Kittymarks - The derpy girl's comprehensive benchmark

[Myhr.9108]

@Digit.1823 said :

It is indeed true that she is not my peer in terms of skill or insight, that much is indeed made clear. But here is another snippet of the definition of peer-reviewing:

"evaluation of scientific, academic, or professional work by others working in the same field."

Benchmarks and rotations are in this case "the field" we are talking about (i wouldn't know or particularly care if we can call it "scientific" or even "professional"). But what i do know is that the moment she entered the field with benchmarks and numbers that people in the same field can look at it and review it. If you want to nail me to the wall on a technicality then it's easy to rephrase it: The moment she released those benchmarks people with the correct understanding are allowed to look at it, review it and voice their opinion on it. That's how it works. Nothing is stopping me from looking at her rotation videos, using my experience to see something is not quite right and then stating "Hey look, what you're doing here and there is less then optimal for x and y reason." A good example in the case being the Wild Blow vs Blood Reckoning usage i stated in multiple posts now.

The only fear i have (nice of you to claim to know my fear btw) is that this is taken seriously, and the people with a scrap of knowledge voicing their concerns are being silenced on the premise of "elitism" by white knights. I've already stated that the process of learning something is exactly the same when learning something bad or good, it is only when you put what you learned into practice that the efficiency becomes visible. Why learn something sub-optimal when you can just start learning something optimal from the start.

There is absolutely no difference in using a qt/sc/ln rotation in a high speed raid clear or in a casual run with the difference being how serious you're taking the raid. The order in which you're activating skills stays exactly the same with the only difference maybe being how quickly you're going through the motions to try and maximize your damage. You can try and squeeze that sixth F1 burst on your condi ps every single time, or just let it slide and stick with an easy 5 F1 bursts even if quickness and alacrity up time is sufficient for six bursts every time...sure you're doing less damage but it's still going to be a lot more then when you've learned a rotation that only has room for 3/4 F1 bursts. In the end, when you've learned an efficient rotation, the order in which you're activating your skills stays exactly the same every time so once you've learned that order it's quite easy to go at it a bit slower/easier to allow for a more casual experience.

It's like i have to literally tell people that having fun and playing efficiently at the same time is quite possible. Like people think using an efficient rotation means fun gets kicked out the backdoor and can stay in the yard till people are done raiding. What is this, i don't even...

Ugh, you claim I'm using technicalities when you're abusing them yourselves. My point remains : you're not the target public. Of course, you can give your opinion, which is that people should play as you want them to play to achieve the results you want to have. I'll repeat : maybe they do not want the same thing as you do. Why learn something sub-optimal? Because reasons. Many. Like, having fun, being lazy, savoring the journey more than the result. And no, I never said you couldn't have fun by playing a meta-build, in fact, I sincerely hope you do enjoy your raiding sessions. Heck, maybe the immense majority of people enjoy aiming for the "optimal" way. As I said, good for you. But not everybody is like you. Does it really matter to you that there are other benchmarks than the optimal ones? And, no, I'm not promoting for Pugs to just go into the LFG and claim "yay, I can raid because Kitty's benchmarks said I could!". But for a group of people of the same mind, that aim to just clear the content, without as much constrain as raid farming, this is an interesting tool. All I see is you trying to undermine the value of her work instead of actually helping her. Or ignoring her, which you clearly should do since her work will never impact you (because, you know, you'll never raid with people using said tool).

@Tarasicodissa.7084 said:@ people talking about target audience:As I and many others mentioned previously, this is gonna do even MORE HARM to newbie players than it does to seasoned veterans. Good player will immediately notice that something is way off and just dismiss these benchmarks, because he'll learn nothing useful from them.Newbie might be tricked into thinking these will have better results for him and actually pursue it, instead of learning straight up from the best source - qT or SC. When this noobie is gonna try to find a solid raid run, he's either gonna get kicked immediately or after people observe his horrible performance (partly due to bad build, partly due to bad rotation, both of which he got from these "benchmarks"). Or worse yet, he's gonna find a group of 9 similar people (all running off-meta builds from Kitty) who will accept him and proceed to struggle for hours on a single boss without realising what they're doing wrong.

If you're looking into an easy foolproof way to play a solid DPS build efficiently (even if not as good as qT), there are some sources, but Kitty ain't one of them. Some time ago I came across a videoguide (somebody could dig it up perhaps?) from some DnT member, who suggested a power daredevil build to new players, including important tips and tricks as well as solid ingame footage demonstrating all those things in practice. So yes, there are sources, which will teach you easy starter tips for DPS in raids, but it's best to learn from good players who know what they're talking about, not learn bad rotations and further embed your mistakes.

Edit: I've found it. It's slightly outdated now, but still offers some very useful advice.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beTkRWJjMp4

I respectfully disagree. You're afraid noobs will take bad habits. But in your opinion, what is worse : someone who has a meta-build but no rotation experience, nore any raid experience, or someone who has a bad dps but does know the mechanics? Both will "get carried", and don't you think one will have an easier time getting better if you want him to play a meta-build than the other? Again, Kitty never claimed that her benchmarks are better than the optimal ones. They're aimed at determining what is viable, not optimal. If your raid group aims for optimal, yes, it makes sense to aim for optimal too due to respecting everyone. But if your raid group aims only for viable, that's a different story. You know, it's not only for the better players to help the ones that struggle, the bad players can also find their fun by themselves.

