Buran.3796

I've tried the hammer in a beta character with marauder weapons + armor and dragon trinkets (one marauder to cap the crit chance), with force sigils and a pure dps PvE Vindi build (100% cc and ~230% cd). Tried the damage in the starting area (the shore near the waypoint) in Siren's landing. The attacks hit high and albeit not as high as my Deadeye with F1+kneeling + rifle #3 the autos pushed near 4k against the zombies. So maybe not as fast, but you can delete trash mobs in a couple of autos at no energy costor a single higher cooldown skill (#3, #5). So in PvE has some farming usage. Now what intrigues me is the WvW: obviously you need a power build since the hammer wastes any stat related to conditions, and that means no celestial, so you can get good HP with around 22k in marauder + dragon and still cap crit chance and have like 220% crit damage with ~2450 to ~2650 power in WvW depending on rune (Dragonhuner or Scholar; you can also run Surge for mobility at the cost of lower crit chance and crit damade but still cap cc swaping some infusions from power to precission). But to reach high damage numbers you need to run Invocation for Roiling Mist and Devastation for the damage traits. That will mean no no Salvation for the defensive buffs and cleanses unless you take the PvP approach: since you can't max crit chance there some players run vision sigils for granted crits on swap (but only for 3 attacks). So that leaves me with some questions which I would to ask to some hammer enjoyers, as Shao, Azaroth or even Justine: * Which mele weapon/s to run? I'm slanted towards greatsword due the mix of mobility, block and high burst... * Which legends? For core Shiro + Jalis seems the natural choices; Herald opens Glint and Vindi the alliance. * ...And that brings me to the final question: to the specs worth to be taken? I don't see much value in Renegade with hammer since its damage is hybrid in nature and is reflected in the traits, and alacrity has low impact and small duration in WvW (at least at roaming). Herald increases base HP (probably uneeded) and Glint would provide mobility, easy access to fury and good cc, but I'm not sure if will be enough even against the core (maybe stronger vs power builds, but core would have free car with either Salvation or Retribution). Of course I maybe wrong and Devastation or Invocation aren't needed... Finally, Vindicator has some tradeoff, but it can absolutely deal vs condition based builds, specially paried with Salvation. I don't think that power hammer Rev would be as powerful at WvW roaming as cele Vindicator or even cele Renegade (and maybe condi Herald), since despite the range advantage those builds have more armor, more boon duration and better self sustain. But maybe after this changes could be in a better place, specially Vindi variants due the resilience vs enemy condi builds. Thoughs?

Over 3 years top 3 teams in Europe and 1 or 2 in NA traded blows for the first place in annual tournaments; overall numbers favored Europe but I remember that Abjured was unbeatable for almost a year. If getting top place in a moment in which the PvP population was at least x8 times what is now and winning meant to get 50,000 $ doesn't speak strongest to you I don't known what to say. The most you can get nowadays is to became "top wintrader" in the world, which doesn't pay the same, for sure.

I see, is in the gear at the left of the dailies, thanx!

I chose PvP + WvW goals when the new system of daylies was implemented and I'm bored of the randomness of WvW achievements. When would I be able to swap to full PvP mode?

You don't do "rotations" in WvW; you react to your environment or you end in a bloody pond in the floor. Again, I have no problem with the F2 changes in PvE, but in WvW is a steaming pile of garbage, the same was was puting a root in staff's #5, decreasing Forced Engagement from 1200 to 900 or changing the mechanics (not the numbers) of Coalescence of Ruin. Those kind of changes (and removing procs from evading is) ends or removing the 6th effect from runes end ruining builds and making everyone either quitting or running the same build (I've spent near 300 gold coins ofther SotO changing all the runes in my 19 characters and guess what: now they only use 3 runes across 55 gear templates... Those nerfs (Vindicator traits and Contained Temper) did nothing to enhance Rev's gameplay, and meanwhile they buffed short bow (nobody asked) which was already brokenly op in WvW...

