Aigleborgne.2981

Lightning rod is good for some builds, and is my favorite choice most of the times. Don't touch it ?

Almost 6 months to get a patch that is almost half content of previous ones, and almost nothing regarding pve. What a joke...

The worst thing is lack of communication to this subject.It is very bad to see 6 months without any proper balance patch when 3 months was already too much. All this without any word or road map on that matter. Just a small news like "due to covid crisis, our next balance patch is delayed to december. We are planning those changes...". While it is still bad to wait that long, it is understandable and we get a schedule. Current situation is so bad that it seems System Teams has disappeared...

My bad, I had Signet of Fury when I took those numbers, it is exactly +9% Critical Hit. It was my thinking but you explained it a lot better than me. I was playing my berserker with zerk gear the other day and I was hitting several normal hits with Arc Divider. Damage was low, and I got critical hits after my rage expires, obviously too late.Be absolutely sure that all your hits will be critical negates any random bad luck that might get you killed. Plus, it also assures you that everything based on critical hit will trigger everytime. Achieving max precision with only attributes makes room for runes, sigil, and food. Those can bring important effects for solo situation that would be sorely missing with zerker gear. The moment you start to put out assassin pieces, you will be forced to pick replacements in rune/sigil/food.Maybe, it is best to find some balance here. I think all this really depends on your profession and build.

Very interesting replies ? although lots of maths to digest. Now, you sold me berserker stats (or marauder) but you miss one very important point: critical hit effects.Critical hits can trigger traits, sigil, and food. Some have ICD, but not all of them.Let's take my berserker example. Critical will give might and adrenaline. You can then take MMR to benefit from might. More adrenaline is very good by itself as you can burst more or faster.I could go on with CH sigils and food. On top of that, CH burst skills can also do more vulnerability, so more damage. In this end, berserker might do more raw damage, but less secondary effects if you stay at 50-60% CH. When those effects are might and vulnerability, I'm not sure it still wins in damage. And even if it does, you will still loose other bonuses.

I often ask myself what gear is the best when playing solo.Most people advice for berserker or marauder gear. For many professions, critical hits provide additionnal numerous bonuses or are simply necessary to success.As an example, Berserker specialization get might on critical, and furious can get you some adrenaline. Plus, you absolutely want to critical when using your burst skills. Rounded numbers:Berserker: 60%, 80% with furyMarauder: 70%, 90% with furyAssassin: 80%, 100% with fury Granted you can improve those numbers with sigils, runes, and food, but it will add strong constraints to the build.Assuming you can have perma fury, Assassin seems the best as you can have perma critical hits.Marauder is not far behind, but still, 10% counts and you would need Sigil of Accuracy at least. Leaving you at 3% less than Assassin, not bad but locking down one sigil for both weapons set.Berserker seems really low and I can't see how it can perform nicely, even with food, sigil, and rune help. And even if you could manage a good number, it would probably shut down any food/sigil/rune choice. And those are particularly important in solo situations. Berserker/Marauder higher power is meaningless if you don't make critical hits when needed. Conclusion: I think Assassin is the best if you want to freely choose sigil, rune, and food. Marauder comes second, it will definitly lock down some choices.Finally, Berserker seems to be only good for group situation when others will bring your critical to the max.

Consider yourself in a lucky position with success on the 9th times.It took me about 45mn with wiki, video, and a mesmer help. I think I was close to 20 tries.This was my most frustrating gw2 experience! (especially after raging for 2 hours in that JP, those final steps with moving wheels are extremely difficult)

As previously said, turrets should scale with stats. It make sense in every aspects.I'm currently leveling a new engineer and turrets are great at low levels because of low player power/critical. When I put all 3 turrets, I can do great damage along with control. It stops after overcharge but it is good enough.It will obviously fade with levels but it should not. ANet can't render turrets useless because of one game mode, which is the least played of all.Maybe turrets should have half health in pvp to counter their offense?

