Best (?) solo PVE Open World class/specs

[Stx.4857]

20 minutes ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

 

With 25k dps which is very reasonable and even way higher in some cases it puts you at 2k hp every sec. together with regen from tome 2 you can reach 2.3k every second. That is more than your cele vindicator.

Dropping virtues is quite a big dps loss and most importantly costs you your cleaving f1 passive. All for ~200heal every sec. This is the problem with the current Hizen worshipper group. You seriously underestimate 31k hp together with litany on an extremely high dps build or the benefit of a high dps build in the first place.

I tried to solo some bounties and it can do that just fine. had only problems with 2 of them. Was still the opposite of fun thanks to insanely unfun affixes like unable to be hit melee or the nice stop/walk or it perma evades while it dashes all over the place. 

The reason Hizen is popular is because he spends a lot of time testing his builds, and they work.  He also spends a lot of time putting out actual footage of soloing difficult content.   That doesn’t mean he knows everything or that he has found the absolute best build for every class.  
 

So if ritualist firebrand truly is capable of pulling 20k+ solo while surviving the same level of challenges, no one is going to shun the build for no reason.  I think people just like to see it happen.  Like I said I don’t really play guardian so I can’t speak on it, but a build with little sustain outside a 25 second cd heal seems like it may have a tough time surviving.  That was Hizens conclusion about firebrand and why he prefers willbender for soloing.  Willbender can reduce litany cooldown with alacrity and still does a lot of burning. 

[Dr Meta.3158]

26 minutes ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

 

With 25k dps which is very reasonable and even way higher in some cases it puts you at 2k hp every sec. together with regen from tome 2 you can reach 2.3k every second. That is more than your cele vindicator.

Dropping virtues is quite a big dps loss and most importantly costs you your cleaving f1 passive. All for ~200heal every sec. This is the problem with the current Hizen worshipper group. You seriously underestimate 31k hp together with litany on an extremely high dps build or the benefit of a high dps build in the first place.

I tried to solo some bounties and it can do that just fine. had only problems with 2 of them. Was still the opposite of fun thanks to insanely unfun affixes like unable to be hit melee or the nice stop/walk or it perma evades while it dashes all over the place. 

I don't think anyone worships Hizen, but rather Hizen is one of the very, very few guild wars 2 players that 1. Creates his own build rather than copies them. 2. Seeks to understand a class and push it to its limit rather than complain about its strength due to their lack of ability to play it right. 3. Backs up his knowledge and skills with video footage. 4. Shares with the community so everyone has the opportunity to improve should they wish to do so.

I don't know if its jealousy or contempt for the competent but either way, I wouldn't casually dismiss the guy like that especially when having effectively no resume in comparison.

The better avenue to take is to put up your own evidence. Make a build, test it, record it, share and teach. Then you can be held to a similar regard.

As the kids used to say, "Don't hate, appreciate."

[Gaiawolf.8261]

11 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

This is the problem with the current Hizen worshipper group. You seriously underestimate 31k hp together with litany on an extremely high dps build or the benefit of a high dps build in the first place.

Umm, what are you talking about? I never mentioned following Hizen. That was you or another poster maybe. I think you might have me confused with someone else. I make my own builds with a variety of gear, and I like testing them to see how they compare. Sometimes I tweak those I find, like this one which gets a very high score among the Metabattle community and has an Honor variant:

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Firebrand_-_Celestial_Firebrand

I also never said the ritualist build can't work. I said I wanted to try it myself before rendering final judgement. But I also know there are mobs that can easily burn through 30K health in under 20s, especially with no toughness, so I'm going in with objective expectations.

EDIT: Also as others have said, if you can help verify the performance or show us how it works in play, we might find that more helpful than just what seem like judgmental claims. If that's not what you were going for, sorry, I misunderstood your message. Seems like others here did too. 

EDIT 2: By the way, for anyone interested, my current setup is a tweak of the above build. I use FB runes, which allows me to take the Archivist trait for more versatile tome skills or switching out FMW without losing quickness. When solo, I swap Virtues for Zeal and swap sword for a scepter for more might and when I need range. When running in groups I replace Radiant with Honor and slot a staff in the second weapon set, because I find the extra support and group sustain rewarding. Still kind of excited to try the ritualist build for more damage when I just feel like blasting fire and flame!

Edited March 12, 2023 by Gaiawolf.8261

[AliamRationem.5172]

10 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

Umm, what are you talking about? I never mentioned following Hizen. That was you or another poster maybe. I think you might have me confused with someone else. I make my own builds with a variety of gear, and I like testing them to see how they compare. Sometimes I tweak those I find, like this one which gets a very high score among the Metabattle community and has an Honor variant:

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Firebrand_-_Celestial_Firebrand

I also never said the ritualist build can't work. I said I wanted to try it myself before rendering final judgement. But I also know there are mobs that can easily burn through 30K health in under 20s, especially with no toughness, so I'm going in with objective expectations.

