Vulf.3098

You forgot Firebrand on the healer list, it can outheal a druid. Also, quickness is helping thieves like alacrity helps weavers. If you have two thieves as dps, they need no alacrity, only quickness and might. Where's the frost spirit and glyph of empowerment in Firebrand though?, that's a (non-100% uptime) 20% power damage boost Glyph of empowerment has such a huge inconsistent uptime in raids that people don't even run it anymore on a lot of fights. There are way better utility options.As for using it in fractals it depends on the group comp and skill tbh. If my group was struggling it would not be taken.

The idea of LFR was fine in WoW but the implementation was not. The current Normal raid mode should have been what LFR was not the "Afk for 15 minutes and get free items" mode it is now.

Scourge can also give perma 25 stacks of might with some concentration. You used to be able to do it without concentration but abrasive grit is bugged since last patch making it impossible now.

I am not saying that but when you use a dungeon that is notorious for being poorly designed and buggy as an example what did you expect to hear? My point is that it wasn't the ONLY dungeon they soloed ... Well dungeons in general are a poor metric to use. I mean there is a reason Anet abandoned that spaghetti mess of content. No, it wasn't a poor metric to use to assess meta builds because it was the only content in the game at the time where meta builds were relevant. Raid/Fractal elitism is the SAME atttitudes that drove Dungeon elitism; optimized play. Well, not just optimized play, but the idea that optimized play is the only acceptable way of play that should be tolerated in the game. That's such crap ... but ... if there are people that wish to believe AND play with other people that believe the same thing, they should have the same rights to play how they want as anyone else. The big problem back then was that there wasn't any way to filter people, so the abuse of players with dislike ideas on how to play was significant. This exist in every game (some in smaller scales of course) and honestly there is very little you can do about it.

I am not saying that but when you use a dungeon that is notorious for being poorly designed and buggy as an example what did you expect to hear? My point is that it wasn't the ONLY dungeon they soloed ... Well dungeons in general are a poor metric to use. I mean there is a reason Anet abandoned that spaghetti mess of content.

I am not saying that but when you use a dungeon that is notorious for being poorly designed and buggy as an example what did you expect to hear?

Well done :)Which emphasizes the on-topic point: knowing the mechanics is more important than the team comp or anyone's build. There might be elitist LFGs, but people can ignore them and join/start groups that care more about other things. Either way of running the content is fine; the problems only start when someone insists on imposing their way on others. I'm reminded by an argument by metapushers about 4 years ago ... where some of them soloed Arah Dungeon with a Bow bear in some defensive gear. Somehow, they were all proud of 'proving' how important meta was by this little demonstration. A pretty self-gratifying smirk come over my face; Oh yes, way to demonstrate the necessity of meta ... by soloing the hardest content (at the time) with the worst possible build :expressionless: Seems we are seeing a little of this with some posters in this thread; indeed what you say is correct, mechanics trumps build, always. The metapushers already proved that (at their own expense, which only made the point sweeter) Elitism will not go away; it's how players handle it and how they interact with elitist players that will help avoid it. I'm all for these players; after all, they are just playing how they want, just like anyone else should be. Most of the bosses in Arah were buggy as hell back then (Belka, Lupi, and Brie still are) to where you could exploit ability stacking into specific spots or instantly kill them with reflects. And? That STILL doesn't change the fact that Metapushers killed their own arguments for soloing instanced team content with non-meta builds. You are under the impression that Arah was the only dungeon they could solo?Soloing dungeon content with an exploit kinda loses its purpose if you are trying to make a point.

Support Renegade brings 25 might, superior healing, perma protection, alacrity and deals double druids dps but people still bring druid over it in fractals because they blindly follow what works best in raids. Just trying to get back on OP's topic. Still haven't seen any good video run/proof that a comp with Renegade is so much superior than with a druid. Not every pug/group is blindly following the meta. I'm in a casual raid guild with 2-4 people being a little bit better and there is much discussion and theorycrafting going on. I've seen the same in other guilds - the druid is still the way to go and there's no sign of changing atm. because reasons. Since I'm so much faster with the current fractal meta there is zero reason for me to swap to another comp and the same counts for the OP. He can avoid rigid meta groups as being said many times in this thread now. I respect his lfgs/attitudes/playstyle so he has to respect mine.And I disagree, in meta groups it's more likely to get better players than in the standard "T4" group and that is increased even more if we are playing challenges motes.The reason the Firebrand and Renegade sub group combo is not run in raids often is because it is a high risk high reward playstyle that pugs will very easily mess up despite the comp bringing in more heals and dps. People will always go for the easiest route unless the gap is big enough to push people into learning it properly. A recent 5man Sabetha kill running that comp proves thisYT video - Kill log - https://dps.report/IyNv-20180108-184938_sabReddit post - https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/7pgecv/ln_restricted_5_man_sabetha_kill_no_druid_or/As you can see in the log that this comp brings a pretty noticeable amount more dps and boon uptime compared to the standard druid/chrono sub group. Of course the other sub group will still have to have a chrono tank for other bosses and their mechanics.