[Verenhimo.3296]

@LadyKitty.6120 said:

@Verenhimo.3296 said:Of course it was vale guardian, the most undertuned boss, next up you'll be telling me snowflake builds can be useful because they can do literal golem bosses like MO.

People have played x10 druids on VG, infact I can think of many MANY bad x10 combos that've done vg for fun runs.

At VG, it doesn't matter much which builds peoples bring as long as there's a tank, enough heals to keep ppls alive and people do the mechanics properly (the only mechanic complicating the fight is greens and greens aren't a difficult mechanic. Moving between sectors is on tank's responsibility and Kitty doesn't feel like it should receive extra mention).At Gors, the need for DPS support is high compared to some others, but can be done without a single metabuild and with mediocre DPS builds as long as there's enough alternative DPS support and people know kitten they are doing.Sab doesn't differ much from DPS-golem from support's and DPSer's perspective. Can be done without meta as long as there's some alternative DPS support, cannonkillers know what they're doing and people bring enough CC for Knuckles.Sloth isn't heavy DPS check boss, moves slowly and as long as the mechanics are dealt with (in other words, reflects, condicleanse and pulling in the slubs), it doesn't matter much which builds are brought as long as there's enough heals and DPS.Matthias has very low DPS check (50k ish enough) and as long as the mechanics are dealt with accordingly, it doesn't really matter what builds are brought as long as there's enough heals and DPS.Escort...build requirements aren't worth mentioning.Keep Construct...possibly the worst boss for lots of alternative builds due to heavy need for burst damage. But then again, there's actually surprisingly many heavy-bursting power builds that just do weaker sustained DPS over longer fights and thus are generally shut out by metaists.Kitty can't say for Xera as she hasn't been to that boss yet (Xera pug trainings are super-rare on LFG and as a nice person, Kitty has done trainings one every boss 'til she's felt confident enough for NA exp squads. On EU, Kitty's LI alone would prevent her doing anything above escort, VG and Cairn 'cause seriously, when Kitty visited EU for a week, 100+ LI for MO, Gors and Sam? Kitty's been doing those since she had a couple VG kills under her belt on NA. And before she even got first Cairn kill.)

So, is it really so difficult to find a boss that snowflakes can do? Oh well, they've promised lots of snow on Thursday so guess Kitty can hide from your bloodlust among dem snowflakes.

It's honestly hard to take you for anything at face value when you post dps check estimates based on bosses health alone and expect that to just be a flat dps check without mechanics even remotely hindering your ability to reach that, you NEED the 6 meta supports to carry your lack of effort in a raid, you barely, BARELY made the enrage for VG with your video.

And the sad thing is the DPS enrage requirements have never been in question, that you could do these raids with subpar builds, better players lowman these raids with as little as 3 people, but at-least the people whom run these have key understanding of why these builds aren't good or taken more often to begin with, or why they shouldn't just look at a parse for power dragonhunter and think it's better than condi firebrand because you didn't even take the extra few minutes to get a mesmer to even give you the one/two clones required to skyrocket firebrand over power DH.

At the end of the day these are negative reinforcement for people who just want to feel different or worse a very very bad example for people who might look at this and foray into raiding, leading them right into the claws of some very toxic people, and whilst there is no crime, or any reason to have a go at someone for playing what they purely enjoy over a playstyle they might not like, bringing them to your average pug, whom at the very LEAST has 6 people playing bleeding heart meta supports who have put in hours of work doing dragon stand (pre PoF firebrand runes chrono) potentially put all the work into getting harriers gear on there druid, learning tight condi PS rotations to keep up 25 might for people all in a bid to make sure there runs are the smoothest, you actively take away from that by not putting in even the slightest bit of effort to shuffle your gear and traits slightly, or ergonomically binding your keys to something comfortable so you're not losing 3-4 seconds between clicking skills.

Most of these attempts aren't even properly conducted, like the previous condi firebrand example, and how your information section is RIFE with completely misleading statements like

"-Scholar’s runes for power and 2xTrapper’s + 4xNightmare runes for condi" but we have condi builds that gain far, far more DPS being in very specific rune sets, there are 3 classes in the current list of optimal builds that use trapper+nm, 2 of which are purely supports, nearly every other condi class are using renegade, berserkers or another type.

"(no Grieving yet since Kitty calculated it’d do lower DPS than pure Berserker’s or Viper’s and she hasn’t planned on farming it yet)" - Yet the classes that can run Grieving gain at least 3-4k dps from it with no extra additions to the actual rotations, which is a SUBSTANTIAL amount.

This will honestly be my last post on this, done right this idea would've been really good idea, instead all you've done is posted lazy attempts at the dummy without even the slightest bit of effort, smothered it with no proper information or research and called it a day, like seriously half of the classes that reached your top 10 will fail at the first hurdle when atleast 9 of the 13 bosses come against them.

"So, is it really so difficult to find a boss that snowflakes can do? Oh well, they've promised lots of snow on Thursday so guess Kitty can hide from your bloodlust among dem snowflakes." - I felt this might've sounded better in your head than on paper.

[TexZero.7910]

I don't know how im supposed to feel about this topic. On one hand showcasing variety is good, on the other the vitriol over the term benchmarks and professionalism is a bit over the top. Surely the same people here who know these aren't perfect or real world benchmarks can also be humble enough to acknowledge the goal which is more diverse testing and less stringent ideology when it comes to top tier DPS ? After all those of you whom i see here regularly already acknowledge that dps is a non-factor so what's it matter if someone offers up some variety to the established norm ?

