CraftyK.9062

As much as I am a fan of making deathmatch permanent and having it receive more content, wouldnt deathmatch without any balance changes from now kind of reinforce that situation? I mean, you definitely can cook a unique deathmatch build and this type of buildcraft is something that should only be encouraged, but with absolutely no secondary objectives, I feel like individual match ups can screw one over harder than in Conquest. Granted that forgoing Conquest would also mean that the "traditional" roles are also gone. Still, Id be up to have deathmatch up permanently if it wont cause major queue issues

That's exactly why DPS Guards are so omnipresent in the high ranks and competitive play... ... oh wait.

Realistically: Changing Repose to be a heal and condi cleanse skill would be a very minor loss of damage on that skill in exchange for a bit (we dont know how much of a heal it will be) of sustain. The change allowing you to repose without landing all the hits might be nice for PvE and especially so for PvP and WvW. Might see it in those modes. Roiling is a minor nerf I think as the entire roll is a dodge. Heaven's Palm change might be interesting. The skill was far too telegraphed for PvP and WvW to be considered otherwise, as Renewed Focus is just this strong of an elite skill in comparison. Whether we see people cook with Palm remains to be seen. Deathless Courage was very niche. I think we will see it mostly used in WvW, as for PvP you want to do a lot of damage to make up for how telegraphable and interruptible it is, though I might be wrong. The roll change only affects the first part of the skill, not the https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Quick_Retribution, which is the proper hit

Granted that I play Willbender, I've never said either DH or Core Guard are balanced. I just felt the need to point out the stuff in the clip as especially with weapon master training we know that nerfs to one spec can have consequences on others. Would you consider Longbow Willbender overpowered?

If you look at this clip at 0:12, you can see Boyce dodging Spear, and right as he turns around, the Dragonhunter has Light Aura. Correct me if I am wrong, but unless the DH had some other way to leap a light field, which I doubt given that: a) The DH builds usually run Longbow + Sword/Shield b) The DH in question was just casting LB5 c) The DH in question had the icons for both F2 and F3 at 0:18, meaning he did not use them recently The only way the DH could have a Light Aura so shortly after using spear is via the minor trait Justice is Blind in Radiance. You can also see that at 0:18 the DH has some slowly decaying 3 stacks of might. Unless I lack context and the DH is not running Virtues, then it can be concluded that it is leftover Might generated by the major trait Righteous Instincts, with the Resolution having been generated by the Virtues minor Virtues of Resolution. While running Righteous Instincts, the DH did not immobilize Boyce, and likely was not running Radiant Fire, which leaves Retribution with yet another damage mod Boyce is also decently far away from the DH, which has him prolly proc the higher damage from Pure of Sight, is crippled for Zealot's Aggression purposes, and also is Burning I do not want to say that DH is by any means not strong, but I would question the validity of "No Boons" in this case EDIT: Some calculations 1028 longbow roll, dh had 6 might stacks probably (resolution + from f1), high hp from contender, resolution, cripple (dh trait), range (Gift of sight on dh trait), sigil of opportunity, sigil of separation, relic of brawler (Would line up with f1), 250% crit dmg (boyce is burning so 240% fero from berserker amulet and dh rune goes up by 10%), boyce has 2167 armor which he shows in the clip ((1028*1.91*2480)*1.07*1.1*1.1*1.15*1.05*1.05*1.1*2.5)/2167 = 10143.72 damage, boyce takes 10144 DMG in the clip tl;dr - DH is very strong yes but if the 10k was done with no boons at all, DH would have been busted

This change is indeed a nerf if you were only using the trait for the Zealot's Flame proc The change is supposed to allow people who run/would run Torch with a different off-hand (Sword, Focus, soon Pistol) to not run into the situations where Radiant Fire procs just as one throws the fireball, effectively wasting a stack of a fireball. Whether or not the change ends up as a net nerf or buff depends on tuning

I'll admit that I am not exactly a fan of most of the side activities in Wintersday, I just really like doing the JP and the Secret Lair of the Snowmen strike. Especially given the new content release schedule, I more or less ironically wish there was a Challenge Mode version of the strike. It has some nice mechanics and given its current tuning, it wouldn't be too difficult to create a more difficult version of the strike.

