sigmundf.7523

Reaper, Renegade, and Mesmer. These 3 are SSS-Tier solo open world. And don't recommend guardian. Its borderline bad, with willbender being an exception as its better than the other 2 guardian e-spec but still worse than those 3 i mention above. Also, go to Lord Hizen youtube channel. He is someone that do solo open-world challenging PvE contents, like soloing legendary / bounties.

Sure, can add even more difficulty and challenge to T5, but the reward at least to be in this kind of level / run ; 50 fractal relics, 10 pristine fractal relic, 10 fractal keys and boxes, raw 2 gold, 10 stabilizing matrix and 2 integrated fractal matrix, and 1 +9 agony ressitance. High chance like 50-70% to drop ascended boxes and +5 stat infusion. Otherwise, with the current gear progression, most players wont do T5 seriously / adding them to their repeatable contents to do like T4 + CM.

Has always been having fun using virt in instanced contents since last year. Very easy rotation, amazing sustained dps and survivability in bosses encounter, having on-demand / built-in boonstrip is great for T4 CM, have an array of amazing utility kits for certain instanced PVE encounters such as Moa Signet / Feedback's reflect / Mass Invis / Portals. Overall, one of the best dps profession that you could play if your focus is instanced pve contents.

Firebrand skill's range list ; Empower = 600 radius Mantra of Potence = 180 radius, 450 range Advance / Stand Your Ground / Feel My Wrath = 600 Radius Battle Presence / Absolute Resolve = 600 Radius Tome 2 Firebrand skills = ranging from 240 to 600 radius, and 600 range on Desert Blossom / 900 Range on Azure Sun Tome 3 Firebrand skills = Unrboken Lines 600 radius , Stalwart Stand 360 radius Hallowed Ground / Sanctuary = 900 range Bow of Truth = 1200 range And the list goes on with other supports, soooooo what was it being "optimal support" going melee again ? 1) For sure, you don't do that much instanced content to still arguing abut range vs melee. EVERY SINGLE profession, when doing their jobs / role, always go to melee range (except when doing mechanics). This topic about being range or melee, is more about how the game designed and encounter designed and less about the profession itself. 2) Yes, mechanist is being punished by having this mechanical genius mostly because the AI behavior is as good as toddler's dinosaur toy. And also when talking about "punishment", there should be an adequate reward on par with the level of punishment. So what is the reward ? Mediocre dps by having to babysitting this dumb green junk all the time throughout encounter ? For sure, you never play a mechanist. Or maybe you never try to play mechanist dps properly, just sitting there, auto cast mech skill, pressing 1 or 2 button, and yay, everything is fine. Go play mechanist properly, try to hit at least 33k benchmark with power rifle, or 34k with p/p condi, or try playing heal alac mech properly.

I did but shortly ditched it as I don't have static T4 + CM since stacking bladesworn is really good and thats only effective with static. Regarding the instabilities that you mention, here is my take, feel free to disagree as we can agree to disagree, and feel free to see my view as elitism. 1) Vengeance. This mistlock is irrelevant, like really irrelevant. Why ? Because the objective of fractal is to kill the boss, not dealing with mobs. And fractal that actually in higher end and its CM mode, like T4 Nightmare, SO, Sunqua, won't have adds to deal with that stacking on top of the last boss. You can argue Vengeance is annoying with Viirasta, it is true to some degree if your party have low burst dps and keep cleaving the adds near her. Anything beside those T4 fractals and their CM mode, are all cakewalk. Even if there is T4 Siren Reef daily with Vengeance instab, the last boss are still easy af. You focus the boss and ignore "adds", even if the "adds" cleaved and give the boss boons, its not a wipe. 2) Social awkwardness is annoying only in thaumanova last boss. If your party dpser playing a profession that able to bench 33k+ in golem and able to pull that bench, this mistlock isn't that much a hassle, maybe increasing the kill time few seconds in Thaumanova last boss T4. 3) Toxic trail only annoying if you play reaper. A brief loss of focus going to cost your shroud, but even then it can be easily deal with and become irrelevant. Bosses died quickly / phased quickly, with proper party that is. TL:DR, if you are skilled player, none of instabilities are giving substantial challenge / difficulty to the point that you can ignore them / dealing with them without focusing on them. No Pain No Gain is the only instabilities that going to alter your run, but even then, its only either switching 1 util to boonstrip, or taking 1 player that play profession that able to.

