What is a viable fractal/raid spec that is ranged power damage ?

[drchaos.5204]

doesnt have to be the greatest damage ever but something that won make people drop you instantly

[SeTect.5918]

1 hour ago, drchaos.5204 said:

doesnt have to be the greatest damage ever but something that won make people drop you instantly

Power chrono would maybe be a good choice (https://snowcrows.com/builds/mesmer/chronomancer/power-chronomancer)

[Jedrik.3109]

But to remind ranged gives you a high dps uptime potential but does not alleviate needing to stack with your group for boons and heals.

Edited November 6, 2023 by Jedrik.3109
Reading is not my strong suit it seems.

[Mourningstar.7309]

While a little outdated, fully ranged power mechanist is still fine if you can control your mech's positioning, but yea, p chorno is your best bet.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

For fractals it is a bit more difficult, since condi doesn't do as well against the non-boss mobs.  That said, there's a few that come to mind.  Rifle Deadeye, Scepter Weaver, Fire Tempest, Mechanist (both rifle and pistol), Condi or Power Virtuoso all come to mind.  I can't personally vouch for Specter, but it still might work as well.  

[SeTect.5918]

On 11/3/2023 at 5:58 PM, Jedrik.3109 said:

Scourge would be my suggestion. But to remind ranged gives you a high dps uptime potential but does not alleviate needing to stack with your group for boons and heals.

Isnt scourge more like a "fake" ranged?

What i mean is, that your weapon skills are ranged, but your utility skills and scourge skills (f2-f5) force you into melee.

So while you can play scourge ranged, you will probably only deal like 15-20k dps at best if you dont go closer to the enemy.

Same thing is with condi holo where the kits and holo forge force you into melee even if the pistol is a ranged weapon. 

Same With condi weaver, condi harbinger....

I think the only classes which can effectively be used in full ranged (that i found on snowcrows) are condi virtuoso and power chrono because both all their utility and f1-5 skills can also be used at ranged. 

(Maybe also power virtuoso but i didnt find it on snowcrows so idk if the utility skills are also ranged)

Edited November 5, 2023 by SeTect.5918

[zeyeti.8347]

3 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Isnt scourge more like a "fake" ranged?

What i mean is, that your weapon skills are ranged, but your utility skills and scourge skills (f2-f5) force you into melee.

So while you can play scourge ranged, you will probably only deal like 15-20k dps at best if you dont go closer to the enemy.

Same thing is with condi holo where the kits and holo forge force you into melee even if the pistol is a ranged weapon. 

Same With condi weaver, condi harbinger....

I think the only classes which can effectively be used in full ranged (that i found on snowcrows) are condi virtuoso and power chrono because both all their utility and f1-5 skills can also be used at ranged. 

(Maybe also power virtuoso but i didnt find it on snowcrows so idk if the utility skills are also ranged)

The only reason scourge is a bad choice here is the Op asked for a Power dps not a condi one , and playing scourge power in fractals seems like trolling.

Also scourge first mechanic is to land sand shades (deal damage and condition on impact and stay there for 8 secondes, and no it doesnt apply twice on a target near you and inside a sand shade , that would be broken), those copy your F skills and allow you to kite , clean condi , deal damage to targets at 900 , so basically the scourge has 100% dps uptime from a 900 range , the only downside is torch 4 being 600 range and maybe boon uptime from splits (but thats the case for any class you play), this is an intersting mechanic cause your F skills basically can touch 3 target max per sand shade , but you count as a sand shade so if your group is stacked and you have like 2 sand shades active you can hit up to 9 targets , maybe 12 if you land your 3 ammo sand shades quickly, i may be wrong about that not pretty sure  , but seems barrier was applied to 9 allies at a moment.

The thing with virtuoso power is that it is only used for a very specific content (boss who needs burst damage and a portal) , it's a bit hard to deal damage and the way he wins dagger is lackluster , also he looses 10% damage due to Mental Focus if ranged , better play condi in any case , cause it hits hard in term of power and has the bleeding chomping up really quickly 

A full dps power from range would be pmech (i hate suggesting this build ) it has 1200 range and barely loose any damage , can only think about rifle 2 and -15% crit. chance (you overcapped at 105 so it's not a big loss , still 90 % crit chance), all other build use ranged weapons but with melee ones , so from time to time you ll need to go melee.

Thief is another choice , the sniper has a smooth rotation from afar with rifle and can self sustain some boons , but needing to kneel down and loose 75% mov. speed can be troublesome.

Edited November 5, 2023 by zeyeti.8347

[SeTect.5918]

47 minutes ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

those copy your F skills and allow you to kite , clean condi , deal damage to targets at 900 , so basically the scourge has 100% dps uptime from a 900 range , the only downside is torch 4 being 600 range

Desert_Shroud and Plaguelands are both on the caster and therefore melee range. Having to run to the enemy every 20 seconds (without alacrity) is kinda crappy.

I couldnt find any power mechanist build on youtube that isnt from 2022, but power mechanist is kinda trashy. Especially when it comes with rifle. It is easy to play but the damage is lacking very much.

Lets face it, every ranged build loses damage if going FULL ranged and not going into melee every then and now.
But I will still go with Chrono and Virtuoso probably being the best ones in that aspect. They both lose very little if going full ranged since every skill can be used at range.

