Full Dragon gear reaper - good enough dps to raid?

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

As above . I plan to go raids but i hate squishy glass cannon gear and want nothing to do with berskerker stats.
Is Dragon viable enough to pass the muster for a power dps role?



 

Edited July 7, 2023 by ZeftheWicked.3076

[Endaris.1452]

You will need to run the Decimate Defenses trait as that will allow you to cover the massive crit deficit you have. Also note that this deficit will still be there if you want to go open world because you don't have your team providing full vulnerability there.

The gear optimizer says that with full dragon's, force/impact sigils, scholar rune and meta dps powerfood you will only end up about 5% below the berserker variant so that certainly seems viable to me. I'm sometimes organizing raid trainings on EU at RTI and I'd certainly let you join with that.

[Acanthus.8120]

If you're running Decimate Defenses to get to 100% crit, you'll be overcapped on crit chance. Although you'll need 1 precision infusion to make this true, Marauder gear with Dragon weapons and Rings with Death Perception brings you to a nice 75% and fury will bring that to 100%. Rune of the Eagle. You can take strike damage modifying sigils. You can keep Soul Eater that way too.

Edit: Well, if we're posting actual builds... Use Dread over Close to Death in open world and PUGs. Sadly, Signets are borked, or I'd recommend Signets of Suffering. =\

Edited July 7, 2023 by Acanthus.8120

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

just run Marauder's (with some Dragon's): Build Editor - Gw2Skills.Net

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

there's alot of misinformation surrounding this gearset, because it has vitality many assume it does less damage. the truth is, the damage potential of dragon's is actually higher than berserker's if you can manage to crit-cap without berserker's extra precision.

 

that said, you may need to run some marauders for crit-capping depending on the build, and you'll probably want rune of the wurm too. if you're going to go for a defensive damage build, then go all-in or its not worth doing it at all, because you'll have just wasted stats for nothing. with this combination you'll only lose about 15% of damage off the benchmark while gaining 80% survivability.

Edited July 8, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

9 hours ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

just run Marauder's (with some Dragon's): Build Editor - Gw2Skills.Net

i'd like to point out this is a solo build variant; for raids please change from "dread" to "close to death" in the the spite traitline. the utilities are also not ones that you would bring to a group encounter; you'd want shouts and wells only as minions clutter the screen.

 

the use of golem runes on machinist are why they were banned by most groups. (along with the annoying pushback).

Edited July 8, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

1 hour ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

i'd like to point out this is a solo build variant; for raids please change from "dread" to "close to death" in the the spite traitline. the utilities are also not ones that you would bring to a group encounter; you'd want shouts and wells only as minions clutter the screen.

 

the use of golem runes on machinist are why they were banned by most groups. (along with the annoying pushback).

isn't anything outside full Berserker banned anyways? Regardless, I was just showing my 100% crit. chance with marauder/dragon's but here's a more suitable version: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSgAEZlRwOYOMF2IOSXlNbA-zRRYih7bOqWgnRtS1KUVW9CIwv/JJASDFOjAVA-e

Edited July 8, 2023 by Arianth Moonlight.6453

[Acanthus.8120]

1 hour ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

there's alot of misinformation surrounding this gearset, because it has vitality many assume it does less damage. the truth is, the damage potential of dragon's is actually higher than berserker's if you can manage to crit-cap without berserker's extra precision.

 

that said, you may need to run some marauders for crit-capping depending on the build, and you'll probably want rune of the wurm too. if you're going to go for a defensive damage build, then go all-in or its not worth doing it at all, because you'll have just wasted stats for nothing. with this combination you'll only lose about 15% of damage off the benchmark while gaining 80% survivability.

It's not quite that simple. You need high power to get your worth out of ferocity. Otherwise you'd be better off stacking more power with less ferocity. I haven't done the math to know the exact tipping point, but I'm sure someone has.