EDIT: Also as others have said, if you can help verify the performance or show us how it works in play, we might find that more helpful than just what seem like judgmental claims. If that's not what you were going for, sorry, I misunderstood your message. Seems like others here did too. 

EDIT 2: By the way, for anyone interested, my current setup is a tweak of the above build. I use FB runes, which allows me to take the Archivist trait for more versatile tome skills or switching out FMW without losing quickness. When solo, I swap Virtues for Zeal and swap sword for a scepter for more might and when I need range. When running in groups I replace Radiant with Honor and slot a staff in the second weapon set, because I find the extra support and group sustain rewarding. Still kind of excited to try the ritualist build for more damage when I just feel like blasting fire and flame!

Regardless of who said what, the crux of the debate here is the comparison between a Hizen-style high sustain build and one that relies more on active defense and a more offensive play style.  With quickness it should be entirely possible to achieve 20k+ DPS in solo play on a ritualist build.  

The significance of LoW in this scenario is that it not only full heals no matter how much health you've lost, but it also acts as a pseudo-invuln for 6 seconds as nothing is going to get through 6k+ HPS.  On a build with 30k health and that full heal + 6s damage invuln every 25 seconds, it becomes pretty difficult for open world enemies even champions to bring you down.

However, LoW is a somewhat more technical heal.  You can't just panic and pop it because your health is low.  You have to be prepared to deal big damage.  If you're taking a lot of damage and relying on that big heal to save you, you can't afford to miss on it.  When you do, you probably end up dead.

By comparison, a Hizen build (or any high sustain build) is so tanky that it's less of an issue, which is why a lot of people use his builds.  They don't necessarily care that it doesn't deal maximum damage or that you can play a more aggressive build and achieve better performance (if you're good enough).  They want good damage and easy play styles in a bulletproof package.  Hizen delivers that.  His builds are always a balanced compromise of excellent sustain with good (but not great) damage.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

1 hour ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Regardless of who said what, the crux of the debate here is the comparison between a Hizen-style high sustain build and one that relies more on active defense and a more offensive play style.  With quickness it should be entirely possible to achieve 20k+ DPS in solo play on a ritualist build.  

The significance of LoW in this scenario is that it not only full heals no matter how much health you've lost, but it also acts as a pseudo-invuln for 6 seconds as nothing is going to get through 6k+ HPS.  On a build with 30k health and that full heal + 6s damage invuln every 25 seconds, it becomes pretty difficult for open world enemies even champions to bring you down.

However, LoW is a somewhat more technical heal.  You can't just panic and pop it because your health is low.  You have to be prepared to deal big damage.  If you're taking a lot of damage and relying on that big heal to save you, you can't afford to miss on it.  When you do, you probably end up dead.

By comparison, a Hizen build (or any high sustain build) is so tanky that it's less of an issue, which is why a lot of people use his builds.  They don't necessarily care that it doesn't deal maximum damage or that you can play a more aggressive build and achieve better performance (if you're good enough).  They want good damage and easy play styles in a bulletproof package.  Hizen delivers that.  His builds are always a balanced compromise of excellent sustain with good (but not great) damage.

This is a more balanced analysis and good comparison of the play types. It does seem the more aggressive build leaves much less room for error, but this true is true of most classes (mayyyyybe not scourge 🙃). Nothing new here, but it seems the other poster was dismissing this? Although I may have read that wrong. If so, my bad. Another reason I wanted to test it for myself. I'm aware less time in combat means less time for mistakes, but when just a few (or one!) mistakes create unrecoverable situations before LoW comes back off CD, you're fighting back uphill and might not make it back up.

I love LoW, and it's my go to heal for all content except when supporting in groups. The 6s of healing (plus activation time) is why I said 20s of downtime instead of 25s. When needed in a pinch. I usually open Tome of Justice right after popping it, to ensure a full heal with damage and AOE.

I really should get on acquiring the gear to test the ritualist build, although the thing I remember about damage is that toughness does wonders for other, lesser heals sources against strike damage. 23k strike damage on a celestial build (and even less on TB!) is over 34k damage on a ritualist build. It's much easier to heal 23k than 34k on anything not called LoW. A lot of enemies have no trouble doing 23k to me in my celestial gear, which means they can absolutely do 34k to a ritualist build in a matter of seconds. Condition damage heavily favors the ritualist build, though.

I also want to try a TB build. Nearly the same damage as ritualist maybe? Plus tons of toughness and some vitality! But much less boon uptime which might break it. I shall find out eventually.

Edited March 12, 2023 by Gaiawolf.8261

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

Builds I have played for solo pve. A lot of it depends on your build/gear. For example necros with no defensive stats or traits are really squishy, but with them they are almost immortal.

