BrokenGlass.9356

i feel you there in terms of raw numbers. but there are alot of factors that i think would make the case. if you just hate sword, and love mace, that would be enough. if you can hit similar numbers to the point where people arent asking you why your 10th below the healer or anything... also, there are some fights, (like Largos) where the condi verson of whatever will always be better, and in those cases, a power herald in full legendary could just switch to this instead. so i dont see it as "teets on a bull" so to speak, more like.... another flavor. and considering that power herald is VANILLA.... like BASIC.... unflavored yogurt.... static as a tv station.... the greatful dead.... like.... auto 2, auto 2, auto 2, auto 2, auto 2, get snack, auto 2.... Bo-ring. so, to me, the ramp time would only invalidate the build if its ramp was somehow unusually slow compaired to many condi classes... but condiering how many LONG condis on short cd's, it cant be more that one or two passes through your skills b4 hitting peak dps. and, its not as if you'd get kicked from groups over having a ramp up time vs not. and if ya would get kicked from that group, my bet is, you not only know all the dudes like that, but are one, and wont have this problem in the first place.

I'm going to go over my thoughts on making Mallyx more impactful. Many of the traits and utilities are weak. Or at least, feel weak. Abyssal Chill is a good example of this, very strong in pvp, nearly must take. But.... severely "meh." in pve. some of these issues can be handled with split skills, or revamps. Maths disclaimer: I'm not doing any. All the numbers you see come straight from rectal data. So if you disagree with how much torment, or how long, or how many ticks of 3k dmg, whatever. Please know that IF any of my suggestions are taken seriously by the dev team, I'd trust them to do the math and figure it out so it all works. If they haven't gotten there yet, I suspect this is more because of developers either being burnt out after YEARS at it, and could use fresh eyes. Or, those developers who are still fresh inherited the keys to the kingdom, and although they can make changes.... their job would be on the line if the changes they make aren't well received. That being said, what the dev team would need from us, is passion. if they know that we all feel passionate about changing the game in the same direction, they can work with that knowing that the changes would result in mostly positive feedback. I guarantee that devs who gut peoples favorite class have a real uncomfortable meeting with a manager about "what to do moving forward." Mallyx, a study: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmABkel7lhQKsIyiJRXMICjBSiMBqgj7kVzE-zRJYyx/ZkuUNEVlSPIhwfL8OtBA-e I used the above build for all my reference numbers. (it has no other bearing on my post at all.) Empowering Misery: "Heal yourself. Heal for more foe each condition on you." Heal for: 4636, heal per condition: 600 add: gain 2 sec of resolution per condition on you in PvE, 1 sec per condi on you in PvP. Heal for more if you are Confused: 1200 Banish Enchantment: "Deal damage, apply chill, and remove boons from your foe." dmg 3x 399, chill 3 stax 2sec, remove 3 boons, unblockable change: remove 3 boons into corrupt 2 boons. (i nor anyone else CARES that corrupting boons is supposed to be a necro thing...but so was death shroud and we saw how that worked out) Call To Anguish: "Leap toward the targeted area and pull foes toward your landing point." dmg: 400, chill 3sec, pull 360, 5 targets. 150 defiance break add: after the initial pull, this AoE pulses 3 times. 1 Torment for 5 sec, 1 Confusion for 10sec, 1 Poison for 20sec in PvE. in PvP 1 torment for 2 sec, 1 confusion for 4 sec, 1 poison for 10 sec.) (the reason for adding damage here, is an attempt to encourage using more than just the elite in pve. in pvp the shorter multi condi burst would be used to capstone your existing condi stack, with counter-play allowing a savvy player to cleanse on the first pulse and ignore the latter two.) Pain Absorption: "Grant resistance to yourself and nearby allies. absorb conditions from those allies, gaining resolution and an additional resistance per condition." 1 condi transferred, resistance 5 sec. resolution 8sec, self resistance per condi 2 sec. stun break. (Why is this like this? take condis off friendlies... and give them the ability to ignore movement condis? what movement condis? the ones you just took? this trait is fighting with itself.) Rework: "Cleanse condis from allies in an area around you, and gain 10 sec of Resistance. For each condi cleansed from an ally gain 1 stack of 10 sec Self Confusion. For each stack of Confusion you gain, gain 4sec of resolution. Embrace The Darkness: "Summon the power of the legendary daemon to transform yourself into a powerful avatar. pulse torment to nearby foes. using skills that cost energy increase the torment applied on the next pulse." dmg :100, Torment 10sec, additional torment 2 stax 10sec. add: if you are confused, transfer 1 stack of confusion per pulse. (This is intended to work with the new version of pain absorption, so that you don't have to buy traits just to make it work. this is why confusion was introduced, both because there used to be some confusion on mallyx, and because it lends strongly to the theme. confusion has been reserved for two places in Gw2, mesmer stuff, and hitting people with maces. I think that confusion can be broadened to describe the subtle shadow magics directed at torment of the mind. It wouldn't have to be illusions specifically to cause mental anguish. Just ask anyone with a mental disorder. Just having violent thoughts can be physically painful, and confusion perfectly encapsulates this kind of pain, which a daemon would have to be a master of.) Traits: Unselectable 1- Invoke Torment: 1 stack 20 sec torment on legend swap. add: 1 stack 20 sec confusion Unselectable 2- Seething Malice: your condition damge is increased 120. Remove/Replace:Seething malice is replace by Abyssal Chill - 1 stack of 12 sec torment on chill (this has been made non-selectable, because its relative impact is low. However where it is used, it is a lynch-pin trait. making it baseline solves many of the issues with this trait without having to balance