No matter how much people complaining on how bad mechanist is right now, nothing will change. Because whenever it feels good, there will be angry mobs that want mechanist to be butchered. The funny thing about mechanist dps is, even when you are a skilled player that have "good positioning" (which is stacking, either near boss or other players for boonfest) and doing proper rotation, your dps isn't changing that much compared to LI one. People will be surprised when I say an "optimized" power dps rifle mechanist have high APM, but its true. I was a holo main before EoD, and when I have EoD, I was maining power dps rifle mechanist before all these nerfs and 2 shots AA rifle, and shortly after. I enjoy of having an option of LI version and high APM proper dps version. Before all these nerfs, the high APM version was actually rewards you with noticeably higher dps. Not to mention, the high APM version is latency friendly since I play with 230 MS, and I couldn't properly dps with holosmith with 230ms since I can't squeeze that last corona burst before exiting photon forge. If confused about "high APM" "proper dps" version of power rifle mechanist, it is this : 1) You always stack with other players, dps-ing at pointblank range. You don't ever ever do dps rotation at range, especially using blunderbuss. 2) You don't ever ever autocast mech skill, you activate them manually. You actually losing dps by having mech on autocast. 3) You take grenade kits, using grenade 2-4-5 in your rotation, and always using grenade 2 after blunderbluss, which are frequent. 4) You use all your rifle skills to dps, period. Yes, including rifle 3-4 that was "meant" for CC. You only save rifle 4 for CC for very fast breakbar damage /cc AND if failing destroying that breakbar / CC-ing the enemies resulting your party failing accomplish certain goals (like HT CM balls for title achievement) or wiping your party, like those crabs in HT CM at balls phase. By not using all your rifle skills, your dps sucks and not optimized. They shouldn't nerf mechanist, instead they should change on how mechanist deliver its damage. Make LI version to do inferior dps, and proper or skilled player to be able to achieve high dps. Here is an idea on how to achieve those ; 1) Add a resource bar for mech, can be like cata or warrior or revenant or even thief initiative, or even friggin mesmer "clone" counter . Mech skill consume that resource bar, the higher / more the resource consumed, the higher damage the mech's skill do. 2) Make mechanist weapon skills / certain damaging kits to charge the resource bar. Melee weapons and non-automated kits (turret) give alot more charges than range weapon / ranged kits and automated kits. However, if using ranged weapon / kits at melee range, it gives more resources than it usually does when used at range but not at the same rate with melee weapon / kits. Skilled player that do rotation properly will be actually rewarded, while there will be still an LI version that does damage but inferior.

I mean, the only instability that matters is No Pain No Gain. You can just ignore the rest, and brute force fractal with dps, given that you and your group is skilled.

Surprisingly, lizzard does and its better in DF, compared to previous expac shenanigans BS. Even though its lizzard, the parameter of "better" isn't tremendous, but at least they do listen PTR feedbacks and actively monitor classes performance in PVE (atleast) throughout Dragonflight. FOTM BS is something that WoW players live with, albeit most of them condemn it (including me). But as I experienced SL and DF, the FOTM BS in DF isn't that bad compared to previous expac, unless like you do super high-end contents like +23 mythic keys or mythic raiding. Can't say about players count but I 100% agree about the UI . The only redeemable thing about the UI is that you can resize and reposition it, which most players already did with addon, soooooo yea almost useless changes. I know that comparing lizzard and anet products (WoW and GW2) is like comparing orange to apple. There are different variables that factors into balance, but having a Public Test Server like WoW did, is going to improve GW2 balance alot. Economically, it could cost ANET's resource in maintaining Public Test Server, but they also have a choice to only activating it like whenever the Devs try to propose changes that will tremendously affecting a certain profession / e-spec (like scourge right now). Players can test the changes and give accurate feedback about the changes, then throughout the testing duration (1 or 2 weeks before the changes go live), devs can adjust numbers accordingly. I don't see how having this kind of Public Test Server whenever there will be major changes in profession / e-spec, outside major expansion release (like we had when EoD about to be released or the upcoming SoO) is going to negatively impact the game or ANET resources. However, I do believe that by not having Public Test Server for a huge changes like we have right now, is affecting the game negatively and could potentially economically, judging by how much people give negative feedback about the recent balance patch and even the followup CmC post is received negatively by the community. However, when majority of people were and still are against (my impression of this balance patch) the changes in this balance patch without a Public Test Server but there were no changes at all like immediately, I doubt having one will change anything. If Devs won't listen at all, even having an accurate players feedback from Public Test Server will only lose them money.

