Unlabelled Guild Wars 2 - Weekly /r/GuildWars2 Question Thread - November 18, 2017

11/19/2017 11:24:00 am
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Guild Wars 2 - Weekly /r/GuildWars2 Question Thread - November 18, 2017

Weekly /r/GuildWars2 Question Thread - November 18, 2017

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 05:10 AM PST

This thread is dedicated to questions that you've never really felt the need to start a thread for, but would still like to see answered/discussed.

Resources:

Please also consider sorting the comments in this thread by "new" so that the newest comments are at the top, since those are most likely to still need answers.

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[qT] Updated Benchmarks and Builds (November 7th, 2017 Balance Patch)

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 06:56 AM PST

Hey guys,

All of the builds we used for the benchmarks and written rotations can be found on our website qtfy.eu some builds have been expanded upon to provide really detailed information. If you can't see the new stuff: Make sure to hard-refresh ([CTRL] + [F5]) or clear your cache.

We'd like to say that we've all been hard at work, figuring out new gear and testing builds since the patch, but really we've lost a lot of interest in the game lately. Most of these benchmarks have been pulled together at the last second. There are still a few things missing, but we can't find the motivation anymore, to put in the effort, to grind out 30+ benchmarks every patch with the current state of the game. A lot of our members are now playing other games instead, and we hope that anet can release some good content soon to bring us back, but we have little faith left at this point. Going forward we can't guarantee that we will have as many benchmarks after each balance patch, but we will review the state of the game again at a later date, and decide if it's worth dedicating our time to it.

General changes

With this balance patch the most important changes are to druid, the removal of grace of the land and addition of 10 man spirits has greatly changed the way we look at squad compositions. On a lot of bosses it's going to be beneficial in speed clear groups to take only a single druid and warrior, fully capitalising on the extra DPS slots that have been freed up. However it isn't always going to be worth it, because it will increase the problems that we've started to feel more and more in the last couple patches. Which is the severe lack of CC, due to missing an extra wyvern and headbutt. A lot of the DPS builds have very limited access to CC skills, so for fights such as sloth or samarog it can be a thing to consider. Also since there will no longer be FGJ in both groups to provide fury, other sources must be found. Usually this means the druid will take tiger, and the other group either forces the warrior to take FGJ, or has the mesmer picks up banner of discipline instead. Overall group DPS seems roughly the same on most bosses, because the extra DPS slots make up of the lower individual numbers caused by the removal of gotl. A couple DPS builds also received nerfs, which has brought down weaver and firebrand, whereas soulbeast and mirage received buffs instead.

Class Specific changes:

Warrior: Now that druids are providing 10man might, the demand for condi ps is going to be much lower, but banners are still a really important buff, so every group still going to want at least 1 warrior. However, since you're no longer required to give might, a hybrid build that sits somewhere between condi ps and condi dps is going to be the most common. This is what we've called the Condi Banner Slave (BS). Other than that, not much changed, DPS is a bit lower due to the removal of gotl and power warrior is still irrelevant for speed clears.

Guardian: Is in a pretty good spot still with strong power and decent condi based builds, it remains a solid choice for a lot of boss. Griever's stats are now a lot easier to acquire because you can use Intact Mosaics to stat change both ascended armor and weapons. While the DPS of condi firebrand is no longer top tier, it's still capable of pulling good dps when played well. Power DH still falls behind weaver on large hit box but it's burst is really strong, and makes DH better in split phases, as well as providing more CC with banesignet, dragon's maw and hunter's verdict.

Revenant: Support renegade got a lot strong with this patch, because of the buff to orders from above it's now able to maintain permanent alacrity, but the DPS build remains the exact same.

Thief: Nothing changed on thief, Condi DD is still extremely strong on the bosses where it can safely pull off the rotation without needing to cleave adds. Whereas staff daredevil and deadeye are pretty useless for speed clears.