it.) Unselectable 3- Yearning Empowerment: +10% condition duration to all damaging condis Change/Update: Yearning Empowerment is combined into Acolyte of Torments: gain 10% torment damage, and 10% duration to all damaging conditions. (all revnant builds using conditions at all, will all use torment as their primary condi, making us choose whether or not to take this trait only severs to underline how the other traits dont compare and are never chosen.) Top Row: The top row had multiple underperfoming traits, and had other traits clearly in competition with its purpose. in changed this trait line, as well as moved some passives around in order to make the top row into a clear row of DPS traits. we should not wonder which traits are for dps, they should be self evident. Tier 1: Acolyte of Torment: Torment gets +10% damage Remove/Replace: Acolyte of torment is replaced by Permanent Confusion: Confusion does 66% less damage on skill activation, but 100% more damage over time. (note again on these numbers. the point here is to make confusion operate more like bleeding, with the skill activation being tiny drops in the bucket, and the ticking element taking over the lions share of the damage. this is intended to make confusion less dependent on what a target is doing, and more about stack quantity. this would allow it to be "just another damaging condi" in pvp if this trait is chosen. In pvp it would be better to choose another trait, allowing confusion to punish skill activation instead. The net effect should be however, that when fighting a target that allows you to stack up tons of confusion, the ticking component should do notably more dps, if much less burst.) Tier 2: Abyssal Chill: when you chill a foe, Torment them 1 stack 12 sec. Remove/Replace:Abyssal Chill is moved, New trait- Sear the Weak!: when you apply weakness to a foe Burn them for 1 stack 8 sec. (Weakness has made an appearance in a lot of places throughout Revnant, and this will allow previously nonexistent synergies. such as burning on the Jallis road, staff two, and mace three.) Tier 3: Diabolic Inferno: invoke torment applied 1 stack 20 sec poison, and 1 stack 8 sec burning (seems fine in its current state when compared against all the other changes.) Mid Row: Currently the middle row wants to give you Resistance.. but resistance is significantly less good than Resiliance.... basically i cant imagine any reason to take any of the middle traits in their current iteration. even in pvp, other trait lines, and other legends synergize better as survival traits, mostly because you can still be burned up with condis.... and very, very few builds rely on weakness, blind, chill, immob, and cripple without any damaging condis at all. defending against only debuff condis can be done with any other condi cleanse. Tier 1: Demonic Defiance: Gain 3sec of resistance when using a Daemon Skill. Add: Resilience you grant lasts 30% longer Tier 2: Daemonic Resistance: Incoming strike damage is reduced while you have resistance on you 20% Change/add: Daemonic Resistance: Incoming strike damage is reduced while you have resistance on you 15% Incoming strike damage is reduced while you have resiliance on you 15% Tier 3: Fiendish Tendency: invoke torment grants resistance, resistance heals you per interval. 400 Change/add: Fiendish Tendency: invoke torment grants resistance, and resiliance, resistance heals you per interval. 200 resiliance rants barrier per interval. 200 Bottom Row: the ultimate in maschocism technology. its a super cool idea, but if you build for condi damge, you WILL murder yourself. secondly, if you take the tier1 trait, and not the tier 3 trait.... you WILL kill yourself. However, it is my hope that with all the new access to Resiliance, perhaps surviving your own condis wouldnt be so bad now. it does strike me that it would be ok if self condi's were the highest dps potential, but thats mostly because it would require CONSTANT attention from a healer, or extremely skilled play. this could be discussed here, honestly this trait line is simeltaneously the coolest, yet the hardest to invision how it fits against the other lines. Tier 1: Replenishing Despair: While maintaining an upkeep skill, energy pips are increased but apply 1 stack 10sec self torment every interval. Change/Nerf: apply 1 stack to self for 8 sec (the duration was cut back slightly because to the aditional self damage from confusion and burning added elsewhere.) Tier 2: Pact of Pain: +15% condi duration on foes, +10% condi duration on self Add: burn yourself on crit. 1 stack 20sec. 40sec ICD. (this addition was designed to fit better into this trait line, and by having the revnant do 3 diffrent self condis, it gives the enemy a false sense of security thinking you have been bombed alot when its only been a little. also, that extra burn stack will help alot to bring our dps up to reasonable levels when using these traits. also, if using this trait to increase duration without its partner traits, puts you at risk from that one powerful stack of burning. this forces those who min-max to find a way to deal with this burn stack, or simply take a diffrent middle trait.) Tier 3: Permeating Pestilence: invoke torment copies 3 condis from you to enemies. Change/update: invoke torment copies Burning, Torment, and Confusion from yourself to your enemies. (this is designed to only transfer the condis you can do to yourself, while leaving the revnent open to poison, both as a counterplay, and to ensure that you dont nuke yourself. thats just not fun if its too easy to die from self condis.)

Well that sounds awesome. I'm especially glad to drop the concentration sigil. More damage is great. However, considering that it uses mace axe and doesn't swap (save to save itself with the shield's "Oh kitten!" Button.) It could easily run staff just to allow for cc. Although Mallyx has that pull, which is a pretty nice breaker. Also Flint has that knockback, also a nice breaker. Between those two and chill spam it may not need any more cc. Cause, every time it pulls out the staff the DPS would drop quicker than a viper's weaver in double water attunement... But if it turns out to need the staff? Absolutely. But your read on this would be something like : "definably not a waste of time to go get a full set of heavy ritualist gear?" Ty for the input.

