What's the most fun raid/fractal build you have played?

[hatebreeder.8316]

What's the most fun raid/fractal build you have played?

[rune.9572]

d/wh FA tempest

Favorite part was randomly jumping around like a maniac while air overload was casting, only to yolo slide with fire dagger 3 throught all the trash mobs and doot at them with my horn, while they stand cc'd in the massive aoe of death. It's the only time I felt like I'm in control of combat for once. Got so good at it I beat the benchmark XD

But then anet decided tempest needs to be deleted to sell the next expansion, and since then all classes just feel like that virgin doge meme, having to facetank random arrows and rocks thrown by everything everywhere nowadays because combat design has turned into Annoy The Player At All Costs. rip

Edited November 12, 2022 by rune.9572

[Sunshine.5014]

Fun is probably Tempest/Weaver. My brain was filled with adrenaline. I read every animation from the enemies, evading the right attacks, time dodge, attunement swap, and skills. It's honestly pretty fun. But I usually got demotivated when my DPS is lower than a Mech spamming #2. Dodge is a DPS loss.

Effective is probably Mechanist. A Mechanist with everything on auto attack, and only spamming #2 would have more DPS than the majority of Ele in fractal.

[Vordrax.5243]

For fractals, it's either Power Quickness Scrapper (mainly due to how amazing it is to just spam superspeed all over the place) or Heal Alacrity Druid. I would like to give Heal Alac Tempest a shot sometime, they are amazingly fun in open world, so I imagine they'd be a blast in fractals as well, but I'm currently fixated on medium armor professions at the moment when it comes to progression.

For raids, my experience is pretty limited, but it would most likely be Condi Soulbeast. I am looking forward to trying out either Power or Condi Alac Untamed sometime soon. I need to spend some more time on the golem before I feel comfortable trying it out in a raid. Untamed is stupid fun in open world as well, but I feel like my alacrity uptime needs some work (which might be helped with the upcoming patch to help deal with FF procs on CC-immune enemies.)

 

Every profession has something that is a lot of fun to play. I think the only thing that really frustrates people is when the lines of efficacy and enjoyment diverge significantly.

[AliamRationem.5172]

Weaver.  Although, it's somewhat less fun when you've been playing the same undertuned build forever with no buffs only to find that yet another patch is passing this spec by.  It's also less fun when it's been over 2 years since the last fractal was released and raids are dead content.

Edited November 14, 2022 by AliamRationem.5172

[Infusion.7149]

Chrono, probably followed by power ECSU holo , RR renegade, and FA tempest. Honorable mention to scrapper in fractals that you can skip mobs, on W5 river of souls and in W1 Spirit Woods. Looking forward to the chrono, holo, and scepter buffs that were stated to be happening at the end of the month.

Chrono was especially memorable for me because in HoT chrono and druid were dominant supports. In that time period if you didn't play chrono you were out in LFG waiting for a while. At the time commander's gear was used and not diviner's so it was reasonably robust as well and it was the only quickness and alacrity source available. Druid never caught on for me since plopping down spirits really annoyed me and so do pets. (Since I mainly WvW the fact that ranger is irrelevant in WvW outside of soulbeast kind of sealed this for me.)

* I will play firebrand, scourge (epi), mirage (reflect/confusion fights), virtuoso, DH ("Advance"/"Stand Your Ground"), berserker (banner up until this year), soulbeast (spotter/frost spirit), condi/heal mechanist, specter, daredevil, etc for some raids just because they're effective but it doesn't make them enjoyable. The only reason why firebrand would be fun is it is broken honestly: up until cele FB existed playing healbrand was incredibly boring in any competent group IMO. I really hating waiting on enemies dying especially in fractals. 

Edited November 14, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Vordrax.5243]

Update: Did our Fractal dailies today and I played Heal Alacrity Tempest, it is a blast. I ran Scepter/Warhorn but I've heard Staff is also pretty legit. I'm not really in a position to DPS in our Fractals so I can't speak to Weaver or Catalyst, but I can say that Heal Tempest is very enjoyable to play (minus I really think they need to have the attunements pulse Alacrity rather than just fire it off at the end, but I think that drum has been beaten to death by now, so hopefully it won't be long before it gets addressed.)

 

So based on my personal experience, for Fractals, if you like to play defensive/healer support, I'd say Heal Tempest and Druid are both a lot of fun, with Tempest perhaps slightly edging it out (though that might just be that it's a little easier to work with, Druid seems like it has a slightly higher skill floor to get value), and I personally don't love Heal Alacrity Mechanist, but that's mainly due to the playstyle, it is very effective and brings a lot of utility. When we duo Fractals, I tend to run Celestial Alac Mechanist just because I feel like I can still heal decently while also bringing enough DPS to prevent it from being a slog.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

For raids, it is Chronotank.  I chose tank as my starting role in raids, for two really big reasons.  First is that tanks generally control the pacing and placement of the fight.  Second, it s hard to find tanks.  The first reason is why the build is so fun to play.  See, when you go to fight a boss as a DPS, you're not really fighting the boss insomuch as you are fighting the interface while attacking something's back.  But me, as the tank?  I'm fighting the boss.  It's staring me down, and I stare right back.

I prefer the chronomancer to any other tank build because of it's massive toolbox.  Most other tanks are just buff builds with some toughness, but as a chronotank most of my support boons are in my shatters.  My utility bar is free for me to put whatever I want on it, which lets me solve countless problems that my team will face in the fight.  I become the one-stop shop for beating the boss, and I all everyone else needs to do is beat the boss's health down.

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

DPS and Alac - Specter, pre-shroud nerfs. It was so much fun actually. Since I have full legendary gear it was easy to get ritualist stats. Since the nerf I have tried condi virtuoso a few times and it is incredibly smooth and easy to play. I am a thief main through and through though.

Favorite raid: Twin Largos... the music, the chorography, it's just pure cake.

Favorite fractal: Sunqa CM with a group that is efficient and meets DPS checks.