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phor.7952

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Everything posted by phor.7952

  1. But they nerfed the healing coefficient last year down to 0.15. Signet of Courage is less than 80% of the healing you get from Virtue of Resolve, which already isn't very strong. The active could actually be good, but even after several buffs, the cast time is still 2.5 sec. That's just too long to be useful in emergencies where you'd want to use it. So I agree with Otto here. There's just no situation where it's a good choice in the current state of the game.
  2. Shortest Norn you can make. It looks and plays a lot like human, but isn't typical.
  3. The metabattle power/support/fractal build tells you to run Amulet and both rings as Diviner. That's 23% boon duration.Unless you know you'll be getting consistent Alacrity, that's not enough to keep Quickness up.But that's why it's on metabattle. Since it's listed in the Fractal section they assume you'll be using that build in a party with Alacrity.In the Open World section, you'll find another Quickness Firebrand build, but it's focus'd almost entirely on personal DPS because they assume that's what you want in an Open World build. Metabattle builds make assumptions. They have to, since they're trying to min/max. As Trollocks said, you just have to use them as a starting point and try to tweak them to better match your playstyle unless the assumptions they're making match the content and group composition you're playing with. You say you like Greatsword and Mace. Those are two weapons with dramatically different purposes. Greatsword is fantastic DPS weapon. But the only "support" it's got is retaliation. That's just about the worst support boon in the game. Mace/Shield, on the other hand is a fantastic support weapon. Regen, direct heals, aegis, quickness, projectile absorb... they're all incredible. But no matter how you build Mace/Shield, its DPS is going to disappoint. If you'll be primarily playing with friends, then Mace/Staff Harriers' Firebrand similar to the Metabattle Raid Support/Healer build will make them virtually unkillable and dramatically increase their damage. (note that build hasn't been updated in quite a while, so just use it as a template and tweak it).I've been running a Quickness Hammer Firebrand for solo story/open world that's been very survivable (despite running full berserkers), offers a ton of support, and retains quite respectable DPS.There are options.
  4. 100% PvE opinion:When HoT first dropped, Longbow had a great burst build.Firing a single regular longbow shot, then Spear of Justice set up a base damage multiplier above 230%, 100% crit chance, and a crit multipler above 250% for Trueshot.It was a guaranteed 25k+ burst in PvE back then. And against trash in solo PvE, the longest "cooldown" you used to get there was 4s.So you just went around quickly picking off mobs 1 by 1 and never waiting on cooldowns. You had several AoE/tagging skills for map events, and could easily fit in use your skills at least a few. It was a lot of fun. But then in early 2016, they nerfed Trueshot base damage by 20% across the board. (eventually they gave back ~8% of that)They dumped the 250 Ferocity from Retribution (gave back only 150 to Radiant Power)They removed 25% crit chance from Righteous Instincts (replaced with just a couple might stacks)One change after another that all had negative effects. If you try that same build now, the combo hits for ~15k. That's a GIGANTIC nerf.I hear some people thinking, "Oh, they nerfed the burst because of PvP, but surely they increased the sustained dps to compensate, right?" NOPE. Sustain is actually worse than it was back then too.So what would I change to fix longbow? The development team responsible for the above changes. Because it's obvious they don't care about the weapon.
