in the group.

You all are so stuck in the ideology of "there is only one correct way to do this!" well you know what? maybe there is only one correct way! but that doesn't mean there aren't other ways. And sometimes the way I'm mentioning is a lot easier for carrying my gf and her friend and someone's mom through a raid boss just one single time so they can get their achievements, than spending weeks & months of time training them to play snowcrows builds.

When players bring something like Dolyak Stance and
save it only for the use of a "oh kitten button"
they survive through those mechanics rather than wiping to them.

If they can "save it" that mean that they are able to identify and anticipate that mecanic and most likely avoid it even without the stance.

Dude that's like saying "If you have a single dodge roll on your build, just one, and you know how to push the dodge roll, most likely you are able to identify any & all incoming attacks so you should be able to avoid all of them ever." Come on man. Having -33% damage that stacks with protection, and with your Scourge barriers, is enough face tanking padding for even your grandmother to come in and clear VG with you. And that's the very essence of the point I'm making.

I didn't say that safe builds were BETTER than snowcrows or more efficient or effective. I only said that some people need safe builds and if more of them were in circulation and accepted by the community, we'd have a lot more participation from the community, whether you wanted to play with those players or not.

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@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:Take a utility like Dolyak Stance as example. It grants a -33% damage vs. power and condi that stacks rather than being overlapped by protection, removes all movement impairing condis, and is also a personal stun break. Dolyak Stance easily doubles sustain, not in terms of health bar or ability to consistently take damage to the face, but rather for when it matters. A lot of these "1shot mechanics" in raids are actually not 1shot mechanics at all, they are survivable. It's just that everyone is trying to run glass cannon DPS builds that make those mechanics look like 1shots. When players bring something like Dolyak Stance and save it only for the use of a "oh kitten button" they survive through those mechanics rather than wiping to them.Anyone capable of timing those utilities right to survive said mechanics is good enough to actually do those mechanics well and not suffer that damage at all. Consequently, if you need that signet to survive, you probably aren't skilled enough to utilize it well anyway.

lol you guys crack me up, you really do. As if there weren't a difference between having 1 health and 100,000 health.

And INB4 "well bring more healers likes snowcrows says" because no matter how many healers you have, healing only ever comes AFTER a hit is absorbed. So glass cannons with low health and low damage mitigation tooling will get 1shot by a single hit and there won't be time to heal them. <- People are seriously overlooking this fact. Players need to be able to take the hit to be able to get healed after the hit. That's what skills like Dolyak Stance are good at offering newer/casual players.There aren't many such mechanics at all. Most damage you get is either pressure damage, something you can simply walk out of, or percentage-based damage that bypasses things like protection and dolyak stance damage reduction. Most of so-called oneshot damage is in that last category (and is often not a real oneshot - for example VG damage from greens mechanic is around 80% of your maximum hp). Hint: against that kind of damage, instead of damage reduction you're better investing in things like blocks/evades, or barriers (that generally are
not
counted in that hp percentage calculation). Additional points for that skill working for whole group (again, barriers, and for example guardian's Aegis). And, if you haven;t noticed, taking
those
types of utility is often quite much suggested for individual encounters.

Yup but that isn't always true and not everyone has extra blocks as utilities. You take what you get and you learn to put it to use. A lot of what you're saying is still coming from the standpoint of "A veteran who knows how to run the raids" and you guys just seriously are very very stuck in this mind frame.

Look man, at one point of GW2, I had my gf playing, our friend Keri, Keri's 65 year old mom, and even Keri's friend Kate who is also a mom. I had this guild of moms & grandmothers playing the game with me who were simply never going to be able to play at the level required to make a snowcrow meta work. It wasn't going to happen. So as their organizer for these activities that they wanted to do, I had to find creative ways to pad them up so it was possible for them to go into a raid and survive long enough so they weren't getting bored and disheartened, while 5 vets pretty much carried them into their single time completions which is all they wanted.

I know you'll come back at try to find some kind of an argument in this, but until you have had to perform such a task as this, I don't think you're really understanding the true pros & cons of a safe meta for players like that. Of course we tried to get them to learn normal builds first, it didn't work. Of course we tried to only slightly pad them up at first, doesn't work. Then we had to just configure sustainy styled builds for them, so that they only REALLY needed to focus on remembering a few important mechanics per boss to avoid. And then they were so tanky that the other mechanics mostly didn't matter if they were caught in them all so long as healing was continued to cycle. <- This made it possible for them to casually join and participate and clear the raids, without it needing to be a dedicated scheduled activity, which mothers and grandmothers and busy people in general usually aren't interested in.