It is rarely used in every game mode.Most of the time, you will get better sustain from Arcane Armor or even Lightning Flash.It is most likely not gonna change because it is a known fact and hasn't change a tiny in 8 years.

Just did _ugh... wont let me post images:Starting the first part of the fight. Easy fight with dagger/warhorn:ImgurOn the first phase change I had to go back into the healing bubble as the elementals kept pushing me around. So I swaped to scepter focus. Run around quick, gather them and bring them to the healing bubble and burn them with signet and overload.ImgurThen the other 2 phases I just kited with scepter, sometimes braking his bar with air and water cc to come closer for overload.Imgur Impressive, I'll give it a try ?. I couldn't with power build (downed in 1 or 2 hits...).

You talk about soloing champions but then you said "dragons-tooth for extra might combos to amaze everyone around". There will be nobody around.Did you try your build on strong core champions like Fire Shaman in Iron Marches? This one does very powerful melee and ranged attacks, including eviscerate. I haven't seen anybody able to solo it, although I think it can be done. Now with ele and more specifically your build? Scepter is severly lacking defense, you will need those 2 main dagger evades to fight any strong hitting champions, right?

Yes, you are right. I don't really need Lich at this point. However, it still have its use. Sometimes, you need space when low on health / shroud. It happens when you took a very strong hit or cc lockdown.When it happens, I use my weapons first (GS 4, dagger 2...), then Lich, Lich 3 first (fear), then 5 and 4. All minions from 4 give me some room while 5 is good to heal. Casting terror first allow me to cast it a 2nd time, benefiting again from Dread and Fear of death.Globally, I think it gives me a similar burst as reaper shroud but from range. Some champions are really nasty at close range, like Fire Shaman in Iron Marches.

I picked lich, it is very effective with Fear of Death and dread. And I highly dislike necro minions anyway.

I'm experimenting Reaper with Dread and Fear of Death. Along with Signets of Suffering and many signets. I'm rather impressed by the result. I can stay in shroud for very long times (almost perma). New Dread is exceptional for spamming Infusing Terror and Terrify. I was able to solo a list of champions. As long as I have adds to kill, the more powerful I am. Every death gives LF and recharge a bit shroud 3, which become usable very quickly, giving defense and more LF.

What??! For power builds, you have to choose between shiro and jalis. For condi, it is mallyx. So if you say shiro and jalis are bad with glint, you are playing condi herald, which doesn't have great dps to begin with.

Maybe, but it is still counter-productive with its former effect and power overwhelming. This and downed lava font removal (along with fury), they just removed 2 great grand master traits for solo players.

Still the case 2 years after. ANet has planned a fix in 2022 ! :(

Not useless in pve, it can be very efficient in solo play.10% damage is meaningful but you don't really need it to succeed.Double fear duration can help in tough situations and most of all, it is great to break bars. 15% lf is another reason to pick it, it's one of the tricks to get perma shroud.

I also like flame expulsion skill, it brings more depth in gameplay but loosing might is a very bad tradeoff as it is counter productive with Power Overwhelming effect (but not only that).