The spec gets a lot of negative stigma from something maybe people are just mad about how good it is in pvp and wvw lol. I play necro a lot in t4's 99 and 100cms and people often are surprised with certain things this spec can do. The entire uncategorized fractal can be cheesed with flesh wurm and epidemic while chaos fractal almost always results in me soloing the last 40% on the last boss because pugs mess that fight up often. True, a friend of mine usually plays Necro in Fractals, and he's usually close or the top dps on bosses, but then again he does play a meta build.Scourge is really fun on fractals, and i don't have any problem with scourge, or any class for that matter. I have problems with individual bad players.I mean DD and Weaver are really good DPSers, but i usually cringe when i see one join the party, because 1 in 3 of those, healer or no, they'll be dead 70% of the time.There's bad players in all classes, and there's kittenholes in every community.Just play the game you want to play and let others do the same. I mean poor play is going to affect the run no matter what the comp is, but when I see post complaining about actual wipes it is not that 1 persons entire fault the group wiped when you can very easily adapt during the fight and kill the boss with the healer dead or not healing. It may take longer to kill but if a wipe occures it was a combination of things. I'm not denying that. But why should the group adapt to the one individual that didn't prepare, instead of expecting that individual to prepare, and conform with the group?In other words, why should 4 people change their playstyle on account of the one person that didn't?> @Vulf.3098 said: Support Renegade brings 25 might, superior healing, perma protection, alacrity and deals double druids dps but people still bring druid over it in fractals because they blindly follow what works best in raids. Just trying to get back on OP's topic. I'm pretty sure that even using Ventari Druid still out-heals Renegade... Also Spirits and Spotter!Trust me, if Renegade was all that it would be the best for raids as well. I haven't tried such a build, but i might, just to see what comes out of it ^_^So you would rather wipe mid pull instead of doing mechanics because the healer isn't performing? With pugs you are not going to get good players all the time. Druid is not even close to the best healer in the game in terms of hps output. Ele and Herald or Renegade are far superior in that regard with firebrand not far behind those 2 but a little inconsistent. The reason druid is brought in raids is for their unique buffs with healing coming secondary.

Support Renegade brings 25 might, superior healing, perma protection, alacrity and deals double druids dps but people still bring druid over it in fractals because they blindly follow what works best in raids. Just trying to get back on OP's topic.

If you don't want to have a discussion then why are you still posting in the thread about the subject?

You keep either misreading or not reading my posts. Just stop replying to them if you are not willing to do that. I clearly wrote that we adjusted and finished the run, it's here in this thread, you just have to read. Same with the difference between "faster and more efficient" and "fastest and most efficient". After the wipe. But i guess it is easier to blame people instead on trivial content. Sure, we know the content because we do this every day for a long time. We know how we perform on it because we have the experience necessary to make that kind of judgement. This experience also allows us to make a pretty good guess of what/who the issue is. I'm playing a glass cannon and I know exactly how good a healer is when I play. But I have to play with that healer first because unlike the content, I know little about him. When you have a healer in the group, you give him the benefit of doubt and trait for full damage. Then, when people start dying, you make small adjustments that decreases your dps but gives the healer an easier time. For me, that means traiting Invigorating Precision. Then you keep playing and see what happens, often that one change is enough. When people still keep getting downed, you make another change, maybe eat something that heals when you hit critically. Then you probe again, and if the healer still cannot keep you alive, you make another change, I changed some gear so I have 2k more health (at the cost of even more dps). We thought it would be toxic to just kick, so we wanted to at least finish that fractal. I think you don't really understand how group compositions work. Of course you wipe on trivial content if one gear in the machine is broken. But if all gears work fine, you outperform the group that consists of people who gear and trait in a way that would allow them to solo the content. I gave the example with the relay race, but you probably haven't read that either. Have a good dayAt that point it boils down to you not being as good at the game as you think you are. Just like you I have been doing this content for years but never really got to the point of a wipe (maybe a death or a few downs) because 1 player. It was because 2, 3 or the whole group was also messing things up that caused a full wipe. Like I said i guess it is easier to just blame others.

