Some feedback on the Rifle updates

[draxynnic.3719]

20 hours ago, Levetty.1279 said:

The fact that Heal Chronos are still camping Scepter/Shield and some are even still bringing a Staff tells you how "good" Rifle is.

No, it tells you how good they made heal chrono in the patch before even without rifle. People were taking it into instanced content because the setup was already capable of healing through some encounters. No different to how some other heal builds might trade off some healing for something else if the player feels they just need enough healing rather than maximising it.

That said, indications are that rifle heal chrono is doing particularly low damage even by healer standards, so there might be some leeway to bump the damage up a little.

[Mell.4873]

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

No, it tells you how good they made heal chrono in the patch before even without rifle. People were taking it into instanced content because the setup was already capable of healing through some encounters. No different to how some other heal builds might trade off some healing for something else if the player feels they just need enough healing rather than maximising it.

That said, indications are that rifle heal chrono is doing particularly low damage even by healer standards, so there might be some leeway to bump the damage up a little.

Most Mesmer Healers are very low damage normally due to the cheese of the rotation.

To maintain enough clone generation for healing and boons you pretty much have to spam either the new Rifle 2 or Scepter auto attack both have no damage. If you use Staff unless you run some condition damage that too will do no damage. 

Your best bet it probably Wells or Mantra of pain for damage but that doesn't sound great. 

[draxynnic.3719]

14 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

Most Mesmer Healers are very low damage normally due to the cheese of the rotation.

To maintain enough clone generation for healing and boons you pretty much have to spam either the new Rifle 2 or Scepter auto attack both have no damage. If you use Staff unless you run some condition damage that too will do no damage. 

Your best bet it probably Wells or Mantra of pain for damage but that doesn't sound great. 

I'm not criticising heal builds. If a group is made or broken by whether the healer provides 2k dps or 5k, they've got bigger problems.

It does suggest, however, that it can probably be a bit higher, so that in power stats, it can be a suitable switch-for-sustain weapon for open world builds or the like.

[Levetty.1279]

22 hours ago, Micah.3789 said:

No it doesn't. Players in GW2 have always been abysmally slow to adapt to  change, especially when they aren't forced to. Scepter/shield was and still is perfectly viable, and a lot of people don't like the rifle healer fantasy (this is a RPG after all).

Besides that, chrono has effectively two different build approaches now, depending on which weapon you choose. Scepter/shield lacks direct healing and so requires the relevant traits in Inspiration to accommodate (the pre-rifle build). Whereas rifle has significant direct healing that allows for more flexibility in trait choice if desired. That means one could avoid mantra healing entirely and still produce decent healing, while gaining the benefits of say, Medic's Feedback. 

 

"everybody is stupid but me" Ah yes perfectly reasonable argument from somebody who isn't wrong.

[Micah.3789]

17 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Isn't that staff Mirage, I think I did mention that was the closest to healer we had before Rifle.

Also, I am not really saying you could not heal before Rifle, but it requires an incredibly hard build and rotation that there wasn't much point. Unless you main Mesmer like I do.

What mirage build are you referring to that was "the closest to healer we had before rifle?" I did a lot of research before making my own heal mirage build, and found nothing but people discouraging any attempts to try it. Meanwhile, chrono has been completely legit and community supported since Nov 28. So much so, that some people are ignoring the rifle and still running the same build!

8 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Most Mesmer Healers are very low damage normally due to the cheese of the rotation.

I've found mirage to be the most effective heal/dmg hybrid of any class, and I've tried most. In celestial stats I can bench 15k+ while still healing through any PvE content; bringing loads of utility, full boon spread, and unmatched personal survivability. Here's a log of me benching on the golem with extremely threatening damage pulsing. The hps is a bit low since I can't help but dodge some of the damage, but you still get a good idea of how potent it is. On the most intense content I'll usually swap to Relic of the Flock and healing food, but that only drops me from 17k dps to around 15k.
https://dps.report/vPT5-20240304-224620_golem 

9 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

To maintain enough clone generation for healing and boons you pretty much have to spam either the new Rifle 2 or Scepter auto attack both have no damage. If you use Staff unless you run some condition damage that too will do no damage. 

The trick is to shatter immediately before big clone generators, namely traited mantra of recovery and staff3/scepter2 depending on your loadout. That's two full shatters every ~10s. 

[Mell.4873]

9 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I'm not criticising heal builds. If a group is made or broken by whether the healer provides 2k dps or 5k, they've got bigger problems.