What is that condi build that does not use corruptions? I feel as though Mallyx in PvE is extremely boring. Activate energy drain skill spam weapon moves till legend swap. There's no reason to use any of the Mallyx skills short of a breakbar. Also, the trait lines seem to make little sense. Specifically the traits built on tormenting *yourself*. On Necro putting condis on yourself can get extremely painful, and that's mostly bleeding. Tormenting yourself hits HARD. The idea of transferring condi's onto the enemy is cool.... But Mallyx rev should have a set of passive buff-boons (like superspeed) that are applied to the rev while condi's are ticking on them. Would give you a reason to stack up self condi's, and a reason to pull condi's off the party. "Come on Slothozor shake again, I'm about to swap out of Mallyx!" Like 'Take the pain': while inflicted with torment, always count as moving even when standing still, and torment does 50% less damage to you for the first 8 sec. There would be some kind of similar effect for all the condi's. This rewarding a rev who eats a signet of spite and doesn't purge it off.

This has been the reason given by the Devs since the beginning. I contend however, that there is no Invocation trait line weapon. Or, the "magic wand" with which the magician does all the magic. I get that once Jallis is attuned, the "magic wand" is the hammer. But what weapon was the Revenant using *before* calling Jallis from the mists? This, to me, is the obvious spot where a ranged revenant weapon should sit. Something like a scepter, or pistol would be excellent here. I'd use the Trident as a design inspiration. Where each move on the "Invocation" themed weapon has a secondary effect that is different depending on which legend had been invoked. Personally I think that Scepter would work better as it has the "magic wand" flavor already.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmABkel7lpQIMLKidRSMMCiJSgsCSgj7kVzE-zRJYyx/ZkuUNEVlSPIhwfL8OtBA-e Does this work? How much DPS could one expect? Anyone out there with legendary gear and spare time feel like running a golem test? I've got my fingers crossed for 25k bench with might, quickness, fury, swiftness, and some protection. What do you guys think? Diamond in n the rough? Or trying to polish a kitten?

Just configured the snowcrows DPS build for specter. https://snowcrows.com/builds/thief/specter/condition-spectre I'm using the full viper's version. However I have run it in some (extremely) smooth PUG raids.... And despite the fact that we cleared everything in 1 pull all night... And despite the fact that my 3-spam rotation is super easy... And despite the fact that there were no other thieves there to overwrite my venoms.... My DPS was LOW. like 18k on average through W1 and W2. I never got above 4th place, and even then only for short bursts at the beginning-middle. By the end of the raid my DPS has shaken down to 6th or 7th. Right next to the healers and tanks. So my question is this: Is Specter's DPS really bad? How is SC claiming 38k? WHERE IS IT? is there some secret to the rotation that can double your output or something? Are W1 and W2 just bad to measure condi? (Can't be, my condi virtuoso hits 30k average through the same bosses.) Basically.... What's going on, and how can I make all the investment into ascended vipers not feel like it's a total waste?

So, the long and the short of it seems to be: "You can tank with thief... but it's not good at it compared to classes with block spam. And you will have to type a short novel to anyone and everyone you raid with about what it is and why you do it, so that the world doesn't end in a salty rain of meta tears.” Sad. I had just been starting to get a nice looking build made up in the Ole skill calculator.

Is that to say, daredevil only? And can Specter overcome it by soaking damage through high health and self healing?

Can thief tank in raid content? If so how? (Usual preface with strange questions like this: if your answer is, "no. Play meta." Then save us all the time and energy and just hit the back button on your browser. We can assume that "If it's possible at all, then I'll go find a group who will let me try it on my own time, without messing up your shiny meta speed runs.")

Oh gawd. So let me address this perspective. ”Only bring meta builds to raids.” no, not necessary. You need 10 players who are good at the game. Will your raid take forever if everyone has Dire gear on? kitten yeah it will. Is it impossible? No. (Outside of some enrage timers.) "If your raiding, just stat swap at first" no, I'm well past 'at first' been playing 10 years and have 15 characters all ascended with multiple sets. "If you're set on grieving." I'm looking for a way to not have this gear be WASTED why would I re-stat it into something else I ALREADY HAVE? "So don't say we didn't warn you and come later complaining how you got kicked. Some people just don't have the patience to give you a shot. They'd just rather have something that's proven. And unless you stat swap, you won't be bringing that into PUGs..." If you have ARC DPS installed you know that MANY players in PUG raids and strikes are using meta builds and playing them poorly. I'm talking about a poor build played perfectly. "Also, pugging raids? I mean, ok.... " I just don't care that you are skeptical of what I'm doing. I have a million builds that hit 24k self buffed on the golem, and I can bring those builds into PUG raids, and never have an issue. (None are "META") Why? Cause most people suck. Leading to the misguided belief that a perfect snowcrows build is needed for everything. But not if you don't suck. Can I bring Snowcrows builds verbatim and hit 34k? Yes. Don't care, wasn't what I'm looking for. I'm looking for a grieving light armor build that's "good enough". Or, something like 24k on the golem.

This is a long the lines I'm thinking. However, the weaver is out, mostly because I just reconfigured that char for all vipers. In fact this gear was my griever weaver. Totally interested by the idea of a grieving harbinger build tho..... Gonna do some serious math on that one.

