70 replies to this topic

[CepaCepa]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 08 January 2013 - 10:12 PM, said:

Simple solution is not to die then.

That WAS what he suggested~ He's all for maximum damage, given that one's not dying.

[Stigma]

IT DEPENDS.

Being Glass cannons is less forgiving than having a beefy character. But doesn't mean you will die. Sure you can't dodge everything, but still doesn't mean you'll die. In general PvE and in all dungeons outside of Fractals or even Arah it is fine to run any build you want. Being noob and bad is why one would die.

However, when u get to those two higher tier dungeons especially high level Fractals then you might want to reconsider this question again. You'll be asking yourself... "how far can i take this glass cannon?" "What's the point of being tanky when i get downed in less than 1 sec?" "If I improve my gameplay skills, how should I build my character then?" I have no answer for you here and you'll just have to climb Fractals and find out.

The other night I was in  Fractal and i had a Warrior with legendary greatsword and full TA armor and exotics geared up the neck. He was wasted party space as he spent most of the time on the floor. I was running naked and my guildees were masterwork armor. We pretty much finished the dungeon w/o him.

Edited by Stigma, 09 January 2013 - 03:54 AM.

[MrForz]

Depends of what you tend to do when stuffed glass cannon style. A glass cannon Engineer equipped with a few 'oh sh..' skills and throwing nades at 1500 range is okay'ish, as example. But it's not universal.

Edited by MrForz, 09 January 2013 - 04:07 AM.

[Sol Drakibane]

Stigma, on 09 January 2013 - 03:52 AM, said:

IT DEPENDS.

Being Glass cannons is less forgiving than having a beefy character. But doesn't mean you will die. Sure you can't dodge everything, but still doesn't mean you'll die. In general PvE and in all dungeons outside of Fractals or even Arah it is fine to run any build you want. Being noob and bad is why one would die.

However, when u get to those two higher tier dungeons especially high level Fractals then you might want to reconsider this question again. You'll be asking yourself... "how far can i take this glass cannon?" "What's the point of being tanky when i get downed in less than 1 sec?" "If I improve my gameplay skills, how should I build my character then?" I have no answer for you here and you'll just have to climb Fractals and find out.

The other night I was in  Fractal and i had a Warrior with legendary greatsword and full TA armor and exotics geared up the neck. He was wasted party space as he spent most of the time on the floor. I was running naked and my guildees were masterwork armor. We pretty much finished the dungeon w/o him.

I dont believe going full glasscannon on Warrior works out well - thought he could just simply go Rifle which would mitigate his time spending on the floor. He probably wanted to show off his Legendary.

As a full berserker exotic, ascended gear and Quiver of Swift Flight + rune of the ranger I keep my pet with me (Passive non attacking) so that once a enemy comes near it can revive me OR use fear/immobilize. How many times do i die as the squishiest build you can make? Barely, unless the enemy has instant-range cast attacks or high dmging AoE attacks which even then requires 2 times before dieing.
I do so much damage with Longbow(3-5k dmg per shot) + Shortbow(1-1,5k dmg per shot) that the enemies usually run towards me because I aggro too much. Funny story is that once you switch to Longbow aggro doesnt happen as often because your DPS is high it is also less fast. Thus you'd think you'll do less damage but in fact you still do enough damage but the other players also do damage and keep pushing themselfs to the top list. (even though I do more dmg.)

Enough about that Glasscannon on Ranger is completely viable because of the survivability skills. Whereas Warrior would have a tougher job (and some other classes like Guardian aswel.) Up close PvE classes should never build full DPS gear. They should mix it or go for a hybrid class where you keep your Crit Chance at 50% and not higher then that.

Items best for high dps classes are: Triforge, Ancient Karka Shell, Ascended rings from FotM. With those accessoires you can maximize your damage and survive a bit longer.
tbh forget about building Legendaries - if you want to be competitive and strong in dungeons, wvw those are the items you should be focusing on! And then once you have those you can go for the Legendary weapons. I see it like that in my opinion and i speak that out loud for those who want to be useful in dungeons/wvw as legendaries are cosmetical at the moment. We'll have to wait for the patch though. If you do get those accesoires you'll be ready for the next major releases Arena net is going to release.

I'm talking about FotM lvl 21 mobs.

• p.s its really late here so my spelling is probably bad.

[Stigma]

I was just pointing out an extreme example of a glass cannon situation and also in the same instance where I ran naked and still performed better.

A melee warrior going glass cannon is asking for trouble most of the time unless there is enough melee team mates to share the damage/aggro. If not, you will most likely go down because you'll accumulate too much aggro on you.

Also, if u were going to go glass canon warrior and then go range with bow/rifle the whole time then there are rangers, engineers, etc who can do it better than you.

