Guardian forced into support role (Squad-based WvW)?

[juno.1840]

@RisenHowl.2419 said:

@"juno.1840" said:"Play whatever you want" is a bit of a lie if you want to do anything other than small-scale roaming.

Like raids, you can't just bring what you want and expect to get into a squad. If you do the squad is likely trash and just a bunch of free bags for opposition running an organized squad composition.

No organized squad will waste a slot on a sub-optimum build/role. For FB, that's support. For Rev that's DPS.

Sorry, those are the facts.

For weaver, that role is damage.

If you can get the same damage on dh along with 10 target stab, protection, power retal, reflect, and better defenses..... why on earth would you run weaver but not dh?

Because the damage is not necessarily the same. It's not average damage that's important -- it's the spike. Condition damage is garbage in the current meta because organized comps will have endless condi clear.

This isn't an argument between you and me... it's between you and the meta. Skilled play certainly trumps build, but nobody can judge skill in an open raid. What is easy to judge is your profession and build.

[LetoII.3782]

@juno.1840 said:

This isn't an argument between you and me... it's between you and the meta.

^Burn guard are not in a good place.You're doing the gullible elements of the forum a disservice

[RisenHowl.2419]

@juno.1840 said:

@RisenHowl.2419 said:

@juno.1840 said:"Play whatever you want" is a bit of a lie if you want to do anything other than small-scale roaming.

Like raids, you can't just bring what you want and expect to get into a squad. If you do the squad is likely trash and just a bunch of free bags for opposition running an organized squad composition.

No organized squad will waste a slot on a sub-optimum build/role. For FB, that's support. For Rev that's DPS.

Sorry, those are the facts.

For weaver, that role is damage.

If you can get the same damage on dh along with 10 target stab, protection, power retal, reflect, and better defenses..... why on earth would you run weaver but not dh?

Because the damage is not necessarily the same. It's not average damage that's important -- it's the spike. Condition damage is garbage in the current meta because organized comps will have endless condi clear.

This isn't an argument between you and me... it's between you and the meta. Skilled play certainly trumps build, but nobody can judge skill in an open raid. What is easy to judge is your profession and build.

@LetoII.3782 said:

@juno.1840 said:

This isn't an argument between you and me... it's between you and the meta.

^Burn guard are not in a good place.You're doing the gullible elements of the forum a disservice

Been on JQ in t1 for the last couple weeks, the only time burn dh isn't more effective than weavers and heralds is against a top 10 guild. against them, it breaks even with the other top dps classes and provides similar or better levels of group support. Against the other 200 guilds on NA or against pugs, it's devastating.

Check the videos again and look at the dps out meter on the bottom right, it's a pretty good indicator of spike damage. 10k burn ticks are the same as 10k meteors, only more localized so it's easier to finish them.

Conditions are cleansed last on, first off. you apply burning, cripple, then vuln multiple times per second. unless the enemy squad has antitoxin scrappers and tempests, they can't keep up with the cleansing.

Pretty sure the meta is determined by evidence of new ideas working. Videos are pretty great evidence

[Justine.6351]

I will watch the vid later but in general burn guard is fluff dps. I want it to work but firebrand burns got nerfed quickly after pof came out because the tome trait that caused all the skills to do extra burn was gutted.

[enkidu.5937]

This game mode is dead af. The only content, which is build diversity and meta-gaming, is constantly killed by cookie cutter fetishists.

A guy shares a great build, and gets some „Doesn't work vs. some Top 10 coordinated groups, so its not viable. If you bring your own build, the squad becomes a free loot bag pinata.“.

These are the facts, folks, and now move on to www.brainpower-failure-get-your-cookie-cutter.com, grab ya own lewt machine and bore your enemies to death ;)

[LetoII.3782]

@RisenHowl.2419 said:

Pretty sure the meta is determined by evidence of new ideas working. Videos are pretty great evidence

Condi guard isn't new, I've been playing variants of it since launch.. And I have videos of myself destroying 5 people at a time with it, and topping dps charts when baddies reflect themselves (and their allies thanks to permeating wrath) to death.

