Buran.3796

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/131631-june-27-balance-update-preview/ Revenant Herald's quickness application is being moved to Elevated Compassion and tied to maintaining upkeep skills. In its place, Draconic Echo will now cause facet passive effects to grant additional bonuses to the herald. Vindicator is also getting some adjustments in WvW to bring it more in line with other support builds. Core Banish Enchantment: This skill now has a 5-second cooldown in WvW only. Aggressive Agility: This trait no longer removes immobilization, and it instead grants resistance. Demonic Defiance: This trait will now also remove a damaging condition when it triggers. Forced Engagement: Reduced number of targets from 5 to 1. Increased range from 600 to 900. Battle Scars: Increased base healing from 58 to 68 in PvP only. Herald Elevated Compassion: This trait now grants boons to nearby allies while six or more points of upkeep are in use, in addition to its current effect. Draconic Echo: This trait no longer grants boons when using a consume skill and instead causes facet passives to grant an additional bonus to the herald. Vindicator Saint's Shield: Reduced base barrier and healing from 582 to 300 in WvW only. Reduced healing attribute multiplier from 0.33 to 0.2 in WvW only. Tree Song: Reduced number of conditions removed from 5 to 3 in WvW only. Urn of Saint Viktor: Reduced base pulse healing from 708 to 450 in WvW only. My thoughs: I only care about this two changes: * Forced Engagement: Reduced number of targets from 5 to 1. Increased range from 600 to 900. Is a step in the right direction, but we are still nerfed. The original range was 1200, and using it well was almost the only way to have a chance against roaming necros in WvW. The Necros still have the advantage of 1200 range with the staff skills (oftenly traited to be unblockable), and aside staff a Harbinger still has the pistol + dagger with 900 range (1200 if is running focus) to equal our short bow plus the advantage that when enters in Shroud gets stability (Implacable Foe) and can corrupt all our boons at 900 range (Dark Barrage + Path of Corruption trait). And is now worse because Harb's elixirs have now granted a 20% cdr for free in PvP and WvW (of all things!). A Dark Barrage + boon corruption ususally is enough to to finish the fight, whereas a Forced Engagement + Scorchrazor + Sevenshot doesn't. So we are still in a massive disadvantage. And that with our only ranged build, mele doesn't even have a chance (Vindi doesn't even have any cc to land a single hit). * Aggressive Agility: This trait no longer removes immobilization, and it instead grants resistance. I don't understand if this will work as a buff or a nerf. In theory, Resistance removes for a limited time 8 non damaging conditions. The only reason I play Vindicator in WvW (or any power Rev build in WvW, if that matters) is because Agressive Agility. Is the only asset to grant us a chance against the perma-root roaming Druid: the Vindicator has cleanses enough, mobility enough, damage enough and the hard counter againts one of the absolute top predators (and lamest builds) in the food chain of WvW roaming, and ripping of the skin of the face from a surprised Druid with the help of this trait was one of the very few pleasures Rev still could bring me in WvW. I'm not sure if the change will be better, because albeit could do good things as prevent blinded or chilled for a while, if the duration is low in WvW it will be entirely useless against perma-root builds. IF ends being a nerf, I will never touch a Vindicator inWvW again (the same as entirely stopped playinmg Herald at WvW and PvE 16 months ago). It will greatly depends on the implementation, but I'm pesimistic. Aside from that, support Vindi got nerfed, which I don't care. Rest of the changes are meaningless to me, which is good. Edit: Jaykay was fisrt and made his thread while I was writting this one, mods please remove this one!

Wingman provides some statistics, which isn't ALL the truth, but still better than not stats at all or just anecdotal evidence. And about FB compared to WB at solo open world, when I think about solo OW don't mean cheap kitten Champions or HPs, or doing soft meta events as world bosses in which any spec can do well as long you known the basics, or even "hard bosses" as Triple Trouble, which requires a bit of discipline with the mechanics but not much else. I'm thinking about "ok, lets do 6-7 solo bounties in a map in a row (including legendaries), just for fun. And as a player which have done/tried that with Revenant specs, Mirage, Firebrand, Willbender... Willbender is well ahead of Firebrand (but away from the top). While both are relatively weak in terms of re-sustain, at least Willbender has high damage numbers, easily stacking burst of near 30 burns; Firebrand has more utility tools thanx to the tomes, but those means very little when a fight is mean to last 4-8 minutes (in case of success). I've seen planty of videos of Roul or Hizen soloing bounties, and when they run Guardian builds they chose Willbender. So, FB is maybe better for "solo" if you're just completing a map alone and eventually you jump into a random meta event, but not if you want to solo bounties for fun or achievements.