[FrostDraco.8306]

@Myhr.9108 said:

@Digit.1823 said :

It is indeed true that she is not my peer in terms of skill or insight, that much is indeed made clear. But here is another snippet of the definition of peer-reviewing:

"evaluation of scientific, academic, or professional work by others working in the same field."

Benchmarks and rotations are in this case "the field" we are talking about (i wouldn't know or particularly care if we can call it "scientific" or even "professional"). But what i do know is that the moment she entered the field with benchmarks and numbers that people in the same field can look at it and review it. If you want to nail me to the wall on a technicality then it's easy to rephrase it: The moment she released those benchmarks people with the correct understanding are allowed to look at it, review it and voice their opinion on it. That's how it works. Nothing is stopping me from looking at her rotation videos, using my experience to see something is not quite right and then stating "Hey look, what you're doing here and there is less then optimal for x and y reason." A good example in the case being the Wild Blow vs Blood Reckoning usage i stated in multiple posts now.

The only fear i have (nice of you to claim to know my fear btw) is that this is taken seriously, and the people with a scrap of knowledge voicing their concerns are being silenced on the premise of "elitism" by white knights. I've already stated that the process of learning something is exactly the same when learning something bad or good, it is only when you put what you learned into practice that the efficiency becomes visible. Why learn something sub-optimal when you can just start learning something optimal from the start.

There is absolutely no difference in using a qt/sc/ln rotation in a high speed raid clear or in a casual run with the difference being how serious you're taking the raid. The order in which you're activating skills stays exactly the same with the only difference maybe being how quickly you're going through the motions to try and maximize your damage. You can try and squeeze that sixth F1 burst on your condi ps every single time, or just let it slide and stick with an easy 5 F1 bursts even if quickness and alacrity up time is sufficient for six bursts every time...sure you're doing less damage but it's still going to be a lot more then when you've learned a rotation that only has room for 3/4 F1 bursts. In the end, when you've learned an efficient rotation, the order in which you're activating your skills stays exactly the same every time so once you've learned that order it's quite easy to go at it a bit slower/easier to allow for a more casual experience.

It's like i have to literally tell people that having fun and playing efficiently at the same time is quite possible. Like people think using an efficient rotation means fun gets kicked out the backdoor and can stay in the yard till people are done raiding. What is this, i don't even...

Ugh, you claim I'm using technicalities when you're abusing them yourselves. My point remains : you're not the target public. Of course, you can give your opinion, which is that people should play as you want them to play to achieve the results you want to have. I'll repeat : maybe they do not want the same thing as you do. Why learn something sub-optimal? Because reasons. Many. Like, having fun, being lazy, savoring the journey more than the result. And no, I never said you couldn't have fun by playing a meta-build, in fact, I sincerely hope you do enjoy your raiding sessions. Heck, maybe the immense majority of people enjoy aiming for the "optimal" way. As I said, good for you. But not everybody is like you. Does it really matter to you that there are other benchmarks than the optimal ones? And, no, I'm not promoting for Pugs to just go into the LFG and claim "yay, I can raid because Kitty's benchmarks said I could!". But for a group of people of the same mind, that aim to just clear the content, without as much constrain as raid farming, this is an interesting tool. All I see is you trying to undermine the value of her work instead of actually helping her. Or ignoring her, which you clearly should do since her work will never impact you (because, you know, you'll never raid with people using said tool).

Do you understand the difference between a technicality, and a variable? One is pointless to mention, the other changes to end of an equation.

The point is, being the target audience makes no difference in the criticism. That statement is a completely rhetorical one as it changes nothing, and is just word salad you threw out to dismiss said criticism.

The point remains, you don't know what they want either, and last i checked the only person that can speak for them, is themselves. I like how you claim he is saying people show play how 'he wants them to play' when that is not the argument at all. The argument is that why on earth would you teach someone suboptimal tools if you want them to succeed? Why would you teach someone biological chemistry if you want them to proceed at mechanical engineering? And so one. It makes a massive difference to show someone what can be accomplish, and have them strive for that, rather than showing them mediocre things, and have that be their goal. IE, would you rather have everyone aiming to be wealthly entrepreneurs? Or waiters their whole life? Waiters are a necessary service, however to tell someone this is 'fine' and they don't need, nor should have a want to strive higher, is complete bollocks.

You say because 'reasons' is why someone would learn something suboptimal. That's not a reason. Thats an excuse. And a terrible one. You havent given us a reason to listen, or even care about that, because you can't even articulate a proper reason why they should learn something bad, instead of something tested. Other than 'because i want to'.

Well if you simply 'want to' do it on YOUR time, on YOUR watch, and stop bothering the rest of us with it. And trying to guilt trip the rest of the community because we don't want to literally carry people who have no interest in investing time, nor becoming a part of the community. The journey is yours alone. And so long as you act like its not, you will enjoy it....alone.

Also as for undermining work? There is nothing to undermine. If anything this undermines the work of everyone else who puts in time and thousands of gold just to be called 'elitist' by people like you. Giving people PROPER information and learning tools to make them the best players they can be. Not half baked potatoes.

@Myhr.9108 said:

@Tarasicodissa.7084 said:@ people talking about target audience:As I and many others mentioned previously, this is gonna do even MORE HARM to newbie players than it does to seasoned veterans. Good player will immediately notice that something is way off and just dismiss these benchmarks, because he'll learn nothing useful from them.Newbie might be tricked into thinking these will have better results for him and actually pursue it, instead of learning straight up from the best source - qT or SC. When this noobie is gonna try to find a solid raid run, he's either gonna get kicked immediately or after people observe his horrible performance (partly due to bad build, partly due to bad rotation, both of which he got from these "benchmarks"). Or worse yet, he's gonna find a group of 9 similar people (all running off-meta builds from Kitty) who will accept him and proceed to struggle for hours on a single boss without realising what they're doing wrong.