I will say though, if Decimate Defenses pulled that much weight, the Valkyrie build would be much more popular. Berserkers is enduring in popularity because you get much more power from a tri-stat build (which makes each point of ferocity go further) even though you get more overall stats from a quad-stat build, and you get to keep your %damage modifier from Soul Eater. Now, do I like full squish builds? No. But they are probably going to math out as stronger than bruiser sets. It's just not going to be so much stronger that you wouldn't want someone running Marauder or Dragon.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Ty all for you feedback. Made myself a build using your tips, now i'll just get and set it's missing components and I'll be raid training ready.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

Dragons reaper is more glassy than zerker because you have to take decimated defenses to reach crit cap. Zerk/kitten reaper can take soul eater, which is two fold, does more damage and has a passive healing while you are doing damage. 

Dragon offer just alittle more health, which it what maybe two extra arena pulses before going down. 

Dragons with soul eater will be majorly lower your damage because you will not have 100% crit. Remember ferocity (one of dragons major stats) is only useful when when you crit, so everytime you do not crit a wasted skill.

[Acanthus.8120]

1 hour ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

Dragons reaper is more glassy than zerker because you have to take decimated defenses to reach crit cap. Zerk/kitten reaper can take soul eater, which is two fold, does more damage and has a passive healing while you are doing damage. 

Dragon offer just alittle more health, which it what maybe two extra arena pulses before going down. 

Dragons with soul eater will be majorly lower your damage because you will not have 100% crit. Remember ferocity (one of dragons major stats) is only useful when when you crit, so everytime you do not crit a wasted skill.

This is just not true for two reasons: 1.) Soul Eater will heal you 400 hp per 10k damage, but only while out of shroud. The vast majority of your damage comes from shroud or is done from utilities such as wells that you're not about to blankly sit and watch if you can do it and immediately hit shroud after. Greatsword skills are not that fantastic. 2.) Having more 6000+ more max hp is a massive buffer that allows for more mistakes. If you always play perfectly, it doesn't matter, but no one actually does, and your dps while your character is crying feebly on the floor is near 0.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

1 hour ago, Acanthus.8120 said:

This is just not true for two reasons: 1.) Soul Eater will heal you 400 hp per 10k damage, but only while out of shroud. The vast majority of your damage comes from shroud or is done from utilities such as wells that you're not about to blankly sit and watch if you can do it and immediately hit shroud after. Greatsword skills are not that fantastic. 2.) Having more 6000+ more max hp is a massive buffer that allows for more mistakes. If you always play perfectly, it doesn't matter, but no one actually does, and your dps while your character is crying feebly on the floor is near 0.

Just checked on the golem with no food, was doing 25k dps out of shroud, which = 1.2k heal per sec, which would probably be around 1k per sec if scholar bonus has no in effect. 6 sec of soul eater will recover the 6000 k extra hp you have. No boss mechanic that having 28k vs 22k health is going to make a difference, either you would survive both, or it is one shot mechanic. We are not talking about 14k hp eles or mesmers here.  This is assuming it is solo bosses, not boss that have cleave like sab, gors, KC, CA or MO., which would increase the healing more. Add in emboldened and your self heal goes even higher.

Also many raid attacks do % damage, for example VG greens.  Having higher health means healers will have a harder time healing you to full before the next % based attack.

And you are sacrificing 10% of your damage for 6 secs worth of self healing that you are also giving up. This is bad trade, and like the old signet trait, is bad advice making people worse at the same. You want to increase your survivablity in raids is getting proper gear, learn a rotation that you can do 90% of the maximum potential. The higher the dps, the shorter the fight, and the less likely you will mess up any mechanics and down.