I'm not too keen on the idea on running Triforge and Karka shells as I think they are too unfocused on stats. Sure they look awesome having stats on everything. An elementalist who can benefit from all stats will surely love to have them, but for a Warrior i think it lacks focus on stats that really do need it like Power, Vitality, Toughness, Precision, Crit Dmg (in no order)

[Xellial]

ITT - People calling everyone else bads when they die. I'm sure all you "pro's" died a bit in your time as well, stop acting like you didn't/don't.

!@#$ happens, in some dungeons, a boss will have a skill that's VERY difficult to realize is the one hit kill (Looking at you, AC)

Let's be adults and realize that not everyone is "godtier". Balance is good for most situations because even if you do messup, press the wrong button, you can survive that hit with a bit of hp, and everyone is happy.

[CepaCepa]

Xellial, on 09 January 2013 - 08:41 PM, said:

ITT - People calling everyone else bads when they die. I'm sure all you "pro's" died a bit in your time as well, stop acting like you didn't/don't.

!@#$ happens, in some dungeons, a boss will have a skill that's VERY difficult to realize is the one hit kill (Looking at you, AC)

Let's be adults and realize that not everyone is "godtier". Balance is good for most situations because even if you do messup, press the wrong button, you can survive that hit with a bit of hp, and everyone is happy.

Hence, without judgement, people should make their own build, depending on their own playstyle and all. Once they get familiar with a content, know what/when to dodge and all, they can strip survival stats down to a level befitting to them. Although in my experience, things that are hard to dodge is perhaps easier mitigated by having an oh sh*t button on your utility slot --- a few seconds of immunity that mitigates the one hit, teleports to get out of danger, stun breakers, block/reflect, things like that. Emergency buttons that make sure you don't die even if you messed up. If not, that's fine --- he can pack on more vitality and/or toughness if he'd like, but he should know what is enough though. It's one thing to say "OK I can't dodge that hit all the time, that hit hits for 15K, so I need to buff my vitality up to 16K", it's another to say "I'll just throw on as much vitality and toughness as possible no matter what".

[Stigma]

Xellial, on 09 January 2013 - 08:41 PM, said:

ITT - People calling everyone else bads when they die. I'm sure all you "pro's" died a bit in your time as well, stop acting like you didn't/don't.

!@#$ happens, in some dungeons, a boss will have a skill that's VERY difficult to realize is the one hit kill (Looking at you, AC)

Let's be adults and realize that not everyone is "godtier". Balance is good for most situations because even if you do messup, press the wrong button, you can survive that hit with a bit of hp, and everyone is happy.

What the heck are u talkin about? We're discussing builds and you come in all dramatic

Edited by Stigma, 09 January 2013 - 09:49 PM.

[Cannot See Me]

Xellial, on 09 January 2013 - 08:41 PM, said:

ITT - People calling everyone else bads when they die. I'm sure all you "pro's" died a bit in your time as well, stop acting like you didn't/don't.

!@#$ happens, in some dungeons, a boss will have a skill that's VERY difficult to realize is the one hit kill (Looking at you, AC)

Let's be adults and realize that not everyone is "godtier". Balance is good for most situations because even if you do messup, press the wrong button, you can survive that hit with a bit of hp, and everyone is happy.

wait.. Who is the one that should be more 'adult'?

[Stigma]

Back to topic,

someone just solo-ed Arah Path 2 using a full glass cannon warrior



It's very impressive to perfect this run and to burn down enemies fast enough. He had very solid gameplay and was able to skillfully create a lot of 1v1 situations in his favor. However, it's really situational as this video has shown me that the build could work here, but in other situations where it is required to take damage like Fractals which favors endurance rather than burst.

It ultimately depends on individual player skill and what you can do in your given situation. Luckily for us, GW2 allows us to re-spec traits, run multiple sets of gear, etc.

Edited by Stigma, 10 January 2013 - 01:13 AM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

So, just for kicks, I ran CoF by specifically looking for the tankiest builds I could get with the least DPS.  Water ele, longbow warrior, shortbow thief, some GS warrior in soldier's gear, and I forget who the last one was.  It took us FIVE minutes to kill the effigy alone.  That is, like, ten times longer than it normally takes.  We had to focus fire the acolytes just to kill one before the spawns wiped us all.

Explain to me again why every time I want a speed clear group I get 20 scrubs in soldiers gear whining at me?  I get rangers, of all classes, in cleric's gear ranting at me for 30 minutes straight about how cleric's gear has power so he's totally a DPS and he could totally outdps my guardian in full berserker gear if I just gave him the chance to prove it (I didn't).

Edited by GuanglaiKangyi, 10 January 2013 - 08:51 AM.