S Tier:

Strong and Easiest. Easy boons, passive sustain, easy playstyle with basically no rotation.

• Mechanist (cele/condi). Auto attack and press f1 f2 f3.
• Staff/axe Mirage (condi). Get 3 clones and spam ambushes.

A Tier:

Strong but lacking in one area (not as easy to play, less boons, or lower dps).

• Renegade/Vindicator/Herald (power). Need to manage energy to be effective.
• Catalyst/weaver (cele/power/condi). Need to do proper rotation and push more buttons.
• Harbinger (condi). Not great aoe since most of your damage is projectiles.
• Virtuoso (power). Need to kite.
• Scrapper (power). Melee only.
• Holo (cele/power). Heat management required and lots of buttons.
• Soulbeast/Untamed (cele/power/condi). Soulbeast can be kind of squishy while sitting through long burst combos, untamed has lots of pet management.
• Reaper (power). Melee only.
• Scourge (condi). Can be tanky but at the cost of a lot of dps.

B Tier:

Lacking in 2 or more areas

• Willbender/DH/FB. (power/condi). Squishy or melee focused or weak passive defence.
• Deadeye (power). Squishy, no aoe.
• Spellbreaker. (power). If you can consistently proc full counter off cooldown its great, otherwise its dps is pretty low.

Edited March 12, 2023 by Paradoxoglanis.1904

[Dreams.3128]

So, I would like to bring up that there is a version of celebrand that Vallun uses and that I've been playing around with that seems pretty satisfying. It doesn't seem to do a form of offhealing, but seems to be a more boon generating/hybrid damage sort of version of celebrand.

https://guildjen.com/firebrand-open-world-build/

From my own experience of using this, it pumps perma might, fury, resolution, regen..and I wanna say protection, but don't quote me on the protection part. It is actually pretty good kitten good in OW and honestly carried pretty well in fractals. It doesn't fully solo ALL legendaries compared to other builds, but with enough skill it can solo most champions just fine. Don't know if other people wanna try this version and see if they have other opinions about it, but through my extensive use of it, I'd give it a 9/10 for satisfaction and usefulness.

[draxynnic.3719]

It's running Mantra of Solace, so it'll be getting Protection from there.

[Adversed.2897]

On 3/12/2023 at 10:42 AM, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

Builds I have played for solo pve. A lot of it depends on your build/gear. For example necros with no defensive stats or traits are really squishy, but with them they are almost immortal.

S Tier:

Strong and Easiest. Easy boons, passive sustain, easy playstyle with basically no rotation.

• Mechanist (cele/condi). Auto attack and press f1 f2 f3.
• Staff/axe Mirage (condi). Get 3 clones and spam ambushes.

A Tier:

Strong but lacking in one area (not as easy to play, less boons, or lower dps).

• Renegade/Vindicator/Herald (power). Need to manage energy to be effective.
• Catalyst/weaver (cele/power/condi). Need to do proper rotation and push more buttons.
• Harbinger (condi). Not great aoe since most of your damage is projectiles.
• Virtuoso (power). Need to kite.
• Scrapper (power). Melee only.
• Holo (cele/power). Heat management required and lots of buttons.
• Soulbeast/Untamed (cele/power/condi). Soulbeast can be kind of squishy while sitting through long burst combos, untamed has lots of pet management.
• Reaper (power). Melee only.
• Scourge (condi). Can be tanky but at the cost of a lot of dps.

B Tier:

Lacking in 2 or more areas

• Willbender/DH/FB. (power/condi). Squishy or melee focused or weak passive defence.
• Deadeye (power). Squishy, no aoe.
• Spellbreaker. (power). If you can consistently proc full counter off cooldown its great, otherwise its dps is pretty low.

See, i like this summary style of player opinion. Much easier to read than walls of "what if" scenarios and debates.

 

Curious why no mention has been made for Specter. I haven't tried it, but some streamers have shown its viability with high dps and decent buff uptime.  Maybe it's just lacking in the AoE criteria?

 

Note: I'm in the fresh meat category so read these forums, articles, reddit and view youtube to better understand professions worth putting time into at end game for my playstyle - which conveniently marches what this threads Op is asking about.

 

I personally have been bouncing between thief and mesmer but have no expertise to add. Just infinite questions. 

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

23 minutes ago, Adversed.2897 said:

See, i like this summary style of player opinion. Much easier to read than walls of "what if" scenarios and debates.

 

Curious why no mention has been made for Specter. I haven't tried it, but some streamers have shown its viability with high dps and decent buff uptime.  Maybe it's just lacking in the AoE criteria?

 

Note: I'm in the fresh meat category so read these forums, articles, reddit and view youtube to better understand professions worth putting time into at end game for my playstyle - which conveniently marches what this threads Op is asking about.

