DH DPS - for real?

[TimTheEnchanter.9321]

Hey everyone,

I was told recently that in T4 fractals my Firebrand is not up to standards, as power dps instead of condition damage is what ppl want. So far so good, I went to metabattle and built a full berserker according to what I was told there.Now, my guardian has ~11k health. Now the actual question:Is that really what ppl play?! It feels so very ... fragile. The damage output is higher, yes, but being killed by ~3 boss hits is not what I was expecting.So is the full berserker still a thing? Or is metabattle outdated?

[Aorin.9168]

Sadly, this is the meta. Glass cannon, full throttle dps is widely viewed as the fastest and most effective strategy. I detest it myself and wish anet would do something about it. I cannot abide being that squishy and build all my toons with some semblence of toughness and vitality and avoid group play altogether because there is inevitably one toxic person spouting the meta or gtfo rhetoric.

I cannot fathom how anyone can walk around with 11k HP and actually have an enjoyable PVE experience.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

Short story: metabattle will be outdated for a bit, while people adapt & adjust. Power builds are favored these days because they do steep burst damage, and the fights are quick. Still, better to run a build you can play well, then swapping to something before understanding why people prefer it. At worst, that means you lose out on a few groups using an ... awkward tool to decide who joins and who is /kicked.

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@"TimTheEnchanter.9321" said:So is the full berserker still a thing? Or is metabattle outdated?By its nature, MetaBattle will always be 1-8 weeks behind changes to the meta, especially for raids & fractals.

I was told recently that in T4 fractals my Firebrand is not up to standards, as power dps instead of condition damage is what ppl want.Some people care what build you are running, and those people expect others to run the theoretically optimum builds. Those can be found at SnowCrows and Discretize. SC is usually quicker to update after a patch, DT usually takes more time. SC focuses on raids, but usually has comments if a build should be tweaked for Fractals. DT is focused on fractals.

However, I think it's more important to worry about whether people know the mechanics, know their build. Personally, I'd rather have someone running last month's meta build if they are good at using it, then coming into our party with the latest flavor-of-the-week, without knowing how it works. I'd rather have someone who does half the damage, but avoids deathly mistakes, then person who can get meta results, but only when they aren't dead.

Now, my guardian has ~11k health. Now the actual question:Is that really what ppl play?! It feels so very ... fragile. The damage output is higher, yes, but being killed by ~3 boss hits is not what I was expecting.In T4 fractals, you should be able to avoid most damage most of the time. If your party isn't running a healer, try not to let yourself get hit 3x even if you have 20k health.

The reason a lot of players prefer power FB over condi is that, in a well-formed group, the fights are quick. Under those, um, conditions, you want builds that generate huge bursts, because the fight will be over before damage-over-time stacks up. And, in the current game, there are a lot of power builds that can do just that. And yes, they sacrifice health/protection for DPS.

Mind you, even in that situation, it remains important to remain alive and positioned properly, so, again, a well-run condi build would be superior to a poorly-run power build, all else being equal.

Although, typically: all else isn't equal. People who are good at the mechanics tend to run the more deadly builds, which is why people ask for such builds. People who aren't aware of why the meta changed are more likely to be unaware of mechanics, which is why people choose to /kick folks with such builds. (Even though both are based on a false syllogism, it makes the decision easy & quick, which is why people do it.)

[TanksK.4795]

Why need more health when you don't take damage right? Meta …. for experienced player

[Aorin.9168]

ps - I’m enjoying a tanky quickness sharing build with boon duration. Sword/Focus + Greatsword with Marauder armor, Durability runes and Wanderer trinkets. It’s beefy and the quickness uptime is amazing.

Radiance 2/3/3Virtues 1/2/3 or Zeal 2/2/3 when soloFirebrand 2/2/2 or 2/2/3

[Omnicron.2467]

I do Firebrand as a DPS even for 99 and 100cm and quite happy with that, I just avoid groups that ask for power dps and no one has ever complained and I am happy too.

[avatarpranav.1379]

That Firebrand Condition DPS build is actually so fracking strong. I love it cause it's a lot of fun as well. Play what's fun for you (condition DPS FB is also a meta build for some raids).

[Riba.3271]

As power guardian, you can run some valkyrie instead of berserker provided the mesmer knows what hes doing. You get 50% crit chance from the retaliiation trait in radiance and 20% from fury.Also some extra from banners and spotter.

Dont forget that 100% is max crit chance you can get, thats why AS POWER GUARDIAN, you can run some valkyrie because you throw away some excess crit chance above that 100% for health.