[Atamaz]

In my opinion defensive stat on armor/jewel are good for support and not on dps.
Let's say I use a knight armor that give me 315 toughtness, if I remember correctly from another post 100 thou reduce ~5% of the incoming damage, so with a knight armor I will take ~15% less damage and it's good, but healing skill have 25-40 seconds of cd, but if I can't survive until my heal is off cd probably do 15% more damage would be better, and survive few more seconds is better only if you can do the damage you lose gearing for defence in those seconds, because if you hide/run away waiting for the cd of healing you're not doing damage, and to say the truth mob/boss die to damage and if you have moment when you do nothing because you're low hp and have the heal in cd you're "leeching". On the other side I think it's ok for support to gear with some defence because they still have value supporting other even with lower dps, because you will make other do the dps you lose, but on a dps oriented build I think blind, block, invulnerability, vigor and protection are simply better

[chullster]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 10 January 2013 - 08:49 AM, said:

Explain to me again why every time I want a speed clear group I get 20 scrubs in soldiers gear whining at me?  I get rangers, of all classes, in cleric's gear ranting at me for 30 minutes straight about how cleric's gear has power so he's totally a DPS and he could totally outdps my guardian in full berserker gear if I just gave him the chance to prove it (I didn't).

Wish this was an isolated instance but I've tried 2 groups today, both advertising "speedfarm" CoF path 1, both taking an age to kill the slaver at the start, people need to realize in pve that toughness/vitality/healing power are all a waste of stats and time. But you can't tell people who insist tanking is fun. I've been asked if my guardian is a healer too, so much sillyness...

[lmaonade]

chullster, on 10 January 2013 - 03:00 PM, said:

Wish this was an isolated instance but I've tried 2 groups today, both advertising "speedfarm" CoF path 1, both taking an age to kill the slaver at the start, people need to realize in pve that toughness/vitality/healing power are all a waste of stats and time. But you can't tell people who insist tanking is fun. I've been asked if my guardian is a healer too, so much sillyness...

Some people miss that good old trinity, I sometimes do too. That or they ignore the dynamics and mechanics of dungeon running and instead look purely at stats and what is aesthetically pleasing, for the longest time I ran a few pieces of vitality gear because I thought 15k hp looked better than 1.38k.

but people have to realize that this is a different game, if there is no need for defense (and at a certain awareness level, there is none needed) there is no reason to take it.

Edited by lmaonade, 10 January 2013 - 09:42 PM.

[Stigma]

I noticed that when this game first came out... everyone went glass cannon.. and then all of a sudden ppl were dying left and right and there was a movement back towards tanky builds. Now ppl are starting to shift back to DPS. I think it has more to do with cultivating individual skill than the build.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

chullster, on 10 January 2013 - 03:00 PM, said:

Wish this was an isolated instance but I've tried 2 groups today, both advertising "speedfarm" CoF path 1, both taking an age to kill the slaver at the start, people need to realize in pve that toughness/vitality/healing power are all a waste of stats and time. But you can't tell people who insist tanking is fun. I've been asked if my guardian is a healer too, so much sillyness...

The problem is that people don't gearcheck when they advertise for "speedfarms".  You could join a speedfarm with all level 60 blue MF gear and no one would even know.  It's not even a matter of deception, a lot of people out there actually think just having power on your gear (even if it's only the armor, or something) qualifies them as a DPS.

[Minion]

The only classes you want to be running any defensive stats on are necro and guardian, for the sole reason that a trait converts toughness to precision and toughness to condition damage respectively. Rabid armour is very nice for this; precision/toughness/condition, with condition being the primary stat. I'd still call this defensive, but higher precision is more useful as a whole when it procs bleeds, party-wide Might and heals you while you fight (hint: if you get healed while fighting, you don't have to stop to heal or kite).

For everything else, go berserk. Especially on thieves, wars and mesmers.

[dawdler]

Minion, on 13 January 2013 - 08:28 PM, said:

The only classes you want to be running any defensive stats on are necro and guardian, for the sole reason that a trait converts toughness to precision and toughness to condition damage respectively.

... so I take it you dont count the Warrior trait that convert toughness to power?

[coglin]

Minion, on 13 January 2013 - 08:28 PM, said:

The only classes you want to be running any defensive stats on are necro and guardian, for the sole reason that a trait converts toughness to precision and toughness to condition damage respectively.

dawdler, on 13 January 2013 - 09:23 PM, said:

... so I take it you dont count the Warrior trait that convert toughness to power?

Or engineer that converts toughness to condition damage?

Edited by coglin, 14 January 2013 - 12:53 AM.