If you're looking into an easy foolproof way to play a solid DPS build efficiently (even if not as good as qT), there are some sources, but Kitty ain't one of them. Some time ago I came across a videoguide (somebody could dig it up perhaps?) from some DnT member, who suggested a power daredevil build to new players, including important tips and tricks as well as solid ingame footage demonstrating all those things in practice. So yes, there are sources, which will teach you easy starter tips for DPS in raids, but it's best to learn from good players who know what they're talking about, not learn bad rotations and further embed your mistakes.

Edit: I've found it. It's slightly outdated now, but still offers some very useful advice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beTkRWJjMp4

I respectfully disagree. You're afraid noobs will take bad habits. But in your opinion, what is worse : someone who has a meta-build but no rotation experience, nore any raid experience, or someone who has a bad dps but does know the mechanics? Both will "get carried", and don't you think one will have an easier time getting better if you want him to play a meta-build than the other? Again, Kitty never claimed that her benchmarks are better than the optimal ones. They're aimed at determining what is viable, not optimal. If your raid group aims for optimal, yes, it makes sense to aim for optimal too due to respecting everyone. But if your raid group aims only for viable, that's a different story. You know, it's not only for the better players to help the ones that struggle, the bad players can also find their fun by themselves.

Then they can play alone, and we can not take them, like we have been. But the whole purpose of this thread was to change that, which makes your point bunk, and entirely dishonest.

As for 'getting carried'; its miles easier to carry someone who knows the mecanics as they can still do their part (pushing orbs, green on VG, entangle on gorse, not dying on deimos from slam, etc) than it is someone who does know the mechanics. If you don't want to learn dps, there are plenty of GOOD and OPTIMAL support builds to learn.

But that would be too much work right? This entire thread is a farce.

[Refia Montes.3205]

Okay the problem that I really see from here is, Kitty just uploads some builds and rotations that are just far from the optimal even using skills that result in a DPS loss or taking traits that wouldn't really help in a raid scenario. Think of it this way, if you were a publisher of textbooks and reference materials, you would take the authors that are trusted and well researched rather than poorly researched ones without any good reason to use which thing.

Same applies here, it would have been fine if she even tried using weapons that would be fine in a PvE perspective and would provide some use and not some random weapon set because she thought it would be cool to showcase it. Examples of weapons that would work in PvE scenarios that would work and could be used in a raid would be DH Hammer, Sword, Condi Mirage Sceptre, Power Soulbeast Sw/A and LB or GS as those weapons do provide some kind of merits or being close to optimal. Then we see at the really bottom of the barrel stuff like... GS/LB condi DH... Power Reaper D/F, A/Wh... Ranger LB and Axe/Axe... even the top spot was using offhand dagger when it doesn't even provide anything to help out in a raid.

For the rotations... using stuff that wouldn't really help in a golem benchmark like using Wild Blow or Torch 5 for Guardian builds shouldn't be done... If you really want to use and mention those skills, best just but them as a footnote and highlight when to use it (for example additional CC for Wild Blow or Torch 5 for Condi Clearing). Just use stuff that would increase your DPS, even just a DH guide just spamming all the DPS increase skills would be good enough and to show casual players how to play it. But adding in DPS loss skills for no reason? Euuugh

Builds that I would have liked to see in here that would make sense for casual raiders:

Staff Daredevil, Power DH with Hammer, GS, Sword, Sceptre and Torch off hand, Power Mesmer, Power Chrono, Condi Mesmer, Condi Mirage with Sceptre, Power Reaper with GS, Power Soulbeast S/A, mono weapon set builds.

These are some examples with simplistic yet effective rotations.

[Prophet.1584]

Thanks for the work Kitty! it's nice to see the number of builds and compare them. it would be really nice on your profession pages where all the builds are listed with their role if you could also include the benchmark numbers.

Great work!

[DutchRiders.2871]

What the hell am I looking at? Video's showing how to do bad dps? Your point is that certain players are incapable of doing correct rotations for whatever reason in boss fights hence they pull of horrible rotations with horrible dps. Your great solution is to post videos of you yourself doing horrible rotations with bad dps on static golems? How does that help anyone?

Anybody that takes the effort to look up a video and learn a rotation should go with qt/sc/LN and if they butcher their rotation they end up with the results you have posted on your website.

Anyone that is not willing to look up a rotation should just play power staff daredevil,fire camping staff tempest or previously bomb auto power engi and auto attack to victory. But I see none of those usefull builds/tactics for such players on your website.

Bottem line there are great alternatives for beginner players wanting to get their clears with different set ups and tactics, yet I see none of those at your website. Your concep is decent, the execution is terrible and makes no sense.

[LadyKitty.6120]

And yet none of you people have answered to Kitty's simple question: if Kitty didn't test the alternative builds and post some results on what kind of DPS they can do, who would? People always keep saying about how horrible any alternatives are yet none's really posting ANY numbers for anything but the metabuilds.

Playing the same weapon combo with absolutely same build gets friggin boring at some point unless you're the kind of person who just likes repeating stuff the exact same way over, over and over again for years. Kitty's quite certain that not everyone are as enthusiastic about playing like that.