I'd like to point out to the few folks saying I can stat swap.... Um.... No. The point of my OP was to solve this problem WITHOUT stat swapping. As for those saying 'everything is fine in open world'. Yeah, true. Trying to PUG raid and PUG strike with it. As for meta in raids and strikes... That could be a topic all its own. But the short version is this: 'meta builds are designed by Snowcrows types for speedruns.' having a non-meta but close build will not be noticed assuming you have enough skill to play without dying alot anyways. Long story short. If the meta build can put out 34k dps on the golem from the no-life post-my-achievments-on-youtube guys.... Then when real people play it they'll hit 30k. And when people who are learning it will put out 25k. So if a build puts out 25k at max well played (most grieving builds) nobody will notice that you aren't meta. They just think you aren't very good. So....... Back to my original question?

So I have a set of light grieving armor. All ascended. At first I made this stuff cause I, like many of you, thought grieving would be the BEST stats. Then later I looked at the maths and found that "grieving sucks outside of a tiny set of situations that basically no class is capable of meeting." I say all that because I just LIKE it. It's not good. Definitely. To be sure. What I want to ask the community is this: Can you create a viable* build for a light armor class using grieving? (*Viable is defined in this context as 'middle of the pack dps or better, that won't make people ask about my build.') Meta disclosure: I'm not asking for a meta build, I'm not claiming that hybrid builds can be meta. I don't care if another build is better. All I want is to use the same armor I have, without having to restat/ reskin it. So far I've been toying with: grieving virtuoso, and grieving reaper. And I used to use the snowcrows now archived hybrid weaver. Help buildcrafters! Your my only hope!

Comprehensive rework based on the ideas here in this thread. Conjured weapons become kits.Conjured weapons skills 2-5 now have 2 ammo each. If cast with 2 or more ammo, they are slightly stronger. With 1 ammo remaining, the effect is reduced.Conjured weapons count as (dual) attuning for the purposes of traits.Conjured weapons are now tied to the attunement system. If you are (dual) attuned to the corresponding element, casting the corresponding conjure will increase the effects gained from (dual) attunement by 50% for 10 sec.If master of Conjururation is taken, the bonus gained for summoning while (dual) attuned is increased to 100%, and the auto attack of Conjured weapons is slightly improved, and they now have 3 ammo per skill. This would encourage the use of conjures, and would reward skilled play in allowing you to fill to ration gaps with Conjured skills, just like kits. With the skills rebalanced to be stronger than weapon skills at high ammo, and weaker at low ammo... It rewards budgeting the resource, and punishes spamming the best button. The synergies with attunements allows the elementalist to not loose class synergy when conjuring, and the bonus gained when attuning while attuned to the corresponding element encourages working the conjure into your rotation at the right time. demo explination of this in action: I've just rotated into fire/fire from fire/earth, and just used fire sword 3. I now attune to fire a third time by summoning my conjure flame Axe and gaining enhanced fire attunement bonuses for 10 sec. Later in my rotation I need the dash from the Axe to avoid a sticky situation, but im currently in earth/earth. I use the conjure to summon as normal, gaining the normal (not enhanced) bonuses for attuning to fire, and dash out of the way. Camping Flame Axe becomes less useful than your other weapon skills because the first cast is a dps increase, where as the later ammo casts are a dps loss. So, I'll want to open Flame Axe, use it, then get back out, situationally, but never slowly.

