[Auto Attack Damage]

From what Kitty's tested earlier, those numbers seem a bit low though then again, you probably didn't optimize for auto-attacks. Optimized for auto-attacks, most of them do 1-2k more and also sword DE is in fact stronger that sword and staff DDs according to Kitty's testing. But that's just her nitpicks.

[I feel excluded from EoD because Soo Won meta event is too hard]

Kitty led a DE meta today and ofc we finished the preps at :57 which meant full hour of having to afk and not being able to go to other maps while waiting. Kinda sucks since there's no banker nor TP on the map. Having to wait such a long time really kinda eats away from motivation of even trying to do the meta.

But when we got to action, stuff went pretty well as Kitty organized the squad with heals and boons somewhat covered in all 10 5-person subsquads and calling out what to do thru squad announcements...until boss where RNG showed its ugly head again. Boss did a couple double-bites. Wasn't too bad. What really killed the run was literally every CC going up when squad was killing the tail, which happened 3 times. We managed to get the first CC down but not the latter 2. Failed boss during last 20%. And this was pretty much as organized as you can get thru LFG without having to resort to voice comms or without gating the squad with precise endgame build requirements (though that might be required apparently) while hoping for tails and breakbar not being simultaneous.

So yeah. Kinda doesn't feel right if you get literally 0 rewards for 2,5hrs of gameplay while commanding something a lot more difficult than even solo-commanding undernumbered (8-10 peoples per lane) Dragon's Stand map to success. At least you can still open the chests/pods on failed HoT metas for some reward.

[March 29 Game Update Preview]

10 hours ago, wolfyrik.2017 said:

Many of us said at beta that the orbs needed a longer lifespan. I'm glad it's finally being done but at the same time, I still think the orbs are a mistake. The spec would be better off with them removed and their effects placed elsewhere.

Kitty personally likes Spheres as is. Yes, it might be convenient if they followed you but hammer 3 projectiles kinda do that already. Closest equivalent of Spheres might be guardian's symbols which pulse boons, too, but Sphere's can at least be positioned freely. Chronos are also familiar with similar booning. That free positioning also allows booning the squad when you're not in the stack due to some mech or kiting. If other classes can manage similar stuffs, why eles wouldn't? 

[Heal/Quickness build for Catalyst viable?]

1 hour ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

I didn"t know frostbow healed that much (and for energy), that is interesting even if it's still complicated to set up (moving, or someone picking it up long CD and cast ...).

Otherwise it's just a tank with some heals. In the log, Boons generation in group/squad are pretty average (not to say bad), nothing impressive unfortunately.

To note, though, is that tank's boon output is obviously quite bad compared to squad healer at Deimos due to staying up while rest of the squad goes down and as such, looking at boon outputs during bursts tell a better story. Not to mention...that one horribad Air Sphere placement. But anyway, Kitty's tested it at variety of bosses now and it does very good boons and also heals nicely if you don't kitten with the Frost Bows. Though even if you kitten, water staff isn't a super-big heal loss though Quickness might drop for a moment.

[March 29 Game Update Preview]

3 minutes ago, Raidillon.8254 said:

condi with consistent dps throughout the 10s compared to a much more inconsistent amount of dps for power, and power is compensated in no way whatsoever

Inconsistency depends on build and how you manage the cooldowns. If breakbar is about to be broken, prepare to burst. It's not like you miss super-much damage by bursting outside 10% exposed, though.

Also, Power takes 7.7% DPS loss during exposed while condi takes 30% DPS loss during exposed with this change so relatively power is the relative winner here.

[Why GW2 will fail on Steam without core combat changes. (Alac/Quickness Boons too powerful)]

Kitty kinda wonders why one would say "You can play a flawless rotation, displaying absolute mastery of the game and deal ~7k dps (without decent equipment, poor traits, no boons)." as choosing proper equipment and traits are the very prerequisite of doing dps and those choices are part of said mastery in itself. Yes, boons make a big difference. Traits make a big difference 'cause they define fundamentals of the build. Gear makes big difference cause stats are suited for various roles and, in Kitty's opinion, one of the most beautiful parts of GW2's buildsystem in general.