The spec gets a lot of negative stigma from something maybe people are just mad about how good it is in pvp and wvw lol. I play necro a lot in t4's 99 and 100cms and people often are surprised with certain things this spec can do. The entire uncategorized fractal can be cheesed with flesh wurm and epidemic while chaos fractal almost always results in me soloing the last 40% on the last boss because pugs mess that fight up often. True, a friend of mine usually plays Necro in Fractals, and he's usually close or the top dps on bosses, but then again he does play a meta build.Scourge is really fun on fractals, and i don't have any problem with scourge, or any class for that matter. I have problems with individual bad players.I mean DD and Weaver are really good DPSers, but i usually cringe when i see one join the party, because 1 in 3 of those, healer or no, they'll be dead 70% of the time.There's bad players in all classes, and there's kittenholes in every community.Just play the game you want to play and let others do the same.I mean poor play is going to affect the run no matter what the comp is, but when I see post complaining about actual wipes it is not that 1 persons entire fault the group wiped when you can very easily adapt during the fight and kill the boss with the healer dead or not healing. It may take longer to kill but if a wipe occures it was a combination of things.

You keep either misreading or not reading my posts. Just stop replying to them if you are not willing to do that. I clearly wrote that we adjusted and finished the run, it's here in this thread, you just have to read. Same with the difference between "faster and more efficient" and "fastest and most efficient". After the wipe. But i guess it is easier to blame people instead on trivial content.

The spec gets a lot of negative stigma from something maybe people are just mad about how good it is in pvp and wvw lol. I play necro a lot in t4's 99 and 100cms and people often are surprised with certain things this spec can do. The entire uncategorized fractal can be cheesed with flesh wurm and epidemic while chaos fractal almost always results in me soloing the last 40% on the last boss because pugs mess that fight up often.

Understand the difference between "can not" and "don't want to". Could we handle Old Tom's mechanics? Of course we could, but we don't want to and so we outheal the damage. Then do not say it is the fastest and most efficient way then. When what it really is the safest less room for error way. That is literally the only reason the healer is there at that point. The fastest, most efficient and safest way is doing it with a standard meta comp. You break its defiance bar quickly and burn it down very fast due to all the damage buffs and modifiers you get. Any damage you take is outhealed by your druid who is spamming heals anyway to keep your might up. Exactly, that's why I never said what Vulf thinks I said. I clearly wrote "We asked for a healer so we could do the content faster and more efficient." Not "in the fastest and most efficient way".You are complaining about a healer that you know is under performing but yet you can't adapt to the situation in t4's where hardly any damage is going out. You can blame that 1 player all you want but it is also most likely the rest of the group playing poorly as well. The two examples you gave will be enough time and tells before you get to the boss to where you either should have kicked the healer or did mechanics but instead you blame the 1 person for the wipe that made your poor play stick out. I never said you shouldn't run w/e comp you want but blaming other people for wipes when you aren't even playing perfectly yourself is not okay.

Understand the difference between "can not" and "don't want to". Could we handle Old Tom's mechanics? Of course we could, but we don't want to and so we outheal the damage. Then do not say it is the fastest and most efficient way then. When what it really is the safest less room for error way. That is literally the only reason the healer is there at that point.

We asked for a healer so we could do the content faster and more efficient. When it turned out our healer was not healing, we didn't sit there acting up, we changed our builds and finished the run. But yes, that one person caused wipes because without that guy we would never have traited full dps in the first place. It is better to run 1 chrono and 4 dps for the fastest runs but adaptability is good when your group can not handle mechanics.