Have you ever played a Berserker Warrior and pressed F2? Or a Specter? Or a Dragonhunter, a Spell breaker or a Bladesworn? Those specs have F2 skills with provide impactful effects and have flashy animations. Vindi's F2 has nothing of that: is the same bland generic animation as casting a shout (robbed) and it does nothing. Do you get cc from EM? No. A movement skill? Nope. A major boon as quickness or alacrity? Nay. A new and isntresting class mechanic? No, you don't get anything of that. When I play Warrior I want to press F2 because makes "cool things happen", is appealing in both the visuals and the changes you get; when you press energy meld nothing happens, some numbers may vary but is nothing relevant. I can stand pressing F4's Orders From Above because albeit is a boring and insipid skill at least provides meaningful effects (specially with others) but Energy Merde is waaay worse. F2 is not Vindicator's game mechanic; in fact can be argued that Vindi has no game mechanic: developers had to cover a hole (lack of tools in AoE power builds from Revenant) and then the lack of ideas about how to implement it made them to stole the jumping animations from Dragon class at FF XIV. Initially, the evades were different and provide different effects from damage dealing to defensive boons to support; and they linked evades and vigor/andurance recovering through traits. Then they nerfed the damage, the support, the cleave and now they cut the ties between evading and getting vigor and said "hey, this nothing F2 skill that does nothing is now your class mechanic", as if it were like a Necro's Shourd or a Warrior's Berserker mode or Holo's Photon Forge. Is not. Is a nothing which replaces something already nerfed but valuable with a cimmick. That didn't use to be the case; ANet used to be original and flashy, but ran out of ideas with EoD. Take a look of how other games as BDO keep adding new classes to the game without repeating the same gameplay, animations or effects and see how is going here. In my opinion, if you want to add a skill or weapon or trait which does nothing, don't do it, specially if you have to change things that are already working. CmC: stay on Ele. Don't waste time and resources from ANet in a class which bores you to tears as Rev, because we can see it from a mile. You're ruining professions you don't even play to game modes most players don't even touch and in which you won't play a Revanyway. So please don't ask me to press your lame F2 in my Vindi; I won't. Edit: by the way, Contained Temper is another masterpiece in redesign: 5 energy units gained in in WvW and PvP after breaking a stun... It doesn't even covers half of the cost of our cheapest breakstuns and of course has a internal cooldown because Lord forbid us of gaining back 10 energy afterspending 40+ in two stunbreaks...

GW2 has plenty of vertical progression, since in one hand each expansion keeps adding masteries and specs which makes your character and builds sttronger, and also because when you already have your main in full ascended gear you discover that it will require different sets fir different game modes and roles, so instead of crafting more ascended sets you'll probably want to move to craft legendary gear, which is also shared with your alts and is int¡finitely more convenient than ascended but also way more grindy. So the game has PLENTY of things to do if you want a character which is not only capa¡ble but also wants to swap in a blink or change skins, runes and sigils at 0 cost.

I think was a member/leader of Abjured, at the time the strongest PvP team in the game, in rotation with 55 Dragons and The Extraordinary Gentleman for the top spot when Anet used to spent ~400,000 $ at prizes in PvP tournaments in Guild Wars 2. He mained Engineer, and at the time as known as Rom, Sindrener, Helseth, Tage, Misha, etc. At those times tournament views used to peak around 10k in Twitch, and the game has enough players to had a matchmaking which worked.

I want to clarify one thing: I don't care about the change in PvP since in PvP vigor lasted 1 second so the 25% efectiveness increase was irrelevant, and currently I'm just running 1-0-1 in Vindi traitline. I don't think the change affects Vindi in PvP since Rev was already near the bottom so you can't do much to make it worse, arguably. My gripes are mainly about how the changes affect the WvW builds. PvE is less important since you have way more margin for mistakes there, so less boons have impact but aren't as critical as in player vs player environment (again: in PvP doesn't matter since the three traits were already a joke). But in WvW very small changes can move builds from being meta to the discard bin.

P E R F E C T I O N

Dps Herald will never be a thing. And I won't play Herald again (for two years and still strong), and I'll keep ignoring F2. Vindi plays the same in PvP, since Song of Arboreum wasn't working there anyway. The most damaged builds are the Vindis at WvW; in PvE is still a nerf but that just means that instead of facerolling the keyboard with the two eyes closed now you have to keep one open, just in case. Energy Merde can still be skipped.

I'm sorry for your loss, and for the unfortunate interaction with that player. My latest interaction with a player near a jumping puzzle was very different: circa September I was trying to do the Chalice of Tears achievement to get the legendary trinket Aurora, and a mesmer saw me and asked me If I wanted help, since I was messing with the control points. I said "sure", and he/she teleported me to unlock the whole path, including the las tp to the chest. It was a lovely experince since it took like 8-10 minutes of his time, for entirely altruistic reasons. At the end I rewarded the mesmer with 50 gold coins, because it was not only kind and nice, but also saved me from struggling with the jumps for days/weeks (I was already familiarized with the final stages, and had the rewinder, but still I was in a loop due fails, you get the point). The mesmer was pleased, but I was even more. So, don't be bitter due a isolated rough interaction: is not the norm. Most people usually like giving a hand to other players.

