Josiah.2967

ANet logic: "No-one's using Signets or Signets of Suffering because they're not strong enough" "Lets nerf them!" Signets of Suffering provided great survivability before the last balance patch, at the cost of a small portion of DPS. Now the survivability got lowered, but Signets of Suffering is almost on par with Awaken the Pain, DPS wise. It is difficult to say what is doing slightly more DPS than the other.Anyway I’m sure it will generally be the best option for most things in instanced PvE content, for Power Reaper. Until yesterday your logic was that everything that is not the best for potential DPS is useless for PvE instanced content (obviously you were totally wrong, but still it was your logic). You’ve got that extra DPS on Signets of Suffering builds, maybe you have still to realise it. For competitive modes, Signets of Suffering was probably better before the update. So, your comment at least for competitive modes makes sense, maybe. ArenaNet said that the trait was not powerful enough to warrant taking over the other grandmaster traits, and it is true that is has been nerfed, but also that it has to compete with weaker traits. I’ll copy my precedent comment:_It seems to be higher from the first testings, but it could be because of RNG. It provides 270 extra Power while in Shroud, with Signet of Spite (20 more than Awaken the Pain). Outside of Shroud we would have 250 less power at 25 Might stacks, but most of our damage comes from Shroud, thanks to the additional Ferocity. Also, now there is also Well of Darkness increasing our damage in Shroud, in addition to Nightfall and Well of Suffering. Then, there is Signet of Vampirism that deals some damage every second while in Shroud, thanks to Signets of Suffering. It could really be the best choice DPS wise, even sustained. It will probably be better in Fractal where damage bursts are more effective. Edit: after more testing I think the DPS is very similar anyway. While a huge portion of our dps does come from Reaper's Shroud, you would be making an already weak out of shroud rotation MUCH weaker by that 250 reduction in power, to the point that it will drag the rest of the dps very heavily. The damage from Signet of Vampirism is not enough to make up for GS doing less damage. For the most ideal dps rotation, you do not want to stay in shroud for much longer than your Soul Barbs is active, ergo keeping the time you have without Soul Barbs active for as little as possible. It's more worth taking SoS if you are running alone with no one to give you much might I think. In Fractals, Awaken the Pain will still win out if you have a HB.If you enjoy Signet play fair play to you and it works in open world and lower tier fractals. But for high end PvE, with an organized group, Awaken the Pain will win out every time. I am glad, however, that I am able to take Signet of Vampirism instead of Blood Fiend even without SoS because having minions is annoying as they can keep you in combat and the active on the signet I find better than the minion and it is technically a party/squad wide damage increase with the 25 stacks of life siphon on it...not that that will be use purposefully in a dps rotation as the cast time is too long but at least if you do have to heal you can squeeze some more damage out. I can say what I said because I’ve tested the traits (really not enough yet, and initially the RNG favoured SoS a lot). I have not tried it staying in Shroud for a long time, but executing a proper rotation to try maximising the DPS. Most of the damage is made in Shroud even if you play properly with Soul Barbs, and that makes the additional power while in Shroud more relevant (I don’t know how much). DPS wise, the difference between the two choices will probably be small, nothing “heavy” in favour of Awaken of the Pain [now I think “it” (Awaken the Pain) could win by about 2%, but I’m getting inconsistent results, I hate how much RNG there is in Reaper rotation]. There is one thing I can add in favour of Awaken the Pain, if someone can’t execute all the Shroud part of the rotation cause it took too much damage, then the power loss will really drag down the DPS a lot (but there is a great solution among the Signets of Suffering builds: slotting Signet of Undeath). Signet of Undeath alongside Signet of Spite and Well of Suffering or Well of Darkness (with Signets of Suffering), is still a viable and powerful choice for anyone that feel the necessity to have more Life Force generation (the DPS loss seems similar to before the balance patch, it could be only 4-5% less than the the build that provide the best potential DPS). It provides much more reliable DPS and better survivability for a minor DPS loss. Also less need to lose DPS by avoiding damage when the support is bad (in cases like those, that become the build with the highest DPS). Usually, you know you need more Life Force generation when you can’t execute all your rotation without any pause. It is very common when playing some Raids (even in groups with high LI requirements) or some high level Fractals with “pugs”, for the vast majority of power Reapers. It is still important to learn to avoid what you can avoid without losing DPS, and to dodge certain attacks that “you can’t just tank”. Obviously I’m talking about something that could be optimal for most Reapers to complete the most difficult instanced PvE group contents that the game provides. Which elite skill are you using? I am thinking about trying this for open and maybe fractals just for fun. Generally I use what’s probably optimal for what I have to do. Also, this is not the build I’m using, I change things in the build based on the encounter and the group I’m playing with. I share true “min maxing”, not fantasies like “in instanced PvE the personal heal is not needed because the damage can be avoided, and the only important thing is maximising the potential DPS”. Truth is that every day people trying to do that have very bad performances. Not all damage can be avoided, it is not always worth to avoid it. Most people play in “bad groups” with people that can’t properly execute a rotation. Only a small minority of players is willing to put the effort needed to start playing very well. For most Reapers, the Life Force generated by their weapons is often not even nearly enough to execute the rotation in the groups they play with. Many of these problems can be solved with minimal loss of potential DPS. About the Elite skill: mostly Chilled to the Bone for group of mobs (when I think it could be worth), Lichform for burst damage against bosses, Flesh Golem for CC and sustained damage.Thanks for the information. I was trying to do a minionless build. More for fun/something different to do for fractals. Lichform seemed like the best alternative to Flesh Golem; however, I still find myself missing CC and it seemed to do more overall damage with even less effort. We are getting so close to a viable minion less end-game build. At least I got something a little different to play with in this patch.