  5. Absolutely, there are SEVERAL areas where Hammer really needs updates. I'm not trying to convince anyone that it's a top tier weapon by any account.I was simply surprised that there wasn't a "solo" Hammer build listed anywhere because it seems quite survivable with good solo dps. So far I prefer it to any of the GS builds I've tried out (including the meta dps Zeal/Radiance/DH) and just don't think it deserves the dumpster status it seems to have been given. With any Firebrand build, all you really need for really high uptime Quickness while playing solo: Liberator's Vow and Stalwart Speed in FirebrandMantra of Solace and Mantra of PotenceStand Your Ground (also gives you a stun break which is important for open world play)Feel My WrathRunes of LeadershipEngage groups of normal mobs with Mighty Blow, then hit each mantra once and they melt. If a vet or champ is in the mix, throw in Feel My Wrath and look to avoid knockdowns or pop Stand Your Ground and tank it. In long fights if you are popping Solace, Potence, and both Shouts on cooldown you will have a ~2 second gap in Quickness every minute and a half or so before Feel My Wrath comes off cooldown. You can cover that by using a concentration consumable or by popping a tome. Or you can just ignore it because there aren't that many situations in solo open world play where you'll be fighting something continuously for several minutes. On the issue of Tagging:If you camp Hammer to tag events, then 100% agree, it's REAL bad. But because your dps from Hammer almost entirely comes from camping AA and maintaining quickness with skills outside of the weapon, and since dps isn't that important during these tag heavy events, you can just slot in a Staff as your secondary. The "new" Staff with a Quickness build is an amazing tagging option. Better than Longbow, maybe even better than the old 600 Range Wave of Wrath Staff. And if for some reason you don't want to use Staff, Tome of Justice #1 still exists. And of course, you are correct that almost everything with Hammer dps is loaded into landing the symbol from the third attack of the AA sequence. But with quickness, the 3 attack chain that lands your Symbol takes less time than one (non quickness) AA chain with GS. So I disagree with your categorization of it as an "extended period of time". Mantra of Solace/Potence and Stand Your Ground/Retreat are all instant cast, so they don't interrupt the chain. None of the skills you will use on a regular basis root you either. With so few skills to concentrate on in "rotation", you can spend a lot of your attention on positioning. It definitely plays differently than most builds that get their dps from weapon skills.
  6. PowerGS is listed as a Dungeon/Fractal/Raid build. I'm talking specifically about open world/solo.Or are you saying that the builds they list and give a community rating in that section are actually bad / not up to date? I'll go try zeal/radiance/DH tonight to make a direct comparison with my gear. Radiance does make more sense to me with DH than Virtues does for solo play since Big Game Hunter's damage bonus requires tether, Renewed Justice ensures you can use it all the time. But since the majority of damage bonuses in Radiance require Retaliation, how do you keep Retal up with PowerGS? Symbol of Wrath (4/16 seconds) and Healer's Retribution (8/25 seconds) seem to be the only reliable sources. But together they barely get you over 50% uptime. Even running both Stand your Ground and Save Yourselves would leave you short on Retal. What's the duration of Retal you get when struck with light aura up? As for Honor: Protector's Impact, Empowering Might, and Writ of Persistence are all damage traits in the Honor line. They aren't direct % damage bonuses, but they're not nothing either. Self-stacking 25 Might isn't peanuts. But I'll go swap that out for Radiance with the Hammer and give it a shot as well. If my numbers seem low (and I'm sure they are because I'm not fully geared or using consumables), what would you consider a good build's single target solo DPS to be?
  7. Metabattle has expanded dramatically since I last played.They list all types of builds now such as open world soloing and event builds that never would have made the cut before because they're not endgame content and you're not trying to optimize yourself with regard to a group of other players who are similarly optimized. But most players don't raid; and even fewer raid with the same group and optimize builds against each other... so I actively welcome these new categories. Yet even with these solo categories, there's not a single Hammer build. And that confuses me. Did they do something to Hammer since PoF dropped to turn it into garbage? The skills don't look much different to me. A few traits that I would have used with Hammer at the start of PoF got nerfed, but a few others got buffed. This is going to come with a lot of caveats, so remember I haven't played in quite some time. I also don't have full ascended gear (just have chest, weapons, and the 6 accessories). I'm also not using food or sharpening stones. Basically, I'm like most casual players while soloing story or roaming the open world participating in map events. I went and tested my dps in the special forces area against an average weak golem (1m hp). Didn't give myself any boons or the golems anything special. First with the Radiant Greatsword build that they score highly. Took several attempts, adjusting my rotation a little here and there, ended up being able to get an initial burst around 9200 and sustain around 8200 on average. I think that's pretty decent for no buffs/consumables solo play.Then I swapped over to the Quickness Greatsword build they also score highly. Burst was higher at 11k and then sustain settled in at about 9400. So from a single target dps perspective it seems stronger. But you do lose some AoE from traps and you also lose Wings of Resolve which is a really good escape/re-engage for solo play. The regular heals from Mantra of Solace combined with the full heal from Tome of Resolve is definitely not bad though, and granting quickness to others during events is great. Pretty comparable to Radiant Greatsword.Finally, I tried out a Quickness Hammer build - Zeal(323), Honor(332), Firebrand(223). The initial burst and sustain were both over 10k. You're able to solo stack 25 Vuln as well as self-stack 25 Might, permanent Protection, Vigor, and Quickness all with a dead simple rotation that leaves you tons of time to dodge knockdowns and such. You also have several Break Bar skills for event champs. I don't know, it seems just as strong as the Greatsword builds, and feels even more survivable to me.Am I doing something horribly wrong with the meta builds, or are people sleeping on Quickness Hammer for Solo Play? edit: Deleted hyperlink because links still don't seem to be working on the forums.
