77 replies to this topic

[Wicklow]

I don't disagree that condition dmg sucks with too many condition based abilities that other professions are using.  There is one main thing I do to insure that I still get my stacks ticking.... Condition Duration.  Even when you have a Mesmer that when they blow a few cool downs in a specific way they can put up 15 stacks, those stacks do not last long. If I put up an auto scepter attack bleed with my 105% duration and lingering curse it's last for 14 seconds. So that means that my auto attack is doing 1484 dmg total, and that "stack spot" will be mine for the whole duration.  I'm not going to go into the details of condition duration and max dps right here, but I do plan on posting a detailed comprehensive thread in the necromancer pve forum in the next week or so.  

So even if this Mesmer puts on 15 stacks for one, I prolly already have most of the stacks for myself so most of those stacks will not apply, but even the ones that do fall off so you quickly that its really a non issue.  And if you really care to read the post I make when I finalize my equations, you will see how I'm doing so much. More sustained damage than other classes that occasionally missing a stack or two doesn't drop the dps to a level that questions whether a different class should take my spot.

Also when I run fractals, I pretty much always run with two engineers and 2 pugs, both engineers don't bleed enough to even notice, and sometimes the pugs do bleeding which sucks but I rarely have issues keeping my stacks rolling even when they do for the fore mentioned reasons.  

And to recap on epidemic.  It's not just your conditions, all conditions on the target get transferred to a maximum of 5 other targets, and with increased condition duration, you are now burning, poisoning, confusion, weakening, crippling, chilling, making the mobs around the main target more vulnerable and bleeding for that much more.  Trait that with a low cool down, and its easy to burn down huge packs of mobs.  A great synergy I have with one of the engineers I run with he is calls out when he is about to lay confusion down, so I make sure I get epidemic off right after, which does an immense about of damage in AOE pack situations.

The point is people write off Necromancers because they don't have huge burst or they have poor support or the conditions don't stack more than 25 w/e but i think there is a bit of an issue of groupthink here, and until you play a necro, or know someone who can actually play it well and who understands the dynamic of their damage output you can't really say anything.  We have great damage, IMO support equal if not better than guardian, and if. You allocate stats properly you get 95% of you max damage output which is still more than most professions 100% output.

[SpelignErrir]

You guys obviously aren't playing with a super elixir spamming engineer.

[moomooo1]

Not by design, but rather lack of foresight, my least favourite profession in FotM is the ranger. Simply that you can have time wasted from Jade Maw aiming the pet, or the Jellyfish eat the pet etc. All these things that should never be allowed to hit a pet, are hitting pets. There's nothing the ranger can do about it, but it still remains frustrating. Hope Arenanet changes it soon.

[lmaonade]

Necros and Rangers are the least flavored/played, classes are pretty balanced across the board, though there are definitely glaring exceptions, Anet doesn't have a good reputation for balancing games.

Necros and Rangers don't really have those kinds of cool or flashy or "big numbers go boom" type gameplay, they have solid mechanics but are relatively unattractive.

Go into WvW and you'll just see a ton of thieves, mesmers, and elementalists because they're flashy, fast-paced, and appeal to the excitement type mentality (on top of these classes having extremely good uses for WvW group dynamics that is)

[GuanglaiKangyi]

The problem with condition damage is that you are at best getting 3k damage/sec from it.  Realistically you're likely getting 2.5k/s tops since no one class can keep up a constant 25 stacks at max condition damage.  That means that all the condition damage across 5 players is capped at 2.5k/s which is about the amount of damage a single warrior or guardian deals by himself.  In practice due to might and vulnerability stacking from warriors and guardians most do about 3k each, if not more.  That means that a group of 5 engineers (which deal about 1k/s without condition damage) would only hit 5k/s direct + 2.5k/s from bleed.  That's only 7.5k/s, which is half as much as a group of 5 guardians, which are hitting at least 15k/s.