Bringing something like Dolyak Stance is not only doubling personal sustain factor almost quite literally, but it is also removing 1shot mechanics that don't need to be 1shots.In reality, it does neither. It just gives you a false sense of security.

And you guys keep defending your side of this debacle with "Well DPS kills faster so that means less chances of mistakes happening". Again, bologna. In the case of taking Dolyak Stance for a 2% to 3% drop in personal DPS, you're looking at:
  • Pros - Dolyak Stance gonna grant you an "oh kitten button" to ensure you stay on your feet and aren't a drag to your team
  • Cons - Losing the 2% to 3% off top damage might add +10 seconds to your clear time. That 10s is not a large enough margin of time to worry about "mistakes being made because DPS was too slow" to justify losing Dolyak Stance.

Just about every class/build has some utility skill like this, that when taken it allows them to negate most 1shot effects and/or avoid them completely, for some simple drop in 3% top DPS or lower. These kinds of utility skills are good for new or casual players to bring.The new or casual players aren't good enough to use those skills well, because that would require a good knowledge of the fight. Knowledge that can be utilized far better by doing mechanics well, and avoiding that damage in the first place.

You are doing a lot of thinking based on pure theory, but you clearly lack enough raid experience to understand why in reality it doesn't work like that.

You are still very very clearly misunderstanding a couple important things due to your years of snowcrow bandwagoning:

  1. Oh am I speaking from pure theory? lololol My friend, it's hardly theory. There are plenty of player names I could give to you right now, who will give testimony to the 4 mom crew that I carried through every mode in this game and the tribulation difficulty level that it was to do. Including getting them involved in spvp teams. I am not speaking from "theory" but rather years of experience doing exactly what I have been talking about in this thread, with real mothers & grandmothers, who have real children, who don't the time or interest to dedicate to invested levels of training. What I am explaining to you is true and works. You say that I was speaking from theory, but I have to ask you this: "Have you ever even tried what I have been explaining?" Maybe you are the one speaking from theory & assumption.
  2. You say that "I lack enough raid experience to understand anything" which is besides the point entirely. The point is that I wouldn't need raid experience to clear the raids in the way that Amanda, Keri, Kate and Clo had cleared them. And that is the ultimate point that you guys on that side of the debacle seem to be missing.

Don't misunderstand the point of this argument.

I did not say that these safe builds are better or more efficient or effective than what is listed on snowcrows.

I simply said that what is listed on snowcrows doesn't work for everyone, and that there are better ways to aim at a successful clear for that demographic of players.

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@"Blumpf.2518" said:Yesterday i watched a group doing Adina in a Stream. Boonthief, RenegadeHealAlac, Soulbeast, BS, 6x Dragonhunter.Speedkill setup with over 30k DPS for each damagedealer. They had 1 Pillarspawn each phase, so high was the DPS.Should have been an easy bosskill.But what happened? They wiped about 10 times with their speedkill setup before finally killing the boss and guess why?No Boon removal - Retaliation killed the dragonhunters within an instant.Low Heal - Damage to group could not be healed completely.Or people just walked into Adinas sandray attack. Their "skill" was only maxDPS based, but movement "skill" wasnt there.

Switching a Dragonhunter for a 2nd healer, maybe a necro who does shields on 10 people and brings projectile blocking poison cloud and boon removal or a chrono who just keeps 3 swordclones on Adina that remove Boons and brings a focus for projectile reflect wouldve solved their problem. The DPS would still have been superhigh to still only have 1 Pillar per phase. But instead of first trying the boss with a safe setup they wasted so much time with their speedkill setup and had a lot of unneccessary wipes and that only because they chose DPS over more sustain.

And thats what snowcrows is promoting, that DPS is better than everything else, which leads to situations like this.

And the players you mentioned failing at the raid is not SnowCrows fault in the slightest.

You could repeat the above with players on any combination of builds that can beat the content. If the players haven't fully learned the build yet, then obviously they're going to make mistakes that could lead to wipes.

If the players didn't understand what the raid needed and didn't choose a combination of builds that would be able to do it, it's not SnowCrows fault.

Based on what you described, they likely would have the same level of success on other builds.

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Take a utility like Dolyak Stance as example. It grants a -33% damage vs. power and condi that stacks rather than being overlapped by protection, removes all movement impairing condis, and is also a personal stun break. Dolyak Stance easily doubles sustain, not in terms of health bar or ability to consistently take damage to the face, but rather for when it matters. A lot of these "1shot mechanics" in raids are actually not 1shot mechanics at all, they are survivable. It's just that everyone is trying to run glass cannon DPS builds that make those mechanics look like 1shots. When players bring something like Dolyak Stance and save it only for the use of a "oh kitten button" they survive through those mechanics rather than wiping to them.Anyone capable of timing those utilities right to survive said mechanics is good enough to actually do those mechanics well and not suffer that damage at all. Consequently, if you need that signet to survive, you probably aren't skilled enough to utilize it well anyway.

lol you guys crack me up, you really do. As if there weren't a difference between having 1 health and 100,000 health.