  8. I know this is old, but I found this thread after coming back to the game and experiencing the same issue.Just in case anyone else comes back to the game with this problem and finds this thread, my crashes were caused by out of date addons. I merely had to go to the game install directory, [addons] directory and delete all the addons, and then also delete any .dll files in the [bin64] directories that were associated with those addons. (For example: d3d9.dll that is part of arcdps)As soon as I deleted all the old addons and DLL's, I got right into game no problems.Disabling addons is also often required after major updates to the game. It's just been so long I forgot about trying that and had to go searching for solutions.
  9. At level 80 you will have gained 398 Hero Points simply from leveling.Wiki - Hero Point Fully unlocking all core Skills costs 98 points.Each core Specialization costs 60 points to fully unlock. There are 5 core Specializations, so that's 300 points for all the core specializations.Together, that equals 398.So as you can see, JUST from leveling you have enough Hero points to fully unlock all core Skills and Traits. Once you hit 80 and have unlocked all your core Skills and Specializations, each Elite Specialization costs 250 to fully unlock.That means you need 500 Hero Points from the Open world to fully unlock both Elite Specializations.There are 904 available from Open World Hero Challenges. So you only need to get about 55% of them and you'll be maxed out with nothing left to spend Hero Points on. So never worry about spending Hero Points. There are WAYYYY more than you need to max everything.
  10. I believe the clock already doesn't begin until a player with a bounty enters the area where the bounty spawns.Unfortunately a lot of players just go grab a bounty, spawn the mob, and then discover it's not something they can do on their own, so timers are often started inadvertantly. I don't know that starting the timer on the engage would fix that, though it certainly wouldn't hurt. Being able to see activated bounties map-wide would be nice, but I think it all comes down to rewards.A couple pieces of un-ID'd gear, Karma, and a few Trade Contracts just isn't enough. The only groups I ever see trying to complete the bounties are just doing one bounty from each region to get the mastery points, then they bail.The rewards need to be on par with the gold/hr of Silverwastes RIBA if they want bounties to be a regular activity.
  11. I love that Firebrand gives us more support options and I really like a couple of the Mantras, but the trait cooldowns, inconsistent range, and underwhelming Axe skills really sour the spec for me. For example:If you take Liberator's Vow, Weighty Terms, and Mantra of Solace then you can cast a heal and grant Aegis every ~9.5 seconds which is incredible. But you'll have to wait 12 seconds for each heal, or you don't get Quickness from Liberator's Vow because of an internal cooldown. And the UI doesn't show you that timer anywhere.Then on top of that, the heal/aegis hit a 120 radius and a small cone in front but the quickness hits a 240 radius...It just makes the whole thing feel inconsistent. A lot of the ranges are so short that you have to practically stand on top of party members for the effects to apply. I tried out a couple of different builds, but ended up going back to DragonHunter.
  12. <--- haven't left the first map, haven't cheesed any of the mastery insights (didn't get Grotto, Quicksand, Sanctum, or Legacy), didn't use any guides. Still have Raptor3 with points to spare. Unlock Raptor mountGive your Raptor a treatComplete a Bounty from Amnoon, Elona, and Destiny GorgeMemory GameHelp the ChefPick up a Vision Crystal and Speak to 3 Ritual PriestsAmnoon Bazaar insightOld Amnoon insight (in water off west coast)Reins of the Raptor CollectionYou only need 6 points for Raptor3 and that's 9 already... Maybe people aren't looking at the achievement Journal?It shows you which achievements reward Mastery points. Most of them are extremely quick and easy. You can also find a list of achievements that reward Mastery for each map on the GW2 wiki
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