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What Makes a Guild Wars 2 PvE Build Strong?


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Given the ongoing and constant discussions, I figured I would encourage players to watch one of MightyTeapot's recent videos in which he does a good job of explaining what and why a build is "good" or for whom it should apply. Also yes, I used his video title for this thread since it fits nicely (and I was lazy).

 

 

He covers:

What benchmarks are good and not good for and the misconception weaker/inexperienced players often have here.

Why certain classes are stronger or feel stronger in some compositions, which ultimately leads to smoother runs overall.

How much value utility has on classes and for content.

Why it is an issue that in raids/fractals often only a few players need to cover mechanics while the remainder of the squad has no or fewer mechanics to deal with.

 

Here is my take on this in relation to these forums and the discussions which often arise (especially around damage potential of classes):

If you are not in the top 5% of players performance wise (aka close to Snowcrows or LN benchmarks and actual boss dps) but use benchmarks to sort or decide on which classes to accept into squad, this video will likely be educational for you.

 

TL;DR:

No matter if you enjoy MightyTeapot's content or not (I personally do), this is a well done educational video for inexperienced players.

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Glad I'm not the only one saying CFB/CQB are overtuned and that mantra of solace is a prime culprit.
People are going to bring pitchforks to him when he says heal ele (tempest) is stronger than druid though for healing. Mainly WVW players know this. For me, hybrid / blood magic scourge is the ultimate carry for Boneskinner so his point about scourges rings true.

Nobody looks for DPS eles though.

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6 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Glad I'm not the only one saying CFB/CQB are overtuned and that mantra of solace is a prime culprit.
People are going to bring pitchforks to him when he says heal ele (tempest) is stronger than druid though for healing. Mainly WVW players know this. For me, hybrid / blood magic scourge is the ultimate carry for Boneskinner so his point about scourges rings true.

Nobody looks for DPS eles though.

Why would you want an ele when you could just take renegade, holo or dh. low hp, crap sustain, average to bad cc. average dps. no boon party support.

Instead of buffing their dmg they should just buff utility, conjures. also weaver feels so bad without alac and quickness but cant generate it. weaver should just be less support reliant. maybe perma alac + quickness during weave self to make it at least not a nightmare to play with bad supports.

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What bothers me most about pugs in raids is the useless minstrel chronotank swarming. Teapot forgot to mention that heal firebrand is an absolutely broken tank. I mean why are hfb tanks so rare in pugs ? I honestly think that in low-mid kp range pugs hfb tank is the safest and fastest way to play. The only time where hfb tank is a worse option is when the group can run with a soloheal. 

With chronotanks it feels that they are doing the raids with 9 people. Oh and don't tell me about quickness or dps chronotanks. In low kp range they are nonexistent in higher tiers they do no damage anyway and occasionally die wiping the group. No reason to bring them, they are not safer than other classes if they are not running shields, they do nothing apart from boonrip which can be done by other classes too. Firebrand has more damage with quickness. And even a quickness dps firebrand is a better tank than chrono. Change my mind.

Edited by Armen.1483
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tl;dw: absolutely nothing new and something some people were already saying on this forum in response to some of the weird complaints and "buff-baits" based on bare snowcrows stats 😄

 

Edited by Sobx.1758
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On 5/29/2021 at 12:54 AM, Cyninja.2954 said:

TL;DR:

No matter if you enjoy MightyTeapot's content or not (I personally do), this is a well done educational video for inexperienced players.

Not just inexperienced players ... but ignorant veterans too. Teapot isn't the only person refuting the idea that it's stupid to push DPS meta while ignoring content mechanics and player ability. Some of us have been here for 8 years saying these things.🤔 

 

And just for posterity, here is one of the earliest and worst example of that DPS meta pushing ... and there wasn't even rage timers on the content being discussed at the time: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guardian-PVT-or-Zerker/page/1

 

The inevitable discussion is WHY do some PUG groups act this way in a game that is clearly designed to NOT require highly refined, optimal DPS comps to be successful ... just look at that thread to see the seed of that mentality being planted. 

 

 

Edited by Obtena.7952
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Apparently, I'm being 'questioned' about my claim that I was against a general DPS meta push and a proponent of gearing for the content or player ability. Seriously? OK then. 