But most of all, poor weapon and skill choices might be the thing that makes the greatest difference. With otherwise same build but different weapons, there can be over 2x difference in damage (for ex. warr's axes and hammer as one of greatest examples). Add in a condi weapon on power build, power on condi or even worse, heal weapon on dps and that difference can grow to 4-5x. Synergy. If you don't adjust build to weapon, even boons won't save you.

And another thing: Currently every class, aside from thief and warrior, has access to perma-selfquickness by gear, weapon and trait choices (they're not necessarily intuitive choices, some require mathing and knowing the trait interactions and how to create rotation) and usually they can also easily get full self-might. Also, 5 classes can do squad quickness (chrono, harb, cata, scrap and qb), 5 can do squad alacrity (chrono, mech, specter, wb, rev+mirage). The 2 classes that can't do those have spirits and banners going for them and probably are granted either quickness or alacrity when those unique boosts are removed.

As such, Kitty can't really understand the complaints about quickness and alacrity gatekeeping in longer term. Yes, currently some options aren't accepted but that's simply due to people not being aware of new builds yet (which is why Kitty's been theorizing and recording videos on them like crazy lately). After all, it's just 3,5 weeks since expansion and bunch of options became viable just 9 days ago when they did fixes to wb and cata. Kitty's not sure if anyone aside from herself has even tested healbinger and healbender yet (DPS versions are known but it took bunch of mathing to make heal versions work). So peoples, please wait for some time and learn about the options as guides are published (even though it'll prolly be Kitty's job to write some).

And on last note: For a long time, Kitty's indeed noticed the problems in peoples' builds and how they could be improved simply with better understanding of how the builds work. People running somewhat working builds is in everyone's interests, including themselves, and it's not like you need to run a metabuild to get stuff done. Simply something with synergy. So, if anyone needs a guide, "Buildcrafting Demystified" on Youtube. (shameless self-plug)

[No one tested the new Catalyst update before release, quickness is broken]

56 minutes ago, gooddrakkarboi.4870 said:

That's a lot of mind gymnastics just to end up with a worse Firebrand xD Hell even Tempest might be better if you have quickness covered (which fb and harb can do while sleeping) 

 

And where do you want to play it with full minstrel? 

Well, tanking ofc (Cata has multiple blocks available) ! Though for off-healer you can use Harrier's. Kitty just kinda likes that extra tankiness as Harrier's feels kinda squishy.

And well, in current state you can use that Firebrand argument for essentially anything, except maybe Mechanist.

Even then, Kitty's tried to figure out useful Cata build to give eles a chance to support now that Tempest lost some of its primary advantages as healer. 

27 minutes ago, Bleikopf.2491 said:

Interesting Build. I can't find Fire Elementals giving Might on the Wiki and didn't know about this prior.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flame_Burst_(Glyph_of_Lesser_Elementals_skill) they are now casting it automatically and it follows the ele's BD% so at high BD with alacrity to keep up pretty much 4, it's easy full might. Even without alacrity it's 24 stacks most of the time.

But since it takes some time to stack up, esp. if you didn't precast elementals, Jade Sphere is needed to give might at start. But any way, works.

[No one tested the new Catalyst update before release, quickness is broken]

Catalyst is indeed broken. The heal one, that is. Though Cata is obviously meant to be a hammer spec, using some other weapon is better for healing and just staff works...though to get best out of it, Frost Bow is obviously the answer. And what does it bring? About 40 might (bit excessive, rite?), full quickness, fury, regen, protecc, swiftness, resolution, vigor and good amount of resistance (which is meh but still +1 boon count). Now that the orb cooldowns are 15s (less with alac and Arcane traited), energy is manageable well enough that you can easily get enough energy to cast 3 Spheres in quick succession whenever energy is full. With the previous 5s cooldown and +20% boon bonus from Sphere Specialist that wasn't very doable on Heal Cata.
Build for reference: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGQAYlZwsYVsQGJm8XXxfA-zRJYjRBfZUdCkeB47s0+mF-e
Note: Glyph of Elementals' are there to summon Fire Elementals which do the might for you which allows you to use Air-Earth-Water Sphere combos for more defensive boons. You can use something else than those glyphs instead if you want to use Fire Sphere a lot for might.

