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For those of you who are sick of minstrels fb in wvw


RisenHowl.2419

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I used to do something "similar" with DH a while ago although I didn't have arcdps back then to back up my suspicion: reflects sometimes make up a lot of your damage by both doing damage themselves but also propagating more permeating wrath. This made me struggle with trying to find the right stat combo because the majority of your damage is usually burning (40-60%). However, when your burning is about 25% of your total damage at least 48% of the damage done is reflected skills and not your own. Reflects scale on enemy power but your crit chance, crit damage and modifiers. So I would consider adding more crit chance (maybe rabid or seraph) and less power to your build. I'm tempted to also go full glass with grieving/cele mix forgoing a lot of boon duration.

I ran MoC + Wall of reflect and/or purging flames. Neither of them have a target cap. Everyone that runs through purging flames burns. Wall of reflect reflects everyone which means a potential for ton of permeating wrath procs. There were a few times when it felt like I dropped half a zerg with those two skills at a choke point. WoR would fill in the gaps for when F3 is on CD but I think purging would work better for your build. I'm not sure the quickness mantra is worth it.

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@"DuckDuckBOOM.4097" said:I used to do something "similar" with DH a while ago although I didn't have arcdps back then to back up my suspicion: reflects sometimes make up a lot of your damage by both doing damage themselves but also propagating more permeating wrath. This made me struggle with trying to find the right stat combo because the majority of your damage is usually burning (40-60%). However, when your burning is about 25% of your total damage at least 48% of the damage done is reflected skills and not your own. Reflects scale on enemy power but your crit chance, crit damage and modifiers. So I would consider adding more crit chance (maybe rabid or seraph) and less power to your build. I'm tempted to also go full glass with grieving/cele mix forgoing a lot of boon duration.

I ran MoC + Wall of reflect and/or purging flames. Neither of them have a target cap. Everyone that runs through purging flames burns. Wall of reflect reflects everyone which means a potential for ton of permeating wrath procs. There were a few times when it felt like I dropped half a zerg with those two skills at a choke point. WoR would fill in the gaps for when F3 is on CD but I think purging would work better for your build. I'm not sure the quickness mantra is worth it.

where have you found that reflects scale on the enemy power? everything i've tried doesn't support that

The power is also to bump up retaliation damage. if you're trying to get maximum damage out, stick with carrion or sinister over grieving i got much better damage that way.

losing boon duration hurts too much since you can't keep up quickness and imbued haste as effectively, losing out on 450 stat points. upkeeping quickness is better than having an extra weapon's worth of stats, and toughness is really hard to come by in the first place without losing a lot of either damage or boon duration to get it.

try sword of justice out, each cast hits 20x for 6 PW procs in addition to burning on each hit. 1 cast on a stack has the potential to put out 150s of burning. x4 casts is 600s of burning, compared to the dh trap procession of blades that can only put out 240s and requires you to be in melee to use.

reflect damage is great in chokes, but loses steam quickly in open field fights. It's a nice tool to have, but doesn't define the build

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@RisenHowl.2419 said:

@"DuckDuckBOOM.4097" said:I used to do something "similar" with DH a while ago although I didn't have arcdps back then to back up my suspicion: reflects
sometimes
make up a lot of your damage by both doing damage themselves but also propagating more permeating wrath. This made me struggle with trying to find the right stat combo because the majority of your damage is usually burning (40-60%). However, when your burning is about 25% of your total damage at least 48% of the damage done is reflected skills and not your own. Reflects scale on enemy power but your crit chance, crit damage and modifiers. So I would consider adding more crit chance (maybe rabid or seraph) and less power to your build. I'm tempted to also go full glass with grieving/cele mix forgoing a lot of boon duration.