Engie has more variety of roles and gameplay, albeit if I had to made a main from one of those two I would chose the Necro. None of them is or were my mains, anyway.

Mesmer. Then Necro or Ranger.

... In instanced game modes with 5 to 10 players. BUT soloing bounties, champs and meta events Willbender is decent (but away from the top, maybe 10th of 27) and FB and DH are garbage. I don't think that things are that different at instanced PvE between Ranger and Warrior; according to Wingman data base both fit ~7% of users, and BS is better for OW. YES, Warrior deserves love in PvP, but we saw a Berserker in quarters at the MAT, so is not like the class is entirely useless. We will have a patch in less than 4 weeks....

They should make the virtue a double check skill: the first activation should instantly provide the boons and inpairment removals, while the second click would cast the current 0.5s animation delivering the damage and other effects. Being said that, I don't think that WB would have a place in meta PvE: the spec is entirely oriented towards mobility and dps, with 0 team oriented mechanics (and even low self boon generation). Is like trying to use a selfish coupe as a friendly minivan, it just won't work.

I think that Warrior is in the middle of the table (mid-low) in terms of variety, talking specifically about PvE. Is a class which should benefit from the huge amount of weapons available, but the main mechanic (releasing the burst F1 skill) is muted down in two of the specs, since both Spellbreaker and Bladesworn in some ways diminish the variety of burst you use. Now, in terms of PvE gameplay, I find both Spellbreaker and Bladesworn very enjoyable: both are very different and Bladesworn in particular is unique in the game, with this sort of iaido which forces you to known very well the foes and the correct use of the step, stability and aegis to ensure your overloaded hits. Is extremely satisfying when played well, but can be frustrating vs foes with tons of cc/i-frames and against players, since is a concept hard to balance in player vs player interaction. The Spellbreaker is fun in PvP and works decently at PvE but is not a class which I particulary enjoy in PvE (again, Bladesworn is the exception, and I have a Warrior cospolayed as Nagoriyuki from Guilty Gear Strive to fit the iaido/kenshin master trope). So, in my opinion, Warrior has a solid PvP/roaming spec in the Spellbreaker, which can perform effectively with a variety of weapons, but is not that phenomenal at PvE. Some fun WvW Berserker builds can be made, but SB is overall better. If Revenant didn't exist, I think Bladesworn would be my main PvE class: Guardian has more variety but is not as strong for solo play (which is mostly what I do at every game mode). In PvP, as happens with the Vindicator, Bladesworn can only exist in a quatum state: either too powerful or mediocre. I think that Warrior is NOT the worst profession in terms of variety (Ranger and Thief are worse) but falls in the middle along the Mesmer: a class with 2-3 very powerfull builds which eclipse everything else they have.

^ I think that the next expansion will open the spec weapons to all specs (including core), and once it happens no one will use Rev hammer again outside WvW zergs (and I'm not confident about Anet support for WvW) because short bow is light yesars away in performance at PvE.. Sooo... I won't support the current status of hammer; any change (including deleting it from the game) would be a win (just ANet please inform us in advance, since this year I'll craft a legendary hammer and could be a waste instead of making some more useful fike the trident & spear).

I recently reset some of my old characters and deliberately chose to rise the new ones playing OW instead of using tomes or boosters. For a new player my ranking would be this: 1) Mesmer. GS + Staff, condi build. Insanely safe since does damage at range, has clones to tank/distract and has tons of ways to prevent damage. And once reaches 80 and unlocks Mirage is god mode. 2) Necro (Staff)and Ranger (LB + GS). High HP + shroud, plenty of cc and unblockable ranged AoE damage (and minions if you want) or a solid pet + high very long range damage and plenty of mitigation and mobility. 4) Dagger dagger Ele. Yes, is frail the first 20-25 levels, but has very good AoE damage and cc, and once you put gear with vitality and unlock the 4 attunements your re-sustain is quite good. 5) Revenant: the condi core build is very tanky and powerful but lacks mobility and can be a bit annoying until you reach 80 and get Herald or Vindi. Also, its only ranged weapon sucks (hammer). The power variant has mobility but lacks sustain and AoE damage. 6) Thief: albeit the stealth can be useful while leveling to reach some areas and HPs avoinding combat, the overall damage is low and focused in single targets. Is very good at nuking things with low health, but facing larger number of enemies or bosses is hard unless you're elaredy quite experienced with the class. Engi, Guardian and Warrior: I didn't rise those manually in a long time, so I can't fairly put then on the list, albeit I'll say that core Guard mobility is bad and I wouldn't put him high in the list just for that.