I've tried out Pistol/Pistol Willbender in sPvP a bunch and it felt fun. As much as I usually would not see Condition Guard as competitively viable (i.e. MAT-viable) due to having a low amount of unique conditions, I feel it might be nerfed anyway due to the lower end playerbase similarily to Mechanist.

Try Longbow Pistol/Pistol Willbender sPvP memes

You have to remember that the trait does not give you quickness when entering domant tomes. What this would allow you to do is to benefit from entering multiple non-dormant tomes within 8 seconds and gaining the quickness for all of them.

As someone from the youngest (voted for) group, I sometimes wish I had found out about the game earlier when PvP was in a better state than currently

A look at the standings through the in-game interface shows Z Squadron winning the last MAT. Teapot was streaming the Benchmark Brawl taking place at the same time.

In general, spamming Feel my Wrath and Mantra of Potence off cooldown (Assuming you are running Unrelenting Criticism) will give you the highest quickness uptime, as due to the last mantra charge being the strongest, you are effectively getting 4 mantra charges per recharging of Potence (2.5s x 2 and 5s for the final charge) instead of sticking to a 1/whenever. While it is good for a boon dps also to deal some good damage, you should prioritize providing quickness and other necessary boons first as due to making trait/utility skill/gear changes, your potential damage will not be as high as this of a purely DPS build. And boons in general are very strong and actually end up making a lot of the damage numbers you see on the screen. This makes the QFB opener kind of busy: you ideally want to blow your potence/flame mantra charges + feel my wrath, while also continuing with your weapon and tome rotation. Remember not to skimp on them boons if possible, and also that there is in fact nothing wrong with running more than the necessary amount of Boon Duration/Concentration Gear (the gear recommended on snowcrows page uses enough concentration to have an uptime of 105% to account for mistakes/mechanics)🙂 The only case where I would think twice before using the final Potence charge is on encounters like for example

While I think the comments on those videos are largely overblown, I don't think it's entirely unwarranted to complain about "major streamer plays a non-meta playstyle and some people end up being inspired to do something similar and now there's less alacs on the LFG". Most groups didn't take a sole healer (which in case of this individual is kinda working out like a heal scourge) and boons/boon healers are not the most common build people play in PUGs especially. Going for a PUG run will usually result in an experience less optimal than a static/guild/organized/whatever run, and as long as everyone in the PUG consents to some builds, it should be okay. The Commander could always either not let the person playing sole heal druid in, or the druid making their own squad does not necessarily funnel people into their squad. Though I think it is also worth pointing out that if some people try that playstyle, they might not all do as well as the commented individual. There indeed are, but not all of them are meta healers/healers people play often. Taking an AlacDPS is a possibility but also a whole different question

Guardian among Thieves and Elementalists, has the lowest base health, clocking in at 11,645 at level 80. This, however, is arguably made up for by the vast amount of Defensive Utilities compared to say Warrior.

If not for Flash Combo's lengthy'ish cooldown in comparison to Whirling Light, I would consider using that in sPvP. Otherwise, it is kind of a tough sell to me as I really don't want to drop meditations/RF. And I would be even less inclined to replace those with Heel Crack, Roiling Light, and Heaven's Palm. Both heel and roiling are relatively short-range and not freely movable, unlike Whirling. And I would SURELY not drop RF for Palm. Not in place of a skill that resets all the 3 movement virtues and grants me temporary invulnerability.