It does suggest, however, that it can probably be a bit higher, so that in power stats, it can be a suitable switch-for-sustain weapon for open world builds or the like.

I didn't want to bloat my reply but one use of the new Rifle is an open world Berserker or Marauder/Dragon builds (I use the later). 

Full DPS gear with most likely some Healing runes and maybe a relic would be a pretty nice combo. High bust damage with suppment healing and high damage phantasms from Rifle 4.

[Mell.4873]

40 minutes ago, Micah.3789 said:

What mirage build are you referring to that was "the closest to healer we had before rifle?" I did a lot of research before making my own heal mirage build, and found nothing but people discouraging any attempts to try it. Meanwhile, chrono has been completely legit and community supported since Nov 28. So much so, that some people are ignoring the rifle and still running the same build!

I've found mirage to be the most effective heal/dmg hybrid of any class, and I've tried most. In celestial stats I can bench 15k+ while still healing through any PvE content; bringing loads of utility, full boon spread, and unmatched personal survivability. Here's a log of me benching on the golem with extremely threatening damage pulsing. The hps is a bit low since I can't help but dodge some of the damage, but you still get a good idea of how potent it is. On the most intense content I'll usually swap to Relic of the Flock and healing food, but that only drops me from 17k dps to around 15k.
https://dps.report/vPT5-20240304-224620_golem 

The trick is to shatter immediately before big clone generators, namely traited mantra of recovery and staff3/scepter2 depending on your loadout. That's two full shatters every ~10s. 

I guess you made my point for me. Nobody realy uses Mirage for healing especially if you want to run Staff/Staff for Alacrity. 

I have have attempt a few Celestial Mirage builds over the years for Strikes and Raids but honestly it never really worked. Most players go Boon Support DPS normally due to share amount of stuff you have to manage. 

You needs full clones to provide Alacrity but you need to shatter to heal. This contradiction is why no one plays it. You are a Rare person to be able heal and DPS with this build. 

Edited March 5 by Mell.4873

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

You'll not be lacking Clones if you combo Mantra of Recovery + Clones on heal skill trait, and take Self-Deception + Jaunt. Shattering is indeed counterintuitive for a Mirage, but if you generate Clones fast enough then it's not really an issue. Plus you won't be Shattering nearly as often as a Heal Chrono anyway, since most of the essential boons are already packed in the Staff's Ambush. 

I imagine technically a Staff/Staff Mantra-spam Heal Mirage build is already very possible with the current designs. Actually there was a video about it not long ago, I think also from @Micah.3789? 

Such a build in theory will be very good at sustained healing, but will lack burst heal capabilities. Maybe switching to Staff/Rifle can fix that?

 

Edited March 5 by ZephidelGRS.9520

[Passerbye.6291]

The only thing that would make clone management, or rather boon generation via shattering somewhat complicated for mirage with that setup would be maintaining protection, since that is a low duration mandatory boon scaling with number of clones shattered, especially considering you can't rely on chaos aura since not all fights frequently trigger hits on allies to boost your prot uptime via chaos aura. Would require proper gameplay for sure with celestial gear, but hey, if it works, it works 🙂

[Mell.4873]

17 minutes ago, Passerbye.6291 said:

The only thing that would make clone management, or rather boon generation via shattering somewhat complicated for mirage with that setup would be maintaining protection, since that is a low duration mandatory boon scaling with number of clones shattered, especially considering you can't rely on chaos aura since not all fights frequently trigger hits on allies to boost your prot uptime via chaos aura. Would require proper gameplay for sure with celestial gear, but hey, if it works, it works 🙂

Celestials is how I tried it but honestly, I'm so out of practice with Mirage I can barely do it. I would rather spend my time on Chronomancer which is not only more forgiving but can really do a lot of damage on Boon Support.

[Passerbye.6291]

25 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

Celestials is how I tried it but honestly, I'm so out of practice with Mirage I can barely do it. I would rather spend my time on Chronomancer which is not only more forgiving but can really do a lot of damage on Boon Support.

I mean that's fine, I'm just happy to hear mirage gets other uses, albeit off meta ones. Doing 15-17k damage while main healing and providing a core boon, fury, 25 might etc. is nothing to sneeze at. Even if he didn't provide perfect uptime on protection for instance, the gap could be covered by the rest of the group, the most obvious choice being qherald.

Edited March 5 by Passerbye.6291

[Micah.3789]

1 hour ago, Mell.4873 said:

I guess you made my point for me. Nobody realy uses Mirage for healing especially if you want to run Staff/Staff for Alacrity. 