Primeval Skyscale please! It's time :-)

ANet logic: "No-one's using Signets or Signets of Suffering because they're not strong enough" "Lets nerf them!" Signets of Suffering provided great survivability before the last balance patch, at the cost of a small portion of DPS. Now the survivability got lowered, but Signets of Suffering is almost on par with Awaken the Pain, DPS wise. It is difficult to say what is doing slightly more DPS than the other.Anyway I’m sure it will generally be the best option for most things in instanced PvE content, for Power Reaper. Until yesterday your logic was that everything that is not the best for potential DPS is useless for PvE instanced content (obviously you were totally wrong, but still it was your logic). You’ve got that extra DPS on Signets of Suffering builds, maybe you have still to realise it. For competitive modes, Signets of Suffering was probably better before the update. So, your comment at least for competitive modes makes sense, maybe. ArenaNet said that the trait was not powerful enough to warrant taking over the other grandmaster traits, and it is true that is has been nerfed, but also that it has to compete with weaker traits. I’ll copy my precedent comment:_It seems to be higher from the first testings, but it could be because of RNG. It provides 270 extra Power while in Shroud, with Signet of Spite (20 more than Awaken the Pain). Outside of Shroud we would have 250 less power at 25 Might stacks, but most of our damage comes from Shroud, thanks to the additional Ferocity. Also, now there is also Well of Darkness increasing our damage in Shroud, in addition to Nightfall and Well of Suffering. Then, there is Signet of Vampirism that deals some damage every second while in Shroud, thanks to Signets of Suffering. It could really be the best choice DPS wise, even sustained. It will probably be better in Fractal where damage bursts are more effective. Edit: after more testing I think the DPS is very similar anyway. While a huge portion of our dps does come from Reaper's Shroud, you would be making an already weak out of shroud rotation MUCH weaker by that 250 reduction in power, to the point that it will drag the rest of the dps very heavily. The damage from Signet of Vampirism is not enough to make up for GS doing less damage. For the most ideal dps rotation, you do not want to stay in shroud for much longer than your Soul Barbs is active, ergo keeping the time you have without Soul Barbs active for as little as possible. It's more worth taking SoS if you are running alone with no one to give you much might I think. In Fractals, Awaken the Pain will still win out if you have a HB.If you enjoy Signet play fair play to you and it works in open world and lower tier fractals. But for high end PvE, with an organized group, Awaken the Pain will win out every time. I am glad, however, that I am able to take Signet of Vampirism instead of Blood Fiend even without SoS because having minions is annoying as they can keep you in combat and the active on the signet I find better than the minion and it is technically a party/squad wide damage increase with the 25 stacks of life siphon on it...not that that will be use purposefully in a dps rotation as the cast time is too long but at least if you do have to heal you can squeeze some more damage out. I can say what I said because I’ve tested the traits (really not enough yet, and initially the RNG favoured SoS a lot). I have not tried it staying in Shroud for a long time, but executing a proper rotation to try maximising the DPS. Most of the damage is made in Shroud even if you play properly with Soul Barbs, and that makes the additional power while in Shroud more relevant (I don’t know how much). DPS wise, the difference between the two choices will probably be small, nothing “heavy” in favour of Awaken of the Pain [now I think “it” (Awaken the Pain) could win by about 2%, but I’m getting inconsistent results, I hate how much RNG there is in Reaper rotation]. There is one thing I can add in favour of Awaken the Pain, if someone can’t execute all the Shroud part of the rotation cause it took too much damage, then the power loss will really drag down the DPS a lot (but there is a great solution among the Signets of Suffering builds: slotting Signet of Undeath). Signet of Undeath alongside Signet of Spite and Well of Suffering or Well of Darkness (with Signets of Suffering), is still a viable and powerful choice for anyone that feel the necessity to have more Life Force generation (the DPS loss seems similar to before the balance patch, it could be only 4-5% less than the the build that provide the best potential DPS). It provides much more reliable DPS and better survivability for a minor DPS loss. Also less need to lose DPS by avoiding damage when the support is bad (in cases like those, that become the build with the highest DPS). Usually, you know you need more Life Force generation when you can’t execute all your rotation without any pause. It is very common when playing some Raids (even in groups with high LI requirements) or some high level Fractals with “pugs”, for the vast majority of power Reapers. It is still important to learn to avoid what you can avoid without losing DPS, and to dodge certain attacks that “you can’t just tank”. Obviously I’m talking about something that could be optimal for most Reapers to complete the most difficult instanced PvE group contents that the game provides.Which elite skill are you using? I am thinking about trying this for open and maybe fractals just for fun.