But it's a baddie killer.There's lots of baddie killers.There's lots of builds that look great... Sometimes.

And the big sometimes here is what you've given up in exchange for some nuisance burn ticks.

[Dediggefedde.4961]

@Kaiser.9873 said:So you play boon and cleanse roulette?

There is no roulette part, though.The boon output and uptime of scrappers is pretty preticable.most enemy zergs run mostly the same scourge build, which brings the mayority of incoming conditions (count, not dmg/duration).Since the conversion is following a table and the boon duration is also independent of the condition duration, usually the outcome is the same.Thanks to overshield and vulnerability, group protection uptime around 90%. Superspeed and alacrity typically around 30%. Might output is interestingly comparible to aura-tempests. Of course it's not a 25 stacks burst, but the average stack/fight-time that's comparable. Comeback cure gives 100% regeneration uptime. And bleeding gives around 90% vigor uptime. Depending on enemy-composition burn and chill gives a lot of aegis and alacrity in addition.Since firebrands give resistance for bombs, too, you usually have enough time to convert everything regardless of application order. I usually do something like 4 cleanses per second on average, and the aura-share something like 3/4 of that, so with two of each we get around 14 cleanses per second in the squad on average. Burst cleansing for scrappers goes up to 20 cleanses per second...Summarized the combination is enough to cleanse and buff more than enough to have a consistent boon uptime.

Was a bit more fun when sneak-gyro was not meta and the scrappers would bounce conditions with althruism rune and mortar kit. ^^

[RisenHowl.2419]

@Dediggefedde.4961 said:

@Kaiser.9873 said:So you play boon and cleanse roulette?

There is no roulette part, though.The boon output and uptime of scrappers is pretty preticable.most enemy zergs run mostly the same scourge build, which brings the mayority of incoming conditions (count, not dmg/duration).Since the conversion is following a table and the boon duration is also independent of the condition duration, usually the outcome is the same.Thanks to overshield and vulnerability, group protection uptime around 90%. Superspeed and alacrity typically around 30%. Might output is interestingly comparible to aura-tempests. Of course it's not a 25 stacks burst, but the average stack/fight-time that's comparable. Comeback cure gives 100% regeneration uptime. And bleeding gives around 90% vigor uptime. Depending on enemy-composition burn and chill gives a lot of aegis and alacrity in addition.Since firebrands give resistance for bombs, too, you usually have enough time to convert everything regardless of application order. I usually do something like 4 cleanses per second on average, and the aura-share something like 3/4 of that, so with two of each we get around 14 cleanses per second in the squad on average. Burst cleansing for scrappers goes up to 20 cleanses per second...Summarized the combination is enough to cleanse and buff more than enough to have a consistent boon uptime.

Was a bit more fun when sneak-gyro was not meta and the scrappers would bounce conditions with althruism rune and mortar kit. ^^

4/s using what? Mk3, fumigate, light field blasts, and purge gyro are the cleanses on scrapper. If you're using them on top of each other instead of spreading them out all I have to do is wait 5s, then bomb when you have nothing left man lol

[Stand The Wall.6987]

unless every party is running perma resistance renegades, burn guard will always do fine. will get beat for dps against good groups, but the damage will always be competitive.

[ArchonWing.9480]

Shrugs

Even if something doesn't work on a "good" group, that still doesn't reflect the majority of fights. Besides, when pugging and such one is just really looking for easy bags anyways. I mean it probably won't work in say a gvg or whatnot, but meh. Now, some methods are less efficient than others regardless though.

It really comes down to this:

@LetoII.3782 said:And the big sometimes here is what you've given up

[Maelwro.7562]

Thanks all for the comments! I should have also clarified that I also greatly enjoy dragonhunter (forgot to mention this in my original post). I'm glad to hear that at least DH is viable as dps.