I feel the same. Fire lost too much with these changes and now I prefer air to fire.But without downed lava font, it seems difficult to play fire and air for a power build as you go down very fast without any tool if (read when) you go down. What strikes me through is, as usual, we got no words from devs about nerfing 2 of our best grandmaster traits and it is going to last for months at least. I mean, in this particular case, it is so obvious those changes were uncalled for and totally misplaced. But well, devs are most likely happy with it so... I feel bad because I still like this game, but balance policies are slowly pushing me out. I had great hopes for system teams but they prove to be no better than before. You've got to look at it from a different perspective. These changes to fire were made specifically for fractal and raid groups. Damage modifiers and additional attacks are better than might and fury in a group setting, because might and fury are handled by teammates already. Power Ele benchmarks all increased by about 3.5k with those new changes to Persisting Flames. Though you guys shouldn't have trouble surviving just from the lack of fury and down-state lava font. The irony is that all of the best solo traits are now defensive (Burning Fire, Smothering Auras, Blinding Ashes), so enemies should have a hard time getting through all of the blind spam and condi cleansing. I'm not sure I agree with you.Ele will not be a might bot with this new trait, so it's subpar. If and only if ele was included in allies getting might back, it would be good.Persisting Flames is a buff mostly for raids. In fractals, there are still many unorganised groups, so it doesn't fully count. Most players are not playing a typical situation where fury, might, and revives are provided by others.A 10% damage buff (not that easy to get to start with) is not a good tradeoff for fury+downed lava font. It's marginally better in raids, but who cares much? Maybe for ellitists that only play Meta professions but it's a minority. Let's say it covers 10% of players, 90% is leftover with blinding ashes. While it is a nice defensive trait, I personally think old Persisting Flames were better defensively while providing offensive.

I feel the same. Fire lost too much with these changes and now I prefer air to fire.But without downed lava font, it seems difficult to play fire and air for a power build as you go down very fast without any tool if (read when) you go down. What strikes me through is, as usual, we got no words from devs about nerfing 2 of our best grandmaster traits and it is going to last for months at least. I mean, in this particular case, it is so obvious those changes were uncalled for and totally misplaced. But well, devs are most likely happy with it so... I feel bad because I still like this game, but balance policies are slowly pushing me out. I had great hopes for system teams but they prove to be no better than before.

Love power ele with daggers. However, in my opinion, sword/focus condi weaver is one of the strongest open world builds for any class. Check my thread on the subject in the ele folder. Plenty of videos and build links. It's a shame that the staff is weaker than the dagger and sword in open world. To me the dagger is very difficult to get used to (since you need to actively move to dodge melee mechanics) while the staff feels so easy to use and combo...I usually aggro the enemy with fireball, then use flame burst while they're running toward me, burning retreat to make them chase me even farther while taking damage, and then place Lava Font between me and them to melt them before they get in melee range. If I want to aggro a group, I start off with meteor shower. I can't comment on how sword feels since I can't currently use it (I'm at level 10 lmao).Staff in open world is anything but weak. It is indeed very strong, granted it is slow.You can keep distance with many cc and burst them down slowly but surely.My tactic is to aggro as many as possible to benefit from our 5 targets skills. Start in earth: earth 4, 2if archers, activate earth 3fire 2, 3, 5 (meteo is half secured by earth 4)arcane shield or fire 4 if necessaryair 3, 5 if needed, then 2At this point, everything should be dead, if not water 4 to slow things downwater 2 on water 3, and water 5 if need more healingI can keep doing this endlessly. I also use storm utility as filler. If I must face many ranged from many directions, staff is not good as you only have earth 3.You could pick earth shield for those fights, along with lightning rod (one of the best staff trait). Anyway, as much as I like staff, I still prefer dagger or sword. But many open world situations are easier with staff. Other weapons heavily punish any mistake because of proximity, unless you play condi tank. Not even mention high vulnerability to cc foes.

You are right, but in the meantime, signet of air only provides you 25% runspeed which is useless if you can maintain swiftness. You can keep GoEP as a stunbreak, it will help you in your counter attack / burst phase. Plus, you can also precast it before fight.Signet of Air is better defense with blind and 5s shorter recharge.

Retaliation doesn't work in pve because mobs attack every 3 seconds or more, so it would take ages to kill them.

I wouldn't run this build anywhere.Your power is decent but you have 0 precision and no offensive traitline (zeal or radiance).If you want to stick with those, I would at least switch power to condi. But even then, I would still pick radiance or zeal for more burning. For the record, I have tried something like this 8 years ago and it was really frustrating to take 30s to kill a simple mob.And it doesn't necessarily make you very tanky. When you will fight many mobs, they might cc, condi, and damage you. But since you don't kill fast enough, they will do this for a long time and you might eventually go down.