[Acanthus.8120]

33 minutes ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

Just checked on the golem with no food, was doing 25k dps out of shroud, which = 1.2k heal per sec, which would probably be around 1k per sec if scholar bonus has no in effect. 6 sec of soul eater will recover the 6000 k extra hp you have. No boss mechanic that having 28k vs 22k health is going to make a difference, either you would survive both, or it is one shot mechanic. We are not talking about 14k hp eles or mesmers here.  This is assuming it is solo bosses, not boss that have cleave like sab, gors, KC, CA or MO., which would increase the healing more. Add in emboldened and your self heal goes even higher.

Also many raid attacks do % damage, for example VG greens.  Having higher health means healers will have a harder time healing you to full before the next % based attack.

And you are sacrificing 10% of your damage for 6 secs worth of self healing that you are also giving up. This is bad trade, and like the old signet trait, is bad advice making people worse at the same. You want to increase your survivablity in raids is getting proper gear, learn a rotation that you can do 90% of the maximum potential. The higher the dps, the shorter the fight, and the less likely you will mess up any mechanics and down.

If your group is as competent as you make yourself out to be, you aren't succeeding on razor thin margins to justify that level of micromanaging. And the point remains, you're not going to purposely stay out of shroud to do 25k damage rotations (which have downtime) when you could be doing 35k+ damage rotations by including shroud.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

47 minutes ago, Acanthus.8120 said:

If your group is as competent as you make yourself out to be, you aren't succeeding on razor thin margins to justify that level of micromanaging. And the point remains, you're not going to purposely stay out of shroud to do 25k damage rotations (which have downtime) when you could be doing 35k+ damage rotations by including shroud.

This make no sense. You will be out of shroud naturally due to the shroud dancing for soul barbs. You do not sound like you know what your talking about, giving bad advice. There is no record of you ever doing this content on gw2 wingman or killproof.me.  Sorry but you do not sound like you are not qualified to give raid advice specifically to new players on raids.   There are too many people on this forum who give raid/fractal/ or strike commentary but do not take part of this content.  You sound like someone who really likes your build that you will defend it at all costs. In the end, as long as soul eater is giving such a large passive sustain and damage boost, there is no reason not to take it.  If you are a new player, do not waste gold getting getting dragons and marauders gear.  Buy a set of zhed's armor, a set of scholar runes (power ferocity will still be used after the relic update), and get a ascended weapon.  Eventually you want to replace your exo armor with a combination of zerker and assassin ascended armor. The goal is to get to exactly 75% crit chance.

[Endaris.1452]

I would still argue that the vitality is quite useful because it increases your life force by ~29%. Taking damage while in shroud often cuts your time in shroud as the biggest DPS contributor short so having more life force to make (aura) damage taken less impactful should still be a small but reasonable QoL and even be able to counteract the loss in damage stats compared to berserker a bit if there's aura damage. Makes it more beginner friendly in a sense.

(I know it still depletes naturally at the same rate but actual damage hits will hit for a lower % against full lifeforce compared to with no vitality)

For almost any encounter you should not have to worry about self-healing traits as you specifically have a person in your group whose primary job it is to keep you booned and at max health. Encounters with % health damage will always make reaper bad because they will also cut into shroud. Realistically, full berserker vs full dragon is a 6k difference in health. For any smaller max health % mechanic like on KC the extra health you lose will be negligible (5k instead of 4k, wow) and for the bigger ones like VG or Deimos CM, you're probably kind of screwed regarding scholars anyway, extra vitality or not.

Finally, there are good reasons to believe that with SotO and the new relic system, the entire scholar thing will become moot anyway as there will likely be more viable alternatives due to the link between rune stats and rune 6th bonus being removed. And then you don't have to care anymore either way.

[The Boz.2038]

Friendly reminder that health padding is not sustain, and using decimate defenses to crit-cap leaves you more fragile overall 🙂

Take care!

[The Boz.2038]

On 7/9/2023 at 12:02 AM, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

Buy a set of zhed's armor, a set of scholar runes (power ferocity will still be used after the relic update),

Maybe consider Deadeye/Ogre/Dragonhuner runes for ~25% the cost, for same reason.