You said that in the quote that you responded to. Maybe you shouldn't use easy/normal/hard to differentiate two completely separate things. You are taking my words, and extrapolating beyond thier literal meaning. Yes beginners are in easy mode. Most of them are still not ready for easy Dhuum. Like most raiders now aren't ready for Dhuum. But it would be a place where... When you are ready for Dhuum... You can fight him with reduced mechanics. Maybe you can smoke Demos and Xera, but still can't down Dhuum? Try easy mode untill you can... That's a ton of wasted resources then. The main barrier into raids is actually developing a basic understanding for the game mode. Which can be summarized into:develop an understanding for group synergydevelop an understanding for rotationsdevelop and understanding for rolesdevelop basic knowledge of your class Only after all of that do raid boss mechanics even come into play. Unless you have a guild which carries you while doing all of the above to ensure you stay motivated, which is one of the most common approaches for training guilds. It does not change the fact though that the basics MUST be learned first without ever learning even a single raid boss. Now as far as content which enables and encourages players to develop aformentioned skills, that would be helpful. Players who successfully raid wings 1-4 should already have a basic understanding of all of thse things (or pick any random amount of fights, I chose w1-4 since they are run the most and have become rather easy by now with all the power creep in place). The only thing they lack now is practice on for example Dhuum. That's why the current strike mission is only a partial disaster, because it could encourage players to want to become better at the game. The actual mechanics taught there are meaningless. Designing an easier fight so they can practice that only to practice AGAIN once they move up to normal makes no sense at all from a resources standpoint. Not only are you splitting the potential training player base onto now 2 fights (those who decide to directly practice on normal and those who practice on easy), but you are desiging an entire difficulty as a small stepping stone which people would stop using once they get to the "real" fight. That's a lot of wasted time and money. Sometimes I have a feeling that most players who have not started raiding have a completely incorrect idea of which skills they might be lacking and most have this assumption that if they could train the fights in easier versions to understand bosses, they would suddenly get ready for raids. That's so incorrect it almost hurts. Learning the boss mechanics is the LAST thing you need to focus on when going for raids. Getting the basics correct first is way more important. EXAMPLE:A friend of mine joined a guild group a few days ago (she is around 750 LI herself with every boss cleared at least 1nce). She and the second random were literally the only people with experience. The entire group was new and they were on their 3rd week of training on VG. She stuck around for close to 2 hours (mostly because the people were very friendly and she had a good time on voice with them). The group was literally learning as they went and the main problem they obviously had was lack of core performance because none of them ever bothered to look at any guides. They simple went in and started trying as a group. Suffice to say, that's probably the closest to how most old school raiders started raids as it gets. It also shows that FUNDAMENTALS are far more important than boss mechanics, since they were lacking in EVERY department from boons, to healing to damage. Most new raiders do not have to go through that difficult a process. Most can either join groups with experienced raiders, check builds, check guides, read up etc. The one thing which remains a constant though is: you HAVE to develop a raid mindset and understanding. Boss mechanics come after. Fair enough. I still believe that stratification of difficulty per boss would be beneficial. I can't tell you the number of groups I've had, (from statics, to guilds, to pugs galore) where we all know our stuff, and we get that boss to 5% and wipe. Over and over. The enjoyment would have been instantly redeemed, through taking that nights raid to easy mode. Now I get it, the folks whose fingers never get tangled on the keys, probably have the view you do. But for the rest of us, where.... You know your rotation, you can hit the numbers on the golem, you know the mechanics, and you have a decent group.... And you can still sometimes hit the wrong button, fail to dodge, or what have you. The reduction in mechanics (however that presents per boss) is designed to give players one less thing to think about. Giving them mental bandwidth for more rotations, and proper play. The reduction in dps check, (more time before enrage, weaker enrage etc) is there to allow for a sloppier rotation to still function. I fully get where you are coming from, I even consider the idea to maybe add raid bosses to the training golem as useful. Both from maybe a reduction in resources in developing this content, impementing it lore wise as well as allowing for maybe deactivation of specific mechanics (not sure how hard it would be to simply uncheck a mechanic and not have it trigger). This would even allow more experienced players to train and practice things, so it's an overall useful tool. The harsh reality for raids and instanced content currently is: there is finite resources, and even those are already stretched way to thin. If I had to get as many players as possible raid ready right now (or at least semi in touch with their class), I would take the approach (and I have mentioned this idea in the past): make a story mission which REQUIRES players deal with certain mechanics but also TELL players how to deal with them, maybe via a voice line or ingame text. We have way to many story missions where something along these lines is/was tried, but never proper explanations to go along with them. Most players either stumble through, turn to outside help or simply do not complete the content. World of Warcraft had something similar for dungeons with their proving grounds. Some possible training scenarios would be:Have an enemy regenerate health constantly but require 5k, 10k and/or 15k dps (a rather easy thing to implement, just have the npc challenge the player and let each player pick a difficulty). Then actually tell the player how much damage he is doing. Have the enemy only do very little damage as to not kill playersfor break bars, simply make players have to break them. This was tried with the Eater of Souls, but done way to much in context of the story. Make it break bars on objects which do not fight back, so players can focus on this 1 thing alone. Then have an NPC explain to the player what he has to do and for which skills he should lookhealing could be done in multiple ways, either have players heal through damage, heal npcs orfor dodging, make it a trap room. Exactly tell players they need to dodge through the traps, provide them with permanent vigor (and maybe explain vigor while at it). Make it easy dodges, but if the player fails he restarts at the room entrance. Use common visual queues like red fields to indicate where dangerous areas are.boon corrupts would be more difficult and would likely require a special action key since not all classes have access to boons. Perfect time to also introduce the special action key. Have an NPC explain to the player that he has to use the special action key on the enemy to remove/corrupt the boons and ideally have EVERYTHING with voice lines (think Hitman 1 training area) communicated to players.Honestly, I love everything here. I'd like to see both ideas implemented. I understand the idea of stretched resources, but I just don't care. Anet will, or won't do as they please, and so... What they can and can't do just doesn't get involved in my wishlisting. I'm sort of trepidations about bosses at the training golem... Mainly because I don't want to go and organize to fight a boss for zero rewards. Hence my original idea of an "easy" mode boss... You still get some rewards. And, training solo against a boss hologram seems... Alot less than fun. (although I do understand the idea of rotation practice on a target that phases at all the same times, and whatnot.) I see how this could cover the compromise conceptually... But it doesn't feel anywhere as good. But buffing the training area, would be a raid tutorial. (which I could totally support) but difficulty tiers, allows community stratification. I feel like the number of people I encounter who are supremely toxic is much higher in raids. Even T3 and 4 fractals have always seemed like a safe haven compared to the hell of pugging raids. (and yes, if you want to not suffer... Don't pug.) But I think the existence of the climate needs addressing. And the climate exists, mostly due to interactions between the folks who are skilled, and those who are not. So, as I've said before, I don't claim to have the answer... I just have ideas. And if we can come up with ways to reduce the toxicity without stepping on anyone's fun... Then all the better.