I have have attempt a few Celestial Mirage builds over the years for Strikes and Raids but honestly it never really worked. Most players go Boon Support DPS normally due to share amount of stuff you have to manage. 

You needs full clones to provide Alacrity but you need to shatter to heal. This contradiction is why no one plays it. You are a Rare person to be able heal and DPS with this build. 

Let's try not to get too hung up on my mirage build. The point was that mesmer could produce substantial healing without rifle, and I've proven that on celestial mirage which is harder and less potent than a dedicated heal chrono.

As for the anti-synergy with mirage and shatters, it certainly was a hurdle, but not a road block. With celestial stats, the extra boon duration can compensate for lack of clones quite a bit. If I take Crystal Sands, I can just barely maintain Alacrity even with no clones. This is actually a win over chrono that absolutely requires a target. As mentioned before, I minimize the time spent without max clones by shattering just before I finish casting Mantra of Recovery and right before Phantasmal Warlock converts to clones. It makes a tidy little loop where all the CDs line up every ~10s.

50 minutes ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

I imagine technically a Staff/Staff Mantra-spam Heal Mirage build is already very possible with the current designs. Actually there was a video about it not long ago, I think also from @Micah.3789? 

Such a build in theory will be very good at sustained healing, but will lack burst heal capabilities. Maybe switching to Staff/Rifle can fix that?

I haven't posted a video, but I do remember a meme build video posted here. It was from back when mantras were recharge only and way before inspiration/chaos were overhauled. 

Mantra of Recovery has been more than enough for burst healing, especially with Relic of the Flock. It'll full heal just about anyone in about 2s on a 10s CD.

Now that mantras heal on charge you can also use them reactively for substantial IC healing.

54 minutes ago, Passerbye.6291 said:

The only thing that would make clone management, or rather boon generation via shattering somewhat complicated for mirage with that setup would be maintaining protection, since that is a low duration mandatory boon scaling with number of clones shattered, especially considering you can't rely on chaos aura since not all fights frequently trigger hits on allies to boost your prot uptime via chaos aura. Would require proper gameplay for sure with celestial gear, but hey, if it works, it works 🙂

Prot is one of the tighter boons for sure. With my boon duration, I get about 6s per 3 clone shatter. I mind wrack every 10s loop and cry of frustration every other. That alone is 18s every 20s. If I don't have to save them, I'll alternate the other 2 shatters with cry of frustration to bump it up to 24s every 20s. It definitely falls off without targets, but luckily you don't usually need it then. 

17 minutes ago, Passerbye.6291 said:

Even if he didn't provide perfect uptime on protection for instance, the gap could be covered by the rest of the group, the most obvious choice being qherald.

My partner plays quick untamed which give prot with the new maces 🙏

18 minutes ago, Passerbye.6291 said:

I mean that's fine, I'm just happy to hear mirage gets other uses, albeit off meta ones. Doing 15-17k damage while main healing and providing a core boon, fury, 25 might etc. is nothing to sneeze at.

The utility is also phenomenal. I can tank without moving or getting touched and the cleansing, stab, and aegis are *chef's kiss* especially in CM fractals.

[Passerbye.6291]

8 minutes ago, Micah.3789 said:

Let's try not to get too hung up on my mirage build. The point was that mesmer could produce substantial healing without rifle, and I've proven that on celestial mirage which is harder and less potent than a dedicated heal chrono.

As for the anti-synergy with mirage and shatters, it certainly was a hurdle, but not a road block. With celestial stats, the extra boon duration can compensate for lack of clones quite a bit. If I take Crystal Sands, I can just barely maintain Alacrity even with no clones. This is actually a win over chrono that absolutely requires a target. As mentioned before, I minimize the time spent without max clones by shattering just before I finish casting Mantra of Recovery and right before Phantasmal Warlock converts to clones. It makes a tidy little loop where all the CDs line up every ~10s.

I haven't posted a video, but I do remember a meme build video posted here. It was from back when mantras were recharge only and way before inspiration/chaos were overhauled. 

Mantra of Recovery has been more than enough for burst healing, especially with Relic of the Flock. It'll full heal just about anyone in about 2s on a 10s CD.

Now that mantras heal on charge you can also use them reactively for substantial IC healing.

Prot is one of the tighter boons for sure. With my boon duration, I get about 6s per 3 clone shatter. I mind wrack every 10s loop and cry of frustration every other. That alone is 18s every 20s. If I don't have to save them, I'll alternate the other 2 shatters with cry of frustration to bump it up to 24s every 20s. It definitely falls off without targets, but luckily you don't usually need it then. 