They figured they nerfed focus and warhorn to practically unusable and forgot about the dagger.

So in the end for Necromancers:You found the signets were under utilized and decided to nerf them. (Huh)You removed any offensive option for blood. (Huh)You made more WVW problems. (Huh)You forgot to help necro's PVE problem. (Signet rework could of helped) I am at a loss. This is like the offhand nerf disguised as a buff....

ANet logic: "No-one's using Signets or Signets of Suffering because they're not strong enough" "Lets nerf them!" If this happened any other time, I would think you were being sarcastic; however, now I shake my head. You think after the offhand update and revamped death magic...I would have learned.

Why would the go out of their way to choose an icon from one of the lesser used/popular mounts to generate excitement?

I really like how this outfit covers the toes on Asura! To me this looks best on Asura and I love it. Thank you Arenanet for taking your Asura players into account. <3

class x doing 10% more dps then class y making y unviable is ruining every game. ppl need to chill tf out. I am fine with 10% not OK with the current 33%.

Skimmer can now swim underwater. :-) That would be super exciting.

I assume you mean the glider, since no backpacks can be dyed. He means the backpack. Almost all new backpack/glider combos have a dyable backpack.

Not at all. Its actually what i expected so the heals could be different from one another besides the type of skill it is.Signet: Damage > HealingMinion: Healing > Damage Works for me. If it does more DPS I will be using it in raids on my Necro... It will have a place from DPS alone. I still count down the day where I'm not asked to swap because of the gap.

I have been waiting for shiny heavy metal outfits to compete with foefire. We have more than enough bland heavy metal outfits. I am buying this for multiple people. <3

Anyone else surprised that the signet does less healing than the minion? With the added range, I am actually surprised.

Would you mind explaining? Thanks.

Do we know the following about the new Signet of Vampirism.1.) Base Damage/Healing2.) Power Coefficient3.) Healing Coefficient I would appreciate it if anyone has an answer.

Skimmers having the ability to swim underwater would be great! XOXO

Other MMO forums call this Guardian Wars. Guardians are the ones that are top tier at everything. Necro's can't even compete for end game PVE and PVE makes the majority of the playerbase. Necro is bottom of the barrel.

I would be happy with native DX12 support and multiple core performance. For me Event/WVW performance should come before anything else. Smooth gameplay is important to me.

Necro is the bottom of the barrel for end game\instanced PVE in all specs. It is so far down I would not consider it viable based on dps and healing benchmarks with the lack of raid buffs thrown in just because... It is viable for ever other mode. Sure you can do it, but your always going to be suboptimal. If you want to the best at everything go guardian. There is a reason other mmo forums call this Guardian Wars.

This isn't WOW, Rift, or FF. Those games have harder content where you seek good friendly players and ask for help. They have the holy trinity where you can not fufill all roles by being the top 2%. Say what you want about the holy triniry; however, it does lead to more social games. The only time I make new friends in this games is harder instanced content or fashion wars...

My Signet of Vampirism thought process for Open World PVE. In an Open World PvE build with Death Magic, Blood Fiend provides:+40 Toughness (Guaranteed)+25% Damage Increase (Minion will do more damge)+50% Health (Can Tank a bit in big pulls)+Can Remove Conditions From You+Death Nova will proc in the extremely rare chance of it dying in Open World PvE. Signet of Vampire would have to be broken to make it a top contender for Open World PvE. My Signet of Vampirism thought process for Instance Content (Raids). The only place I see Signet of Vampire having a chance of being my go to option is instanced PVE. We have quite a few raid bosses that require you to do mechanics, meaning you are not stacking on the boss 100% of the time. My faithful Blood Fiend is doing damage and providing me stable healing while I am unable to stack on the boss doing proper raid mechanics. I do not have survivability issues with any profession I raid with, so this slot is exclusively used for the passive DPS it provides in instanced content. I trust my healers and my ability to avoid damage for instanced PVE. The consistant heals would also make Blood Fiend way better for casual raid players the majority of the time. Taril.8619 covered all other modes. It would really need to be broken to be viable for those. I can not see a reason to recommend Signet of Vampirism to casuals players unless it does significant more DPS. In the end, it is just DPS to heal just like Blood Fiend without a lot of the benefits/synergy.