E: Now that Kitty started thinking about it, it's prolly small wonder that Anet doesn't beef up the "weak builds/weapon combos". Balance team most likely doesn't have the time to test them all themselves and without any numbers from players, they do have very difficult time trying to estimate what they could change without going overboard or beefing too little. So, if Kitty's apparently too bad to give any numbers... https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/78m6ay/versatile_benchmarking_challenge/

[Myhr.9108]

@FrostDraco.8306 said:

The point is, being the target audience makes no difference in the criticism. That statement is a completely rhetorical one as it changes nothing, and is just word salad you threw out to dismiss said criticism.

The point remains, you don't know what they want either, and last i checked the only person that can speak for them, is themselves. I like how you claim he is saying people show play how 'he wants them to play' when that is not the argument at all. The argument is that why on earth would you teach someone suboptimal tools if you want them to succeed? Why would you teach someone biological chemistry if you want them to proceed at mechanical engineering? And so one. It makes a massive difference to show someone what can be accomplish, and have them strive for that, rather than showing them mediocre things, and have that be their goal. IE, would you rather have everyone aiming to be wealthly entrepreneurs? Or waiters their whole life? Waiters are a necessary service, however to tell someone this is 'fine' and they don't need, nor should have a want to strive higher, is complete kitten.

You say because 'reasons' is why someone would learn something suboptimal. That's not a reason. Thats an excuse. And a terrible one. You havent given us a reason to listen, or even care about that, because you can't even articulate a proper reason why they should learn something bad, instead of something tested. Other than 'because i want to'.

Well if you simply 'want to' do it on YOUR time, on YOUR watch, and stop bothering the rest of us with it. And trying to guilt trip the rest of the community because we don't want to literally carry people who have no interest in investing time, nor becoming a part of the community. The journey is yours alone. And so long as you act like its not, you will enjoy it....alone.

Also as for undermining work? There is nothing to undermine. If anything this undermines the work of everyone else who puts in time and thousands of gold just to be called 'elitist' by people like you. Giving people PROPER information and learning tools to make them the best players they can be. Not half baked potatoes.

Then they can play alone, and we can not take them, like we have been. But the whole purpose of this thread was to change that, which makes your point bunk, and entirely dishonest.

As for 'getting carried'; its miles easier to carry someone who knows the mecanics as they can still do their part (pushing orbs, green on VG, entangle on gorse, not dying on deimos from slam, etc) than it is someone who does know the mechanics. If you don't want to learn dps, there are plenty of GOOD and OPTIMAL support builds to learn.

But that would be too much work right? This entire thread is a farce.

So, we agree then. You won't take this thread seriously, right? So, why not just leave? You don't want to carry people that don't make enough effort? Perfect! You already have all the tools you need to do so. And be reassured, I wouldn't want to raid with you either. But you know what, you came in this topic, so you're the one out of place. It should have been obvious from the very first post that this topic wasn't for you.

Now, there are some constructive feedback that has been given : skill uses that result in dps-loss, testing conditions with all the buffs that require some minimal amount of organization. Discussion about the method are interesting. But refusing the method's very existence is some serious case of "someone doesn't follow the RULES! Burn them!" In other words, you're using an argument from authority. Authorities existence is justified (in this case, Qt and such), because they answer a demand : they display optimal builds. But when you don't follow the same logic, they're useless. Optimal builds have a solid reason to exist. However, I still fail to see why their existence is reason enough to not study viable builds. You're not interested? Fine, move on. You're interested? Feel free to criticize, there has been some very helpful remarks in this thread. But asking people to shut up? It's not asking the devs to make the content easier, dammit, it's figuring other ways to clear it. It's exactly as if you'd see a squad in the LFG saying "casual raiding, all builds accepted, no guarantee of success, but we'll try our best", jump in and start telling people that "no, you should use X build, no, you should read that site, you're doing it all wrong". Just don't join the squad, is it that hard?

In short, you're judging people that don't want to make as much effort as you...You know what, I actually enjoy being a half-cook potato, and nothing you said give me any incentive to change myself. Perhaps if you had been more friendly, but with the tone of all the answers? And you know what, inside your own raid group, you're perfectly entitled to that. But in a public forum, I find it frightening that you won't just accept attempts at "casual" raiding.

[Feanor.2358]

@LadyKitty.6120 said:And yet none of you people have answered to Kitty's simple question: if Kitty didn't test the alternative builds and post some results on what kind of DPS they can do, who would? People always keep saying about how horrible any alternatives are yet none's really posting ANY numbers for anything but the metabuilds.

Playing the same weapon combo with absolutely same build gets friggin boring at some point unless you're the kind of person who just likes repeating stuff the exact same way over, over and over again for years. Kitty's quite certain that not everyone are as enthusiastic about playing like that.

My objection wasn't about including off-meta builds. In fact, good job on that, it is indeed needed. But a "comprehensive benchmark" should really include the meta builds, at least as a point of reference. Sure, there are qT's benchmarks, but the testing methodology is hardly comparable. Just take the meta for a spin under the same conditions and post the results. I wouldn't be surprised if you actually get better results on some of your "simple-yet-decent" rotations given the modest amount of practice. This will encourage people to use easier builds for better results if they lack the time or will to put enough practice and make the meta ones work.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@LadyKitty.6120 said:And yet none of you people have answered to Kitty's simple question: if Kitty didn't test the alternative builds and post some results on what kind of DPS they can do, who would? People always keep saying about how horrible any alternatives are yet none's really posting ANY numbers for anything but the metabuilds.