Meanwhile, Dragonflight will have another content update in early next month, while also the devs actively monitoring classes throughout the patch and make an actual balance / changes that tremendously help all classes. I don't know boss, maybe try to replicate on what the others popular MMO (WoW) devs do ? Have a public test server, let players test all changes the devs proposed and giving feedback from their (players) perspective ? Maybe create a system that record and store data regarding profession and e-spec performance in PVE / PVP / WvW ? So then you will have an actual database as basis to make changes / adjustment, and make those database publicly accessible to a certain extent, so players will understand better on why you change A B C, instead of just taking cmc and roy words on facevalue. I mean, is it that hard to just look into what your competitor doing in improving their product, and then you try to imitate what they do, adjust it according to your product needs ? Instead of doing this game of blind-dart profession changes. Sometimes you nail it, but most of the times you hit other people forehead. Maybe the answer is, it is that hard. Most likely need more income to pay the employee to do exceptional thing in releasing amazing content, and do an actual balancing work. But boss, by keep doing things like this, you most likely won't creating any extra income that can be budgeted into another project, and you are going to stuck in a loop, until either your employee taking matter into their own hand to actually make the game better so sales going up, or watching sales stagnant and god-forbid having sales trickle down slowly to the point that you won't profiting in sustaining the game anymore.

No, tiered difficulty will not benefit anyone, not the player nor ANET. If there is LFR WoW equivalent difficulty in GW2, these players that join it will not understand on how important is your optimal gear / build setup for your chosen role, party composition, and how to play your profession properly based on your chosen role. On top of that, the in-game reward from these "tiered" strikes / raids will have to be cut significantly. So not only it won't have substantial in-game reward, players will most likely to not learn anything from joining one. You will be joining a squad with no perm boon uptime, poor CC, and 5k dps. If you want to join end-game instanced content, you have to be at least know how to play your profession / role and be informed of the current effective playstyle such as party composition and builds. Not knowing first-hand on how the encounter goes is normal and acceptable, and there is guide / explanation in either youtube or wiki that will give you general idea on what the boss do, or how the encounter goes. Don't equate casuals = deadweight. A casual player can be a player that is know how to play and well-informed but just play casually. And try-hards are not always toxic gate keepers, they are mostly deadweight gate keepers. I bet your bottom that you are glad that GW2 gearing progression system is "horizontal", just imagine if raids, strikes, T4 Fractal have scaling gear rewards.

What I feel is that, ArenaNet as a company, is focusing its revenue from GW2 through a small circle / niche community and withdrawing itself from major competition in MMO market. No matter what big MMO out there that releasing big content, or Publisher / Devs releasing new MMO, there will be almost no motivation for ANET to bring GW2 to the competition. As a product that being sold to consumers, just look at the recent WoW expansion and new big patch and compare it what ANET did to GW2, almost nothing being done to GW2 to at least have itself present a sense of competing in MMO market. There have to be strong enough internal drive force from the company, either the upper echelon of ANET or NCSOFT, to make a substantial change in GW2, for the better or worse.