Ranger: The Ranger & Druid changes were definitely the most interesting changes in this patch. Grace of the Land doesn't give a unique buff anymore, but instead provides Might. With this change, a single druid can maintain permanent 25 Might on 10 people. The Ranger Spirits also have been changed, and can provide their buffs to 10 people now. All these changes are bringing us one step close to more variety in squad comps. So, how do these changes affect you? For most pug groups, 1 full healing druid with boon duration will be enough to maintain 25 Might on a full squad, which means that the warrior doesn't need to play Phalanx Strength anymore to provide might. For more information about how these changes affect the PUG meta, see 1up's reddit post from a couple days ago.

The whole situation is a little bit more tricky for premade/organized groups. On some bosses, you want to bring only 1 condi druid with the solo might stacking set up. On others, you still want to go with 2 regular condi druids to provide buffs evenly during splits (e.g. Gorseval & Xera) and on others, you just go with 1 full healer. There is still a lot to discover about squad comps, so everything we just said could change anytime.

Another aspect to keep in mind, that if you only bring 1 druid, spotter will not provided for everyone. If you put a druid into a separate subgroup, everyone will have an average of 75% spotter, but the druid will have almost no alacrity, which will result in a lower spirit uptime. On the other hand, if you put a single druid into a subgroup, one Subgroup will have permanent spotter, the druid will have permanent alacrity but the other subgroup won't have any spotter. Condition classes don't really benefit that much from spotter so create your groups accordingly.

On a condi druid, spotter can be changed to hidden barbs when your subgroup has only guardians (which can cap precision without spotter) or condi classes which benefit less from the buff.

Power druid remains a lower DPS option to condi druid, and loses even out even more in situations where the condi druid could take hidden barbs instead of spotter, but it's still a viable choice for players who are working on getting their viper gear.

The Soulbeast specialization received some changes as well. With the buffs to Vulture Stance (which completely replaced Flame Trap) and One Wolf Pack, the stance share build of the Soul Beast pulls ahead with dps over the regular dps variant. Unfortunately, 2 stance share builds in 1 sub group don't work, because the stance share buffs are unique and override each other. This means that your 150% duration stance will be overwritten with the 50% duration stance from the other Soulbeast. Obviously the stance shares can be timed, which would need an extra layer of communication between the soulbeast players, but we don't think it's something to realistically expect in any raid groups. Even though the sigils on the stance share variant are different on our website, they are only a 300-400 dps increase over Malice + Geomancy. So if you don't have the gold to spend on an extra set of weapons, you can continue to use the regular DPS Soulbeast or Condition Druid sigils for minimal DPS loss.

Engineer: Power Holosmith received some small sword buffs and the gap between rifle and sword became smaller. Buffs to 'Photonic Blasting Module' and 'Solar Focusing Lens' pushes the specialisation into a good power dps spot for many bosses, it also provides "Pinpoint Distribution" and reliable cc. Unfortunately there is still no heat level mechanics for any weapon except sword. Condi Engi remains the same, the only difference is the removal of gotl.

Elementalist: Power weaver received a fairly significant nerf to icebow, where an internal cooldown has been added to ice storm, in the same way that anet nerfed meteor shower. The build remains the same though, and it's still a top tier DPS on a lot of bosses. Condi weaver also received nerfs to FGS , we don't think it will be too much of a dps loss but we haven't got a benchmark for it at the moment.

Mesmer: Chronomancers will sometimes have the additional responsibility to pickup banner of discipline to share fury, if there are no other sources in the subgroup, but otherwise remains unchanged. Condi mirage received several "bug fixes" targeted at axe skills, these changes increased the build's DPS significantly, and allowed for clone mirage replace the phantasm variant. Mirage is now a top tier DPS build, and can be used to good effect on quite a few encounters. The main disadvantages are the lack of burst and large amounts of rng. Imaginary axes is able to hit twice if cast from inside the hit box, so the positioning of each clone matters. The effects of this are not as noticeable while fighting large hit box enemies, because the chance that axes of symmetry displaces the clones outside of the hit box is reduced.