You said that in the quote that you responded to. Maybe you shouldn't use easy/normal/hard to differentiate two completely separate things. You are taking my words, and extrapolating beyond thier literal meaning. Yes beginners are in easy mode. Most of them are still not ready for easy Dhuum. Like most raiders now aren't ready for Dhuum. But it would be a place where... When you are ready for Dhuum... You can fight him with reduced mechanics. Maybe you can smoke Demos and Xera, but still can't down Dhuum? Try easy mode untill you can... That's a ton of wasted resources then. The main barrier into raids is actually developing a basic understanding for the game mode. Which can be summarized into:develop an understanding for group synergydevelop an understanding for rotationsdevelop and understanding for rolesdevelop basic knowledge of your class Only after all of that do raid boss mechanics even come into play. Unless you have a guild which carries you while doing all of the above to ensure you stay motivated, which is one of the most common approaches for training guilds. It does not change the fact though that the basics MUST be learned first without ever learning even a single raid boss. Now as far as content which enables and encourages players to develop aformentioned skills, that would be helpful. Players who successfully raid wings 1-4 should already have a basic understanding of all of thse things (or pick any random amount of fights, I chose w1-4 since they are run the most and have become rather easy by now with all the power creep in place). The only thing they lack now is practice on for example Dhuum. That's why the current strike mission is only a partial disaster, because it could encourage players to want to become better at the game. The actual mechanics taught there are meaningless. Designing an easier fight so they can practice that only to practice AGAIN once they move up to normal makes no sense at all from a resources standpoint. Not only are you splitting the potential training player base onto now 2 fights (those who decide to directly practice on normal and those who practice on easy), but you are desiging an entire difficulty as a small stepping stone which people would stop using once they get to the "real" fight. That's a lot of wasted time and money. Sometimes I have a feeling that most players who have not started raiding have a completely incorrect idea of which skills they might be lacking and most have this assumption that if they could train the fights in easier versions to understand bosses, they would suddenly get ready for raids. That's so incorrect it almost hurts. Learning the boss mechanics is the LAST thing you need to focus on when going for raids. Getting the basics correct first is way more important. EXAMPLE:A friend of mine joined a guild group a few days ago (she is around 750 LI herself with every boss cleared at least 1nce). She and the second random were literally the only people with experience. The entire group was new and they were on their 3rd week of training on VG. She stuck around for close to 2 hours (mostly because the people were very friendly and she had a good time on voice with them). The group was literally learning as they went and the main problem they obviously had was lack of core performance because none of them ever bothered to look at any guides. They simple went in and started trying as a group. Suffice to say, that's probably the closest to how most old school raiders started raids as it gets. It also shows that FUNDAMENTALS are far more important than boss mechanics, since they were lacking in EVERY department from boons, to healing to damage. Most new raiders do not have to go through that difficult a process. Most can either join groups with experienced raiders, check builds, check guides, read up etc. The one thing which remains a constant though is: you HAVE to develop a raid mindset and understanding. Boss mechanics come after.Fair enough. I still believe that stratification of difficulty per boss would be beneficial. I can't tell you the number of groups I've had, (from statics, to guilds, to pugs galore) where we all know our stuff, and we get that boss to 5% and wipe. Over and over. The enjoyment would have been instantly redeemed, through taking that nights raid to easy mode. Now I get it, the folks whose fingers never get tangled on the keys, probably have the view you do. But for the rest of us, where.... You know your rotation, you can hit the numbers on the golem, you know the mechanics, and you have a decent group.... And you can still sometimes hit the wrong button, fail to dodge, or what have you. The reduction in mechanics (however that presents per boss) is designed to give players one less thing to think about. Giving them mental bandwidth for more rotations, and proper play. The reduction in dps check, (more time before enrage, weaker enrage etc) is there to allow for a sloppier rotation to still function.

You said that in the quote that you responded to. Maybe you shouldn't use easy/normal/hard to differentiate two completely separate things. You are taking my words, and extrapolating beyond thier literal meaning. Yes beginners are in easy mode. Most of them are still not ready for easy Dhuum. Like most raiders now aren't ready for Dhuum. But it would be a place where... When you are ready for Dhuum... You can fight him with reduced mechanics. Maybe you can smoke Demos and Xera, but still can't down Dhuum? Try easy mode untill you can... Afterthought edit: Heck, hard mode MO will be much easier than normal mode Dhuum.

You said it yourself already when you split your Raid boss tiers: Or now you change your entire argument so Dhuum (and the other better bosses of Raids) not needing an easy version for beginners? The entire tier system you propose is meaningless if you think about it more than a second. I haven't moved any goal posts. And I'm quite tired of being treated like a dishonest kitten. Just because I bite back at bullies, does not mean everything I say is some calculated attack on reason. Who said the hardest boss should be beginner friendly? Find where I used those words, and I'll happily tell you that I was wrong when I said it. But what you did quote, to me, denotes an apples to apples difficulty edit, per boss, that creates the tiers. The fallout of that, will mean some of the 'harder' bosses in easy won't be much easier. As I've already stated ad nauseam. Easy mode is not supposed to be "easy". Do we need to pull a fast food style name switcharoo in order to make you feel better? Medium, hard, and super hard? We all know it's just small medium and large. But we can endlessly argue about semantics. Sure. That seems fun.

It may be on my, gear and test it eventually list. Prolly after I finish grinding the legendary armor.