My partner plays quick untamed which give prot with the new maces 🙏

The utility is also phenomenal. I can tank without moving or getting touched and the cleansing, stab, and aegis are *chef's kiss* especially in CM fractals.

This is great to hear, me and my friends have a meme about the church of staff mirage because for years I've been advocating for it as the go to class for a bunch of different things. Over time it received a lot of nerfs and I no longer play it as much for anything other than soloing bosses. But for a long while, whenever somoeone asked for build advice, I'd try to convert them to the church of staff mirage 🙂 

I even soloed some champs and a few legendaries completely naked, using a level 4 white staff (does less damage than a no level requirement one for some reason) just to prove my point on a few occasions.

Edited March 5 by Passerbye.6291

[Micah.3789]

25 minutes ago, Passerbye.6291 said:

This is great to hear, me and my friends have a meme about the church of staff mirage because for years I've been advocating for it as the go to class for a bunch of different things. Over time it received a lot of nerfs and I no longer play it as much for anything other than soloing bosses. But for a long while, whenever somoeone asked for build advice, I'd try to convert them to the church of staff mirage 🙂 

I even soloed some champs and a few legendaries completely naked, using a level 4 white staff (does less damage than a no level requirement one for some reason) just to prove my point on a few occasions.

Hopefully the devs don't read all this and use it to justify yet another mirage nerf 😆

[Mell.4873]

@Micah.3789I do still have all the Celestial gear (I only have legendary medium armor) so maybe I will try a Healing Celestial Mirage again.

I do want a condition version of a boon support and Chronomancer/Rifle isn't really doing that.

Some people have suggested putting a Quickness Ambush on the Rifle which would be nice. I don't think it would spawn a duel boon support build since I am fairly certain you cannot maintain Alacrity with just one staff. 

[draxynnic.3719]

5 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

@Micah.3789I do still have all the Celestial gear (I only have legendary medium armor) so maybe I will try a Healing Celestial Mirage again.

I do want a condition version of a boon support and Chronomancer/Rifle isn't really doing that.

Some people have suggested putting a Quickness Ambush on the Rifle which would be nice. I don't think it would spawn a duel boon support build since I am fairly certain you cannot maintain Alacrity with just one staff. 

Isn't the difference between camping one staff and two just one dodge every swap? The complication comes that if you stop camping and swap to the other set, you stop supplying Alacrity for that period. Been a while since I've looked at the numbers, but I suggest the benefit of the energy sigils might be more 'save on boon duration' rather than build-enabling.

Probably still better to just make them both alacrity, though. Or, the proposal I've been throwing around forever, just make a trait that grants alacrity regardless of weapon.

[Mevelios.4809]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Probably still better to just make them both alacrity, though. Or, the proposal I've been throwing around forever, just make a trait that grants alacrity regardless of weapon.

It would definitely make it easier and solve the entire issue, however I'm not yet convinced it'd be the best move as Split surge's increased damages are very welcome coupled to the preview we got from next update about "power mirage", Imaginary axes' cripple and Ether barrage's quickness do help in competitive modes, Mirage thrust's boon rip still is a freebie even if it's redundant with domination's Vicious expression, and Wave of panic's extra torment also is very welcome for that dead underwater content (might as well adapt those weapons to make them land-based at this point, eh? An ever-chasing spear and the staff copycat -the trident- which could make one be more support-focused with boons and the other damages-centered?). But such a simple solution would however give a lot more leeway about bringing an alacdps mirage, without being forced into playing the staff!

Edited March 5 by Mevelios.4809

[Micah.3789]

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Isn't the difference between camping one staff and two just one dodge every swap? The complication comes that if you stop camping and swap to the other set, you stop supplying Alacrity for that period. Been a while since I've looked at the numbers, but I suggest the benefit of the energy sigils might be more 'save on boon duration' rather than build-enabling.

Probably still better to just make them both alacrity, though. Or, the proposal I've been throwing around forever, just make a trait that grants alacrity regardless of weapon.

With vigor, endurance regenerates at a rate of 3 dodges every 20s. Non-healers can take False Oasis and other utilities to add mirage mirrors which add 1 ambush about every 20s. Sigil or Energy on each weapon adds a total of 2 dodges every 20s. So, without utilities those sigils account for 40% of your dodges and therefore alacrity. Boon duration doesn't reasonably compensate. Beside that, more ambushes means more damage. 