Necromancer: After a bunch of "bug fixes", Scourge is still in a pretty bad spot for many encounters. Scourge shines still with 'Epidemic' on Sabetha, it's also the reason we put it back in the active builds section of our site. The 'Plague Sending' trait has had it's functionality changed and is a rather good buff, giving us a reliable condi transfer of 'Blood is Power' and 'Plaguelands'. The activation for the transfer is pretty short, and lasts only ~6s after entering any shroud, this makes it hard to always transfer your conditions. We are pretty disappointed about the changes and nerfs to Reaper. Nothing actually changed for Power Reaper, it's still useless for speed clears. Whereas condi reaper still relies on getting whirl finishers in chill fields and with the recent condi nerfs it falls far behind the other condi dps options. We still hope necromancer skills and traits get more synergy and reworks in the future, but are scared by anet's perception of scourge since they called it a "heavy support" which we strongly disagree with.

Benchmarks:

DISCLAIMER:

  • Every benchmark has been done with full +5 stat infusions. (about 2% dps increase)
  • Condition builds used Pinpoint Distribution. (roughly 3% - 3.5% dps increase depending on class) but we now removed spotter. This is to simulate the realistic buffs of having a condi druid with hidden barbs in your subgroup, which is something we've been doing for a few months now in condi groups.
  • No Night Sigils or Scribe utility foods were used
  • These numbers are the numbers done in a vacuum, under almost optimal conditions. Some builds, which are weak on the golem, will be the strongest on certain encounters. Such as condi thief, which gains a significant amount of DPS from whirl finishers in a real raid.
  • All benchmarks are done under the assumption of a 5-5 comp but other comps are also viable.
  • The numbers for small hitboxes will work just as good (or even better) on big hitboxes. Also, thief benchmarks were done on large hitbox to save time, but the same numbers are achievable on small.
  • You don't have to be a class nazi. Every class can do the job if played correctly. Having the highest possible damage is not necessary to kill any boss.
  • The clone mirage benchmark this time was provided by Timson [TEA], he uses realistic buffs for a group with a nature magic druid and spotter, whereas the other other condi benchmarks assume realistic buffs for a group with a condi druid using hidden barbs. This inflates the number a little but either way it would still be at the top. In previous balance patches we have also used additional boons on condi mesmer/mirage because it's unrealistic to take that build in a group that doesn't have vigor/protection etc. Spotter also doesn't add much DPS to the build so it wouldn't be much lower, but if you want to compare your own numbers then make sure that you are using the same buffs.
  • Fennec also forgot we don't use spotter anymore when doing the renegade benchmark so make sure you use it if you want to compare numbers with him

Big Hitbox:

Build DPS Link
Clone Mirage 45.596 Link
Arcane Weaver 41.903 Link
Air Weaver 41.703 Link
Radiance/Virtues Dragonhunter 31.737 Link

Small Hitbox:

Build DPS Link
Phant Mirage 34.062 Link
Condi Soulbeast 33.565 Link
Soulbeast Stance Share 33.092 Link
Condi Renegade 32.204 Link
Power Holo 32.065 Link
Condi Daredevil 31.814 Link
Condi FireBrand 31.777 Link
Condi Engineer 31.285 Link
DPS War 31.004 Link
Staff Daredevil 29.833 Link
Condi Scourge 29.601 Link
Condi BS 28.868 Link
Condi PS 26.521 Link
Chrono Illu/Inspi 10.510 Link
Chrono Domi/Inspi 9.848 Link

Miscellaneous

Build Description Link
Stance share Rough DPS difference between stance share variant and dps variant Link

Logs: Solo DPS Variant | Stance Share Variant

Support the Effort

We take pride in the rigorous testing we do to bring quality builds to the community but it comes at a cost. Many hours are spent after balance patches to ensure we can bring updated build guides that have been tested for our loyal followers. We enjoy doing what we do but the fact is web hosting cost add up, and we need to cover those cost. There are three direct ways you can support the site.