Correction: This would make the last charge something you pretty much will use if you want permanent uptime. Currently Liberator's vow gives you 2 seconds of Quickness on a 7 cooldown, though you would usually not cast it that soon. Even if we assume that you are running Alacrity and Weighty Terms, this leaves us with: 2 seconds of quickness on using heal mantra every 7.68s (~26-52% uptime depending on your BD) 1 second of quickness on potence every 7.68s (~13-26% uptime depending on your BD, + some initial buffer) 3 seconds of quickness on FMW every 24s (~12.5-25% uptime depending on your BD) Making you need ~97% Boon Dura to do permanent quickness. I think it's safe to say that this disqualifies you from giving quickness on an offensive build. Ironically enough, this could limit heal builds even, that run toughness on anything but Giver's, as they'd have issues hitting the BD with the default monk rune set up. Consuming the last charge would bring you to instead do 7 seconds of quickness on a 20 second (realistically 23s when you account for recharging and then recasting all 3 charges) cooldown, bringing you up to ~30-60% uptime depending on bd, also assuming nothing interrupts you. If you run Radiance-traited heal signet, this leaves the quick uptime on heal skill at ~15.625 - 31.25%. Aside from Litany of Wrath (which is still longer cooldown, but barely), this pretty much locks you into using Signet. STILL, assuming that we do not consume the last Potence Charge, and that we are at 100% BD: 31.25% + 26% + 25% = 82.25% You either need to always consume the last Potence Charge or we need to make use of the following suggestion: This is a good change imo as it directly makes you sacriface damage for quickness. The 2 other changes, at least in these exact numbers would make it really difficult to do quickness BD-wise even on HFB, which is arguably less of an issue than QFB. Firebrand rune change I don't want to talk over in specifically Firebrand as other builds could also be using it. This could probably impact other class' builds as well. Overall, don't get me wrong - I do think QFB needs a nerf, but arguably it should be done in a way that does not impact HFB. The one suggestion I saw over at Snowcrows Discord is as follows: Making it so you have to take either F2/F3 GM traits for Mantras to be able to give Quickness at all (Or conversly, making taking the F1 trait completely renounce giving quickness with mantras), is the one I believe is the most elegant. You either provide quickness, or you are locked out of using Justice skills/Making using them a decently high damage loss.

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I agree that having to put more thought into gameplay is a good thing, but my main wonder about Mantra of Solace in specific, is that Firebrand (Guardian in general) already has a bunch of ways to apply Aegis in, which makes me wonder if it's worthwhile to sacriface the potential Quickness uptime for something I could already apply before. Especially as Quickness Support I am already sacrifacing DPS anyway, my personal DPS won't be as high as a full DPS Firebrand, and me throwing Quickness for personal DPS will arguably hurt the group Don't take this as me dismissing the current Mantra system as I have only started playing in the times of insta-cast Mantra. Lore, Flame (3 stacks of burning for 24s btw), and Liberation have decent pay-offs. Though since I probably don't want to drop quickness with the heal trait (Unless I go for some Stalwart Speed build), I would argue that Solace last charge could be more of a DPS Firebrand skill expression (If you're expected to DPS and you can have Aegis without affecting your Personal DPS...)

IMO: 1 - (BEING FIXED ON THE 14TH) You have to pick between dealing damage with F1/F3 and providing Alacrity, which gimps your damage a bit. 1.a - You are forced to take the Virtues traitline and some Alac traits for both Virtues and Willbender which will make gearing/using Power less feasible and it will reduce Condition by default (Because you're not taking PW if you want to Alac) 2 - You're unable to provide Alacrity if you can't be dealing damage. This is not an issue with picks like Untamed, Mechanist, Specter, Tempest who are either unaffected or only partially hampered by not being able to hit something. 3- The amount of boons provided by Alac Willbender is lower compared to other Alac DPS which forces the rest to be covered (usually) by the Defensive Support.

That's what makes me wonder about the entire change from PvE perspective (NOTE: I have not played back in the time of charged mantras) If I am supposed to rather continuously cast Mantra of Solace and Mantra of Potence to upkeep quickness, then outside of a circumstance where we can kill/finish something off really soon, doesn't the change basically read that they have 1 less charge each...? Don't get me wrong, I don't think that the game should lean into "spam random buttons" direction, but unless the final charge for especially Potence is really strong, I don't think I will find myself using it that much, given that on stream it was said that we'll have to choose between a lower constant effect and the strong last mantra, which makes me assume we will have to charge the skill and then have it go on a full cd with the last mantra cast.

