[Mistlock Sigunlarity broken after patch]

The mistlock in fractals becomes unusable after a wipe or a /gg, forcing everyone to /gg an additional time all together before you can pick it up again.

 

This started after the new patch

[Some early cTempest stuff]

New buff is awesome. Ditch Arcane for Earth and replace Cele/Rit's with Viper's to hit 30%ish BD or 40% if you're cautious.

 

We got damage again lads.

[Some early cTempest stuff]

Build I used was: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgEsEWGRGLppN1yu6akV6oa12SB-zRZYVBpYGSgc0Q9VXGdkAhUAaON743C-e
Left out my infusions and the two Cele trinkets were there cuz I'm lazy.

Hits for about like 20k+ish with allies but has respectable burst. Keep in mind all benches prior were done with banners/spirits/spotters/stuff so all bench damage is a bit lower rn. Performs pretty comfortably so far.

 

Ran it through 3 Fast 5s and some normal T4s so far, plus a w4 but I had to swap off in that to cover some roles I usually fill on other classes.

It feels really smooth to play. The constant feedback loop of Fire Overload to Earth Overload is really fun, and I fit in time to do my usual condi rotation too. Boons are really solid, with you providing a goddamn mountain of Might and being able to heat sink it all back up instantly after splits. Really good when with inexperienced HBs who struggled to do full Might all the time. Other boon time is also respective and the Alac uptime is just amazing.

 

I'd like less of a BD tax though. Something more like 40% or 50%ish so I could take more Viper's pieces would be nice.

 

Anyways here's some logs so you can see boon uptime and stuff. Had a lot of compliments running this and people were impressed, feels good repping my favorite Ele spec again. So far I'm pretty happy with this change and I like Tempest not being pigeonholded into just a heal spec.

https://dps.report/3MzN-20220628-182601_bone
https://dps.report/SIxY-20220628-225335_bone
https://dps.report/9E1R-20220629-014051_bone

EDIT: Updated to new buff. Still really early so I think BD can be pushed lower. Final bench will probably be in the area of like 28kish but I can't grind it out rn.

[How to get into raiding?]

Join the Raid Academy discord and sign up for one of the practice or training runs when they come up. Multiple raids go up everyday at basically almost all hours of the day.

 

In-game LFG is mostly dead for this sort of thing.

[Question about Aetherblade CM first CC on Echo Scarlet.]

This feels like a bug.

[Aetherblades CM]

I liked it, if I had to complain about anything it would be the big Scarlet balls being too much and pushing the fight into the "too much going on, too cluttered" camp.

 

The mechanics are fine. Not much to say. As people get better at Greens and the Bomb phase we'll start seeing more random PuG clears. I think the timer is probably just a tad too low but that seems to be a theme for EoD.

 

It was the first CM anything I'd ever done so I have no point of reference. Took me roughly 3 or 4hours with a PuG open to all. though still sorting for roles, on day 1 with no references, so that will probably go down as time goes by. Figured things out as we went along and the bombs definitely took the longest to figure out.

[Is that a point on playing Power Classes on Instanced content anymore?]

4 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

This is wrong.  Power builds have far more support than condi builds.  Healerless comps are special scenarios which shouldn't be regarded as the norm, and if you're building a healerless power comp you'll recruit a might stacker anyway.  I said utilities, not traits.  Condi builds still take full traits for damage, too.  There is a massive difference on some encounters.  Condi builds rely on mods like banners, sun spirit, and writs for high numbers.

Condi has a ramp-up time and is forced to over-kill in order to maintain damage.  Condi is also weak to cleanses from phasing and other mechanics.

 

There's a lot of misinformation here.

The most glaring is the idea that Condi cares about banners, Sun Spirit, and Writs (????) for some reason. They do not and never have. They are, in fact, less reliant on Banners and Spirits than any other comp. It's one of those things that affect realistic performance. Power isn't likely to have Banners and Spotter these days, which affect their crit chance, which in turns dramatically affects their damage because of how much they have banked into Ferocity.

 

Condi doesn't care, except for Virt.