I ran MoC + Wall of reflect and/or purging flames. Neither of them have a target cap. Everyone that runs through purging flames burns. Wall of reflect reflects everyone which means a potential for ton of permeating wrath procs. There were a few times when it felt like I dropped half a zerg with those two skills at a choke point. WoR would fill in the gaps for when F3 is on CD but I think purging would work better for your build. I'm not sure the quickness mantra is worth it.

where have you found that reflects scale on the enemy power? everything i've tried doesn't support that

The power is also to bump up retaliation damage. if you're trying to get maximum damage out, stick with carrion or sinister over grieving i got much better damage that way.

losing boon duration hurts too much since you can't keep up quickness and imbued haste as effectively, losing out on 450 stat points. upkeeping quickness is better than having an extra weapon's worth of stats, and toughness is really hard to come by in the first place without losing a lot of either damage or boon duration to get it.

try sword of justice out, each cast hits 20x for 6 PW procs in addition to burning on each hit. 1 cast on a stack has the potential to put out 150s of burning. x4 casts is 600s of burning, compared to the dh trap procession of blades that can only put out 240s and requires you to be in melee to use.

reflect damage is great in chokes, but loses steam quickly in open field fights. It's a nice tool to have, but doesn't define the build

Back when cheesing dungeons with reflects was a thing, Mesmers would use assassin instead of zerker to max out reflect damage. Now that i think about it, I guess technically it's power coeff. Idk about enemy power. However, assuming nothing changed since then, what i should have said is that reflects don't use the reflectors power although it uses the reflectors % modifiers including criticals. That's how you get lupi etc to ko themselves.

I definitely plan on trying the new ground target soj. I guess my mind went towards a more dps focused build than hybrid.

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@DuckDuckBOOM.4097 said:

@DuckDuckBOOM.4097 said:I used to do something "similar" with DH a while ago although I didn't have arcdps back then to back up my suspicion: reflects
sometimes
make up a lot of your damage by both doing damage themselves but also propagating more permeating wrath. This made me struggle with trying to find the right stat combo because the majority of your damage is usually burning (40-60%). However, when your burning is about 25% of your total damage at least 48% of the damage done is reflected skills and not your own. Reflects scale on enemy power but your crit chance, crit damage and modifiers. So I would consider adding more crit chance (maybe rabid or seraph) and less power to your build. I'm tempted to also go full glass with grieving/cele mix forgoing a lot of boon duration.

I ran MoC + Wall of reflect and/or purging flames. Neither of them have a target cap. Everyone that runs through purging flames burns. Wall of reflect reflects everyone which means a potential for ton of permeating wrath procs. There were a few times when it felt like I dropped half a zerg with those two skills at a choke point. WoR would fill in the gaps for when F3 is on CD but I think purging would work better for your build. I'm not sure the quickness mantra is worth it.

where have you found that reflects scale on the enemy power? everything i've tried doesn't support that

The power is also to bump up retaliation damage. if you're trying to get maximum damage out, stick with carrion or sinister over grieving i got much better damage that way.

losing boon duration hurts too much since you can't keep up quickness and imbued haste as effectively, losing out on 450 stat points. upkeeping quickness is better than having an extra weapon's worth of stats, and toughness is really hard to come by in the first place without losing a lot of either damage or boon duration to get it.

try sword of justice out, each cast hits 20x for 6 PW procs in addition to burning on each hit. 1 cast on a stack has the potential to put out 150s of burning. x4 casts is 600s of burning, compared to the dh trap procession of blades that can only put out 240s and requires you to be in melee to use.

reflect damage is great in chokes, but loses steam quickly in open field fights. It's a nice tool to have, but doesn't define the build

Back when cheesing dungeons with reflects was a thing, Mesmers would use assassin instead of zerker to max out reflect damage. Now that i think about it, I guess technically it's power coeff. Idk about enemy power. However, assuming nothing changed since then, what i should have said is that reflects don't use the reflectors power although it uses the reflectors % modifiers including criticals. That's how you get lupi etc to ko themselves.

I definitely plan on trying the new ground target soj. I guess my mind went towards a more dps focused build than hybrid.

ahhh interesting, you're right it does use the enemy power stat with your own precision/ferocity. not sure if it's worth losing power for the reflect damage, but i'll definitely give it a look =D ty!

we have a guy trying to max out damage on guard too, he's running radiance instead of fb though for the extra 15% damage and 40% duration. from what we've seen in fights it offers about the same damage as this build but none of the utility. seems like 3s is the sweet spot for burning damage, it just gets cleansed too quickly with 100% duration for the extra to matter. you get the best damage on stacked groups at <900 range with any guard, so you need some bulk to really start the damage moving

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@RisenHowl.2419 said:

try sword of justice out, each cast hits 20x for 6 PW procs in addition to burning on each hit. 1 cast on a stack has the potential to put out 150s of burning. x4 casts is 600s of burning, compared to the dh trap procession of blades that can only put out 240s and requires you to be in melee to use.