I think the issue is that Catalyst in sPvP covers too many bases well. It can provide self pretty much 25 stacks of might, quickness, fury, it has a lot of superspeed due to Fresh Air allowing you to go back into Air attunement with One with Air, it can output a lot of soft cc like weakness blinded and chilled, respectable deal of sustain, blocks and invulns, ON TOP of doing big damage. I really get that they can't get balancing done perfectly (no one can and if you exclude the current "outliers", it's mostly fine actually) but it does kind of feel oppressive to be hung up with this strong of a build for a while. Also I believe that the thread has nothing to do with pve elementalist. Hammer Cata is rather difficult compared to other PvE builds and it does a good amount of damage. And at least compared to data such as in gw2wingman, where out of 620k~ logs uploaded from Raids to the website since Nov 2022 patch, Cata has a 2% presence. Having a team winning the MAT with a 5 stack of any spec/build does not exactly scream "fun to deal with" to people.

I believe Sigmund has outlined the general idea of where to start out and what to pay attention to, therefore I'll address the other part of your post Most DPS Guardian builds will end up running Litany of Wrath for PvE which (similarily to Blood Reckoning on berserker if you've played it) turns your outgoing damage to some personal healing, which has the potential overheal you a lot as long as you're doing damage. Quickness DPS or Quickness Heal Firebrand, however, will usually end up running Mantra of Solace heal as Firebrand relies on Liberator's Vow on-heal-skill Quickness application. Also Solace Mantra helps out keep resolution/protection up. Where Guardian shines in terms of survivability is in its ability to help circumvent incoming damage. You can bring in the good ol' Guardian utilities like Sanctuary, SYG, Wall of Reflection, Hallowed Ground, Hammer of Wisdom, Advance, Bow of Truth, without major opportunity costs, as well as using your Tome skills like F2-5, F2-4, F2-2, F3-3, F3-4, F3-5... While something like Reaper or Spellbreaker can be pretty selfish with its survivability, a Guardian/Firebrand can trivialize stuff for yourself and your squadmates as well.

In an ideal world I guess that locking a part of the ranks out of placements would work, but what if someone who obviously isn't a silver 3 type of player, made an alt and started ranking? This is something I guess one cannot account for in this type of change I don't think I am anyone outside of ordinary in terms of skill. I got placed at I think either gold 2 or gold 3 in placements and I pretty much went on to play a small bit and I was "doing well enough" (Make of that what you will) to be able to stay around 1480-1580 range with exclusively Guardian builds (Trapper DH, Power Willbender, sometimes Core Shout Support), by pretty much playing solo all the time. Some people that get placed in Gold do deserve to be in Gold but unless you just watched someone play 10 games live and gave their rank yourself, I think it'd be impossible to accurately and automatically distribute ranks, especially with how low pop the PvP appears to be

You can make a lot of things "work" outside of instanced content, but Dragonhunter and Willbender have it rather tough in instanced endgame content. Dragonhunter's Radiance benchmark is on par with quickness condizerk, and Dragonhunter Virtues is on par with a Power Spellbreaker. Willbender in either Radiance or Virtues has a lower bench than Dragonhunter. From data collected by gw2wingman, out of Dragonhunters/Willbenders make up 0.71% and 0.42% representation respectively out of 345422 logs sent in Raids, and 0.84%/0.87% respectively out of 200953 logs in Strikes. Power Guardian in general lost a lot of its damage as a result of removing unique buffs, and while you can clear stuff as either Dragonhunter or Willbender for sure, at least in the pug scenario, what are you really bringing to a potential team as a DH that you either couldn't or wouldn't provide as a Firebrand? Again, I am not asking for Dragonhunter or Willbender to be overbuffed as I don't really like stuff being overpowered either, but in instanced endgame Power Guard as a whole imo needs help, especially that we're at the point that Power Guard is on par with some quickness DPS, which shouldn't happen imo