A single high-damage condition class such as engineer or necromancer is useful to a group since they'll be able to deal out full condition damage without hitting the cap.  Any more though and you're just giving up DPS.  That means that engineers, necromancers, rangers, thieves, and mesmers to a lesser extent are basically all competing for one slot in the group, while guardians, warriors, and elementalists are fine in any of the five slots.

[Vherax]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 07 December 2012 - 10:35 PM, said:

The problem with condition damage is that you are at best getting 3k damage/sec from it.  Realistically you're likely getting 2.5k/s tops since no one class can keep up a constant 25 stacks at max condition damage.  That means that all the condition damage across 5 players is capped at 2.5k/s which is about the amount of damage a single warrior or guardian deals by himself.  In practice due to might and vulnerability stacking from warriors and guardians most do about 3k each, if not more.  That means that a group of 5 engineers (which deal about 1k/s without condition damage) would only hit 5k/s direct + 2.5k/s from bleed.  That's only 7.5k/s, which is half as much as a group of 5 guardians, which are hitting at least 15k/s.

A single high-damage condition class such as engineer or necromancer is useful to a group since they'll be able to deal out full condition damage without hitting the cap.  Any more though and you're just giving up DPS.  That means that engineers, necromancers, rangers, thieves, and mesmers to a lesser extent are basically all competing for one slot in the group, while guardians, warriors, and elementalists are fine in any of the five slots.

This is like the 3rd of 4th time that I see you posting about condition dmg engineers everywhere. You don't listen to anyone talking to you... When will you learn that grenades are goddamn awesome DD weapon (meaning power/precision/crit, not cond dmg)? They easily deal the 3k damage per sec as warriors do, but at 1500 range.

Edited by Vherax, 08 December 2012 - 12:04 AM.

[coglin]

Although it is a PvP, this video shoes you a hint of what grenades can do. Skip up to about the 4 minute mark. The damage translates over to PvE relatively equivalent as well.

Edited by coglin, 08 December 2012 - 01:53 AM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Vherax, on 08 December 2012 - 12:03 AM, said:

This is like the 3rd of 4th time that I see you posting about condition dmg engineers everywhere. You don't listen to anyone talking to you... When will you learn that grenades are goddamn awesome DD weapon (meaning power/precision/crit, not cond dmg)? They easily deal the 3k damage per sec as warriors do, but at 1500 range.

Show me a build that averages 3k/s and then we'll talk.  It simply doesn't happen.  You can hit high burst with weapon swaps but you can't sustain it.

[ScoutMATH]

2 support, 2 dps and a mesmer. that's basically it.

Edited by ScoutMATH, 08 December 2012 - 02:03 AM.

[Nemhy]

So you only like Mesmer for Portals? >_>

[Wingken]

Can someone link a warrior build thats good for even 30+?

[Coren]

Nemhy, on 09 December 2012 - 01:33 PM, said:

So you only like Mesmer for Portals? >_>

And time warp I have a fully equipped mesmer (minus ascended obviously), and they rock in any situation... Less now that there's the ibeserker and phantasms slow attack bug, but overall, mesmers are incredibly strong.

[Kelthien]

Coren, on 10 December 2012 - 03:49 PM, said:

And time warp I have a fully equipped mesmer (minus ascended obviously), and they rock in any situation... Less now that there's the ibeserker and phantasms slow attack bug, but overall, mesmers are incredibly strong.

Which kind of a build are you running?  Mesmer here struggling with finding some good footing.  Forums rave about glass cannon, pure DPS but groups still seem to want me running glamour heavy, support builds.  Was thinking of rolling another char, but if you have some advice I'd love to hear it!