Lets take a look: * Warrior: the stronger build in PvE is power Bladesworn, plenty of damage and tankyness but a bit hard to use and is not as mobile as other Warrior specs due the gunsaber mechanics and the weapon restrictions. Very good self sustain in PvP but the movement is clunky. Second strongest PvE solo build is condi Berserker, which as BS mixes mele and ranged but is not the fastest (quickenss access feels good, tho). For WvW/PvE power builds (with high burst or plenty of cc) work better and have plenty of mobility, but they are usually full mele and in PvE don't work well (you trash regular mobs but they are squishy vs bounties). Hambow is the second easiest core class to level to me, tho. * Guardian: all build lack mobility except Willbender; Willbender is very strong at WvW roaming in both power and celestial builds and is very mobile, but mostly mele; at PvE Willbender damage and self sustain is ok but the gameplay is demanding because requires to constantly activate your virtues, which moves you across the terrain (sometimes for worse) so the gameplay is frentic. Firebrand and DH are nice to play but slow paced and low in damage. Third easiest core class to level, to me. * Revenant: the celestial Vindicator build is the tankiest thing at PvE, can solo anything, with moderate damage; runs both mele and ranged weapons (mace & axe + short bow). Not very fast tho. The WvW roaming build is very fast and mobile and runs greatsword + short bow, extremely strong, specially regardless self sustain. But you need to unlock Vindi and play like an hour in SotO for the weapon mastery to get access to short bow. So leveling with core Rev is safe but slow with either Jalis + Mallyx and condis or Shire + Jalis in power for speed but more chances to get mogged. I would place it 7th as core leveling but if you already have weapon mastery is a 1rst or 2nd. Fully unlocked is god tier. * Ranger: very versatile in weapon choices, solid mid tier along necro in leveling, can play power or condi mixing both mele and ranged. Has very powerful cele builds for PvE and extremely tanky and mobile WvW ones. Fairly easy to play in the Soulbeast and Druid specs. Getting the pets can be a bit annoying but can be done in less than 2 hours. I think is the closest contender to Rev given your tastes. * Thief: has very strong and easy to play DE PvE cele build which is mostly mele and a bit repetitive, but works. In WvW there's more variety mixing both mele and ranged weapons, but is hard to play; good Thieves either win fights or disengage, because mobility is usually top tier, but mistakes are expensive. Leveling is... bad. Feels like a glass canon minus the canon part, because until your skills and traits and gear aren't in place your burst are weak and you're squishy. * Engineer:Mechanist is very powerful and easy to play in PvE, but weak in competitive game modes.Scrapper makes a very good tank but has crapy damage at PvE; Holosmith is very good at competitive game modes but hard to master, and is a bit squishy in PvE. Holo is particulary good at mixing mele and ranged attacks, but you have a very limited selection in weapons and instead of weapon swap you have kits. For me felt weak while leveling. * Necro: easy to level, along Ranger, initially feels lacking in mobility like Guardian but a bit better due access to 25% passive signet. Very good survability thanx to shourd and minions (if needed) plus high base HP. In PvE has very strong and easy to use PvE solo builds; Reaper is maybe the top. Has good mixes of ranged weapons and mele attacks, but much of the gameplay is mostly stationary and based in strong AoE cc; Harbinger bring up the mobility, but is mostly a sniper and shines at competitive game modes (Reaper feels more rounded to me, and Necro also has a very strong support build if needed). * Mesmer: in my opinion the easiest core profession to level, but mostly at range (staff + gs) but sword can also work (less safe). Celestial Mirage is god tier at PvE (higher damage than Vindi but less tanky) but is mostly a ranged spec; Virtuoso, Chrono and Mirage have good WvW roaming builds and mobility is good but the gameplay is mostly at range. So very strong class but not quite the gameplay that seems you're asking for. * Elementalist: is hard to play and more fast paced than a caffeinated Willbender skritt. Very good mix between mele AoE skills and ranged ones. S tier in PvE but a bit squishier than the top dogs and requires more effort to do the task (good if you want a challenge). Mobility can be great of bad based on your weapon choice, which entirely dictates the gameplay (you don't have swap but 20 skills instead). You can run it tanky, or have high dps, or have tons of mobility, but usually not all at the same time (unless PvP, sometimes 😛 ). I think taht most of people which mains Ele knew it inmediatly. So: based in your description: WvW Vindi is mobile, tanky, mixes mele and ranged attacks, but in PvP is squishy, and you need a different build (not gear) in PvE, where is strong but paced slower. Ranger has very good mobility, is tanky and sometimes bursty; can be played as Soulbeast or Druid, with power, condi or hybrid versions. For solo the condi builds are stronger at PvE, for WvW both works (with tradeoffs), for PvP the power builds are usually better. Necro is slow unless you run Harb, which is good in competitive but weaker at PvE; is always tanky and has a good mix of ranged and mele options. The other professions heve even more tradeoffs: Thief, Engie and Ele are complex to master, Guardian is usually slow and plays better in groups; Warrior is very mele oriented, Mesmer is very ranged oriented.