[Invigorating precision nerf made it useless]

Everyone here talking about Vault while it is mainly an evasion (if you time it properly) with some damage (staff 2 hits a lot harder) and most of all, if you're playing open-world, DD isn't exactly the best for soloing any stronger enemies since it 1. fights in melee and 2. has horrible self-boon capability.

If you want to solo champs, you're a LOT better off with Power Pistol+Pistol Deadeye which is still really strong since it can keep up plenty of boon on itself with M7 traited while kiting the enemies to avoid getting hit to begin with. Invigorating Precision fills the health pool if you somehow get hit. If you need to cleave normal mobs, you can just use Sword+Pistol as 2nd weapon set and spam Pistol Whip which has both single-target daze and evade (similar to mesmer's Blurred Frenzy) built-in and you also the damage you take during Stealth Attack (to reset Malice with M7 traited) and Pistol Whip's initial hit gets healed during Pistol Whip's evade part's hits.

For Daredevil, IP is mostly good for godmode on top of boons and some heals from supports in squad now that it got nerfed and ofc it's kinda useless for Specter but that spec has good self-heal thru Consume Shadows anyway. But since both kinda need a booner, they're best in squad content while Deadeye shines soloing.

[The one skill slot EoD didn't address but should have: Elites.]

Kitty's PVE perspective:

 

- Elementalist:

 

--> Conjure Fiery Greatsword: Still in use by tryhard DPS builds.

 

--> Glyph of Elemental: A minion for easy DPS builds. Useful.

 

--> Tornado: Super-extremely situational though does have some rare uses.

 

--> "Rebound!": Squad saver! Must-have for heal tempest.

 

--> Weave Self: It's been used for starter rota on weeber, Kitty's not sure if it's still in use.

 

--> Elemental Celerity: From quick testing, Kitty found other elites more useful though this could have situational uses.

 

 

 

- Engineer:

 

--> Elixir X: Rampage is kinda less useful of the two transformations it offers, same as other classes.

 

--> Mortar: Something Kitty uses a lot if range is occasionally needed. Which means often.

 

--> Supply Crate: the "if there's nothing more useful for DPS"-skill.

 

--> Sneak Gyro: Useful in many places.

 

--> Prime Light Beam: Stronk DPS.

 

--> Overclock Signet: Simply useful for any build that activates the signets.

 

 

 

- Guardian:

 

--> Renewed Focus: Part of cFB rota and useful for greeding thru 1-shots.

 

--> "Feel my wrath!": Part of boonbuilds.

 

--> Signet of Courage: Tiny bit of extra heal from passive but really strong in PVP.

 

--> Dragon Maw: Used by power DHs.

 

--> Mantra of Liberation: Broken strong and underrated in fractals.

 

--> Heaven's Palm: Big extra CC. Very useful for certain bosses.

 

 

 

- Mesmer:

 

--> Time Warp: Kinda weak now that it's 5-target and mainly useful if CC isn't needed and quickness is brought by DPS.

 

--> Mass Invisibility: Really strong skill outside raids (and good even in W3 Escort)

 

--> Signet of Humility: Mainly useful for core mesmer and memes. At least Amala still has use for it.

 

--> Gravity Well: Best mesmer CC atm though bound to chrono.

 

--> Jaunt: Condi mirage.

 

--> Thousand Cuts: Big DPS.

 

 

 

- Necromancer:

 

--> Lich Form: Reapers have used it for burst.

 

--> Plaguelands: Condi necros.

 

--> Summon Flesh Golem: the CC. Always in use if CC's needed.

 

--> "Chilled to the Bone!": Might be useful in open-world though doesn't have instanced uses atm.

 

--> Ghastly Breach: Mainly used for boon corruption if you need masses of it and to give strength. In ither words, not very used in PvE.

 

--> Elixir of Ambition: Boooons!

 

 

 

- Ranger:

 

--> Strength of the Pack: maybe good for might in open-world but Kitty kinda always finds Entangle more useful.