When you swap weapons, you're stuck for 10s and your endurance is still refilling. It's a 'use it or lose it' situation, and you need nearly every one of your ambushes to be on a staff or you will drop alacrity. That's why we can't run a secondary weapon. I agree that the trait should just grant alacrity on any ambush and solve that problem entirely.

1 hour ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

It would definitely make it easier and solve the entire issue, however I'm not yet convinced it'd be the best move as Split surge's increased damages are very welcome coupled to the preview we got from next update about "power mirage", Imaginary axes' cripple and Ether barrage's quickness do help in competitive modes, Mirage thrust's boon rip still is a freebie even if it's redundant with domination's Vicious expression, and Wave of panic's extra torment also is very welcome for that dead underwater content (might as well adapt those weapons to make them land-based at this point, eh? An ever-chasing spear and the staff copycat -the trident- which could make one be more support-focused with boons and the other damages-centered?). But such a simple solution would however give a lot more leeway about bringing an alacdps mirage, without being forced into playing the staff!

I could be wrong, but I don't think most of the effects would be missed much; and the rest could and should be baseline without a trait investment. Power-based mirage ambushes are getting a huge buff literally next patch, could just pump up the split surge to compensate, for example. 

[Mevelios.4809]

14 minutes ago, Micah.3789 said:

I could be wrong, but I don't think most of the effects would be missed much; and the rest could and should be baseline without a trait investment. Power-based mirage ambushes are getting a huge buff literally next patch, could just pump up the split surge to compensate, for example. 

Dagger's vulnerability, rifle's fury (heh) & spear's might are definitely worth getting rid of, and we likely could afford losing sword's boon rip & axe's cripple (bit more doubtful about that last one since I don't care about GW2's "PvP"). The remaining effects (improved GS damage, trident torment, staff alac, scepter self-quick for competitive content) much less, hence my doubt!

[FlowingWater.6193]

17 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

I didn't want to bloat my reply but one use of the new Rifle is an open world Berserker or Marauder/Dragon builds (I use the later). 

Full DPS gear with most likely some Healing runes and maybe a relic would be a pretty nice combo. High bust damage with suppment healing and high damage phantasms from Rifle 4.

How? I'm not quite following your reply. The damage scalings on the rifle are exceedingly poor (rough numbers):

1. Set at 0.2 (and at around ~1.05 for the ambush)
2. Set at ~0.65
3. Set at ~1.05
4. Set at ~1.15
5. N/A

Or do you mean you're running a secondary weapon like greastsword for DPS and only using the rifle for the heals?

[Mell.4873]

1 hour ago, FlowingWater.6193 said:

How? I'm not quite following your reply. The damage scalings on the rifle are exceedingly poor (rough numbers):

1. Set at 0.2 (and at around ~1.05 for the ambush)
2. Set at ~0.65
3. Set at ~1.05
4. Set at ~1.15
5. N/A

Or do you mean you're running a secondary weapon like greastsword for DPS and only using the rifle for the heals?

You got it, Greatsword most of the time with Signet of Either and then just swapping to Rifle for healing. Normally I just try and get the two Phantasms out of Rifle 4 then change back. 

Before Rifle this build was extremely squishy and not really worth it in the open world when Condition Virtuoso exists with its passive healing. Now we have a good second option. 

Edited March 5 by Mell.4873

[draxynnic.3719]

9 hours ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

It would definitely make it easier and solve the entire issue, however I'm not yet convinced it'd be the best move as Split surge's increased damages are very welcome coupled to the preview we got from next update about "power mirage", Imaginary axes' cripple and Ether barrage's quickness do help in competitive modes, Mirage thrust's boon rip still is a freebie even if it's redundant with domination's Vicious expression, and Wave of panic's extra torment also is very welcome for that dead underwater content (might as well adapt those weapons to make them land-based at this point, eh? An ever-chasing spear and the staff copycat -the trident- which could make one be more support-focused with boons and the other damages-centered?). But such a simple solution would however give a lot more leeway about bringing an alacdps mirage, without being forced into playing the staff!

You'll note that I didn't specify changing the existing trait to do that. My usual position has been to change Dune Cloak to do that. Dune Cloak's problem all along is that it's been competing with IH, which is normally considered the DPS grandmaster - if it was an alacrity trait, however, that would become an asset, since it would allow alacDPS and pure DPS to be balanced against one another by adjusting the damage of clone ambushes.

[Mevelios.4809]

19 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

You'll note that I didn't specify changing the existing trait to do that.

Ah, right, my bad - I misinterpreted it and just jumped at associating it with the quick, uninspired solution I had in mind. ☹️