This is what already happens in Raids because the bosses have a huge difference in difficulty. Applying some kind of difficulty split to all of them at once isn't going to work, just compare Shatterer Observatory Fractal with Uncategorized Fractal, Mai Trin with Deepstone, Nightmare with Ascalon and so on, the T1 versions of some fractals are harder than the T2 versions of other ones (or even T3). The tiers aren't as clear as they may look to be. A lower tier Fractal isn't necessarily easier than a higher tier one, it depends on a lot of factors. Same is true for Raids, some bosses are exceptionally easy, like Cairn and Mursaat Overseer, and others are really hard, like Dhumm and Xera, you can't put Raid bosses in difficulty tiers. And then you say things like: You are saying that an easy version of Dhuum, that must be easier than the current/normal Mursaat Overseer, to keep them within your own tiers, isn't going to be "much easier". You can replace Mursaat Overseer with most other bosses and that line won't really change. Truth of the matter is, if you want all bosses to belong to multiple tiers, then some of them will have to be "much easier" in order to fit, because there is already a gigantic difference in their difficulty. Why? That's the point? You'd fight guys like Dhuum on easy untill you could do it in normal. He can still be among the hardest bosses. Even in easy mode. Why would he have to be that easy? This is just stratified difficulty, across the tiers. This is actually good. Because it allows for a person climbing up the modes to learn on progressively harder bosses. Why would easy Dhuum have to be easier than normal MO? Where did this come from? Easy Dhuum should be easier than normal Dhuum. Apples to apples. Not apples to oranges. Why does easy mode always have to be thought of this way? It's not supposed to be 'so easy anyone can do it' it's supposed to be, 'easier by a bit' and it's hard to define that because each boss would get "nerfed down to easy mode" differently. Dhuum would of course be handled differently than MO. As for easy raid rewards being useless. Check older posts. A random assortment of the newest living story map currency. Always useful. So long as the living story team continues to not suck. It's still a raid guys. It's still supposed to be on the top tier content. It's just providing stairs rather than asking people to scale a cliff. And strike missions do in fact catch all the easier than easy players. Many of you guys are correct about that. But lots of the opinions here seem to be built on the assumption that people are so unbelievably bad at this game AND they can't learn. I just think that those people can learn and become great. Lots of times, they just need an environment supportive enough to be allowed to learn. (ask a teacher.)

An explanation of what it would feel like (theoretically) playing in tiered difficulty raids. Easy: here is where you start raiding. The community formed around this content, would end up with all the beginners. Anyone who finds medium too difficult, or too toxic, would play here. In much the same way that many casual people, who wish to avoid toxic environments play T1 fractals despite being vastly over qualified. This provides the ability to choose to raid, and to choose not to be made to feel like you are less for simply learning. The CM here, to set a boss to normal difficulty (which would produce normal difficulty KP) allows people to get KP in a community that's less toxic. The existence of the CM to raise each boss to normal, is what prevents the need for easier modes. Because even if it is too easy, you can still work within a more accepting community to learn. (again, those not interested in helping others... Play higher difficulty) Medium: once people have mastered easy mode, this would be the primary spot where most people end up raiding. This level would be the introduction of toxicity. Because this level would be the blending of the oil and water layers of the player base. The reason the total quantity of suffering would be lessened, compaierd to what it is now, is that most of the players who are too emotionally effected by this, will play easy mode. Those who tend to create the most toxic environments for new players, (speedclear, reward oriented players, with little to no patience for anyone else delaying thier fun.) would end up playing the harder mode for the better rewards... Thus creating a middle ground, where knowledge of encounters is expected, and mistakes are more tolerated. Mainly because many of the speed clear, elite players will have moved to hard mode, specifically because of its reduction in unskilled players and increased rewards. The CM here (while you only get these rewards once) should provide a Hard Mode KP, so that you can train in an environment where there is enough pressure from others to elicit changes, but you don't have to drag hard mode players down to get enough KP to eventually join them. Hard: this mode would collect the YouTube and twitch streamers, the organized raiding guilds (like snowcrows and others) ect. And while these groups are generally non-toxic, the fans of these groups tend to be toxic to those players who are not as invested. Kicking/blocking at the first down, asking for unreasonable quantities of kill proofs, ec. This is, of course justified, as those players not able to keep up to thier speed... tend to ruin the elite's good time, turning one pull into many, and a half hour into hours and hours. And because rewards are capped, these players wish to reach that reward cap as fast as possible. So those people would isolate themselves away, into a contained area, where you have to prove yourself at the door to even get in. The exclusive experience they want, would actually become exclusive. This is what I have meant by 'stratification of difficulty' in my previous posts. It's more important that there be layers... Than that the first layer be easy enough. But, I'm open to just how easy, and how hard the modes should be. And while I have suggestions to this effect, I don't claim to know. I don't think easy needs to be much easier, nor hard to be much harder to stratify the opinions and play styles of the player base.

Firebrigade do have higher dps then chrono/druid, but at the loss of alot of the healing (+ spirits). That is unless the FB go heal and then the damage is the same. I understand that you really want to test out banner/might war, and thats cool. But why in the world do you even consider diviner? Your only boon really is might so just swap your runes to strength and replace some berserker gear with assassin and you are done. Fury? np, you will have either a QFB or a HFB anf then fury is 100% taken care off or a chrono and then you just barely need to help with fury and just taking for great justise will be more then enought. And then you dont loose 80% of your damage. Diviner? Fury, vigor, resistance, and self quickness while not grouped. (swap a few traits) also, I like long swiftness. So, optimally perfect? It's probs not. But it's fun so far. I'm already set up in 90% berserker's gear now. Without some duration, the vigor and fury can fall off... I don't want that, bassicly. Shouldn't some food and sigils take care of that though? Sadly no, no by the skill builder. I could be wrong, dunno if it's worth building to test with as expensive and irritating as the gear is to make. For boon duration there are definitely sigils and food buffs. Namely Sigil of Concentration and Sigil of Bounty, and any of the foods with concentration in their effects. My bad, I didn't mean, there aren't any sigils, just that they weren't enough to cover the gap, and cause a large dps loss. I'm sure you can find a spot for more concentration so that fury and vigor don't time out. Its not like it takes that much (particularly for fury if you have FGJ on the bar).Yeah... I. Kinda scrapped the idea... Because the pure dps loss of the build and rotation is so low it would only be acceptable as a healer... And the healing traits in tactics are all lined up against the might traits... So it turns out that you can't do both.... If someone and make tactics work. That's sick. Make a post about it. And I'd love to see it.