 

--> Spirit of Nature: A squad saver and extra heals. Druid's Choice.

 

--> Entangle: One of three reasons people like to use when debating why "we need druid!" though Soulbeast can use it, too. Honestly, this could use some radius reduction to 360 so people wouldn't always cheese the mechs by using this.

 

--> Glyph of the Stars: does have some uses...but Nature Spirit is usually better.

 

--> One Wolf Pack: Still in use.

 

--> Forest's Fortification: Really useful skill for Logan roleplay, wrong class though. Not the most useful one atm and Superspeed+CD reduced when striking enemy is kinda counterintuitive combo.

 

 

 

- Revenant:

 

--> Rite of the Great Dwarf: Costly to use, to the point that if Kitty plays Power rev for a month, she'd likely use it once.

 

--> Embrace the Darkness: Condi Deeeps.

 

--> Energy Expulsion: Really useful when knocks are needed and thus a way to replace druid. Kitty's using it.

 

--> Jade Winds: "3 mortarists on 1 CC" at Trio and good quick CC for big CC combo. Kitty's actively using it.

 

--> Facet of Chaos: Knock knock. Who's there? KNOW YOUR PLACE. On top of protection, that knock has plenty of uses.

 

--> Soulcleave's Summit: Energy drainer but in current situation, Kitty doesn't see much heal use for it after it was nerfed.

 

--> Spear of Archemorus/Saint Victor's Urn: Kitty hasn't had use for Kurzick Stance yet but Urn has felt like a decent heal on meme healicator.

 

 

 

- Thief:

 

--> Basilic venom: the CC.

 

--> Daggerstorm: Evade and bit of DPS. Useful for bit of extra greed but Kitty seldom uses it.

 

--> Thieves Guild: If CC isn't needed, usually used for bit of extra DPS.

 

--> Impact Strike/Uppercut/Finishing Blow: Worse than Venom in squad, better solo.

 

--> Shadow Meld: Kitty often uses it.

 

--> Shadowfall: Kitty rather takes Venom.

 

 

 

- Warrior:

 

--> Battle Standard: Boons and emergency ress. Strong when needed, usually away from DPS.

 

--> Rampage: Kitty doesn't see much use for it atm aside from big CC if desperate.

 

--> Signet of Rage: Kitty uses if build has adrenaline generation issues for whatever reason.

 

--> Headbutt: Used in DPS zerker rota.

 

--> Wind of Disenhancement: Boon rip that is used in some situations for cheeses. Kitty won't go deeper as she still wants to see Spellbreaker around.

 

--> Tactical Reload: Extremely strong. Definition of Bladesworn.

So, from what Kitty's played tons of builds, there's less than dozen elite skills that Kitty hasn't really used. Situation is prolly worse in competitive modes.

[Dragon's Stand Map Reset when boss died]

So, something extremely weird occurred today in Dragon's Stand. When Mordy died, map showed the success animation after people burning the boss to 0% during a mini-burn and then kicked everyone out without rewards. It gave the failure message "The Mouth of Mordremoth has consumed enough ley energy to wipe out all resistance in Dragon's Stand! The Mouth of Mordremoth has won. You have been sent to a friendly output." However, not a single island was consumed except for the 2 bites from main burns so it wasn't due to losing islands either. IP address of the misbehaving map server in spoiler for possible troubleshooting purposes. E: And to clarify, we didn't run out of time either. There was still 34 minutes left.

Spoiler

34.198.168.161

 

[New Legendary Armor for Strikes]

1 minute ago, Superkai.4692 said:

Of course we can, but thats not the reason we dont like to play raids. The reason is the massive gatekeeping/toxic Community which is definitly better for strikes.

Considering that EoD strikes are harder than half of W1-4 bosses from dps'er perspective (compare to W1, W4 and KC which are pretty much dps golems with mainly one or two mechs to stay out of and Cairn being nastiest among them), EoD strikes will likely be even worse when it comes to gatekeeping.

Besides, for all those who whine about toxicity, start raiding and just kick out the toxic ones if you want chill squads. If you want the community to change to better direction, you need to actually be part of that change instead of whining and waiting for it to magically happen.