Playing the same weapon combo with absolutely same build gets friggin boring at some point unless you're the kind of person who just likes repeating stuff the exact same way over, over and over again for years. Kitty's quite certain that not everyone are as enthusiastic about playing like that.

Exactly! This community stopped any discussion on profession, stopped even testing things. PoF is great example.

Q: what to paly?A: wait for qT and copy/paste your build

That's how deep any profession discussion in this game is today. It's pathetic.

[LadyKitty.6120]

@Feanor.2358 said:

@LadyKitty.6120 said:And yet none of you people have answered to Kitty's simple question: if Kitty didn't test the alternative builds and post some results on what kind of DPS they can do, who would? People always keep saying about how horrible any alternatives are yet none's really posting ANY numbers for anything but the metabuilds.

Playing the same weapon combo with absolutely same build gets friggin boring at some point unless you're the kind of person who just likes repeating stuff the exact same way over, over and over again for years. Kitty's quite certain that not everyone are as enthusiastic about playing like that.

My objection wasn't about including off-meta builds. In fact, good job on that, it is indeed needed. But a "comprehensive benchmark" should really include the meta builds, at least as a point of reference. Sure, there are qT's benchmarks, but the testing methodology is hardly comparable. Just take the meta for a spin under the same conditions and post the results. I wouldn't be surprised if you actually get better results on some of your "simple-yet-decent" rotations given the modest amount of practice. This will encourage people to use easier builds for better results if they lack the time or will to put enough practice and make the meta ones work.

Well, Kitty has included condirenegade, power DD, Condi-DD(in all the derpness and full 8 tries), power deadeye, power DH, viper's condifirebrand (note: in viper's, not in grieving like qT's "viper's benchmark does), condimirage, condisoulbeast and a bit derpy condidruid. Kitty also has condi-engi and power-holosmith, though with slightly different rotation than qT's. Meta-condieles Kitty hasn't tested yet as she's currently farming viper's focus (as well as 2nd zerker's pistol and some other gears). Kitty's also trying to figure out how to pull proper damage with staff weaver. But since Kitty's exclusively testing on small golem while qT hasn't even posted a benchmark of it on small golem...guess Kitty can't pull much with qT's build. Kitty doesn't have proper condi PS warrior armors yet (farming those as well atm) and with condi DPS she's currently pondering how to not skew it just 'cause Kitty has only one set of heavy viper's and she's not going to swap runes to berserker's just for that. Unless Kitty just uses the exact same gears as other benchmarks which, while far from optimal, would retain Kitty's "with same gears"-theme.

The one big problem of benchmarking alone is the need to farm all the gears alone (Kitty has 6 full bank tabs of ascended gears atm), which requires some insane farming and Kitty's just almost done with DPS-gears. Later on, Kitty will add support/DPS hybrids and tank builds to her benchmarks when she's got the gears for them.

[Tarasicodissa.7084]

@LadyKitty.6120 said:But since Kitty's exclusively testing on small golem while qT hasn't even posted a benchmark of it on small golem...I thought I was done with this topic, but since you keep spreading information that's just straight up not true, I can't help it.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dsyBUKWtsM

[LadyKitty.6120]

@Tarasicodissa.7084 said:

@LadyKitty.6120 said:But since Kitty's exclusively testing on small golem while qT hasn't even posted a benchmark of it on small golem...I thought I was done with this topic, but since you keep spreading information that's just straight up not true, I can't help it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dsyBUKWtsM

They could add it to their benchmarks list, though o.o

https://imgur.com/a/Din1E

[Ildrid Ildhjertet.2489]

Keep up the great work Kitty, I'm really impressed with your work and I really appreciate it. Don't let the haters get you down. These builds aren't for them anyway.

(There's a lot of things I would like to say to all the elitists attacking this thread, but that'd just get me banned from these forums)

[Joxer.6024]

@Ildrid Ildhjertet.2489 said:

Keep up the great work Kitty, I'm really impressed with your work and I really appreciate it. Don't let the haters get you down. These builds aren't for them anyway.

(There's a lot of things I would like to say to all the elitists attacking this thread, but that'd just get me banned from these forums)

Yea, got me in trouble...... ;)

[Raif.9507]

It's a wonder anyone has the balls to speak up at all with the hate that just posting a video gets and labeling it "benchmark", jesus.

It's very appreciated that she took her time and effort to show alternative builds. Take for example the pre-PoF balance pass where elementalist dagger/warhorn and scepter/warhorn got trashed. All the info we got from qT was it's trash don't bother. But how much was it actually doing? Could we get a video? Something? Even Sword/dagger mainhand was labeled trash and no benchmarks or attempted videos were done (even though you can hit 33k+ on big).

It's good to see other builds and what they are capable of, even though better players could do more as you say, regardless of the fact it's a golem benchmark which in the end should be useless.

[Lunaire.9741]

@Ildrid Ildhjertet.2489 said:Keep up the great work Kitty, I'm really impressed with your work and I really appreciate it. Don't let the haters get you down. These builds aren't for them anyway.

(There's a lot of things I would like to say to all the elitists attacking this thread, but that'd just get me banned from these forums)

It's not wrong to post criticism of the builds or point out there flaws. That doesn't make one elitist.It's not wrong to want people to aim high rather than for mediorce.