Then try to do Volcanic or Mai Trin with 4 dps and one healer who doesn't heal. Good luck. You say that like it is not possible to do. Both those fractals can easily be 3 manned. Then you better enter with 5 dps and without healer, at least people then know they have to trait accordingly. When I have a healer in the group, I need to trust him/her and trait for full dps. Yesterday we got a "healer" druid and the dps players quickly realized we either kick or change our builds. I ended up playing Volcanic with self-healing and extra health pool. Should have kicked and get a real healer. I never said you cannot do these fractals without healer, I said that a group can wipe if the healer runs an alternate build and doesn't do his job. Then you have to switch your builds and playstyle and basically 4-man it. That's what we did yesterday, we were 5 players but 4-manned Volcanic. @Faaris.8013 said: What is that supposed to tell us? People could do a 4 x 400 meters relay race alone, sure. But the group of 4 decent runners doing the same distance will be done a full minute earlier than the solo guy, and is ready to do another run right away, while the solo guy needs a break. Being a soloable boss doesn't mean anything for a group compilation because we don't plan to spend 20 minutes on Amala alone, we want to be done in 3 minutes. Of course everybody in the group could use your trailblazer build and grind Amala down, same with Subject 6. We kill that kitten in less than a minute or wipe and try again. It's faster and less stressful than grinding him down. Only reason to walk that path might be for the "Leaves no Hero behind" but even then it's probably smarter to just restart when someone dies.You missed the entire point of my post. The only reason your group is running a healer is so you can ignore mechanics and power your way through the boss with no effort. There is nothing wrong with this but don't sit there and act like it is that 1 person causing your group wipes when none of the t4's even in full glass builds specifically require a dedicated healer.

Well done :)Which emphasizes the on-topic point: knowing the mechanics is more important than the team comp or anyone's build. There might be elitist LFGs, but people can ignore them and join/start groups that care more about other things. Either way of running the content is fine; the problems only start when someone insists on imposing their way on others. I'm reminded by an argument by metapushers about 4 years ago ... where some of them soloed Arah Dungeon with a Bow bear in some defensive gear. Somehow, they were all proud of 'proving' how important meta was by this little demonstration. A pretty self-gratifying smirk come over my face; Oh yes, way to demonstrate the necessity of meta ... by soloing the hardest content (at the time) with the worst possible build :expressionless: Seems we are seeing a little of this with some posters in this thread; indeed what you say is correct, mechanics trumps build, always. The metapushers already proved that (at their own expense, which only made the point sweeter) Elitism will not go away; it's how players handle it and how they interact with elitist players that will help avoid it. I'm all for these players; after all, they are just playing how they want, just like anyone else should be. Most of the bosses in Arah were buggy as hell back then (Belka, Lupi, and Brie still are) to where you could exploit ability stacking into specific spots or instantly kill them with reflects.

That has less to do with the minstrel Thief in your group and more to do with people not knowing anything about their class or the fractal specific mechanics which was the entire point of my post. I have run t4's with so many unoptimal builds across all specs in the game and have yet to wipe purely because dps was "too low". A lot of times you don't understand that you're wiping because pvp is too low... Because there's nothing saying oh, time's up.But there's stuff like cumulative damage from bosses, or add spawns, etc that will make your run harder the longer you're there. For example, the longer you take to phase the boss on Twilight Oasis, the longer you'll have to deal with the damage mechanics in there, and the easier it is for someone to mess up, and, especially with vindicators errors will compound and kill everyone. But yeah, i said it before the bigger problem is that it will make it take longer. And honestly, if a guy thinks it's a good idea to take a minstrel's Thief... Well then he's probably the same guy that doesn't really know his class, and will - like you said yourself - mess everything up.Because you know what happens if you really know your class? And want to make the most out of it's strengths? You'll end up with a build that's either the meta build, or something really close.Sure you might think Assassin's or Soldier's instead of berzerker's, but overall you'll most likely end up with the same build. And yeah, a Soldier's DragonHunter won't do as much damage as a Berzerker's. But it probably will do enough to not be a hinderance, if he knows his class.Mechanics before Dps. Minstrel Thief was an example that one bad build is not going to suddenly make t4's impossible so lets not pretend it does. Not saying you should or shouldn't run meta because that is your own decision. As for Twilight Oasis I have solo'd it a couple times already first with Trailblazer Necro with Aristocracy Runes and again with Vipers + Aristocracy.

That has less to do with the minstrel Thief in your group and more to do with people not knowing anything about their class or the fractal specific mechanics which was the entire point of my post. I have run t4's with so many unoptimal builds across all specs in the game and have yet to wipe purely because dps was "too low". You can cheese that entire fight with zero with a single necro and flesh wurm. 5 ele's were meta on molten boss for a long time until it got mega nerfed about a year ago.

Then try to do Volcanic or Mai Trin with 4 dps and one healer who doesn't heal. Good luck. You say that like it is not possible to do. Both those fractals can easily be 3 manned.

If t4 groups are wiping it is not due to that one person running an alternate build. Just saying.

Pugs want a druid because it removes errors from the group in the off chance of a wipe.If we are talking time efficiency in clears the best comp is chrono and 4 dps. I get the chrono and druid in pugs but BS has not been meta in pugs since the nerf. It is actually a dps loss to run that over an Ele, Holo or DH in that slot.