229 replies to this topic

[GuanglaiKangyi]

TastySlop, on 12 February 2013 - 04:19 AM, said:

Omnomberry pie adds about 400 dps when using a high critical chance build. It's life steal, not just healing.

it's healing.  it's called lifesteal but you don't actually add any damage and the amount stolen isn't dependent on what you deal.  You can grab a level 0 weapon and go hit a mob for less than the amount you "steal" with each proc, if you want to see it for yourself.  It's easier with Sigil of Leeching; try it in PvP, it steals about 1k, but the target clearly does not take 1k damage.

[Minion]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 12 February 2013 - 04:40 AM, said:

it's healing.  it's called lifesteal but you don't actually add any damage and the amount stolen isn't dependent on what you deal.  You can grab a level 0 weapon and go hit a mob for less than the amount you "steal" with each proc, if you want to see it for yourself.  It's easier with Sigil of Leeching; try it in PvP, it steals about 1k, but the target clearly does not take 1k damage.

Indeed. Well, with any prec/crit damage nourishment, my offensive AH build will outdamage you with the amount of crit damage I have. Vanilla, I have 99 crit damage, 109% with nourishment and 119% with banner of discipline. As several has clearly stated, you gain diminished returns when focusing on crit chance past 70-80%. Also, no ascended stats are used, for fairness' sake.

To say you care so much about the optimal DPS and not use the highest-offering precision/crit damage food shows you are clearly struggling to survive without AH. We're trading vices and you are claiming your vice is superior. You have yet to convince many people that autoattacking with a sword and omnom pie is great.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Minion, on 12 February 2013 - 07:09 AM, said:

Indeed. Well, with any prec/crit damage nourishment, my offensive AH build will outdamage you with the amount of crit damage I have. Vanilla, I have 99 crit damage, 109% with nourishment and 119% with banner of discipline. As several has clearly stated, you gain diminished returns when focusing on crit chance past 70-80%. Also, no ascended stats are used, for fairness' sake.

To say you care so much about the optimal DPS and not use the highest-offering precision/crit damage food shows you are clearly struggling to survive without AH. We're trading vices and you are claiming your vice is superior. You have yet to convince many people that autoattacking with a sword and omnom pie is great.

How many times do I have to reiterate that trading 21% overall damage, 20% extra crit chance, 200 power, and 100 precision (if I remember your build correcftly) in exchange for 20% crit damage is a laughably bad trade?  Let me break this down for you since you don't seem to get it:

Your build has:

1) Less damage on non-crits.
2) Less damage on crits.
3) Fewer crits.

Well, maybe you think your build is better because you have AH, and that makes all the difference?  Sorry, but in fact, AH doesn't even heal for that much for than Omnom.  With 5 allies, Empowering Might will give you 360 health per proc, once per second at max (let's just go with that).  With a 100% crit rate on 1H sword, you have a 66% chance to steal 325 per swing, at an average rate of about twice per second.  That means you're actually getting 429 health per second from Omnoms.  On a big boss using scepter, you can land all hits with Smite, which puts your average attack speed at about 3.2 attacks/second, which puts your regen rate at a whopping 686 per second from Omnom alone.

So let's do this one more time:

1) Less damage on non-crits.
2) Less damage on crits.
3) Fewer crits.
4) Less self-healing

So you're left with, uh, 200 toughness?  I bet that makes a big difference, except now you have to offset it by the shield offhand's extra 61 armor, so you''re only ahead 139 toughness.  That's, like, 4% damage reduction.  Incidentally, if you take Perfect Inscriptions instead of RH Strength, you can get an extra 5% reduction from Signet of Judgment.  So that gets offset too.

1) Less damage on non-crits.
2) Less damage on crits.
3) Fewer crits.
4) Less self-healing.
5) Less armor.

I think that about covers it.

[Minion]

I'll concede AH sacrificed damage, but sword is utter wank. So this argument doesn't continue spiraling in circles, give me a trait distribution for total DPS with a greatsword, and I will see how my damage fares on the field.