Guardian, Engineer or Necro. Their F skills change a lot with each spec and the gameplay is really different.

Since He used it to solo all the legendary bounties, IF is not specifically tailored for hard OW bosses then I can only figure that is heavily tailored to roleplay One Punch Man...

Currently the top 250 in ranked Europe sits at lower than 1400 (1395) and the top 1 is in 1772, and you're bold enough to say that there's no proof that removing rewards would have no effects in population. Do you remember when Legendary had tiers and the top players were all above 2000? That's when PvP in ESL was a thing, and were monetary rewards to be made in continental tournaments. At that time, by the way, large tournaments achieved over 10k views on Twitch, whereas currently not even the most popular GW2 PvE streamers do reach that number under drtops and promoted events... Also your premise that shaving rewards from the loosing team will remove afkers is entirely wrong: Since the population is so low that matchmaking doesn't work, afking still gives non-players the chance to win due the enemy team has more afkers. It will not turn ranked in a PvP paradise in which you will only see skilled players fighting galantry by knightly rules; it will be the same as now just with fewer players.

Willbender goes in the opposite direction of Guardian builds. while core Guardian and Firebrand are excellent at support but have mobility limitations and usually fairly low HP, Willbender has very good mobility and is selfish and oriented to deal burst damage, disengage and come back again when the cooldowns are ready aghain. To some extent, is similar as the DH but with more mobility.

Sounds like a good way to increase (x2, x3) the already noticeable queues. Middle line will also dissapear and all matches would be a mix of silvers and plats, meshed together...

Bitterfrost Frontier provides ring (which can be infused so you wear 2 of the same kind at the same time, aka 2 rings), ear ring, back piece and underwater respirator (one of the very few places to ger an ascended breather without having to craft it). The farms are ultra fast and the daily cap is for character, not for account. Also, is a uber popular map, since is the fastest way to provide full gtrinkets to your alts in the lower amount of time. At peak times the map has so many players doing runs that most of the foes guarding the winterberries die seconds after being respawn... Bloodstone Fen provides amulet, ring and back piece and allows to reset the stats for 100 unbound magic; farming is much slower, so a way to get 3 currencies a day is buying a farming home node (costs 50 gold coins, but may be a good inversion due the conveninece of stat swapping). Bjora Marches is the second most farmeable map, provides amulet and ear ring but only AFTER completing a couple of quest. Requieres iceshards (easy to farm in chests) and tons of karma, but I get karma faster than I spent it. With those 3 maps alone you have all the trinkets and back pack and underwater helmet (you can even ditch Bloodstone Fen, albeit its ascended items are extremely conveninet). After those, the best two are Dragonfall (amulet, ring, ear ring) and Sanswept Isles (ring, ear ring); Dragonfall main event is hugely profitable, but requires all mounts (specially the airborne ones) to be a happy experience. The other maps from seasons which provide ascended items are less relevant. The whole list: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_trinket Also, a final note about Bitterfrost: salvaging the underwater respirator used to GRANT one Ball of Dar Energy (required for the Cube which was mandatory for most of the legendary items) so saved me 40-60 gold coins plenty of times. I've read that no longer grants the Ball, which would be lame since is a piece of armor which has the same range of stats as your helmet. Not like bothers me (I've my leggies) but if is true is a bad news for newcomers.

Since Courtyard.

1 Bitterfrost Frontier winter berries farm. 2 Bloodstone Fen blood ruby farm (this one allows to reset the stats at the cost of 100 unbound magic). 3 Lake Doric or Siren's Landing currencies farm. 4 Ember's Bay petrified wood farm (albeit I would save this one sfor the accesory instead). But Bitterfrost is orders of magnitude faster than the others. If you have 4 characters and a raptor you can get enough currency playing 40 minutes between 2 days... Petrified, rubys and so on were nerfed and you barely get 1 unit x node; a single 5 minute run in Bitterfrost delivers 50+ winterberries and tons of unbound magic.