But if they all stack and you just chill somewhere else in the room which makes you not receiving any boons, they will probably kick you anyway because without boons you wont deal decent damage anyway.

[zeyeti.8347]

8 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Desert_Shroud and Plaguelands are both on the caster and therefore melee range. Having to run to the enemy every 20 seconds (without alacrity) is kinda crappy.

I couldnt find any power mechanist build on youtube that isnt from 2022, but power mechanist is kinda trashy. Especially when it comes with rifle. It is easy to play but the damage is lacking very much.

Lets face it, every ranged build loses damage if going FULL ranged and not going into melee every then and now.
But I will still go with Chrono and Virtuoso probably being the best ones in that aspect. They both lose very little if going full ranged since every skill can be used at range.

But if they all stack and you just chill somewhere else in the room which makes you not receiving any boons, they will probably kick you anyway because without boons you wont deal decent damage anyway.

Manifest Sand Shade : casting your shade ability (f2 , f3 ,f4 , f5) also cast them inside your sand shade , sand shade has a 900 range --> scourge is able to do 100% of his damage at 900 range, and if you go range for only a small period of time with decent support you won't loose boon uptime, i agree on plagueland but going melee for 2 secs casting it is not very accountable as it has 90 to 60 sec cd.

The only way you could achieve such gameplay in raids is by doing a specific role , like kiting qadim , or pilar on qadim 2 , those build specifically require you to stay alone and sustain damage on your own.

For the mech power pew pew build you can go snowcrow in the legacy engineer build. https://snowcrows.com/builds/engineer/mechanist/power-mechanist , yes the damage is kind of trash but still efficient and fairly enough to beat many encounters.

Anyway it's a good design to me , no ranged weapon should beat a melee one in term of damage , or else what's the point going melee ?

Edited November 5, 2023 by zeyeti.8347

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

20 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Isnt scourge more like a "fake" ranged?

What i mean is, that your weapon skills are ranged, but your utility skills and scourge skills (f2-f5) force you into melee.

So while you can play scourge ranged, you will probably only deal like 15-20k dps at best if you dont go closer to the enemy.

Same thing is with condi holo where the kits and holo forge force you into melee even if the pistol is a ranged weapon. 

Same With condi weaver, condi harbinger....

I think the only classes which can effectively be used in full ranged (that i found on snowcrows) are condi virtuoso and power chrono because both all their utility and f1-5 skills can also be used at ranged. 

(Maybe also power virtuoso but i didnt find it on snowcrows so idk if the utility skills are also ranged)

For Scepter Weaver (and similarly, scepter Tempest), it is a mixed bag.  For Weaver specifically, the amount of melee skills depends on which utilities you take, and also which off-hand you go with.  For example, Primordial Stance with Focus requires melee range to pulse damage and blow up flame auras.  However, it is possible to run Warhorn with Fire Signet, Glyph of Storms, and Glyph of Elemental Power to do almost all of the damage at a distance.  The only thing that weaver has that requires melee range is Sunspot.  Fire Tempest needs melee range for its overloads, and generally needs to be in melee range to make use of Arcane Power.

I missed that the OP was asking for power builds specifically.  Not sure how.  That said a bit of an off-meta pick is the Fire Tempest which runs Grieving and sits at 90% burning duration.  It's not a pure power build, but it does quite a bit of strike damage.  It is the closest thing that Ele has to an LI build.  

[SeTect.5918]

8 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

Manifest Sand Shade : casting your shade ability (f2 , f3 ,f4 , f5) also cast them inside your sand shade , sand shade has a 900 range --> scourge is able to do 100% of his damage at 900 range, and if you go range for only a small period of time with decent support you won't loose boon uptime, i agree on plagueland but going melee for 2 secs casting it is not very accountable as it has 90 to 60 sec cd.

The only way you could achieve such gameplay in raids is by doing a specific role , like kiting qadim , or pilar on qadim 2 , those build specifically require you to stay alone and sustain damage on your own.

For the mech power pew pew build you can go snowcrow in the legacy engineer build. https://snowcrows.com/builds/engineer/mechanist/power-mechanist , yes the damage is kind of trash but still efficient and fairly enough to beat many encounters.

Anyway it's a good design to me , no ranged weapon should beat a melee one in term of damage , or else what's the point going melee ?

Oooh, i didnt know that about the Sand shade haha.

Well there u go, now u know i played like 0 scourge. 

Thanks for the Info ig. 

[zeyeti.8347]

9 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Oooh, i didnt know that about the Sand shade haha.

Well there u go, now u know i played like 0 scourge. 

Thanks for the Info ig. 

No problem , you are welcome , it isn't a very obvious mechanic if you haven't played it yet.

[the krytan assassin.9235]

Tbh i think it mostly depends on how efficiënt you can play the espec rather than the espec itself. 

Mesmer((boon)Chrono+virt) has excellent options with GS and dagger/sword. 

Ele has a strong scepter qcata and decent staff weaver build

Mech has a decent rifle dps and alacdps build

Thief has a strong rifle DE build

Staff/GS Reaper and LB/GS DH are great hybrids