[FoxBat]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 12 February 2013 - 04:40 AM, said:

it's healing.

While the damage numbers are not numbers shown, I have gone and equipped level 0 weapons and killed cursed shore mobs in half the time with food as without. (pistol whip spam for the reliable fast attacks)

Edited by FoxBat, 12 February 2013 - 11:39 AM.

[TastySlop]

Thanks for the build. I was looking for a way to work in right hand strength for better scepter results, but had trouble giving up the anchor of altruistic healing. However, I'm not sold on the sword. I get better results with greatsword while also boosting scepter even more:

Gear: All berserker/ruby. 6x ruby orbs for runes. Sigil of superior strength in greatsword and scepter. Sigil of force in focus.

Traits: 20 zeal, fiery wrath, greatsword power (scepter power when needed)
30 Radiance, signet mastery, blind exposure, right-hand strength
20 Honor, superior aria, empowering might

Consumables: Omnomberry pie, master mainenance oil

Edit: Yes, omnoms increase dps. The numbers just don't pop up or show up in the combat log.
Edit 2: Blind exposure is really good with greatsword, especially due to the bugged behavior with leap of faith on multiple mobs. 15 stacks of vulnerability on 5 mobs is lulz.

Edited by TastySlop, 13 February 2013 - 05:05 PM.

[Minion]

Why would you use RHS without a melee single-hand weapon?

[Skibba]

Minion, on 13 February 2013 - 09:26 AM, said:

Why would you use RHS without a melee single-hand weapon?

TastySlop, on 12 February 2013 - 04:11 PM, said:

I was looking for a way to work in right hand strength for better scepter results

I get better results with greatsword while also boosting scepter even more:

[Minion]

That is a bold statement. When I asked "why", it was more rhetorical, because taking RHS for wand is bad. The attack speed sucks.

[Skibba]

Minion, on 13 February 2013 - 12:07 PM, said:

That is a bold statement. When I asked "why", it was more rhetorical, because taking RHS for wand is bad. The attack speed sucks.

How is increasing the crit chance bad? And how can an attack speed of approx 0.83 seconds 'suck'.

Scenario:- A 5 minute long ranged only boss fight where you use only Orb of Wrath on the scepter because the mob is constantly moving, meaning ability 2 becomes less effective.

Without RHS - 50% crit rate, 200% critical damage multiplier, ~362 attacks, ~181 crits
With RHS - 65% crit rate, 200% critical damage multiplier, ~362 attack, ~234 crits

Orb of wrath damage of 224 with the crit multiplier is 448

Without RHS - ((224 x 181 = 40544) + (448 x 181 = 81088)) =  121632
With RHS - ((224 x 128  = 28672) + (448 x 234 = 104832)) = 133504

My math is pretty bad, but that looks to me like RHS results in more damage using the 'wand' with its attack speed which 'sucks'.

Guardians are designed to melee, and TastySlop said that he wants to primarily use the greatsword, but for times when he's forced into fighting from range he wants to maximise his damage with the scepter, which RHS will allow him to do.

The biggest question really is:-

"By putting points into radiance to pick up RHS to gain damage in a ranged fight situation, are you giving up trait points which could be spent elsewhere to increase greatsword damage"

This depends greatly on how often TastySlop is having to fight from range compared to melee I guess.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Skibba, on 13 February 2013 - 01:08 PM, said:

"By putting points into radiance to pick up RHS to gain damage in a ranged fight situation, are you giving up trait points which could be spent elsewhere to increase greatsword damage"

This depends greatly on how often TastySlop is having to fight from range compared to melee I guess.

Max greatsword deeps is 25/25/0/20/0, actually, and the extra 5 points in Zeal vs. Radiance makes such a small difference that it really doesn't matter.  30 in Radiance for the extra flexibility is well worth it.

Edited by Kattar, 14 February 2013 - 04:27 PM.

[TastySlop]

Went back and added blind exposure to my build since the bugged behavior with leap of faith on greatsword is too good to pass up.