[Willbender alacrity and dps questions]

Nerfing the Phoenix Protocol-trait basically made consistent alacbendering impossible unless there's some ridiculous amounts of Boon Extension action going on. As of now, only way for alacbender to keep up full alacrity requires 100% Boon Duration bonus with 5 attacks per second for whole 8s duration of Flowing Resolve and unfortunately that's pretty impossible to pull off as even Power Dragonhunter can't sustain over 3APS. To make Alacbendering possible again, the alacrity from Phoenix Protocol's alacrity needs to be returned to at least 1,5s.
2s alacrity from Phoenix Protocol would allow using something like Ritualist's equipment with Sigil of Concentration to keep up full alacrity for 5 with decent dps loss on condi Willbender and also using Healbender build which isn't too OP as it's basically core heal guardian with one less spec (and as such, pretty much inferior to heal guardian, not to mention heal firebrand) but as a heal alacrity option. 2s base duration is pretty much required for heal alacribender due to healer's low attack rate.

[Research Kit doesn't salvage crafted items]

So, Research Kit doesn't salvage ANYTHING. It says "Double-click to salvage a crafted item for research notes." but when Kitty first tried to salvage Valkyrie Mithril Shield, it did show the item as salvageable but pressing it did nothing. Then Kitty tried with Dire Pearl Bludgeoner. Again, shows as salvageable and gives the "this is very valuable item"-prompt but still nothing happens.
As such, can't obtain Research Notes for upgrading the Jade Bot.

[Expansion Day \o/]

So, expansion will arrive on 28th for peoples at UTC+6 and westwards. For people at +7 and eastwards, it'll be between midnight and early morning March 1st. 19.00 for east europeans. (time for all-nighter...)

["Bring the player, not the profession"-- but you REDUCED the boon cap from 10 to 5?]

Tbh it's not even about meta on why raid peoples want a specific profession. Metas been changing between different bosses and Snowcrows usually have the current ones on their site. Speedrun meta, to be exact. Do we see that in non-static raids? Pretty much nope. Would speedrun meta even be meta for pug runs? Usually not as speedrun meta only works if people do the dps for it AND there's not a single wipe.

If there's even a single wipe, the group didn't follow the safety meta either if the wipe could've been prevented by using better support to keep people alive/ress them. If we wanted to see real safety meta, people would use traits like Parasitic Contagion, Invigorating Precision, Scrapper etc. for borderline immortality for 10-15% dps loss.

And just to tell from support mathematician's perspective, the most commonly used druid build SUCKS at healing with only warrior and chrono (which has aegis share) having worse heal output post-EoD launch with bursty nature of it making things even worse.

What druid has going for it? Spirits (byebye by summer!) and easiest way of dealing with some mechs due to certain skill combos (Entangle-immob nerf range pls, Tides+lb4 push increase cooldown pls) and traits (for ex. Stun duration increase at statues, others can use runes+sigils too). Esp. when it comes to pushing, druid doesn't have many alternatives atm due to alternatives having too long cooldown for some pushing jobs (Read: Soulless Horror). But those only apply to bosses where those specific utilities are needed.

Meanwhile firebrand will likely remain an offender to "play what you want" purely due to its excessive amounts of aegis and stability and utility combined with ability to bring quickness, fury and might at the same time. As long as aegis blocks both damage and control effect, FB's dominance is unlikely to change. Excluding aegis and stability, closest competitor to FB will actually be heal mechanist which can bring might, fury and alacrity. They both only need a dps to bring quickness/alacrity.

Among dpsers, Catalyst might be capable of doing FB's offensive boons. With others, 3 boon supports might be required to bring might, quickness and alacrity separately and knowing the community, this won't be happening.

If the healer brings just might, it'll be pretty certainly coupled with chrono. In some extremely rare cases heal chrono can bring alac+quickness with warrior/scourge/tempest/revenant bringing might but Kitty doesn't have high hopes for that unfortunately.

But ultimately, Kitty's kinda expexting for raid community to return to safe ol' druid+chrono mirror comp. Why?