 

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guardian-PVT-or-Zerker/page/4#post2608142

 

This should put those claims to rest. That's almost 8 years ago and my position hasn't changed once. 

Edited by Obtena.7952
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On 5/29/2021 at 12:01 PM, Armen.1483 said:

What bothers me most about pugs in raids is the useless minstrel chronotank swarming. Teapot forgot to mention that heal firebrand is an absolutely broken tank. I mean why are hfb tanks so rare in pugs ? I honestly think that in low-mid kp range pugs hfb tank is the safest and fastest way to play. The only time where hfb tank is a worse option is when the group can run with a soloheal. 

With chronotanks it feels that they are doing the raids with 9 people. Oh and don't tell me about quickness or dps chronotanks. In low kp range they are nonexistent in higher tiers they do no damage anyway and occasionally die wiping the group. No reason to bring them, they are not safer than other classes if they are not running shields, they do nothing apart from boonrip which can be done by other classes too. Firebrand has more damage with quickness. And even a quickness dps firebrand is a better tank than chrono. Change my mind.


It's probably just due to what people learned the encounters on. Chrono used to be the go-to tank with  iframes (riposte, blur and shield block) + quick & alac. I know the posts I've seen for chrono tanks when I poke around on NA RA seem to be rarer. in fact druid tank is becoming a thing over it in certain encounters, because as you state, it's not healing, it's crap DPS because it's risky using diviner's over other stats.

Also, I haven't had the cash/time to gear up an HFB tank, so I'll probably pass on it. Sometimes you have to take what's there in terms of group composition and if I'm raiding and we need a tank, that's all I have and I know the rotation.

But I'm absolutely overjoyed MightyTeapot made that vid. Because I feel like people only care if purple is "balanced" and nothing else XD (I still consider rev OP as well). I don't think the chrono nerfs were unwarranted (it was highest power DPS), but felt like they didn't poke the heart of the issues at all and it punished solo power dps chronos pugging even more. Not to mention making timewarp and DT practically useless in any other situation outside of raiding. I actually am starting to hate my mes more and more over time because I keep feeling like it's being made ineffectual in other game modes being hyper-balanced around raids. Clone mechanics are wonky enough in other game modes where there's heavy AOE, it's even worse getting elite skills nerfed to nothing. While I've seen vids of purple doing "amazing things" outside of staff/staff, most of the time you can find a vid of warrior/rev/guard doing it WAY better. Cairn soloing being an easy example that comes to mind (as well as pet fractal boss soloing). I'm also fully expecting Staff/staff to be nerfed to the same point because of the community.

Edited by Firebeard.1746
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That's a lot of time to say "buff elementalist."  Though I think he misunderstands how heal ele works.  Basically, there's two builds:  The aurashare build that puts out a lot of boons, but is actually pretty bad at healing.  Second build is the water staff build, which has epic passive sustain but outputs very little boons.  I've pugged with heal ele in fractals many times, and the unfortunate result of that experience is that aurashare tempest simply does not keep people alive.  

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1 hour ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

That's a lot of time to say "buff elementalist."  Though I think he misunderstands how heal ele works.  Basically, there's two builds:  The aurashare build that puts out a lot of boons, but is actually pretty bad at healing.  Second build is the water staff build, which has epic passive sustain but outputs very little boons.  I've pugged with heal ele in fractals many times, and the unfortunate result of that experience is that aurashare tempest simply does not keep people alive.  

Sorry but that is rubbish. Aurashare ele, while doing less healing than staff, still outperforms a ton of other healer builds by simple heal throughput alone (and while it might not reach the godlike 9-12k hp/s, it's still reaching easy 6-7k hp/s in raid encounters with sub-optimal rotations). If you are having a hard time with it anywhere, it's either you, or more likely the players you are trying to keep alive.

 

In fractals the main issue would be the lack of easy access to stability in the quantity that say a HFB would have, because it certainly is not being outperformed on healing by said HFB.

 

EDIT:

and I seriously am hoping you are talking about CMs, because if you are having issues in T4s, I'm not even sure what you are doing on heal ele.

Edited by Cyninja.2954
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So what do you guys think they will do? I mean the current situation got a lot of problem with some class overtuned and some class kind of left behind, they haven't fix this and there is new e-spec coming.