Hizen's celestial Mirage soloed all the legendary bounties in the game using a single weapon (double staff) and spamming evading. The build is both convenient (can fight at any range, has clones to tank and distract, has tons of defensive tools and more than decent damage) and extremely easy to play. Reaper is a great spec (my fav from Necro), but is mainly mele and while easy to play, is not as "low effort" as Mirage. I main neither of them and have no opinion in this particular vs, but sounds weird to me that you think that Mesmer has problems soloing things at PvE when has been in the god tier status for a while at that.

Some things to put it in context: I don't known if the DX11 is a big thing, to be honest. The game was programmed for DX9 and at the time the API lacked support to any kind of multi core usage, while technology has evolved towards multi core CPUs (despite single core hardware performance has also improved over time). The thing is, I built my new rig in February (a beastly one, with a RTX 4080 GPU, 4 TB NVMe, 32 GB DDR5, cracks 21k in Futuremark) aiming to 120 fps at any game at 1440p ultrawide (3440 x 1440) and albeit my average framerrate with all maxed is over 180 fps most of the time (oftenly kicking 250) there's places where the game drops below 80 (when there's large amounts of players, as in WvW zergs) and in a typical public Dragonstorm at some moments it falls to 30 fps. So I don't think the changes takes advantage of modern multi core CPUs in the same way as more modern games developed natively to DX11 and recent hardware. On the other hand, I can't blame ANet for lack of new content, when companies 20 times its size as Blizzard is barely able to produce content for Overwatch 2, has entirely abandoned Starcraft II and Heroes of The Storm and their incoming Diablo IV is the most barebones ARPG I've seen in a long time. What I can critize is the lack of more often balance patches, fixing of bugs, or even doing things as releasing new maps or adapting Spirit Watch to ranked.

That's funny due in WvW power Willbender is arguably much stronger than the celestial or traiblazer variants of the spec. I agree in that gear variety in stats, runes and glyphs allows much better builds for WB in WvW, tho. @Trevor Boyer.6524 While I agree in that Herald had maybe the largest run for a spec as meta in PvP and deserved some cuts (which got, in spades) that nerfs should have aimed to numbers instead of breaking the gameplay. And you're delusional if you think that any current Rev spec has any chance vs the top EoD specs and the current PvP meta.

Yes. Most of the times those procs affects up to 5 players of which you're the first one to be affected.

They rarely listen unless when a problem damages his business. Core is not bad, but not very good at anything special, which is shared for most of core professions in the game: outside some roles for core Guardian or Necro almost every elite spec is better than the vanilla classes. Herald is (was) my most played spec and my favourite in terms of gameplay, but that was in a time in which its flow was very different (and also the performance). I stopped playing it when EoD arrived since the nerfs in WvW/PvP were massive, and in PvE the power version was always weak in terms of AoE damage (although condi Herald was very good in PvE). Currently I only play it as a meme PvP bunker variant; I don't think I would ever play it again in PvE or WvW. In general can't compete vs EoD specs in terms of mobility, damage or condition cleanses, so there's no point for using it ouside instanced content (which I don't do). I was never fan of Renegade, but the changes in the bow made it enjoyable (as long as you ditch Kalla). Ended being too powerful in PvP, so was overnerfed, but the buffs to Salvation made it decent again. Currently is the only Rev spec that I can play and enjoy in all game modes, and the only support oriented spec which I play in meta events. Is not great in any game mode, but serviceable. After struggling against him for a year (tons of changes, very litle resemblance with the second beta) , Vindicator is for me in a good spot in PvE: what I like most is doing content alone and not dying, and bot power and hybrid variants are very tanky (I prefer power due the mobility and gameplay but celestial is arguably more powerful). In WvW is decent and I enjoy it despite Willbender is for me a better choice. In PvP in think is garbage and didn't like it even when was overpowered. So: I like current Vindicator for solo PvE and roaming, Renegade for meta events (albeit is the only Rev spec I could use at any game mode with some success) and depise what Herald has become. I have 3 Revs and two of each other professions (outside Mesmer: a single one is enough and does the things better than 90% of the rest). Overall Revs are a good choice but my problem is that my fav game mode is PvP and performance of Rev in that is less than stellar there.