 

I personally have been bouncing between thief and mesmer but have no expertise to add. Just infinite questions. 

I didnt really like spectre when I briefly tried it. It seems like it could be good enough but I didnt like using sc/d or sc/p or their shroud form.

[draxynnic.3719]

My experience on specter is a bit out of date, but what I recall with a cele specter:

It is, or at least was, reasonably good at keeping itself alive while wearing down a single target. It is, however, possibly even worse at multiple targets than deadeye. Deadeye can at least set up a build that will cut through multiple weak targets in succession, but specter doesn't get the benefit of an ability refresh when one target dies that allows you to roll into the next.

Specter can really shine as part of a duo or trio, though.

[Stx.4857]

On 3/19/2023 at 8:36 AM, Adversed.2897 said:

See, i like this summary style of player opinion. Much easier to read than walls of "what if" scenarios and debates.

 

Curious why no mention has been made for Specter. I haven't tried it, but some streamers have shown its viability with high dps and decent buff uptime.  Maybe it's just lacking in the AoE criteria?

 

Note: I'm in the fresh meat category so read these forums, articles, reddit and view youtube to better understand professions worth putting time into at end game for my playstyle - which conveniently marches what this threads Op is asking about.

 

I personally have been bouncing between thief and mesmer but have no expertise to add. Just infinite questions. 

Specter and thief in general just deals much less cleave than other classes and also lower overall dps.  Spectre has a lower bench than a lot of other specs of similar roles, and they lose the rot wallow venom share damage while playing solo.  Solo buffing might is also an issue for spectre.  
 

Most solo thief builds you see will deal 8-12k dps.  Other classes can get up to 20k, although most I’ve seen do around 15k.  

[Nephalem.8921]

On 3/12/2023 at 6:42 PM, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

B Tier:

Lacking in 2 or more areas

• Willbender/DH/FB. (power/condi). Squishy or melee focused or weak passive defence.
• Deadeye (power). Squishy, no aoe.
• Spellbreaker. (power). If you can consistently proc full counter off cooldown its great, otherwise its dps is pretty low.

Your spellbreaker take is outdated. It does not require full counter for damage. It also has perma stab and perma quick and high might. The only issue is low vuln output and its a power build so you can not take something like trailblazer.

It is a very high dps build unless your enemy is completely immune to cc like most stuff in arah. Traits wont work then. Defiance bars are ok though.

Edited March 22, 2023 by Nephalem.8921

[Terian.8359]

On 3/12/2023 at 7:42 PM, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

Mechanist (cele/condi). Auto attack and press f1 f2 f3

You can do autoattack on F1-F3 like 1 skill )

Mechanist most nobrain prof ))

[Buran.3796]

Based on my new experiences in the latest two weeks I would like to re-do my list:

1) Celestial Vindicator, Hizen's build. Pretty much soloes and curbstomps any OW content with no sweat. Facing a dozen of upscaled lvl 84 charrs in Drizzlewood can kill you, but outside that or one-shoot mechanics, you're safe. Very simple totations, mid level of keystrokes x minute.

2) Celestial Herald. Very close to 1, similar damage, condi stacks, better cc and natural heals but a bit worse re-sustain.

3) Celestial Mesmer; damage can be higher and has the quality of life of being ranged and requiring very low key inputs x minutes, but the changes in mantras made the condition cleansing more convoluted. The re-sustain can't compare vs the Revs builds.

4) Celestial/TB Weaver; higher damage but harder to play and very intensive in keystokes.

[Dreams.3128]

19 hours ago, Buran.3796 said:

Based on my new experiences in the latest two weeks I would like to re-do my list:

1) Celestial Vindicator, Hizen's build. Pretty much soloes and curbstomps any OW content with no sweat. Facing a dozen of upscaled lvl 84 charrs in Drizzlewood can kill you, but outside that or one-shoot mechanics, you're safe. Very simple totations, mid level of keystrokes x minute.

2) Celestial Herald. Very close to 1, similar damage, condi stacks, better cc and natural heals but a bit worse re-sustain.

3) Celestial Mesmer; damage can be higher and has the quality of life of being ranged and requiring very low key inputs x minutes, but the changes in mantras made the condition cleansing more convoluted. The re-sustain can't compare vs the Revs builds.

4) Celestial/TB Weaver; higher damage but harder to play and very intensive in keystokes.

Depends on the weapon. With:
Sword- Absolutely agree with your statement.
Dagger- More mobility, bursty, less sustain damage, short-ranged, AOE
Staff- Less burst, more sustain damage, more utility, more cleave, long-ranged
Scepter- Can either be bursty or sustain-y, single target, mid-ranged.

Cele weaver can use all of its main hand weapons which allows it to be more versatile compared to most classes that like to stick to one or two mainhands at most.