And INB4 "well bring more healers likes snowcrows says" because no matter how many healers you have, healing only ever comes AFTER a hit is absorbed. So glass cannons with low health and low damage mitigation tooling will get 1shot by a single hit and there won't be time to heal them. <- People are seriously overlooking this fact. Players need to be able to take the hit to be able to get healed after the hit. That's what skills like Dolyak Stance are good at offering newer/casual players.There aren't many such mechanics at all. Most damage you get is either pressure damage, something you can simply walk out of, or percentage-based damage that bypasses things like protection and dolyak stance damage reduction. Most of so-called oneshot damage is in that last category (and is often not a real oneshot - for example VG damage from greens mechanic is around 80% of your maximum hp). Hint: against that kind of damage, instead of damage reduction you're better investing in things like blocks/evades, or barriers (that generally are
not
counted in that hp percentage calculation). Additional points for that skill working for whole group (again, barriers, and for example guardian's Aegis). And, if you haven;t noticed, taking
those
types of utility is often quite much suggested for individual encounters.

Yup but that isn't always true and not everyone has extra blocks as utilities. You take what you get and you learn to put it to use. A lot of what you're saying is still coming from the standpoint of "A veteran who knows how to run the raids" and you guys just seriously are very very stuck in this mind frame.

Look man, at one point of GW2, I had my gf playing, our friend Keri, Keri's 65 year old mom, and even Keri's friend Kate who is also a mom. I had this guild of moms & grandmothers playing the game with me who were simply never going to be able to play at the level required to make a snowcrow meta work. It wasn't going to happen. So as their organizer for these activities that they wanted to do, I had to find creative ways to pad them up so it was possible for them to go into a raid and survive long enough so they weren't getting bored and disheartened, while 5 vets pretty much carried them into their single time completions which is all they wanted.

I know you'll come back at try to find some kind of an argument in this, but until you have had to perform such a task as this, I don't think you're really understanding the true pros & cons of a safe meta for players like that. Of course we tried to get them to learn normal builds first, it didn't work. Of course we tried to only slightly pad them up at first, doesn't work. Then we had to just configure sustainy styled builds for them, so that they only REALLY needed to focus on remembering a few important mechanics per boss to avoid. And then they were so tanky that the other mechanics mostly didn't matter if they were caught in them all so long as healing was continued to cycle. <- This made it possible for them to casually join and participate and clear the raids, without it needing to be a dedicated scheduled activity, which mothers and grandmothers and busy people in general usually aren't interested in.

Bringing something like Dolyak Stance is not only doubling personal sustain factor almost quite literally, but it is also removing 1shot mechanics that don't need to be 1shots.In reality, it does neither. It just gives you a false sense of security.

And you guys keep defending your side of this debacle with "Well DPS kills faster so that means less chances of mistakes happening". Again, bologna. In the case of taking Dolyak Stance for a 2% to 3% drop in personal DPS, you're looking at:
  • Pros - Dolyak Stance gonna grant you an "oh kitten button" to ensure you stay on your feet and aren't a drag to your team
  • Cons - Losing the 2% to 3% off top damage might add +10 seconds to your clear time. That 10s is not a large enough margin of time to worry about "mistakes being made because DPS was too slow" to justify losing Dolyak Stance.

Just about every class/build has some utility skill like this, that when taken it allows them to negate most 1shot effects and/or avoid them completely, for some simple drop in 3% top DPS or lower. These kinds of utility skills are good for new or casual players to bring.The new or casual players aren't good enough to use those skills well, because that would require a good knowledge of the fight. Knowledge that can be utilized far better by doing mechanics well, and avoiding that damage in the first place.

You are doing a lot of thinking based on pure theory, but you clearly lack enough raid experience to understand why in reality it doesn't work like that.

You are still very very clearly misunderstanding a couple important things due to your years of snowcrow bandwagoning:
  1. Oh am I speaking from pure theory? lololol My friend, it's hardly theory. There are plenty of player names I could give to you right now, who will give testimony to the 4 mom crew that I carried through every mode in this game and the tribulation difficulty level that it was to do. Including getting them involved in spvp teams. I am not speaking from "theory" but rather years of experience doing exactly what I have been talking about in this thread, with real mothers & grandmothers, who have real children, who don't the time or interest to dedicate to invested levels of training. What I am explaining to you is true and works. You say that I was speaking from theory, but I have to ask you this: "Have you ever even tried what I have been explaining?" Maybe you are the one speaking from theory & assumption.
  2. You say that "I lack enough raid experience to understand anything" which is besides the point entirely. The point is that I wouldn't need raid experience to clear the raids in the way that Amanda, Keri, Kate and Clo had cleared them. And that is the ultimate point that you guys on that side of the debacle seem to be missing.