Some preliminary aftermaths of the Nov 28th balance I've noticed testing the waters a bit (only Vindicator) while playing alone: * We lost vigor, permaregen and permafury while playing a cele build. Those still proc, but aren't consistent. Vigor never procs unless you run Retribution (the dead traitline), and is not the same since it only procs on evades which actively avoids an attack, is not shared amongst allies and the most important thing: last 1 second in PvP, so you'll never have vigor again. A Vindicator with no Vigor access, holly molly!... * Reaching 25 stacks of might is almost impossible with condi builds unless you run Devastation, most I got without was 20; with Snow Crow's power build is almost impossible to get 5 stacks. Power builds are significatively more affected by the fury/might nerf than hybrid/condi ones, since condi only benefits from crits indirectly. * Using the middle trait (AT) for F2 means barely gaining a bit more than 1 extra energy unit x second in PvP and a bit less than 1 in PvE/WvW. Absolutely meaningless, and yet better than the other two (but not as good as runniung with the mid tier traits empty and just forgetting the existence of F2).

That doesn't work vs bosses, in PvP or WvW. And won't be particulary notable at trashing weak mobs either: tried Phandrel's magic dust farm in branded maps using both pure power Vindi and pure power Deadeye and Deadeye is faster: both can one shoot (or two hits or three at most) yet DE is better because you can do it at 1500 range. The patch trades useful traits across all game modes for useless traits amongst most game modes which also requires an anodine new mechanic ir oder to do something in niche departments of the game.

Please no stealth for Rev; stealth is a lame boon which have been proved brokenly overpowered outside PvE and had lead to massive nerfs which destroyed build viability in professions and specs built around its use. The last of those victims was the Dragonhunter which moved from not viable at MATs but a very solid choice in ranked games to just dissapear from PvP. Stealth also doesn't fit in the Rev lore (unless you're using a legend which had access to) since the motto of the class has always been a heavy plated guy with either teleports or attacks which cross though the mist, but not to use any kind of stealth. We also would never be as strong in the stealth game as classes which were designed to grant access to it, and in PvP will be abused to either frame heavy burst/cc chains or to disengage, and will be broken until gets nerfed and then became irrelevant (as is already happening to some specs and weapons).

I mean... Is not like the power build for raids is that special anyway. I've tried the Snow Crows meta for Vindicator in OW and you have lame amounts of might stacks and you can lose fury sometimes. And of course you have 0 procs of regeneration and protection, no cleanses in evades, and you must use evades as attacks, which is not bad but is not like you do amazing damage when you're alone. ANet already removed fury from Fireworks and Pack runes, didn't provide anything similar with relics, and is now butchering fury access to every Rev build (which means that condi based ones are less impacted). Yes, the patch improves shield and hammer, plus short bow (largely uneeded) but outside that everything else is nerfs. And that's after nerfs in greatsword damage, greatsword cleave and base damage values of several other skills across the whole class. Honestly I would chose to not have this patch: it won't do anything beneficial for any build I would use. They already made Renegade a useless redundant simp, and Herald has been nigh unplayable from me since the pre-EoD nerfs. Keep messing with Vindi and you'll lose me in no time... And I generally won't play alts that much.

Most of the changes are just nerfs, outside buffs to a couple of weapons almost no one uses.