Whats with people these days? cant criticise even legit criticisms cause feelings might get hurt :-1:

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@Lunaire.9741 said:Whats with people these days? cant criticise even legit criticisms cause feelings might get hurt

Same can be said about elitists present here. Try saying something against status quo they are forcing on people and you get mob all over you. Bee the change you want to see. And I see the change coming with Kitty's videos and relaxed approach!

Kitty, ignore haters. There is always room for improvement, nobody is perfect and you started something that in time can only get better. Don't let toxic people kill your motivation.

[Ildrid Ildhjertet.2489]

@Lunaire.9741 said:It's not wrong to post criticism of the builds or point out there flaws. That doesn't make one elitist.It's not wrong to want people to aim high rather than for mediorce.

Whats with people these days? cant criticise even legit criticisms cause feelings might get hurt :-1:Just gonna leave what Kitty stated on the first page here:@LadyKitty.6120 said:And like usual: don't be a build kitten. If the squad isn't speedrunning or doing No Updrafts-Gors, pretty much any build with over 20k DPS works for basic DPS role if played properly.

Note: these aren't "the best of 50 tries"-type benchmarks, but what Kitty could pull off within 8 tries (or less if Kitty felt like she did the best she could). Kitty's a kitten player with high ping, slow mind and reaction time and these benchmarks were done with a normal mouse and keyboard, so any player with full ascended gears (including poor multi-classers) should be able to do about as well at least. And speedrunners should do way moar <.< >.>*Emphasis addedThere are plenty of people who, for whatever reason, can't hit qT benchmarks. Having (lower) benchmarks that are more doable (and imo more realistic) is great, so people can go "I like to use power-mesmer, oh, there's a 20k+ dps build that can do that!" Or do anyone expect people to-realistically- hit 38k DPS on DH-guardian during a VG fight?

I also see people complaining about her rotations, as she's using a cc skill "that should only be used when needed, as it drops DPS!" Well, fun fact, the Golem does never require you to cc it, so not using a cc skill against it is absolutely not realistic for an encounter that do require the use of cc skills.

[Lunaire.9741]

@Ildrid Ildhjertet.2489 said:

@Lunaire.9741 said:It's not wrong to post criticism of the builds or point out there flaws. That doesn't make one elitist.It's not wrong to want people to aim high rather than for mediorce.

Whats with people these days? cant criticise even legit criticisms cause feelings might get hurt :-1:Just gonna leave what Kitty stated on the first page here:@LadyKitty.6120 said:And like usual: don't be a build kitten. If the squad isn't speedrunning or doing No Updrafts-Gors,

pretty much any build with over 20k DPS

works for basic DPS role if played properly.

Note: these aren't "the best of 50 tries"-type benchmarks,

but what Kitty could pull off within 8 tries

(or less if Kitty felt like she did the best she could). Kitty's a kitten player with high ping, slow mind and reaction time and these benchmarks were done with a normal mouse and keyboard, so any player with full ascended gears (including poor multi-classers) should be able to do about as well at least. And speedrunners should do way moar <.< >.>*Emphasis addedThere are plenty of people who, for whatever reason, can't hit qT benchmarks. Having (lower) benchmarks that are more doable (and imo more realistic) is great, so people can go "I like to use power-mesmer, oh, there's a 20k+ dps build that can do that!" Or do anyone expect people to-realistically- hit 38k DPS on DH-guardian during a VG fight?

I also see people complaining about her rotations, as she's using a cc skill "that should only be used when needed, as it drops DPS!" Well, fun fact, the Golem does never require you to cc it, so not using a cc skill against it is absolutely not realistic for an encounter that do require the use of cc skills.

Just to point out that people complaining about the use of cc skill have a point. Anyone who's played warrior would know you use blood reckoning to refil the adrenalin bar. She's included a cc skill to do that. you seriously don't see an issue with including a skill that people will have to save in a real raid for cc as part of a bench mark to show how much damage your output is? Like im not even talking META builds at this point. But thats is a legitimate complaint people have.

[Henry.5713]

Interesting idea to test builds like these and thank you for the effort.This is if anything is a good way to clearly indicate why certain builds are not taken over much more effective META builds even if some of these numbers might end up being higher if practiced properly. But it at also shows what can be done in actuality and that most players aren't a complete waste of space even on inefficient builds. Much less DPS is actually required than many seem to think.

One thing kind of bothers me, though. These tests, just like the T benchmarks, are done with full buffs by all of the big META classes in a 5/5 Meta composition.Something that makes sense for qT with the entire point being about maximizing efficiency. It does not make as much sense to run the tests under the assumption that the support is still going to be top notch for those who want to prove that suboptimal builds and mediocre players are more than enough to sweep through the raid. Unless the support guys are still forced to run META builds and are supposed to play very well. Which make the point of this thread feel a little hypocritical to me.Might be the fact that I almost exclusively play druid in raids nowadays, one of those support guys, but I find it weird how it seems to offend so many that others would expect them to perform well on DPS builds or even run a good DPS spec while most of them consider perfect healing, GOTL, might, fury, quickness, alacrity, proper banner and spirit placement, etc. and basically for you to run a support build with everything they need a given.

[Lunaire.9741]

@Henry.5713 said:Interesting idea to test builds like these and thank you for the effort.This is if anything is a good way to clearly indicate why certain builds are not taken over much more effective META builds even if some of these numbers might end up being higher if practiced properly. But it at also shows what can be done in actuality and that most players aren't a complete waste of space even on inefficient builds. Much less DPS is actually required than many seem to think.