 

Since they just drop balance patch on may 11th I kind of not expect any big balance patch anytime soon before EoD drop

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1 hour ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Sorry but that is rubbish. Aurashare ele, while doing less healing than staff, still outperforms a ton of other healer builds by simple heal throughput alone (and while it might not reach the godlike 9-12k hp/s, it's still reaching easy 6-7k hp/s in raid encounters with sub-optimal rotations). If you are having a hard time with it anywhere, it's either you, or more likely the players you are trying to keep alive.

 

In fractals the main issue would be the lack of easy access to stability in the quantity that say a HFB would have, because it certainly is not being outperformed on healing by said HFB.

 

EDIT:

and I seriously am hoping you are talking about CMs, because if you are having issues in T4s, I'm not even sure what you are doing on heal ele.

Why is everyone calling druid healing bad when it can reach 13k hps sustained and even 17k+ with LL? 9-12k is pretty much what a druid does if he spams avatar.

hfb can reach 9k hps aswell. The main issue in fractals is just the lack of quickness/alac. Boon chrono is just inferior to ren + fb. Also mitigation > healing. Aegis mantra is just too strong in fractals.The 8-9k hps a hfb can do is missing the negated damage. qfb could do that aswell but you cant run tempest + fb without lacking alacrity unless you want to run 3 supports in fracs.

Tempest is just as good as druid in fractals. Both are bad.

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51 minutes ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

Why is everyone calling druid healing bad when it can reach 13k hps sustained and even 17k+ with LL? 9-12k is pretty much what a druid does if he spams avatar.

hfb can reach 9k hps aswell. The main issue in fractals is just the lack of quickness/alac. Boon chrono is just inferior to ren + fb. Also mitigation > healing. Aegis mantra is just too strong in fractals.The 8-9k hps a hfb can do is missing the negated damage. qfb could do that aswell but you cant run tempest + fb without lacking alacrity unless you want to run 3 supports in fracs.

I was going for consistent numbers and not expecting an entire group taking constant damage. Sure if you went on the golem, spammed as much heal as possible with 9 others around you to soak constant damage, the numbers would be far higher. In reality though almost no group survives this type of damage in any actual setting consistently. Weak groups would wipe to this, good players would not take that amount of damage in the first place over an extended period of time. I was going by my personal healing in a static setting, not potential maximum output.

 

51 minutes ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

Tempest is just as good as druid in fractals. Both are bad.

No one questioned that.

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1 hour ago, DKRathalos.9625 said:

So what do you guys think they will do? I mean the current situation got a lot of problem with some class overtuned and some class kind of left behind, they haven't fix this and there is new e-spec coming.

 

Since they just drop balance patch on may 11th I kind of not expect any big balance patch anytime soon before EoD drop

Honestly, I doubt the developers care at this point. The power creep pre expansion is insane. Not that it matters, raids and fractals haven't been hard to begin with in ages.

 

My guess is they are power creeping the game now to excite players. Once the expansion hits the new elites will be even more power creep, or ideally on this level, and current specializations will be nerfed.

 

The ultimate goal being to power creep as much as necessary to allow more players to complete "challenging" content, which they stopped developing to begin with. That way there is no need to reduce content difficulty, that happens automatically with the power creeped classes.

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After some tests in fractal CMs I would also recommend playing support scrapper with Pinpoint Distribution when running condi groups. It works surprisingly well. You can run both heal and dps versions of quickness scrapper (we tried with a mix of diviner, but maybe with some concentration sigils food and pots it is maybe possible to play some condi variant). With the help of a good renegade might isn't a problem. Scrapper can spec to take a good amount of stab aswell if not make your fellow rev go dwarf. If you are tired of hfbs, and have trouble with might playing with qfbs, quickness scrapper is honestly quite strong if you are interested in offmeta picks, break the steriotypes and just try it.

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On 6/2/2021 at 5:19 AM, DKRathalos.9625 said:

So what do you guys think they will do? I mean the current situation got a lot of problem with some class overtuned and some class kind of left behind, they haven't fix this and there is new e-spec coming.

 

Since they just drop balance patch on may 11th I kind of not expect any big balance patch anytime soon before EoD drop

This kind of post begs the question:

 

Did you even watch the video? Do you understand that the game does not need Anet to do anything because as the video demonstrates, the way people push meta is nonsensical?