[chefwaffle]

Cannot See Me, on 08 January 2013 - 05:29 PM, said:

Lastly just to throw in my favorite quote: "A dead dps is no dps."

True. Groups who run dungeons are all about skipping or at least that's how it is from my experience. Good luck to the glass cannons running to 10-20 elite mobs without dying. If the glass cannon is behind because they always end up dying when skipping mobs, then that means no DPS for the group and it's not like the DPS of non-glass cannons are so bad. DPS of non-glass cannons are actually good enough to take down bosses.

Edited by chefwaffle, 14 January 2013 - 05:51 AM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

chefwaffle, on 14 January 2013 - 05:26 AM, said:

True. Groups who run dungeons are all about skipping or at least that's how it is from my experience. Good luck to the glass cannons running to 10-20 elite mobs without dying. If the glass cannon is behind because they always end up dying when skipping mobs, then that means no DPS for the group and it's not like the DPS of non-glass cannons are so bad. DPS of non-glass cannons are actually good enough to take down bosses.

Yes, but can it take them down QUICKLY?  A DPS group can kill the Effigy in 30 seconds.  A "standard" group of pugs usually takes 5+ minutes.  That's more than 10 times as long.  If you're willing to spend ten times longer on everything, fine, but not everyone is.

[chefwaffle]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 14 January 2013 - 06:02 AM, said:

Yes, but can it take them down QUICKLY?  A DPS group can kill the Effigy in 30 seconds.  A "standard" group of pugs usually takes 5+ minutes.  That's more than 10 times as long.  If you're willing to spend ten times longer on everything, fine, but not everyone is.

That's kinda elitist, but yeah, each to their own. For me, as long as it's beatable, I see no issue with it taking longer than a glass cannon group. Why does it matter which group can take down the boss quickly? Is there a hidden guild/party/pug competition on other servers who compete with each other for that? As long as the group is successful at the end, that's all that matters. Like the OP and the others said, not everything can be dodged and one mistake of a glass cannon, it's wasted space. As the solo dungeon runners say, "As long as you survived, you can beat it."

Edited by chefwaffle, 14 January 2013 - 10:40 AM.

[FoxBat]

Minion, on 13 January 2013 - 08:28 PM, said:

The only classes you want to be running any defensive stats on are necro and guardian, for the sole reason that a trait converts toughness to precision and toughness to condition damage respectively.

For 5%? Really?

Carrion/Rabid are decent because they are the only affixes with major condi damage. If it was possible possible you'd rather have condi+power/pre for glassing rather than the defense stats and mild conversions. (including tuning crystals.) Did I mention that Guardians don't do relevant condition damage?

Edited by FoxBat, 14 January 2013 - 07:38 AM.

[Atamaz]

Probably he was thinking for guardian something like knight armor: power/precision/thoughtness. On necro rabid is sure a common choice because of the cond damage as main stat a thou as secondary with rune of undead converting thou in cond damage,  while the vitality in carrion is less attractive because of necro high base hp pool, and conditionmancer need precision to inflict more bleed on crit; probably rampager(power/precision/cond damage) is the alternative to rabid but you still loose cond damage for some direct damage. I like rampager also on my engy because crit can proc both bleed and burn, days with berserk for full direct damage are over for now(for engy).

[GammaWolf]

Most classes work fine as GC, but having a heavy armor tank just tends to make things go more smoothly.

[Dark]

I build my ranger full glass cannon. Love it

[Arquenya]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 08 January 2013 - 10:12 PM, said:

Simple solution is not to die then.

I just don't have the impression that all attacks can actually be dodged. Sometimes when some boss is after you, you're just running out of dodges or the red circle carpets are so large that one dodge can't get you out.

[Thaddeuz]

In absolute number, if you can run all offensive stats this is the best way to go.

But the problem is that not everybody can do it with all the profession.

I have no problem running a Berserk or Rampager build with my Engineer, Mesmer, Ranger and Necromancer.

But when it come to my Elementalist, Warrior and Guardian i just can do it. I need some defense when i'm melee with my Guardian/Warrior and the hp of my Elementalist is just too low for me.

But still i have no problem with a Ranger having some defense if this way he don't go down.

[Ninja Battle Lion]

IMHO the most frustrating sensation in Fractals is being overwhelmed because things just don't die fast enough. I'm fine wih people building in some defense - my Warrior has 20 Tactics atm, and I don't run full Berserker (yay Cavalier stats!) - but too often I see only my own blows having somewhat decent effect on mobs. Makes me wanna rage...

[Stigma]

The only problem with full glass canon is there will be situations where you get hit with splash attacks or stray arrows etc somewhere far off your screen that you couldn't have seen. Your limited HP and armor will be penetrated quickly or you will waste all your dodges and not have stamina for the attacks that do matter.