Dont think a few thousand health will make a huge difference but it might help. Especially if it boosts your DPS due to you dying less.

[starlinvf.1358]

@Threather.9354 said:As power guardian, you can run some valkyrie instead of berserker provided the mesmer knows what hes doing. You get 50% crit chance from the retaliiation trait in radiance and 20% from fury.Also some extra from banners and spotter.

Dont forget that 100% is max crit chance you can get, thats why AS POWER GUARDIAN, you can run some valkyrie because you throw away some excess crit chance above that 100% for health.

Dont think a few thousand health will make a huge difference but it might help. Especially if it boosts your DPS due to you dying less.

You should see the Caviler version of power radiance..... its shockingly strong on its own, but with alacrity in the mix, its a walking blender.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Honestly I would just adventure with people who are willing to take Firebrand. Yes, the Viper/Griever FB is a condi build, but it is the condi build with the shortest ramp up out of all of the others. It inflicts a crapton of burning very fast, while also doing serviceable power damage, it scales up by cleaving multiple enemies, and pre-cast ashes is still amazing against bosses.

If we were talking about condi daredevil or condi scourge, two classes that have horrible ramp up time, then I could understand the reluctance. But Firebrand? It shouldn't be a problem.

EDIT: To answer the question, the "meta" can change up a bit. Some premades will use Valkyrie if they have a chrono to bounce retaliation everywhere. But, Berserker is more reliable damage in all situation. I don't have much trouble surviving, either. For a couple of reasons:

(1): The traps give me a lot of protection.(2): Litany of Wrath is so good at healing that it is effectively a temporary immunity button(3): Aegis blocks a lot of errant hits. I still run "Retreat!" in a lot of groups because of this.(4): Shield of Courage is also a great temporary immunity button.(5): Projectiles can be managed with Wall of Reflection(6): The immense burst power of the Dragonhunter kills everything really fast anyway.

Another suggestion (albeit an unpopular one) is to run shield instead of torch. It gives more protection, more aegis, and also it destroys projectiles. Focus is also good for personal defense if you still need more.

[Alchimist.4738]

@TimTheEnchanter.9321 said:Hey everyone,

I was told recently that in T4 fractals my Firebrand is not up to standards, as power dps instead of condition damage is what ppl want. So far so good, I went to metabattle and built a full berserker according to what I was told there.Now, my guardian has ~11k health. Now the actual question:Is that really what ppl play?! It feels so very ... fragile. The damage output is higher, yes, but being killed by ~3 boss hits is not what I was expecting.So is the full berserker still a thing? Or is metabattle outdated?

You've access to a lot of blocking abilities, focus five blocks three attacks, even though you should try to not break the shield otherwise you'll lose damage, the third virtue also give you few seconds of blocking, you can use shelter as a heal instead of litany, even though litany should give you the opportunity to out heal damage, shelter can also allow you to ignore mechanics by blocking them. Moreover you can you greatsword three to disengage/reengage, same with the second virtue.

Moreover DH is supposed to be a glass canon, you shouldn't need survivability if everything is dead around you. Once you know the mechanics and how to properly dodge is pretty easy to stay alive, having good supports helps too.

[Mooncutter.2907]

I started fractals on a non-meta soldier's build because it was the first ascended gear set I had (initially created for WvW), and since I had already invested heavily into AR infusions on it before I learned what the meta gear set was for guardian I kept going with it. It is incredibly tanky with very low dps, but it offers heals, protection and most importantly survivability, because a dead guardian deals 0 dps.

This means that I won't get into groups that look exclusively for meta builds or dps players, but I don't usually get complaints about how long a fight goes on. I also find the groups looking exclusively for meta builds have folks that tend to ragequit a lot more easily if things go a little wrong, rather than work to try and correct it. I often run fractals on my guardian with a dps chronomancer in my guild and we've managed to 2-man Mai Trin when our other 3 party members went down repeatedly. It took a lot of time, especially since we would try to rez our allies several times, but it was more fun than repeatedly wiping for low defenses. I have also managed to solo a good chunk of the Deepstone Minotaur myself. At some point in that fight though I decided it would be faster just to /gg and retry with the group, but they still said it was entertaining for them to watch me try. Then there was the time I faced T3 Arkk after the other 4 party members died, and I finished off his last 9% of HP myself. The build may not be the most efficient in a fight, but I still believe it to be effective in its own way.

I do have DH dps build though and I will run it on T1's because it is much faster and incoming damage is not as bad as it is in higher tiers, and because that set can be used in the levels that don't require agony resistance since I haven't started infusing it yet. I plan to begin that fun process after I finish maxing out my tank set's AR.