 

There's a weird fallacy that Condi classes spend all their utilities on damage. That's very much a case by case basis. It seems disingenuous to me to state an entire playstyle devotes their entire bar to damage in order to do well when you very much know you can't prove or back that up. FB is infamously flexibly, so is Scourge. Condi Weaver is less flexible than it's power cousin. It just depends on the spec, really, it's not a thing that's contingent on how you do your damage.

 

Finally, the famous "ramp-up" argument. Modern condi classes have a ramp-up time of....20 seconds.

 

Some have a ramp up time of all of 6 seconds. Some of them can burst harder in 15seconds than Power Classes, mostly off the back of Burn being really, really good.

Here's a thread talking about it

 

 

To Summarize: No. Power isn't terrible but it is inferior in most respects. The difference isn't major enough to matter most of the time and if you're the sort of player who cares enough about this stuff to make an account for the forum and browse the Instanced Content section-you're probably good enough to play Power well on most things that aren't oppressively hostile to it like Sunqua and Siren's.

 

However. HOWEVER. If you aren't so sure, or are nervous, or perhaps new to the content. You will be better served by a Condi build. The vast majority of people who play this game would be better served by a Condi build. Power has a very low floor in how bad it can be, but Condi is much more stable, with less outside factors currently, and in general is easier to play. This ease of play results in the disparity we currently see. I consider the hypothetical bottom to be more important than the theoretical top. Power stacking is very good for Youtube videos and experienced teams-it is decidedly less good for your average player.

[Is that a point on playing Power Classes on Instanced content anymore?]

Not really no. It's harder to play and requires better positioning for less reward. You also need more external support to critcap.

And even if the stars align and the boss behaves and you aren't forced off for mechanics, you'll probably still lose in DPS.

 

In all my playing, anecdotal as it is, I have seen a Power dps top charts when either they have no condi competition, or in t1-t2 fractals.

In T4s they do abysmal. Like, even against things you wouldn't think they should do badly on. It's to the point where I'd rather have condi over power because it takes a great power DPS to do well, but a bad one does horribly. Then there's fights like Crowe where Power never does anything relevant for the average group. 

 

Meanwhile, basically all Condi users do fine. They're even good at "Power" fights, though Power is very bad at "Condi" fights. Also they're less screwed by random Protection, Weakness, and kinda Blind. T4s are, however, very biased towards anyone specializing in Burning and Torment. We're talking about an environment where support QBs can and will regularly top DPS over their full damage competition simply due to how skewed towards Burning short-duration, phased fighting is. I find the balance tends to be better in Strikes, in that Power isn't revealed to be embarrassingly bad there and off-supports actually do off-support level damage due to the longer fights being less rewarding for Burn ticks.

 

Power is very strange where the benchmarks for them say that they're only marginally behind Condi but the actual play experience tells a very different story. My theory is that Power requires a level of ability to play well on non-passive bosses that simply eludes most individuals, hence the huge disparity between, say, what a Power Warrior *should* do and what most end up actually doing.

 

Condi having a set-it-and-forget thing is just less work for equivalent or superior rewards. You'll end up with a DPS better suited for tackling....most everything other than Core dungeon structures.

 

Except for Holosmith. Holosmith is fantastic and if more Power classes were like Holo we wouldn't be here.

[20k DPS 1 button Rotation Mechanist]

23 hours ago, Jerus.4350 said:

Very well said, and I totally agree, the hMech +qFB combo is amazing.  I'm glad you mentioned Stability though, because I see a lot of people claiming hMech has "perma stability" which is just silly because that's not how stability works (anymore).  1 CC blocked every 25s, that's what it really is, and if you time it right you can utilize Aegis as well for potentially 2 CCs dealt with every 25s.   I look at how well a guardian can trivialize fights like the Chaos Fractal boss and hMech just can't come anywhere close to that.  I'll keep my party alive on that fight no problem, but they're still going to have to dodge/deal with the daze.

I think it's mostly from people who maybe don't play Supports often and don't realize how important Stab is for helping people get through random stuff. Chaos also has harpies flinging knockdown balls and the pounders with AoE shockwaves. I bring it on Nightmare to prevent people from getting caught by the many knockdowns the boss has, the first triple champ one vet bosses in Uncat, all of Underground Facility especially against Ice Elemental, but swap it off vs Dredge suit, etc, just so much stuff really. I feel like I have SYG on my bar more often than Mantra of Flame or Signet of Wrath.