Since you are new, don't run any kits. Swap your kit with utility, either throw mine / battering ram / force signet for breakbar damage. To improve your dps, you need experience, so I suggest to either practice rotation in golem, and get into actual battle to familiarize yourself with encounter and Condi mech playstyle. Pistol/Pistol + full signet on utility + J-Drive is a solid choice for entry point. After you familiar with condi mech playstyle, you can swap force signet with grenade / bombkit. Then after you are experienced enough with condi mech playstyle and the encounter, swap superconducting signet with another kit and use Jade Dynamo. You will be running Pistol / Pistol and 2 kits, and the rotation is abit hectic and confusing at first, but not impossible. Condi mech has very poor breakbar damage, when you run kits setup, your breakbar is only pistol 3 / mace 3 / mech f3. If you run only 1 kit + superconduting signet + J-drive, you have a better breakbar damage from sky circus, but it still low for overall breakbar damage especially when you run pistol / pistol. Rocket punch does 100 breakbar damage, jade mortar is 100, sky circus is 232, and mace 3 is 100. Even with that, you still have poor breakbar damage because you don't save your mech F3, mace 3, or pistol 3, to only cc. You use them in your dps rotation. Your best choice is to familiar yourself with the encounter, since you will know the timing of CC phase and those skill CD.

Infusion surely does affect dps but not that high. Latency as well, because slower skill activation / weapon swap, even if its at 0,25-0,3 second slower, it accumulates overtime and resulting in lower dps, and potentially dropping berserk mode. I don't know if its unachieveable with 250-300 ping even with fully optimized gear, but from information that I tried gathered, one of the gimmick in zerk rotation is to weapon stow when using f1 greatsword. I didn't do that and don't know how to do it properly. Maybe someone with similar ping, optimized gear, and know how to weapon stow at f1 greatsword properly able to achieve such numbers. Also, the benchmark dps video fully retain berserk mode, while I was dropping it once, so most likely thats the cause for me to only deal 33k.

If you want to just have fun, playing whatever you find is fun, then just go with whatever profession you enjoy and at least, have both condi and power dps setup. If you want to be effective and efficient, always go with the best build and suitable role on the profession you are playing. Lets say you pick warrior, so you going to be most likely dps. All 3 e-spec are viable, but some of them will perform comfortably than the rest in some encounters. I mostly run CM fractal, although not the doing it on speed-runners / high level play, these are my opinion of on which professions that are solid and pretty much easy to pick. Support roles : 1) Heal Fire Brand. Everyone should have know its strength, might + fury + quick + stab + aegis + protection + heals, and other insane utility such as projectile block / reflects, break bar, etc. 2) Alac Specter. Boonstrip + posion sharing + break bar. 3) Alac Rev . Boonstrip + breakbar + another stab source 4) Heal Alac Mech. Boonstrip + breakbar + stab + aegis You can also put chrono here, but I don't have much experience running with chrono nor have any knowledge on what it does beside on what I heard that it can provide alac / quickness DPS roles : 1) Virtuoso. Have very solid condi and power build. Can go full range, and easy to learn / play. 2) Necromancer. Have solid condi dps e-spec with scourge and harb, and with recent buff to Reaper, its power dps also become really good. 3) Engineer. Also have solid condi dps and can go full range with P/P Mechanist. Its power dps also works well on 3 of its e-spec. 4) Bladesworn. Have very high burst power dps, but demanding experience of encounters in order to fully utilize its dps with dragon trigger. Berserker also the same, although demand less experience of encounters, maintaining berserk mode up-time wouldn't be that hard but can be annoying when you have to do encounter mechanic or the boss phased. Spellbreaker is the easiest one, a power dps, and also have good burst + sustained dps. 5) Power Soul Beast. It very easy to pick and learn, but requires time to master it, particularly on positioning since you have to flank your enemy to reach SB full potential. Despite not all professions are listed, that doesn't mean they are not viable. I mentioned them since they are the professions that I mostly grouped with and have smooth run.

Kinda punishing but not that much. I only did 33k in few tries with 250ms and unoptimal gear setup, and also dropping berserk mode once. And yea, its not fun of dropping berserk mode because either missing timing by tiny amount, or because of latency, since I am about 220ms slower. The idea of maintaining berserk mode works well on golem, but no really on real encounter. Boss phase + doing mechanic = most likely to drop berserk mode. I'd rather have berserk mode as a powerful CD to use once every, like maybe 30 seconds, for maybe 10 seconds and its empowering every weapon skills that berserker can use. With that, which utilities skills that zerk take, and when to use it become more flexible. I prefer using headbutt as opener / hard CC when needed, instead of spamming in off CD for extending berserk mode. But the current berserker should do dps just fine and able to compete with other dps spec in actual battle.