Why would I? But since you insist, in the OP they mentioned a single new tier (easy mode) under the difficulty of current Raids, they didn't say to add 10204 new scales. Which would be problematic on so many levels anyway. Yes let's add T3 as training for T4, then add T2 as training for T3, and T1 as training for T1. How many new difficulty settings do we need? And further, if they finally introduced an easy mode that is at the T3 level, do you think these kinds of threads would stop? I believe they would stay the same as they are now, as those that even remotely capable of T3 fractals will move on to T4 anyway. Meaning they'd be asking for a "very easy" mode next, until it's like the Strike Mission. I'm surprised we haven't seen a thread asking for an easy mode for the Strike Mission yet This is just a failure of imagination coupled with nihilism. Folks like you hear me say 'easy mode' and they hear 'a mode so easy that it isn't worth playing.' That just not what I'm saying. Folks apparently don't realize that it doesn't need to be much easier. The point is to let the elitists stratify up. NOT to get the newbs to stratify up. If the elitists get out of the noobs way...(you know... Like they do in fractals, with t1 being bassicly all noobs, or casuals... And T4 being bassicly all elitists, or skilled players) then the noobs will have a good time rather than being made to feel small. Now those people, can improve. Because the climate has changed its toxicity level. By the time they climb up, they aren't noobs. And the whole time the noobs are doing that? The elite among us, can play together with less noobs showing up where they shouldn't be: dragging down the fun. Your hung up on 'how easy, and how hard?' when the point is: THE SAME CONTENT WITH STRATIFIED DIFFICULTY which separates the community, so the Elites don't constantly feel the weight of noobs dragging them down. And so the newbs don't constantly feel the rejection of the Elites. This is like Pysch 101 stuff.

I am skeptical of this statement. My intuition is that it would break the game, as Anet seems terrified of releasing some primary stat condi damage gear with expertise as a secondary. Lets work through an example and see. Here is sc's condi weaver:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGhAw2lZwmYXMJmJOqOmvKA-zRJYmRDfZEXBUZCo5BREqDiCfL6eWB-e If you turn on the typical raid buffs, you have 3468 power, 2043 precision, 2782 condi damage, 748 expertise. Now, if you swap all the vipers gear to trail blazers, you will see the power drops to 2295 and the precision drops to 1492. This means we are gaining 1173 power and 551 precision from our vipers gear. Now, as we know, precision can help with condi damage. For example, the burning precision trait has an on crit effect. So, for sake of simplicity, lets just say in a hypothetical situation with stat freedom, we left that 551 precision, but moved that 1173 power over to condi damage. Our condi damage increases from 2782 to 3955. The damage formula for burning is: (0.155 * Condition Damage) + 131 This puts our vipers build at 562 burning per stack, and our theoretical build at 744 burning per stack. This is a 32% increase in our flame ticks. The damage formulate for bleeding is: (0.06 * Condition Damage) + 22 This puts our vipers build at 189, and our theoretical build at 259, a 37% increase. Now, our ferocity and precision stayed the same, so we can simply recognize that our new power is 66% of our old power. I took a dps log I found on sc's discord for a condi weaver. 56% of their damage is burning, 22% is bleeding, the remaining 22% is power damage. The benchmark is 38,400. So we have the following changes moving from vipers to our theoretical build:burning: 21504 -> 28,467bleeding: 8448 -> 11,576power: 8448 -> 5591 total dps: 38400 -> 45634 Is that enough of a boost to be considered breaking the game? I don't know. We have had times when ele was hitting those numbers in the staff tempest era. I'm surprised, its not clearly broken. Although we are already at the point where players can skip a LOT of mechanics. Even my static, which is not a hardcore group, has dps'd sammy quick enough to bug the break bar a few times. Too much power creep absolutely will break the game, not just in a balance sense, but in an actual bugs sense. The effect should be more severe on condi classes that have weaker direct damage skills. I have to imagine that fully customizable stats would seriously break dps condi chrono. You just overcapped condition damage. Or should have. If they let us do this stuff. What? Do you mean condi duration? Check my math, the condi duration stayed the same. If you mean condi damage, then I have no idea what your talking about, thats like saying power can overcap. We're way out in theory land now. And we're talking about giving up a stat to super boost a stat. (well off topic for, 'what stats synergize, and should there be more stat sets to allow for condi healer builds, but hey.) so, yes... Currently there is no cap on condi damage and power... But as your original math explains... This would be too powerful. So, you 'should have broke the cap' with that. (the currently nonexistent cap on damage stats.) So... My original contention that stat swapping wouldn't break the game was based on the assumption that you couldn't make 2 stat gear. I figured you'd pick a) 3 stat b) 4 stat. Then, a) pick the strong stats b) pick the weak stats. But you kinda went way past that... Which yes would be broken. And I'm not advocating for 'pick the stat you want' gear. I just want more options with concentration and healing power and condi damage on it.