 

A packet of 2 stacks of Stab (sorta, if nothing eats the Aegis) won't cut it and there's a lot of fights like this. Hell, Stab even makes fights you don't think about go smoother like Siren's since it allows allies to stand in Crowe's shockwave, thereby lowering the complexity of that fight a few more steps.

 

I see the same line of thinking from a lot of fellow FB players who don't take SYG because they argue Book3 is enough. The DPS increase from multiple people not being knocked down or having to reposition after a dodge is going to outperform a flex DPS slot, not to mention saves you from having to crack open Book3 and lose Burn uptime.

 

The sad truth is that even if Druid/Tempest/whatever were to get Alac or Quickness today for example, I'd be really hard pressed to call them legitimate competition to HB and Healmech without stab. In strikes, it's less important but in Fracs it is very relevant.

[20k DPS 1 button Rotation Mechanist]

On 4/6/2022 at 1:16 PM, Kuma.1503 said:

I can empathise with anyone here that does. 

Scrapper was garbage PvE for years. Anet finally breathed life into it with quickness. 

But even though it was finally viable in endgame... Firebrand still did our job but better. 

You weren't taking QScrapper over QFB if given the choice. FB does mechanics for you with aegis cheese and has better dps and better utility. 

You weren't taking HScrapper over HFB because HScrapper does negative dps, cant pull mobs, cant aegis mechanics, has less stab, and no fury. 

Sure we had Holosmith, but its just generic selfish dps and you can replace it with anything... Like DH who outperforms it in fractals with its burst. Or even just another dps FB.

Mechanist is the first time that Engi is able REALLY to compete for a slot in endgame PvE.  and people (likely Guatdian mains considering its the most popular class) want to yank that away. 

 

See that's so weird to me because as a Guardian kinda main I guess, I love Engies more.

Healmech and QB is everything I want in a comp and I trust myself as a QB a lot since I still have fantastic damage (which is great, as the fatal flaw of queuing as HB is having to rely upon PuG DPS.) and can patch up the few weaknesses Healmech have, mainly Stability, Reflects, CC, and grouping up adds. I literally queue for Healmechs for my fractals now since I consider the comp superior to the old one.

 

If anyone is out of a job it's Alacren, but at least now they're free to ditch RR, go full condi, and embrace being a Torment monster.

[What do we want to see in Longbow Ele?]

3 hours ago, Serephen.3420 said:

In gw1 our damage didn't care about what weapon we used.

Not exactly true considering there were a lot of ways to optimize your Ele's loadouts with +20% enchant backup weps and 40/40 or 40/20+1 sets which did require a Wand/Focus.

[What do we want to see in Longbow Ele?]

12 hours ago, Serephen.3420 said:

You're an odd one you are. Technically necromancer, mesmer and elementalist are "mages" but elementalist had daggers from the start and was never a mage in the way you probably think. In gw1 you wield any weapon you wanted, it had no impact on spells so not even gw1 ele was limited to being gandalf in that sense. 

In GW1 we did damage and staves were good.

[You have no excuse not to get into raids now]

Eh, I don't know. I've never done one and until EoD strikes I never wanted to do any 10 man content. I lead those strikes daily now and have considered maybe making an LFG for the first one, VG I think it's called?

 

But I don't know mechanics or specific roles unique to it, plus aren't these things largely organized on Discord now? It was really fun leading Strikes since they were new and everyone was learning together, but these are mostly solved and most people with the experience and know-how to do them have sequestered themselves within Discords, so I probably wouldn't get anyone able to explain the finer details a Wiki read wouldn't give me.

 

Also I've heard they take like 2 hours per Wing, whatever that is? That's a bit more than I really wanna commit. I'll just stick to T4s and Strikes.

[Now that you've really got to experience EoD, what are your thoughts?]

It's okay, but I don't recommend it to anyone not already playing GW2, which is nobody I know unfortunately.

 

It didn't really feel like it had that much new stuff and mostly felt like stuff for people already playing it. That and if I had to walk around Kaineng without a Skyscale I think I'd quit.

 

It's fine if you were already playing but imo not worth coming back for if you weren't, especially if you were already far behind.