  • Disable adblock (whitelist) while browsing our website. Dominic (/u/SwornBaalist) has taken a lot of time to make sure the new design of the website allows for reasonable ad space and doesn't annoy the viewer. He has also spent a lot of time filtering allowed ads to try and make sure we aren't displaying inappropriate ads to our users.
  • Purchase the PoF expansion using our affiliate link. We know many resources out there have already supplied a affiliate link and we're late to the punch. If you still haven't purchased your copy and would like to support us you can do so buy using this link to buy PoF.
  • You may donate using the paypal link found on any of our build pages.

Whenever you share our website with friends and others in the community you are also supporting us. Thank you and we hope you enjoy the new website and continued build updates.

Our Discord server is growing really fast, almost 3k users at the time of this post. It's the perfect place to criticise, theorycraft or discuss stuff with us and other, enthusiastic pve players.

All of the builds we used for the benchmarks, written rotations and more in depths details about the classes and builds can be found on our website: qtfy.eu

Thanks again to everyone who is supporting or helping us!

submitted by /u/Subject0017
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Played WoW for the first time after playing GW for a while

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 09:47 AM PST

Let me tell you, we take SO MANY things for granted

submitted by /u/Yamzonian
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Suggestion: "Consume all" Option for Silky Sand

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 12:05 PM PST

Crafting Incinerator - In Real Life

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 01:27 AM PST

Legendary Weapon sigil swapping, WHEN?

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 03:48 AM PST

This is a major point to get legendary armor + stat changing. Swappable runes. When do we finally get Sigil swapping for the weapons? ITS THE SAME RARITY. C'mon Anet! Dont let this be a feature for GW3

submitted by /u/AuryNoir
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PSA: If you are disappointed with qTs recent benchmarks/complaining give SC a try!

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 02:41 PM PST

I was alittle annoyed with qT for all the whining they did in their most recent post(not that they were totally wrong). Got me thinking what alternative groups we have to rely on. Snow Crows have been working with Lucky Noobs to create their benchmarks. Their site is well done and easy to navigate. Lets support their work!

https://snowcrows.com/

I would post the Lucky Noobs site, but its based in German and they refer English speakers to the SC website. Also, I have no affiliation with SC or LN. Just happy to see others put in the good work for the community.

Edit 1: Grammer

Edit 2: This isnt intended to be a qT bashing session, just think SC deserves more attention then they get. Their website really is great!

submitted by /u/VinnCarr
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Please pray for my Charr :'(.

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 10:20 AM PST

Heartwarming Zucchini fanfiction story

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 03:33 PM PST

One day it will... one day...i know it will

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 05:36 AM PST

Ultimate Map Breakout...ty GW2Hook

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 11:42 AM PST

Slothasor 720 Degree Spin

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 07:49 AM PST

[SC] War Banner Benchmark 31k DPS

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 10:33 AM PST

Me in any zerg train (wait for it)

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 06:26 AM PST

Who liked HoT more than PoF? (Spoilers for both expansions)

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 07:12 AM PST

To be fair, both expansions have things they were better at when compared to others. For example, PoF's final battle was less annoying than HoT's, not to mention that Balthazar looks really badass while Mordremoth looked like he was on his 50s and all he did was chug beer and watch TV.
However, HoT's story and the final battle development, pushing every one of your companions to their limits and the moment when you see your old, now dead companions (particularly Tybalt) come back for a moment to help you... man, the feels were real! And like most people I was tired of Trehane, and I was happy he died the first time I did the story, but the 3rd time I started to feel sorry for him.
In contrast, in PoF you're basically alone, only Aurene to help you, and personally, the only feeling I have for Aurene is "it's adorable", but I wouldn't care much if it died. There are no feels, or at least there weren't for me. Hell, the only feels I felt during the whole story was for Vlast. Poor thing spent his life in solitude and died miserable.