[Dace.8173]

@Aorin.9168 said:Sadly, this is the meta. Glass cannon, full throttle dps is widely viewed as the fastest and most effective strategy. I detest it myself and wish anet would do something about it. I cannot abide being that squishy and build all my toons with some semblence of toughness and vitality and avoid group play altogether because there is inevitably one toxic person spouting the meta or gtfo rhetoric.

I cannot fathom how anyone can walk around with 11k HP and actually have an enjoyable PVE experience.

I kinda hate that, to be honest. I've always been in the camp that this is for fun and there should be more leeway given for possible builds instead of locking players out of an experience because they don't play the way the meta claims you should. But I think I'm in the minority on this.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:Short story: metabattle will be outdated for a bit, while people adapt & adjust. Power builds are favored these days because they do steep burst damage, and the fights are quick. Still, better to run a build you can play well, then swapping to something before understanding why people prefer it. At worst, that means you lose out on a few groups using an ... awkward tool to decide who joins and who is /kicked.

---

@"TimTheEnchanter.9321" said:So is the full berserker still a thing? Or is metabattle outdated?By its nature, MetaBattle will always be 1-8 weeks behind changes to the meta, especially for raids & fractals.

I was told recently that in T4 fractals my Firebrand is not up to standards, as power dps instead of condition damage is what ppl want.Some people care what build you are running, and those people expect others to run the theoretically optimum builds. Those can be found at

SnowCrows

and

Discretize

. SC is usually quicker to update after a patch, DT usually takes more time. SC focuses on raids, but usually has comments if a build should be tweaked for Fractals. DT is focused on fractals.

However, I think it's more important to worry about whether people know the mechanics, know their build. Personally, I'd rather have someone running last month's meta build

if they are good at using it

, then coming into our party with the latest flavor-of-the-week, without knowing how it works. I'd rather have someone who does half the damage, but avoids deathly mistakes, then person who

can

get meta results, but only when they aren't dead.

Now, my guardian has ~11k health. Now the actual question:Is that really what ppl play?! It feels so very ... fragile. The damage output is higher, yes, but being killed by ~3 boss hits is not what I was expecting.In T4 fractals, you should be able to avoid most damage most of the time. If your party isn't running a healer, try not to let yourself get hit 3x even if you have 20k health.

The reason a lot of players prefer power FB over condi is that, in a well-formed group, the fights are quick. Under those, um, conditions, you want builds that generate huge bursts, because the fight will be over before damage-over-time stacks up. And, in the current game, there are a lot of power builds that can do just that. And yes, they sacrifice health/protection for DPS.

Mind you, even in that situation, it remains important to remain alive and positioned properly, so, again, a well-run condi build would be superior to a poorly-run power build, all else being equal.

Although, typically: all else isn't equal. People who are good at the mechanics tend to run the more deadly builds, which is why people ask for such builds. People who aren't aware of why the meta changed are more likely to be unaware of mechanics, which is why people choose to /kick folks with such builds. (Even though both are based on a false syllogism, it makes the decision easy & quick, which is why people do it.)

I noticed that Discretize is run by an EU guild. Are their builds good to use for NA players? I've always been told that there is a difference in play priorities between EU and NA players and thus a different focus on builds.

[DuckDuckBOOM.4097]

You have aoe blind on f1 which refreshes when you kill an enemy with radiance. Gs3 blind and focus 5 blocks 3 attacks. Wall of reflect and shield of the avenger are great projectile defense. Learn to use them and you won't need the extra tankiness. Glass DH is my easy mode swap from druid when my team is playing so poorly they aren't worth healing.

That being said, if you have chrono druid support, and need some sustain, valkyrie DH is better dps in fractals. It's easier to heal ppl with higher hp and you don't lose your scholar bonus as easily.

When solo the toughness and healing power>vitality for sustain. Beware that you will aggro more because of high toughness in team fights. If you swap just the trinkets from zerker to crusader, you gain ~26% damage reduction and 308 healing power. Since symbolic avenger converts toughness to power it winds up being 1% power loss and 5% loss in ferocity. So long as you maintain retaliation, it's great for solo sustain. Run the standard zeal, radiance, DH setup. Swap test of faith to stand your ground for more retal uptime.

The build I used to do liadri 8 orb achievement and turi ossa kill was crusader gear dps firebrand. This is very much not accepted as meta in groups with Chrono/druid support. Elite mantra gives quickness and 50% crit chance retal. Your heal mantra procs retal(radiance trait) and quickness. Retal pulses might. I've had a ton of fun with it. Bursts and sustains well.