1. Many raiders don't know better as not that many raid on each class (fractal on even less) and even fewer have the knowledge and understanding of classes and their synergies to create alternative compositions, thus returning to the cookiecutter they were taught. Some influential streamers also say that certain builds can't boon even though they can.

2. Not many have alternative support builds geared and there's little motivation to do so due to 1 so this far it's mostly curious people playing them regardless of years of Kitty posting videos about alternatives.

3. Alternatives rarely have the means to do the mechs that cookiecutter supports currectly do nor people are aware of how to do them even if they had the means.

Knowing the raid community, Kitty's kinda pessimistic about how things would turn out since alternatives haven't gained much ground over the years, firebrigade, boon thief (RIP 2018-2021) and heal scourge having been pretty much the only major changes and even those changes only happened due to some 10-target boons and insane carry potential of healbrand and scourge.

Sorry about yet another whiney wall of text.

[What I Personally Think GW3 should look like]

As someone with bad enough motion sickness to occasionally end up bedridden for hours after 15-20 minutes of some roaming content and JPs in current state of the game, Kitty says no thanks to VR-only. Even now Kitty's somewhat bound to doing instanced content for that reason.

[What is your IRL title?]

Furious Racer. Well...Kitty does DPS race with some peoples and starts DPSing more furiously if currently losing.😾

But she's no speedrunner. 🙀

[Mechanist Feedback Thread]

Now, here's some insights on power mechanist now that Kitty's tested it again in this beta.

It's now in pretty good spot. Kitty's doing about same DPS on it as current metaclasses (28k with Golemancer runes, Scholar runes would likely be 30k)  if she tryhards by using rifle's skills 3+5. Kitty's not the best of the best nor she has infusions so some could probably pull out another few k DPS.
Though if power mechanist takes some boss-specific utilities like Personal Battering Ram for CC, Flamethrower for pushing or Barrier Signet for Projectile Block-bubble etc, dps tanks a bunch due to Force Signet's bonus being percentage, not a traditional "+180 power". Shift Signet is mandatory for power DPS builds, no questions asked.
And though the rotation is extremely simple for good DPS build, it's a very selfish one. It does bring 8-10 might for the sub (healers bring full might, though) and some CC but that's it. No important boons (FB, DH, Scourge, chrono, soulbeast etc.) nor built-in pulls (guards, reaper, chrono and condi rev) nor epis nor blocks without opportunity costs so like with power Virtuoso, power Mechanist pay with opportunity costs for its simplicity.
When it comes to mace, though...still doesn't DPS. It's a pure support/CC weapon, though that's how main-hand maces are for warrior and guardian as well. If you want it to be used for DPS, the auto-attack chain needs to be boosted to within 5-10% of Bomb's auto-attack spam so you'd be tempted to replace Bomb Kit over Force Signet if you need that one extra utility.

Also, from what Kitty mathed and tested a bit, 100% boon duration Mechanist can provide alacrity for 10...though it relies strongly on moving around to spread it evenly, similar to how alacrity renegade used to be before Righteous Rebel-trait got boosted to 10-targets (nerf it back plssss.)
E: Kitty now tested it in practise and it can provide about 75-80% during burns in realistic gameplay scenario but loses lots of DPS due to needing full Diviner's pretty much. Though her old "tablet on one side, Kitty on the other"-technique at least worked technically if not to desired enough effect.
And Kitty also found a way around the damage mech takes from greens: just send the mech away on before 2nd green pop. A bit of a DPS loss but it returns soon at full health and with skills almost ready to use.
E2: Someone pointed out about mech possibly inheriting +% Boon Duration stuffs from runes and sigils and that's apparently true now that Kitty tested (15s total Fury at 0%BD vs 20,5s at 37% from Barrier Burst with RoLeadership+SoConcentration). However, +% Condition Duration and subtypes aren't getting inherited. For the sake of buildcrafting, it'd be preferable if Condi Duration is changed to work like +% Boon Duration works now.
E3: Kitty now tested Heal 10-Alac Mechanist. Paired with RR Renegade, that combo keeps up full alac while heal mechanist also brings obscene amounts of other boons if turreted so.