[Please increase sources of Elemental Empowerment, even benchmarks struggle to keep up 10 stacks.]

4 hours ago, Vinteros Asteano.1209 said:

The thread was talking about benchmark videos, so I must have missed the S/F benchmark. Could you link it?

With respect, this feels in bad faith. While this thread was, yes, talking about a benchmark video it only did so to point out how difficult it is to maintain 10 stacks even under fantasy, ideal circumstances. The implication behind showing it being, "Look at how futile this is even under perfect conditions." It was not, in fact, about the benchmark video as a whole but used it to help shore up OP's argument, which is that EE is difficult to keep up 10 stacks with "even in a benchmark".

 

But, I'm sure you know this and are simply trying to dismiss an opinion that disagrees with your's.

 

So if Hammer struggles to utilize this fully-so do other Ele sets, even the ones seemingly well-equipped to really make the most of it.

[Condi WB vs FB?]

2 hours ago, Legend of Rogue.5394 said:

I dont really see Condi in WVW as relevant at all if we are talking WVW maybe this is PVE? Condi in WVW is pretty weak especially with zergs and melee. FB will always be the more stable and staple piece. Forgives mistakes a lot easier than WB does. 

Oh yeah, sorry. My post was for end game PvE stuff. Fractals and strikes and whatnot. I don't know anything about WvW. I'll make that distinction clearer in the future.

[Condi WB vs FB?]

Both are good and can share the same gear if their DPS. cDPS FB can use a GS too, primarily spinning in Purging Flames and bar-break + add pulls (use Tome1 in GS to burn weapon swap CD time.)

 

Condi FB can carry a team through more harrowing stuff with F3 and F2 as panic buttons, but condi WB has superior burst and better overall DPS. It also has better self condi clear.

 

Since they share the same armor and trinkets the only things you'd have to go out of your way for is the Axe for FB and a Sword for WB unless you play the Scepter version, and you'd probably want to have a Scepter around anyways. The PoF collections can be done very quickly and for very little gold if you'd like an inexpensive method to get an Axe-saving you a chest to burn on a GS or something.

[Please increase sources of Elemental Empowerment, even benchmarks struggle to keep up 10 stacks.]

1 hour ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Exactly. 

Tho as catalyst, its also not very powerful. I mean sure it sounds powerful but with this trait, the benchmark is at 39k (slightly above average) and the sustain isnt great on ele either so the toughness and vitality boost are totally fine. Especially since catalyst has no other sustain traits built into the dps build. (Like holo, Daredevil, weaver, tempest, reaper, untamed and almost everything else.)

Also I dont get what people are saying with "it shouldn't be perma but it gives a powerful boost if you have all 10 stacks". Thats wrong. If you have all stacks, dps with full boons is 39k. So thats somewhat average so where is this powerful boost? 

This just means that if u dont have all stacks, its a massive dps loss. No powerful dps boost if you have all stacks, just massive dps loss if you dont have all stacks. Thats what it does atm. 

Yeah, the benefits of it do feel like an illusion considering the damage of the class is balanced around it-making it kind of moot.

 

Willbender doesn't have to play absurd mini-games to hit a 40k condi bench AND they get to utilize Whirl Finishers while being superior at sticking to a target and still having the freedom to take SYG to be, ya know, helpful. But because it's an Ele spec, it has to be overdesigned, with several cumbersome gimmicks, very little to no modern team utility and an extremely cautious design. It's everything I disliked about Weaver but more badly thought out, and because it'll get the most attention it'll also be the defacto Ele playstyle due to sheer numerical advantage.

 

Remember back in 2014 when to trigger our traits all Tempest asked us to do was....use it's gimmick? I miss those simpler days of Ele design.

[Please increase sources of Elemental Empowerment, even benchmarks struggle to keep up 10 stacks.]

5 minutes ago, Bleikopf.2491 said:

Scepter has two blast finishers in Fire at least with enough delay to comfortable switch to Air in time.

For PvE, Dagger offhand might be better for combos. In PvP/WvW, you're most likely looking for burst power playstyle anyway with a Lightning Rod Catalyst so it's more about getting to 10 stacks and then finishing the fight in contrast to keeping at 10 stacks the entire fight.