^ Tomes now have both cooldowns in skills and "initiative" costs as requirements, so they work as the weapon skills from Thief but with the added problem of having to deal with cooldwons. I'm not against the changes in the tomes, but on the other hand the backpedaling in mantras made them (more) useless in PvP, a feat hard to accomplish since it was already the worst spec in the game mode (at which no one was using the spec). I s also weird the way in which nerfed WB's alacrity, another build that no one was using. My point is: while ANet has clear goals when they make balance changes their method of implementation is usually to throw things against a wall and to see what sticks, which is a terrible way yto do the things, usually ending in undesired side effects, bugs or both. The main problem is that they never had a realm of test, so the empyric trials always happens in the final game.

As a Rev main I almost entirely stopped to play Rev specs in PvP (outside bunker Herald, which yes, is not a thing!) since I really don't like how they are performing currently. But due PvP is dead I chose to embrace the darkness and returned to the worst spec in PvP: I'm not playing Firebrand. Why to chose the lesser evil when I can get the full one and have fun?

Hi. First of all, you're running a raid build designed to play in groups of 10 players with dedicated team support, but yoiu're using it at solo in PvE while being new to the game, the enemies and the fights and the combat system in general. I'll say it clear: the build you're running is not great for PvE solo (albeit versed players could do ok with it). The good news, if you have been liking the overall gameplay of the Vindicaror, is that the spec has some of the tankiest solo PvE builds in the game (in both hybrid and power variants) and you can reverse your fate, just changing some traits and maybe changing some gear. Also, hybrid Herald is another extremely strong solo PvE spec, and hybrid Renegade is also good and allows to play at range. So don't worry about the class, Rev is mosnter at solo. You just have to adapt a bit. In general, in terms of tankiness at solo PvE celestial Vindicator > celestial Heralt > power Vindicator / celestial Renegade. For open world content supporting allies in meta events I would say that celestial Renegade works the best since you can provide perma alacrity, tons of cc, stability on demand and strong damage mitigation support. So: the problem with power Herald in solo PvE is the overall lack of cleave (area damage) since the swords only cleaves up to 3 targets; that's fine vs bosses but subpar vs large groups of mobs. Vindicator is better since greatswords attacks hits up to 5 targets and good AoE damage boosters as Scavenger's Burst. But going full berserker while soloing is not that great, not only due lack of knownledge on combat is a problem, but also because those raid builds don't have any sustain. OW solo Power marauder Vindicator: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmzAExzlxQmMP6k1RpMOClRSqMCqkn1kfsF-zRZYiRNnHcQgzBFcIZKF6VEUhCQxHAB2D9JF4W0f0CqA-e This build reaches and maintains 25% stacks of might, perma fury, perma vigor and has high uptime regeneration and quickness while having 100% crit chance, 200% crit damage and over 2800 base power. It cleanses conditions which each evade (and evades A LOT) and has plenty of mobility. I can solo 65% of the bounties with it (in the other 35% the bounties have too much cc/mobility to allow me to kill them in the 10 time cap, but I can still survive them forever while delivering plenty of damage. OW solo Hybrid celestial Vindicator: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmzAkeFlhQmsI6kJRpMIClBSqMBqkjyzasF-zxIY1o7vQyMV7Ni6oI8+AEufNgYaDUB-e Here the gameplay is different, since this build moves slower (runes of tormenting instead of fireworks, Mallyx instead of Shiro, mace + axe instead of swords) and the largest part of the damage comes from pulsating Embrace the Darkness and camping on mace. But while on paper the dps could look slighly worse (at least vs weak foes) against thogh champions and bounties is much stronger: the sustain has no equal, since on top of the damage mitigation and regeneration of the power variant now we have extra regen every time we proc torment, and we do constantly, and we do damage even when got cced. I can solo 95% of bounties with this build, and the exceptions are things as the rabbit in Desert Highland, which spents most of the time running away from us. OW solo (and meta events) celestial Renegade: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmgAUZlxQHsOqhxROMP6hRSfMCKgj2z6DH-zxIY1oi/UyUI0rIoDJQIKAFfCCXP8We0sCA-e I use this one for things as Palawadan, Drakkar, Dragonstorm... Is good for solo but not as tanky or powerful as the Vindicator builds, but allows to fight at range and provides permanent alacrity to your squad, plus has a lot off cc, team stability on demand and good group damage mitigation. There's condi variants which does more damage, but when I run this my goal is stack up to 30s alacrity, cast stability and damage mitigation when is needed and revive allies if they fall in downstate, so in Palawadan runs I camp Jalis and only use Shiro to teleport to champions before they die (in good groups they will melt in seconds, so you barely have time to gather the chest rewards).