[Virtuoso Feedback Thread [Merged]]

Kitty now tested the Grieving Virtuoso which is kinda as effective as you can get as condi Virtuoso build. She managed to avoid the Fury-Expertise bug (in many occasions, you get 6k+ Expertise when you have Fury) somehow and thus got realistic numbers which are...underwhelming. About 23,5k.
The main issue Virtuoso has with Bleeding (that's supposed to be its main condi) is that unlike other mesmer builds, it doesn't have passive Bleed application through clones, just through Shatters and using Blade skills (Kitty assumes?) which are waaaaay slower at applying Bleeding.
Since Virtuoso focuses just on one condi, Grieving is kinda the natural choice. But. Aside from the aforementioned Bleed application issues, Virtuoso STILL doesn't get even close to capping the crit rate in normal power gears without investing in another 10%+ crit rate from gears (10% requires Fury, Spotter and Banner of Discipline). And obviously the situation is even worse for Grieving (read: condi) builds.
So, Kitty's really failing to see the point of trying to make Virtuoso a partly condi spec (though Kitty kinda understands you want to provide that option for those who buy EoD withou HoT+PoF) when blades replacing clones takes away the main source of bleeding.

Power DPS-wise Kitty's now doing 31,5k which is 2k down from previous Beta's 33,5k and thus lands Power Virtuoso among the other common metabuilds in her not-super-optimized gameplay (she generally does 30-32,5k).

[The PvE scene will never evolve as long as Boons aren't standardised.]

10 hours ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

The 10 target options aren't pulling more than 30k generally so bringing two would likely not be what happens, especially if the 5 target providers are able to pull more than 30k (likely) by themselves.  RR Ren comps are superior already if you don't want/need Alacrirage or Alacrigade's utility since they already provide more damage than just bringing 1 10 man provider and 1 full dps.  RR Ren comps are effectively bringing two 5 man providers (since 2 and not one are needed) at the moment with high dps, which shows that, as long as the dps is high enough, 5 man providers can actually be superior to a 10 man target provider

The problem is: the new options require either about 40% BD (Specter) or non-DPS traits and utilities (Specter and Mechanist) which means a HUGE DPS loss for them respectively while, as Kitty already mentioned, renegade only loses +5% DPS trait and 20 energy per 16 seconds. Considering that current Condi Deva Ren benches 40k, at the very least condi RR rene is doing 35k dps atm (and Kitty's empiric observations confirm that dps level). Considering that for ex. Specter needs to take Traversing Darkness and about 40% BD as well as 2 Well leaving slots for only one Venom (as MASSIVE DPS loss), Specter won't be getting even close until they nerf RR to 5 targets so it'd essentially need the Celestial RR Rene build (30,1k bench atm) to bring alacrity for 5 with about equal terms (or well, still in slightly better) as other upcoming alacrity specs. If staff mirage's alacrity output was nerfed to 5 targets as well, it'd be at about 30,5k as per Snowcrows' website. And let's not forget: alac mirage is in big part a ranged build with good survivability while rene brings good bunch of utility with Demon+Kalla skills and CCs on weapon skills while Specter...not so much.

[The PvE scene will never evolve as long as Boons aren't standardised.]

10 minutes ago, Alcatraznc.3869 said:

There is a fairly easy way to fix the 5 vs 10 boon application and that is by targetting the boon duration and/or stack.

 

For instance the alacrity generation made by Mechanist vs Renegade. As of right now, there is just no reason to take Mechanist over Renegade for alac bot in 10 men content. Both can have 100% uptime on alacrity however Renegade is 10 men so it's not a contest. Now if Anet makes so that Renegade can still generate alacrity to 10 people however it is no longer a 100% uptime while keeping the 100% alac uptime on Mechanist, that offers you some way to build around. You will have to wonder whether or not it is worth bringing 2 Mechanist in different sub group for a 10 men permanent alacrity or bring 1 Renegade but without the 100% alac uptime. This solution is arguably harder to balance but on the long run it is better than :

 

-straight up buffing all class to 10 men boon application. It can easily lead to some support becoming OP/even more OP than they already are and then get nerfed in the future.

-straight up nerf all class to 5 men boon application. 