While is true that didn't showcase the last ones I'm not sure about the real reasons, since A) He hosted 2 raid tournaments in the last 2 MAT, so maybe it was just a conflict schedule and B) He has been steraming WoW (World of Addons) for a while, losing 2/3 of views compared to his regular numbers, so I'm not sure/convinced "lack of views" is a real argument about why is not hosting the MATs. What I would argue is that He has not streamed any match playing himself at PvP for more than a year, and I think that is not due He lost interest in it (hard to believe since they still play other dead competitive games as Starcraft II) but because the regular experience (lack of balance amongst specs, lots of afks, difficulty to progress in solo q... ) will probably deliver a sour taste of the state of the game to the audience.

A two handed mele weapon only cleaves 3, but a main hand pistol cleaves 5. Very consistent, indeed...

Anet just announced Guardian's dual pistols, and their auto attack pierces and damages up to 5 enemies... Did you say anything about consistency?

Celestial is the meta in WvW, and is becoming the meta in open world PvE, also. I don't known how anyone could claim that berserker and viper stats are the meta for high end instanced content speed runners (they are) and at the same time have the cognitive disonance to refuse aknownledge of celestial being the meta stats in WvW (specially at roaming). Outside Bladesworn (which doesn't work with conditions, and they are few at WvW at the moment, to be honest) Willbender (which works better with Dragon/Marauder stats, albeit plenty of players already run cele anyway) and some Mesmer/Thief and sometimes Warriors and sniper Rangers every spec outside a zerg (and oftenly in zergs) runs celestial. Happens with every Necro variant, any Ele spec, most of Guardians outside DH. Yes, sometimes condi builds chose Trailblazer, Dire or Carrion to maximize damage. But those builds, when facing celestial ones on equal skill level end being forced to either flee or sucumb. And is not only in 1 v 1: some people think that a sqad with a Minstrel healer, a support and three dps specs can beat a squad of celestial specs, but most of the time they won't: put a Tempest + Scourge celestial healers (maybe a FB instead), three celestial bruisers and they will trample any other team composition. And is how it should be: cele is +59.45% stat increase over 4 stat gear, so as long as your build takes advantage of each stat, you'll have massive numeric lever, and when the skill is paired, is just matter of maths.

Vindi is mostly immune to condis in WvW/PvE. Is easy to see since builds as condi Mirage/Virtuoso which usually rely in spamimig condis and rotate a cycle of evades, blocks and other defenses ad nauseam start to fall apart and struggle after a minute because you're constantly cleansing yourself and their cooldowns begin to stack untill they no longer have defenses and they must flee or just die. In that regard, Vindi killed the other Rev specs since adresses the historical weakness of the class vs condi damage. And by the way, I use Durability relic and not Antitoxin in WvW since AT is overkill and Durability offers better overall solution since works both against condi and power damage, whereas AT is wastaed against the later. PvP is entirely different since gear choices are much weaker: Antitoxin is nerfed there, fury doesn't last so even running berserker 100% crit chance is not secured. So if you run a glass canon your burts are not granted, and if you run a more defensive build the stat choices are subpar and you will be slow and easy to focus. Meanwhile the meta is made of specs with great mobility, great duelling and teamfighting abilities, lots of cc and very good sustain/recovery: they have all.

Ha! The bullcrap detector is ringing... Necros has 3 skills in their greatswords with a 5 target cap (and also two chills, which remembers me that we lost ours in Phantom's Onslaught!). So don't search for logic when the true is that they operate in burst of randomness "let's throw crap against the wall and see what sticks". Greatsword was perfectly fine with 5 tag in the autos, the same that 5 tag in the auto was perfectly fine in Guardian's staff (have been unable to use that weapon in any game mode since the nerf like 7+ years ago) the same that Coalescence of Ruin was fine in how operated and only nedded tunning in damage and cooldown numbers. I don't care about the scepter (which I won't use) but don't try to defend A loses X due B doesn't have it because last time I checked profession had specific mechanics, advantages and disadvantages which aren't shared. By the same metric all gretswords in the game have cc while ours not, so having a 5 tag cap was nothing special...

Warrior lack short bow, main hand pistol, scepter and focus, so that's at least 4 more years/expansions before being able to add new weapons (and they could easily chose to make the spear a and trident as land weapons so they don't have make one trillion new cultural/dungeon skins for a new weapon, as they would have if they add new weapons). You'll see HORSES added to the game before that happens...