[Wicklow]

I'm working on some equations for calculating the dps from necro scepter auto attack.  So far I have the hard part done, which is finding a way to model the sigil of earth with respect to crit chance.  From what I have done so far and the stats I have I max out at 2900 dps from bleeds alone, that doesn't take into account might though.  It does however say that to do that I have to have 27 stacks of bleeds, which I can do but am limited by the 25 cap.  Realistically I keep 20-23 stacks up continuously, with heals and dodges and such.  But that in conjunction with the actual direct damage and the poison, I'm estimating an average of 3500 dps.  Once I'm done with it ill post again. And a full breakdown of the formulas and logic behind them in the necromancer forum.

Oh and in regards to the engineers damage, have you seen the discharge build?

[Coren]

Kelthien, on 11 December 2012 - 01:03 AM, said:

Which kind of a build are you running?  Mesmer here struggling with finding some good footing.  Forums rave about glass cannon, pure DPS but groups still seem to want me running glamour heavy, support builds.  Was thinking of rolling another char, but if you have some advice I'd love to hear it!

I run a GS/staff with 20/10/0/25/5. Inspiration gives good defense and offense (cond removal on heal and passive regen around clones' more damage from clones).

I get an average of 5-7k per ibeserker, 9k for iwarlock.

A rough idea behind it anyway, if u want more details, please pm me.

[Dream Proxy]

Kelthien, on 11 December 2012 - 01:03 AM, said:

Which kind of a build are you running?  Mesmer here struggling with finding some good footing.  Forums rave about glass cannon, pure DPS but groups still seem to want me running glamour heavy, support builds.  Was thinking of rolling another char, but if you have some advice I'd love to hear it!

I rave about pure DPS myself-- & I have proof that it works

[Kelthien]

Coren, on 11 December 2012 - 06:41 AM, said:

I run a GS/staff with 20/10/0/25/5. Inspiration gives good defense and offense (cond removal on heal and passive regen around clones' more damage from clones).

I get an average of 5-7k per ibeserker, 9k for iwarlock.

A rough idea behind it anyway, if u want more details, please pm me.

Wow nice!  I'll definitely have to look in to that.  I rarely spread my traits so thin, but with all those phantasm skills scattered about, it's hard not to.  I have come to love phantasms in dungeons.  Quick cooldowns, huge damage.  And releasing myself from shatter-dependency has given me more time to focus on damage avoidance.

xxalucard, on 11 December 2012 - 11:41 AM, said:

I rave about pure DPS myself-- & I have proof that it works

I saw! I totally use your build right now.  I run about a 50/50 split between WvW and Dungeons.  The glass cannon thing is AWESOME in dungeons, but I find I like a bit more team-support in WvW.  It's tricky finding something that works really well for both, but your build has rocked my socks in FotM.  At least... when my groups aren't filled with dummies.

[TheZec]

Well, I'll put my toughts on here too! I play an ele and I just reached lvl 28:

1. Guardian: he isn't essential, but it will make life easier for everybody. Especially if he knows when to use my 2 favourite skills: Wall of Reflection and Shield of the Avenger

2. Elementalist: it is true, you won't find many who knows how to play it. But if there is a nice thing in fractals, it's that at higher levels you will usually get better players. You would love eles, not for their healing, but for their CC. Having 2 staff eles can turn every fight in a duck hunt - especially because CC is as effective in berserker gear as it is in cleric.

3. Warrior: insane dps is nice, add shiny banners and shouts and you want them.

4. Engineer: Again, great CC when the player knows his skills. And huge damage against that boring giant jellyfish.

5. Mesmer: Portals are cool, but the best thing is his ability to stun and confuse enemies. Also can do some good dps.

6. Necro: Great cond dmg and survivability, but it may not be your choice if you want to take down thing fast.

7. Thied: I like their ability to stealth people - and is the best class for the dredge fractal. That's about it.

8. Ranger: Like many have said, there is a really big chance to find incompetent players playing it. Aside from their pet - who mostly only manages to aggro everything in sight - they don't really bring anything to the team. They do good damage... but if I want damage, I'll take a warrior or even a thief.

Edited by TheZec, 18 December 2012 - 10:30 AM.