Nobody stands in a whirl full-duration willingly, and you have no way to force them to stand there.Your own video disproves your assertion, it just looks good on paper.

reflect damage is great in chokes, but loses steam quickly in open field fights. It's a nice tool to have, but doesn't define the build

Reflect damage absolutely defines your build, and says more about your opponents than this builds' actual usefulness. You'd have near zero dps against people that knew enough to stop spamming their projectiles at you.

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@LetoII.3782 said:

try sword of justice out, each cast hits 20x for 6 PW procs in addition to burning on each hit. 1 cast on a stack has the potential to put out 150s of burning. x4 casts is 600s of burning, compared to the dh trap procession of blades that can only put out 240s and requires you to be in melee to use.

Nobody stands in a whirl full-duration willingly, and you have no way to force them to stand there.Your own video disproves your assertion, it just looks good on paper.

reflect damage is great in chokes, but loses steam quickly in open field fights. It's a nice tool to have, but doesn't define the build

Reflect damage
absolutely
defines your build, and says more about your opponents than this builds' actual usefulness. You'd have near zero dps against people that knew enough to stop spamming their projectiles at you.

Toss soj on downs to stop resses or on groups as they clump up, follow it up with a symbol. You can see me dropping 3-4 people at a time with it because no one moves out of spirit weapons. Land it in your groups bubbles or where the melee train is moving. We run tempests and spb for immob, makes sense to light up anyone they lock down.

Reflects are only good damage in a choke point, otherwise they contribute very little

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@"RisenHowl.2419" said:we have a guy trying to max out damage on guard too, he's running radiance instead of fb though for the extra 15% damage and 40% duration. from what we've seen in fights it offers about the same damage as this build but none of the utility. seems like 3s is the sweet spot for burning damage, it just gets cleansed too quickly with 100% duration for the extra to matter. you get the best damage on stacked groups at <900 range with any guard, so you need some bulk to really start the damage moving

I'm not sure radiance is the way to go for pure damage.

When I was doing this with DH, the main reason for DH was for the cripple/vuln spam as cover conditions. I know SoJ applies those two but DH means all F1 procs apply them. Now you can also chill spam at 1200 range with the new glacial heart trait for a 3rd cover condition.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQJATWlsAhqgYzQwXIwPELyDWVEILFAkHg7vDYWYoJFjA-jFiAQBzUJYCOCAA4RAQhLAAA1FAj9H+k6PeU5XAgEAaTBgUAbtsC-wA lot more toughness/vit since it's no downed state and I'm feeling the need for them. Maybe add some sinister in for crit chance. The stats aren't optimized but whatever. 100% burn duration is what really matters.

Glacial heart does damage when you CC so it should be more damage ticks for F1. I haven't confirmed this but I will test this later.

LB 3 pierces... it doesn't actually list how many targets it hits. Let's assume 5. 5 targets of damage and 5 more procs of glacial blow. So potential for 5 targets chilled, 3.33 procs of passive F1, cripple and 3 stacks of vuln from 1 skill.LB5 hits 20 times at 1200 range + maybe more glacial blow procs for more F1 procs.LB4 hits 25 times and the symbol burns as a baseline.

For maxing damage Scepter/Shield or scepter torch is probably better as a second weapon than staff but staff has that 1200 range symbol and CC. LB is where it's at for maxing out that ranged burning.

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@DuckDuckBOOM.4097 said:

@"RisenHowl.2419" said:we have a guy trying to max out damage on guard too, he's running radiance instead of fb though for the extra 15% damage and 40% duration. from what we've seen in fights it offers about the same damage as this build but none of the utility. seems like 3s is the sweet spot for burning damage, it just gets cleansed too quickly with 100% duration for the extra to matter. you get the best damage on stacked groups at <900 range with any guard, so you need some bulk to really start the damage moving

I'm not sure radiance is the way to go for pure damage.