Have you? If you look at Snow Crows benchmarks: Golem DPS Unless you're talking about the small hitbox golem benchmarks... But if we're going to look at that, why not look at actual boss benchmarks to see how many have small hitboxes as well as performance in actual fights when played well: Vale GuardianGorsevalSabethaSlothasorMatthiasKeep ConstructXeraCairnMursaatSamarogDeimosSoulless HorrorDhuumConjured AmalgateTwin LargosQadimCardinal SabirCardinal AdinaQadim the Peerless I don't know about you, but I see a lot of blue here. With only 2 fights having Elementalist featured (Sabetha and Conjured Amalgate) Which, if they were going on benchmarks, would suggest a nerf to Guardians... Since when are we 'balancing' the game after a handful of try -hards? Not saying that the patch is good --- it's kitten garbage, but your way of thinking is really not helping. They're not. That's literally the point I was making. Someone said they were balancing around benchmarks, but the benchmarks clearly point at Guardian being the top dog for DPS and have received little in the way of nerfs. Virtues is kind of a Golem meme though which won't reach those numbers (and 100% Unscathed Contender uptime) in any real scenario.It's pretty much the opposite Scourge, which benches awfully on a Golem and Golem like Bosses, but scales much better the more complex the actual real fights gets, while Virtues Guard drops off. Guard is mainly taken for Utility, not DPS, and Feel my Wrath stacking is, at least from what I know, a pretty niche strategy, although I haven't pugged in ages.Chrono, Weaver, Tempest, Soulbeast, Mirage, Holo, Renegade and now Berserker all pull higher numbers than DH or FB. Boss bechmarks disagree. The utility only pushes guardian to the must have territory which is unhealthy. It isn't a must have though, plenty, if not the vast majority, of groups don't stack Guards with FMW, but instead run dedicated Quickness supports leaving the DPS slots open for w/e, a capacity in which the named DPS's can easily outperform Guardians. If you are referring to the "numbers to aim for" section on SC, they generally only list the Specs which are contained in the "recommended" comp, except for some cases with some old left overs and aren't anything to go by in that regard. On top of that Comps are even acknowledged to not have been updated in half a year, since when Guard has been nerfed while others spec received buffs.I know a lot of raid groups stacking guardians to bypass mechanics. Benchmarks speak for themselves. Guardians are viable (top tier) for every mode. Not everyone wants to play Guardian Wars 2.

Have you? If you look at Snow Crows benchmarks: Golem DPS Unless you're talking about the small hitbox golem benchmarks... But if we're going to look at that, why not look at actual boss benchmarks to see how many have small hitboxes as well as performance in actual fights when played well: Vale GuardianGorsevalSabethaSlothasorMatthiasKeep ConstructXeraCairnMursaatSamarogDeimosSoulless HorrorDhuumConjured AmalgateTwin LargosQadimCardinal SabirCardinal AdinaQadim the Peerless I don't know about you, but I see a lot of blue here. With only 2 fights having Elementalist featured (Sabetha and Conjured Amalgate) Which, if they were going on benchmarks, would suggest a nerf to Guardians... Since when are we 'balancing' the game after a handful of try -hards? Not saying that the patch is good --- it's kitten garbage, but your way of thinking is really not helping. They're not. That's literally the point I was making. Someone said they were balancing around benchmarks, but the benchmarks clearly point at Guardian being the top dog for DPS and have received little in the way of nerfs. Virtues is kind of a Golem meme though which won't reach those numbers (and 100% Unscathed Contender uptime) in any real scenario.It's pretty much the opposite Scourge, which benches awfully on a Golem and Golem like Bosses, but scales much better the more complex the actual real fights gets, while Virtues Guard drops off. Guard is mainly taken for Utility, not DPS, and Feel my Wrath stacking is, at least from what I know, a pretty niche strategy, although I haven't pugged in ages.Chrono, Weaver, Tempest, Soulbeast, Mirage, Holo, Renegade and now Berserker all pull higher numbers than DH or FB.Boss bechmarks disagree. The utility only pushes guardian to the must have territory which is unhealthy.

Tuesday