Don't misunderstand the point of this argument.

I did not say that these safe builds are better or more efficient or effective than what is listed on snowcrows.

I simply said that what is listed on snowcrows doesn't work for everyone, and that there are better ways to aim at a successful clear for that demographic of players.

Ok so how would a 10 man mom team do?Thats why people are disagreeing with you this wont help raid particiation at all since you need 50% of the team to do 90% of the work.

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@Linken.6345 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Take a utility like Dolyak Stance as example. It grants a -33% damage vs. power and condi that stacks rather than being overlapped by protection, removes all movement impairing condis, and is also a personal stun break. Dolyak Stance easily doubles sustain, not in terms of health bar or ability to consistently take damage to the face, but rather for when it matters. A lot of these "1shot mechanics" in raids are actually not 1shot mechanics at all, they are survivable. It's just that everyone is trying to run glass cannon DPS builds that make those mechanics look like 1shots. When players bring something like Dolyak Stance and save it only for the use of a "oh kitten button" they survive through those mechanics rather than wiping to them.Anyone capable of timing those utilities right to survive said mechanics is good enough to actually do those mechanics well and not suffer that damage at all. Consequently, if you need that signet to survive, you probably aren't skilled enough to utilize it well anyway.

lol you guys crack me up, you really do. As if there weren't a difference between having 1 health and 100,000 health.

And INB4 "well bring more healers likes snowcrows says" because no matter how many healers you have, healing only ever comes AFTER a hit is absorbed. So glass cannons with low health and low damage mitigation tooling will get 1shot by a single hit and there won't be time to heal them. <- People are seriously overlooking this fact. Players need to be able to take the hit to be able to get healed after the hit. That's what skills like Dolyak Stance are good at offering newer/casual players.There aren't many such mechanics at all. Most damage you get is either pressure damage, something you can simply walk out of, or percentage-based damage that bypasses things like protection and dolyak stance damage reduction. Most of so-called oneshot damage is in that last category (and is often not a real oneshot - for example VG damage from greens mechanic is around 80% of your maximum hp). Hint: against that kind of damage, instead of damage reduction you're better investing in things like blocks/evades, or barriers (that generally are
not
counted in that hp percentage calculation). Additional points for that skill working for whole group (again, barriers, and for example guardian's Aegis). And, if you haven;t noticed, taking
those
types of utility is often quite much suggested for individual encounters.

Yup but that isn't always true and not everyone has extra blocks as utilities. You take what you get and you learn to put it to use. A lot of what you're saying is still coming from the standpoint of "A veteran who knows how to run the raids" and you guys just seriously are very very stuck in this mind frame.

Look man, at one point of GW2, I had my gf playing, our friend Keri, Keri's 65 year old mom, and even Keri's friend Kate who is also a mom. I had this guild of moms & grandmothers playing the game with me who were simply never going to be able to play at the level required to make a snowcrow meta work. It wasn't going to happen. So as their organizer for these activities that they wanted to do, I had to find creative ways to pad them up so it was possible for them to go into a raid and survive long enough so they weren't getting bored and disheartened, while 5 vets pretty much carried them into their single time completions which is all they wanted.

I know you'll come back at try to find some kind of an argument in this, but until you have had to perform such a task as this, I don't think you're really understanding the true pros & cons of a safe meta for players like that. Of course we tried to get them to learn normal builds first, it didn't work. Of course we tried to only slightly pad them up at first, doesn't work. Then we had to just configure sustainy styled builds for them, so that they only REALLY needed to focus on remembering a few important mechanics per boss to avoid. And then they were so tanky that the other mechanics mostly didn't matter if they were caught in them all so long as healing was continued to cycle. <- This made it possible for them to casually join and participate and clear the raids, without it needing to be a dedicated scheduled activity, which mothers and grandmothers and busy people in general usually aren't interested in.

Bringing something like Dolyak Stance is not only doubling personal sustain factor almost quite literally, but it is also removing 1shot mechanics that don't need to be 1shots.In reality, it does neither. It just gives you a false sense of security.