 

Then there's your companions. Bram is a whiner and I'm completely fed up with Marjory and Kasmeer's constant drama. Taimi, Canach and Rytlock are the ones keeping me doing story with their acid comments and funny arrogance. Caithe doesn't even exist so I won't mention her. I thought Divinity's Edge was a bit boring, but I'll have boring over annoying all day.

 

Now, PoF maps are easier to travel through and HPs are soloable, while HoT is exactly the opposite. However, HoT maps difficulty gave them life, up to this day. HoT maps are a "pass through and continue with your life". Yes, there's the Meta on every map but... it's just there. You just do it once and go on with your life.

 

What pushed me to do this post was the soundtrack... of Heart of Thorns. How many times I just stopped to listen to the soundtrack... what an amazing music! Specially Mordremoth's battle and Rata Novus music. Brilliantly done!
For PoF they could've used Core GW2 music that I wouldn't even have noticed the difference.
Final note is that I'm proud I spent $80 on HoT Ultimate edition and I spent $25 for PoF standard edition (economic purposes were the reason I didn't buy higher tiers, but I'm glad I didn't). The best thing, by far, that PoF has are mounts, which are extremely useful, and map design (aesthetically and ease of travel) are very good, but other than that, I prefer HoT.

 

Anyone shares the feeling?

 

TL;DR: OP feels HoT was MUCH better regarding story development, map replayability, final battle design and sountrack than PoF.

submitted by /u/Rhyav
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Not going to lie, Aurene's plush mini portrait on lowest settings is horrifying

Posted: 17 Nov 2017 11:31 PM PST

[Suggestion/Idea] Cultural armor and Outfits

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 03:31 PM PST

As it is, the current state of Cultural armor is a bit poor, we pay a lot of gold merely for the skins to transmute onto exotic gear. The stats are usually quite bad as well. On the other hand, there are many outfits that NPCs use that I'm sure many people want. I know I for one would love to see more Sylvari armor. It also brings us back to the core world, most people might not have a reason to return to certain areas once they "outgrow" them. It leaves some maps a bit quiet and there are plenty of neat events around. Seeing the events in POF gave me a bit of an idea, something for people to work on if they want to. Trade Contracts and map currency in the expansions gave me the idea.

Events in culturally linked zones and/or events run by particular races could give their own token of currency, so if you need a particular type, well you have to go to that zone. You see I thought about the cultural armor vendors that we currently had and you just have to throw gold at them and be their race, that's it. But they could make them so much more if they added more from the NPCs.

Armor pieces, we know they can lock armor racially already, they could add the loose armor pieces they have NPCs wear. But then on the other hand, some sets NPCs wear cannot really be broken up into armor in a way that makes sense. Racial locked outfits could be the way to go with those particular items. The old cultural armor itself could be given a facelift as well, tiering adjusted with price and an exotic set available with stats available to pick. This could also be applicable to the cultural weapons, lowering the Karma cost and adding a currency cost as well for the tier 3 sets.

This adds new life to old zones and new ingame rewards that people often ask for, especially when it concerns armor and outfits. It could also be applied to the Pact orders as well, lowering gold cost, adding currency, add tiering so you can buy an exotic version if you want.

It's all just a thought, not a hugely fleshed out one and it would take some work to implement, but it could be worth it in the end. I'd love to be able to get a lot of the NPC stuff and this is a way that could make it fair, while revitalising old cultural stuff.

Thoughts?

submitted by /u/Sepredia
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How the hell do Dragon's Watch/Destiny's Edge do their guild missions?

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 06:35 PM PST

With a high end of like 5 guildies (6 if Canach actually shows) I find it unlikely for them to be able to finish a guild rush. My immersion is shattered. Literally unplayable.

Tl:dr Muh immersion... Please make guild missions viable for very tiny guilds?

submitted by /u/notaguyinahat
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[Art] Gordfang

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 08:16 AM PST

Whats the current value of SW champ bags/bags of rare gear or just the general profit/hour?