When I was doing this with DH, the main reason for DH was for the cripple/vuln spam as cover conditions. I know SoJ applies those two but DH means all F1 procs apply them. Now you can also chill spam at 1200 range with the new
glacial heart
trait for a 3rd cover condition.

A lot more toughness/vit since it's no downed state and I'm feeling the need for them. Maybe add some sinister in for crit chance. The stats aren't optimized but whatever. 100% burn duration is what really matters.

Glacial heart does damage when you CC so it should be more damage ticks for F1.
I haven't confirmed this but I will test this later.

LB 3 pierces... it doesn't actually list how many targets it hits. Let's assume 5. 5 targets of damage and 5 more procs of glacial blow. So potential for 5 targets chilled, 3.33 procs of passive F1, cripple and 3 stacks of vuln from 1 skill.LB5 hits 20 times at 1200 range + maybe more glacial blow procs for more F1 procs.LB4 hits 25 times and the symbol burns as a baseline.

For maxing damage Scepter/Shield or scepter torch is probably better as a second weapon than staff but staff has that 1200 range symbol and CC. LB is where it's at for maxing out that ranged burning.

I love the interaction with the 2 DH traits, i used to play burn DH in pvp just to use them with sc/f and sw/t lol. as soon as anyone went to res you could wipe their whole team. Hadn't thought about using glacial heart with it, not sure how well that trait would work since everyone has stab. i'm pretty sure deflecting shot has no target cap too

i wouldn't shoot for 100% burn duration, the extra tick of burning isn't worth losing other options since it'll likely get resisted/cleansed. We've tested 50 vs 100% burn duration several times and it doesnt seem to make a difference

shelter and f3 are great for DH too, since blocking triggers defender's dogma to max out your burning. might want to drop purging flames for MI, great way to stay out of range while channeling LB5 since you can use it while casting. i'd try scepter/focus over staff for this build too, the scepter symbol is ridiculously good with PW. the low CD and 8 extra hits are great, especially when you put it on top of soj for some burst =D

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@LetoII.3782 said:

@"RisenHowl.2419" said:

Reflects are only good damage in a choke point, otherwise they contribute very little

Reflects are only good when your opponent gets their stuff reflected.

You're the Kota guy, right?Were you using that build this weekend?Wanna know how many burn stacks you landed on hunt? xD

I'm in KRTA on SBI lol

Some clips from yesterday:

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My Guard is my PvE main, but I have no interest in playing minstrel FB in WvW (I have minstrel scrapper for heals), and this looks hella fun to play. Makes me wish I had heavy legendary armor so I could quickly give it a try lol.

Also how does this perform in small fights? Obviously the bigger the fight the more reflects will pay out, but what if you're only against 5-10 people?

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@"Turkeyspit.3965" said:My Guard is my PvE main, but I have no interest in playing minstrel FB in WvW (I have minstrel scrapper for heals), and this looks hella fun to play. Makes me wish I had heavy legendary armor so I could quickly give it a try lol.

Also how does this perform in small fights? Obviously the bigger the fight the more reflects will pay out, but what if you're only against 5-10 people?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAreWnsADVBhtCBGBDkCjF5BrKCklCA7v0Z6ONLF1iiRA-jlCDQBWSdH8ohYZqEgSlgXU5Xe0HAgHAQIPUAK4MAYi9HCAgAMzysMnZgxLexLexLeKexLexLexLexLexTKgt2VB-w

changed the stat spread around to be a bit tankier. i updated it in the video description too, but thought i'd link here as well.

It's a riot to play, similar to minstrels fb playstyle but much more aggressive lol. do you have any reward track potions to get triumphant armor or stat changeable trinkets?

Defensively it feels really good in small scale, offensively it depends on how good you are at landing soj. usually i try to follow it up with a scepter 3+2 to burst, or soj then f1 #3 to keep them in it. so long as you make use of your numerous CCs, it feels pretty good small scale overall

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