One thing kind of bothers me, though. These tests, just like the T benchmarks, are done with full buffs by all of the big META classes in a 5/5 Meta composition.Something that makes sense for qT with the entire point being about maximizing efficiency. It does not make as much sense to run the tests under the assumption that the support is still going to be top notch for those who want to prove that suboptimal builds and mediocre players are more than enough to sweep through the raid. Unless the support guys are still forced to run META builds and are supposed to play very well. Which make the point of this thread feel a little hypocritical to me.Might be the fact that I almost exclusively play druid in raids nowadays, one of those support guys, but I find it weird how it seems to offend so many that others would expect them to perform well on DPS builds or even run a good DPS spec while most of them consider perfect healing, GOTL, might, fury, quickness, alacrity, proper banner and spirit placement, etc. and basically for you to run a support build with everything they need a given.

It's what ive been saying as a player that does Druid and chrono in raids because no one else wants to. It's a double standard. THe run whatever you want crowd expects the supports to be running proper stuff. I brought u p the perma alacrity, quickness and GoTL already and all i got was "its up to the commander or QT does it". Completely missing the point.

Having the buffs to prove how good the DPS is on sub optimal builds is misleading if they are trying to promote these builds as many have said for off meta comps too.But pointing that out means im elitist or something

[mygamingid.5816]

Thanks for the good work, Kitty! :)

[Indecision.4513]

@Ildrid Ildhjertet.2489 said:

@Lunaire.9741 said:It's not wrong to post criticism of the builds or point out there flaws. That doesn't make one elitist.It's not wrong to want people to aim high rather than for mediorce.

Whats with people these days? cant criticise even legit criticisms cause feelings might get hurt :-1:Just gonna leave what Kitty stated on the first page here:@LadyKitty.6120 said:And like usual: don't be a build kitten. If the squad isn't speedrunning or doing No Updrafts-Gors,

pretty much any build with over 20k DPS

works for basic DPS role if played properly.

Note: these aren't "the best of 50 tries"-type benchmarks,

but what Kitty could pull off within 8 tries

(or less if Kitty felt like she did the best she could). Kitty's a kitten player with high ping, slow mind and reaction time and these benchmarks were done with a normal mouse and keyboard, so any player with full ascended gears (including poor multi-classers) should be able to do about as well at least. And speedrunners should do way moar <.< >.>*Emphasis addedThere are plenty of people who, for whatever reason, can't hit qT benchmarks. Having (lower) benchmarks that are more doable (and imo more realistic) is great, so people can go "I like to use power-mesmer, oh, there's a 20k+ dps build that can do that!" Or do anyone expect people to-realistically- hit 38k DPS on DH-guardian during a VG fight?

I also see people complaining about her rotations, as she's using a cc skill "that should only be used when needed, as it drops DPS!" Well, fun fact, the Golem does never require you to cc it, so not using a cc skill against it is absolutely not realistic for an encounter that do require the use of cc skills.

Just going to quote you on the mesmer part cause it just proves how little knowledge people have of a class.

You say, you like to play core power mesmer or even power chrono. Well guess what. Power mesmer is EASILY capable of doing 30+ dps by pressing, what is it, 3 buttons? I've tried it, ran it in raids, and it works. It's not OPTIMAL, cause other classes can do more, but it works and it brings reflects, pulls, great CC etc.

DH has one of the easiest rotations of all classes and you bring great utility with you. No one expects you to pull 35k dps on VG, however for DH is actually kind of easy, given that VG has low armor value and DH actually does very well there.

From what I've seen Kitty is using GS/Hammer is her DH benchmark, which is supposed to do what exactly? Does ok damage, has good burst in the form of traps and GS but the hammer is there for what? CC? maybe, protection? Nope, she's swapping to GS every now and again.

Someone here mentioned that Qtfy's builds drop dps the moment you have to go ranged od deimos for example. Well you're not going to pull top dps ranging on hammer or GS now will you?

This is why, the same thing keeps coming back, over and over. Class knowledge and skill at playing it plus knowing the boss encounter matters the most.

You're saying, a DPS golem doesn't need to be cced, well you're not ccing a raid boss 100% of the time either, BUT, when you get a burst phase on KC for example, you have to know what you're doing. If you keep spamming your skills off cooldown and CC comes up on samarog, someone's gonna die, because all of you CC skills are unavailable.And then you're going to complain at Kitty for telling you that you should use CC skills off cooldown?

Benchmarks are supposed to be potential maximal dps output of a build. BUT you need to know the fight more than anything.

Also, how can you guarantee, that if someone decides to copy kitty's build and run it, they will actually give the effort to learn to try and meet her benchmarks.

I pugged samarog some time ago on my chrono. Samarog is one of the easiest bosses and omg it was not only one of the slowest kills in my life (we almost hit enrage), I also died on the CC phase halfway through and someone from the group whispered my afterwards saying that my quickness and alacrity uptime was "higher" than the other chrono's who actually stayed alive the whole fight...not to mention a 6k dps DH.

How about a condi tempet camping air attunement on KC doing less damage than our chronos? Too complicated a build? Nope, 0 class knowledge? 100%.

Quick Edit:

you're using full raid buffs in your benchmarks, meaning you expect your support classes (6/10 players) to do a super optimal job, cause let's be honest 100% quickness, alacrity and gotl uptime in pug runs is impossible. So what happens when I bring my chrono to your pug run and say I'm playing my own build but it does very good in open world. I mean, you're not pulling your weight on a DH so why should I bother doing to the same on druid or chrono right?

Just how much will your benchmarks drop if your druid, chrono or ps decides to have a "casual" day?