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 03:15 PM PST

I couldnt find any recent data about this, but with mounts it looks like the RIBA cfs are about as fast as the cfs back in the days when i was farming pure cfs there (before all the nerfs)

Does anyone have more knowledge about the current g/h?

Greetings!

submitted by /u/Patron03041
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WvW population balance options?

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 02:53 AM PST

OK so it's clear the balance or what they use to determine population is out of whack at the moment, maybe it worked before when the player base was higher and there was no linkings. But clearly it's being abused at the minute purely to stack servers make mass groups and to farm bags like another kind of pve raid mode or something...

It's killing alot of the more casual pug player base on many servers, with Kodash refusing to play now to try and force their server to open in hopes they get some new blood.... since getting a link kinda can carry your server to the top also... if you are a high server and suddenly don't get a link you just fall to the bottom of the rank no matter how hard you try or how many numbers you have...

anyway what options as constructive suggestions do you have for balance?

I heard anet used to give a chance for a free transfer every now and then, maybe that would help rebalance the populations?

Also there was a time where empty servers = free transfer so maybe if your population falls below to a medium, you can have free transfers for anyone that wants to move to your server to encourage people to spread out more?

Also looking at Vabbi and Underworld, they have attracted people to fight for them, now they are FULL plus a VERY HIGH (which will be full no doubt also before the end of this matchup).

So wouldn't it also make sense if people start overstacking a link for anet to split out? say have some rule like, if 1 is full other can't be very high or full, if the link reaches very high it's manually split out with another server instead mid linking to discourge stacking and to rebalance the popluations quickly rather than making the other servers just log out and lose more population?

anyway wether right or wrong or dying game mode what ever, just put your ideas forward maybe anet will read and take notice.

I for one as a loyal WvW only player (that also buys gems and your shitty mount skins because they are like crack....) so listen to use WvW players we are losing our loyal followers (pugs) due to population inbalances imo....

submitted by /u/sgtslash
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[WvW] PPT and PPK points need to be split

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 04:14 AM PST

Besides the Problem with Population, there is another big problem in EU-WvW.

PPT and PPK. Points per Tick (holding objectives) and Points per Kill.

Before the skirmish-system, it was possible for non ppt-servers to get a lot of points with kills. Even if you were loosing all night, you could get your points back by doing a lot of kills in your primetime.

Now, thats no longer possible. Even when you do a lot of primetime-kills, you just get 5 Victory Points. And the server that does more PPT in the night and in the morning skirmishes wins.

The skirmish-system was intended to prevent nightcapping and make matchups more fair. In Reality, it just promoted PPT a lot and made everything worse. Famous PPT Servers like Baruch that were in T3 before are now T1 and fighting servers without good coverage are now T5.

WvW now is just about coverage. Coverage is not skill. And if you are a primetime only Player, you win everything and still loose the Matchup. This feels bad and unfair.

The solution to this would be to split PPK and PPT Points. Keep the skirmish-system for PPT, just for all points that come from the Ticks. Just for that, it works well. But count kills seperatly and give like 1 Victory Point for every 100 Kills (Just an example, needs to be balanced). This small change alone would help alot.

submitted by /u/Malfrador
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Does Heal help a downed player?

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 11:28 AM PST

Yeah, title says it all. Does an AoE Heal help a downed player?

submitted by /u/wolfgangbures
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Gemstore Availability Tables

Posted: 18 Nov 2017 04:16 PM PST

These used to be maintained by /u/Delsea, posted in random reddit posts and updated on the wiki https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Dashface/Gem_Store_availability_tables but they have been outdated for a while.

Normally by now some of the Autumn/Spring seasonal items would have rotated back in but some of them such as Top Hat, Sailor's Beanie, Leopard/Hylek Fuzzy Hats seem to have been skipped this year.

Bring them back please I need to unlock them ;_;

What else has been missing for longer than usual?

submitted by /u/MuscularApe
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