 

The point is: Play how you want and enjoy it. Unless you are going to swap to a completely different optimal build/class for EVERY endgame encounter and rework/change your classes every time Anet does a balance patch, that's what you should be doing anyways. 

Edited by Obtena.7952
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6 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

This kind of post begs the question:

 

Did you even watch the video? Do you understand that the game does not need Anet to do anything because as the video demonstrates, the way people push meta is nonsensical?

 

The point is: Play how you want and enjoy it. Unless you are going to swap to a completely different optimal build/class for EVERY endgame encounter and rework/change your classes every time Anet does a balance patch, that's what you should be doing anyways. 

 

Did Teapot expressly say that in the video?  You'll have to remind me, because my memory is bad right now, and maybe it was bad in the past too.  The message I received from it was that I should pick my professions based on factors such as their heartiness, damage uptime, versatility, and the total sum of skills they provide.  Nowhere did I get the notion that I should just disregard boss mechanics and profession strength.  

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6 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

 

The message I received from it was that I should pick my professions based on factors such as their heartiness, damage uptime, versatility, and the total sum of skills they provide.  

What you are describing above is the process of someone identifying factors important to them ... and making build choices based on their criteria. Is that not playing how you want to play? How does that differ than what I just said? Because the criteria you are using are the correct ones ... and anything is not? That's rubbish. The message in that video is that it's foolish to measure the capabilities of a build based on a DPS number ... something many of us better players knew from over 8 years ago. 

 

It's funny because from that video you got the message 'buff elementalist' as well, yet it was clear the video had nothing to do with such a thing . I guess you see what you want to see ay? 

 

Here is the real answer: What makes a PVE build strong? That a player is fully capable playing it in the encounter where it's being used. Why? Because the game doesn't require people play meta builds to be successful in instanced content. The only requirement is that players know what to do in the encounter with the builds they are good at using. 

Edited by Obtena.7952
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10 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

What you are describing above is the process of someone identifying factors important to them ... and making build choices based on their criteria. Is that not playing how you want to play? 

It's really not.  You're purposefully obfuscating the differences between personal desires and mechanical requirements.  These are distinct, and the mechanical requirements of content in the game is not a PHIW matter.  When Teapot was making his case, he was linking to videos and showing DPS reports in order to demonstrate through a measurable standard that he was right.  His claims aren't appeals to subjectivity.

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16 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

It's really not.  You're purposefully obfuscating the differences between personal desires and mechanical requirements.  These are distinct, and the mechanical requirements of content in the game is not a PHIW matter.  When Teapot was making his case, he was linking to videos and showing DPS reports in order to demonstrate through a measurable standard that he was right.  His claims aren't appeals to subjectivity.

If it really isn't, then that's your problem on how you are choosing and prioritizing your factors in that choice. If you aren't playing how you want, then that's something YOU are doing wrong. I mean, what mechanical requirements are you talking about that prevent you from playing how you want AND being successful in instanced content? I have yet to see some mechanical requirement arising from an encounter that would actually make me fail that encounter if I didn't choose a specific build or class to do it; there is already a very broad representation of skills and effects that allow for a wide range of choice in builds for instanced content. 

 

Teapot's videos are showing he was right ... about everything many people have already known for 8 years in this game; you can't ignore player ability and mechanics to dumb down the game to state of meta pushing based on a DPS number. 

Edited by Obtena.7952
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14 hours ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

Funny that Teapot is being mentioned because....

 

I like that video because it goes right to my points:

 

The only requirement for success is that players know what to do (mechanics threshold) in the encounter with the builds they are good at using.

The threshold for success in this game (the encounter threshold) is low enough to allow people to play how they want. 

 

 

 

 

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On 6/4/2021 at 2:20 AM, Obtena.7952 said:

Play how you want and enjoy it. 

This either reads as:
"Play how you want, and experience half the content"
or
"Play how you want, but have four to nine guildies babysitting you through content."
In either way, it is dishonest and divorced from the real context of the desire to *play the game*.

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3 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

This either reads as:
"Play how you want, and experience half the content"
or
"Play how you want, but have four to nine guildies babysitting you through content."
In either way, it is dishonest and divorced from the real context of the desire to *play the game*.

No it doesn't ... I play how I want and I can assure you no one is babysitting me through content; most likely the opposite. You're view is absurd. 

Edited by Obtena.7952
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