If they nerf the uptime but the opportunity cost is still relatively low compared to others, that just means running 2 10-target alacbots. In fact, people are already doing that a lot atm with double RR rene comps that only sacrifice tiny bit of energy and a +5% condition damage modifier per rene and currently it has quite a bit of slack even due to overcapping.

[Is build doversity for diversity's sake good?]

The real potential for the diversity of playstyles comes from weapons, utility skills and profession mechanics most of all with some traits totally changing how they interact and thus creating yet more combinations to create more playstyles. And that's just before adding in the different stat combos to make each class capable of playing various roles.

But.

Currently the worst offender towards making numerous weapons viable enough to allow different playstyles outside the typical 20-25 in PVE is the sheer difference in power damage co-efficient/cast time ratios and conditions applied by skills when it comes to DPS roles. As the worst possible example of what's been going on, at Kitty's skill level power axe+axe berserker has been doing over 30k DPS while power mace+mace berserker did 18k DPS. Axes are pure power DPS weapon while maces are power DPS weapons with CC capability. This was 2 years ago but neither of those weapons have had big changes to change that difference.

Kitty kinda understands that if a weapon has utility, it needs to have less damage than some other weapon that is focused purely on damage. But currently, according to what Kitty's been testing, esp. weapons perceived as "DPS weapons" do at least 20% more damage than "CC weapons" on same build, 70% in that worst case. Then there's ofc heal weapons and using power weapons for condi and viceversa but those aren't really relevant unless talking about hybrid builds which are a totally different beast to talk about. But if we want to see more weapons/skill sets actually used to open hundreds of new playstyles, just tweaking condi durations/stacks and power damage modifiers (and maybe cast times on slowest weapons) up on weaker weapons (excluding skill sets that are purely used for healing/support, like shields, druid's staff and elementalist's water element) to be within 20% from best damage weapon combinations. (And if number suggestions are needed, Kitty has long lists to provide...as though she sucks at executing rotations, she maths quite decently.😈)

[The PvE scene will never evolve as long as Boons aren't standardised.]

10-target might sources are mostly incapable of bringing quickness and alacrity while at it and usually a DPS can't bring both quickness/alacrity and full might for 5 at the same time. But almost every class does have an option to bring might to at least 5, some to 10 if they only focus on non-quickalac boons (Read: Tempest, Herald, Deadeye, Scourge, PS Berserker, Druid). Healbrand is capable of bringing 5-target quickness and might and chronomancer can reliably bring quickness and alacrity for 5 but hardly anything else so those are somewhat ok if excluding their enormous utility. Though chrono is theorethically capable of bringing quickness for 10 but that's pretty much RNG and people don't use that. Considering all that, Kitty sees little reason to make super-big changes to their boon outputs.
But alacrigade and alacmirage are the real abusers as they'll always be the #1 pick for alacrity due to losing very little DPS while providing the same boon that would require 2 others with way greater opportunity cost each to do the same. And if they don't fix some skips rev can currently do with the "shadowstep to enemy" and Call to Anguish-leap as well as do something to the super-long projectile block bubble and insane stability from Jalis Stance, not to forget all the CC it has, Alacrity Renegade will stay as People's Choice in good portion of PVE content regardless.
But considering that none of the EoD specs give 10-target alac or quickness, it's kinda likely they'll nerf Rene's RR and mirage's staff ambush to 5-target before the expansion lands. Otherwise about third of otherwise competent expansion builds are at the risk of being unused in squad content.

[Aegis is bad for the game and it should be removed imo.]

In all honesty, Kitty would kinda prefer to have aegis only block the health loss+condi application part of the hit (like normal hits and Deimos' Mind Crush as block is required in CM) and not CCs (like fears and MAMA's Spin2Win, VG's blue ports could also count as forced teleport).
We already have stability for anti-CC so removing anti-CC from aegis would require guardians to invest in BOTH stability and aegis if they wanted to fully skip mechs and that in turn would cause a huge opportunity cost to get even close to aegis' current effect.
While at it, stability could be extended to include Blind in the effects it'd prevent as Blind is kinda a CC if used on big hits.