Actually, I think Hammer is one of the harder weapons to actually stack EE with. Scepter/Focus is probably just as difficult to do with.

 

 There's a conundrum in condi builds like these in that you really do not want be in Air nor switch to it unless you need the CC or projectile hate.. With Weaver, it's fine, as you have the 3 to press to continue the damage and can fairly quickly get out of Air under Weave Self. Cata does not have this benefit, and unless I'm alone the Air F5 is mostly pointless to press. You can swap to Earth before DT lands but then you can't gain the buff again in Earth-or swap to water and you're in the same bad spot. I think the issue is that none-hammer Cata doesn't really have much of an incentive to attunement dance at the moment, as the Sphere offers mostly pointless effects. It's main incentive is to trigger Epitome more, but it just isn't realistic to make use of it when the tradeoff is being stuck in a dead element. To be perfectly honest, the only real reason to use it over core Ele is the +% damage bonus traits, and Weaver offers those too while solving the "I do not want to be in this element for any significant period of time" issue. This issue is why they made Hammer #3 as it is-to offer you an attractive reason to switch even if the Attunement offers nothing to your current damage setup, basically the exact reason the Weaver dual attacks are worth pressing regardless of your preferred damage type (for the most part.)

 

I'd like to try Dagger offhand but it's fit doesn't quite have the punch I'm looking for sadly. It's always traditionally been more of a PvP weapon I think.

 

I do agree that the idea of having a constant 20% boost to all your stats does sound very powerful. That's why I picked it as a Grandmaster over Boon Duration or near constant Stability-but it isn't like that, it's more of 10% boost to all stats sometimes and a 20% for like a second or so. Not exactly as impressive as it first reads.

 

[Please increase sources of Elemental Empowerment, even benchmarks struggle to keep up 10 stacks.]

1 hour ago, Vinteros Asteano.1209 said:

No attunement has zero finishers technically.

And you don't need every finisher to get the 10 stacks.

3 base -> Air 5 gives 5 -> Fire 5 gives 6 -> Water 4 or 5 gives 7 -> Earth 5 gives 10.

This is for targets that can be stunned and immobilized

The aura is also given when the combo is finished, so nothing is stopping you from channeling an ability and swapping attunements before the combo goes into effect.

Scepter/Focus Air has zero finishers, unless I wanna blow my 30s CD CC if I picked the trait, and then I'm stuck in Air.

 

My fault for trying Catalyst without the hammer? Maybe. Maybe Cata could also be more than just the hammer. See, silly me, I read "Gain X when you do a combo" and thought, "well I like condi and Scepter/Focus is pretty decent condi pick with lots of blast finishers. Let's try that to help syngerize with all these combo traits."

 

 

[Please increase sources of Elemental Empowerment, even benchmarks struggle to keep up 10 stacks.]

3 minutes ago, Stallic.2397 said:

 

If you take the Grandmaster, there should be an added bonus with the trait, that all combos now grant elemental empowerment. No ICD

 

That way Catalyst's can actually keep ten stacks quite easily and not even think about it. I would consider that balanced as well since the Catalyst would have to trait a grandmaster to get that bonus.

 

It's sad that Catalyst take that trait for a 20% bonus and barely, if ever, actually benefit from it. Waste of a trait 

Oh, I like this idea. Good compromise if you at least have to trait it.

[Please increase sources of Elemental Empowerment, even benchmarks struggle to keep up 10 stacks.]

At least get rid of that dumb 10s ICD on Elemental Epitome. Then I can actually combo my way to 10 stacks and upkeep it by comboing, which is what they want me to do anyways.

[Arena has ruined the casters]

If it makes you feel better, Scepter/Focus condi is very much competitive on Cata.

[Healbrand Gear Selection.]

I like Celestial personally for HB, but I only do Strikes and T4s so I don't know if the toughness would screw things up in Raids.

[Meta + Strike Missions = Turtle. No thank you.]

1 hour ago, Searry.6120 said:

lol ten minutes you are funny, i spend hour and half in  total in that strike mission with a a full party and failed it 3 times. as it is i don't foresee myself continuing to run it as of now.

If you still need it, send me a mail ingame. I run these every day and organize the parties, and I'd be happy to help.