And you guys keep defending your side of this debacle with "Well DPS kills faster so that means less chances of mistakes happening". Again, bologna. In the case of taking Dolyak Stance for a 2% to 3% drop in personal DPS, you're looking at:
  • Pros - Dolyak Stance gonna grant you an "oh kitten button" to ensure you stay on your feet and aren't a drag to your team
  • Cons - Losing the 2% to 3% off top damage might add +10 seconds to your clear time. That 10s is not a large enough margin of time to worry about "mistakes being made because DPS was too slow" to justify losing Dolyak Stance.

Just about every class/build has some utility skill like this, that when taken it allows them to negate most 1shot effects and/or avoid them completely, for some simple drop in 3% top DPS or lower. These kinds of utility skills are good for new or casual players to bring.The new or casual players aren't good enough to use those skills well, because that would require a good knowledge of the fight. Knowledge that can be utilized far better by doing mechanics well, and avoiding that damage in the first place.

You are doing a lot of thinking based on pure theory, but you clearly lack enough raid experience to understand why in reality it doesn't work like that.

You are still very very clearly misunderstanding a couple important things due to your years of snowcrow bandwagoning:
  1. Oh am I speaking from pure theory? lololol My friend, it's hardly theory. There are plenty of player names I could give to you right now, who will give testimony to the 4 mom crew that I carried through every mode in this game and the tribulation difficulty level that it was to do. Including getting them involved in spvp teams. I am not speaking from "theory" but rather years of experience doing exactly what I have been talking about in this thread, with real mothers & grandmothers, who have real children, who don't the time or interest to dedicate to invested levels of training. What I am explaining to you is true and works. You say that I was speaking from theory, but I have to ask you this: "Have you ever even tried what I have been explaining?" Maybe you are the one speaking from theory & assumption.
  2. You say that "I lack enough raid experience to understand anything" which is besides the point entirely. The point is that I wouldn't need raid experience to clear the raids in the way that Amanda, Keri, Kate and Clo had cleared them. And that is the ultimate point that you guys on that side of the debacle seem to be missing.

Don't misunderstand the point of this argument.

I did not say that these safe builds are better or more efficient or effective than what is listed on snowcrows.

I simply said that what is listed on snowcrows doesn't work for everyone, and that there are better ways to aim at a successful clear for that demographic of players.

Ok so how would a 10 man mom team do?Thats why people are disagreeing with you this wont help raid particiation at all since you need 50% of the team to do 90% of the work.

Oh you'd be surprised how well they'd do, after they've been able to get in and clear let's say even VG a few times and learn it with a lot of padding on their faces, so they can familiarize themselves with what's going on first, before having them run normal styled builds. What I'm talking about here is when you're essentially training people. Some people can go right in with snocrow builds and remember everything in a raid encounter after watching a youtube video just once and then actually experiencing for the first time just once. Other people take longer to learn, and some people don't really learn well at all from watching videos. They need to BE THERE and have someone in a discord with them or possibly in the same room with them, for the information to stick through more of an organic osmosis of actually being in the raid and participating in it. <- These kinds of players learn just fine if they can get in there and be allowed to run something with 10% less DPS and double the sustain. After a few VG clears as example, even a 65 year old grandmother will remember mechanics and she'll be ready to up the DPS. They just need to be allowed to do that.

Again, don't misunderstand the point of what I have been saying. For some reason you guys keep leaning back to "Snowcrows is the best most effective way" which is a moot point because I never said it wasn't. What I have been saying from the beginning here, is how that ideology is suffocating participation rates. With the snocrow ideology, players are forced to take a running start and jump really high up to grab onto this ledge where they then need to be able to pull themselves up with their own strength to get up on the ledge to even be able to stand on it to begin participation. Not all gamers are strong enough to be able to do this, most of them aren't really. Most of them lack the inherent mechanical strengths as well as sweaty try hard to care. What I've been saying is that if a safe-meta were tolerated and accepted, this provides a staircase up to that ledge, so players like Amanda, Keri, Kate, & Clo, have a method to GET to the point that they could match the mechanical strengths & understanding to run normal builds. People just need to chill out and let them play safe for awhile while they learn.

And before you toss all the usual yada yada at what I'm saying, it's quite clear that everyone agrees that participation is dangerously low within the raiding community. I'm simply pointing out that not only are players not interested in trying to make that running jump to be able to participate, but they couldn't even if they tried. I'm simply pointing out that this ideology you've all been tossing at me here that: "It's wrong to play outside of snowcrows" is going to need to stop at some point, and the raiding community is going to need to build a staircase of entry and begin inviting players up to their level with open arms rather than pushing them down from the ledge with elite judgement, if they want participation in raids to grow or remain relatively active at all.

Going into year 9, you know that this is true.

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