[Thaddeuz]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 13 February 2013 - 03:22 PM, said:

Max greatsword deeps is 25/25/0/20/0, actually, and the extra 5 points in Zeal vs. Radiance makes such a small difference that it really doesn't matter.  30 in Radiance for the extra flexibility is well worth it.

Well, I would prefer a 25/0/25/20/0 or 20/0/30/20/0 for Greatsword DPS build.

- Basically, the 25 pts in Radiance only give you 12% Critical Chance and 10% more Damage (because on PVE enemies almost always have a condition on them). But you don't have enough defense to go full Berserker (well for me and i think the majority of people).

- On the other end 25pts in Valor give you about 3% Critical Chance (retributive armor), 25% critical damage and enough toughness so you can more easily go full Berserker.

These are two good way to go. At this point its more about what you prefer.

[TastySlop]

25-30 valor is additional toughness equal to about 12% damage reduction, not much different from putting signet of judgement on your skill bar. The real reason to spec that far into valor is to get altruistic healing. The 25%-30% crit damage boost looks impressive, but you're getting into diminishing returns since with full berserkers and ruby orbs you are already at 129% crit damage. The boost to crit chance and overall damage gives about 7% more dps as well as more on crit procs.

[Thaddeuz]

TastySlop, on 13 February 2013 - 07:23 PM, said:

25-30 valor is additional toughness equal to about 12% damage reduction, not much different from putting signet of judgement on your skill bar. The real reason to spec that far into valor is to get altruistic healing. The 25%-30% crit damage boost looks impressive, but you're getting into diminishing returns since with full berserkers and ruby orbs you are already at 129% crit damage. The boost to crit chance and overall damage gives about 7% more dps as well as more on crit procs.

True. That is why I said :

Thaddeuz, on 13 February 2013 - 05:17 PM, said:

These are two good way to go. At this point its more about what you prefer.

I found that full berserker, 13k hp and zero toughness is not enough to survive in melee. Again if someone is fine with that I have no problem. I put point in Valor to get the extra survivability (especially with AH) while still getting 30% crit dmg. In addition i don't want to give up one of my only three utility skill for signet of judgment.

[TastySlop]

Thaddeuz, on 13 February 2013 - 08:58 PM, said:

I found that full berserker, 13k hp and zero toughness is not enough to survive in melee. Again if someone is fine with that I have no problem. I put point in Valor to get the extra survivability (especially with AH) while still getting 30% crit dmg. In addition i don't want to give up one of my only three utility skill for signet of judgment.

My point is that 25 valor is not worth it. 30 valor is also not worth it unless you are going for altruistic healing which you didn't mention.

Edited by TastySlop, 13 February 2013 - 09:38 PM.

[zumu]

TheKnox, on 02 February 2013 - 07:28 AM, said:

For my money, I'd go 10/25/0/30/5 with a GS if I wanted to max out my damage output since it will put up about 2 additional might stacks on average over the 1h variant (thanks to inspired virtues and the extra attacks/second).  

So what's the damage if you pick up 30 valor for AH over the 30 honor? Because as far as I can tell all 30 honor nets is 20% decrease on cool downs and empowering might.

[TheKnox]

It used to be basically a flat 10% boost from the low endurance. Now it is something less than that. But 2h mastery and empowering might are both non trivial damage increases.

[zumu]

With 76% crit chance. 30% extra damage from crit seems like a huge increase.

Currently I'm trying to figure out how to use the spreadsheet.

[Thaddeuz]

TastySlop, on 13 February 2013 - 09:38 PM, said:

My point is that 25 valor is not worth it. 30 valor is also not worth it unless you are going for altruistic healing which you didn't mention.

And my point is that they are both good. It just depend on your build.

[Br0barian]

Playboy, on 31 January 2013 - 02:27 AM, said:

Ah, altruistic healing in this build makes me feel less shaky. I'll give it a go

EDIT:
I have this build running right now, but health is <13k. What is your jewelry setup?

  
Jewelry setup is exotic beryl and emeralds. My health is about 18k.

[Shiren]

indure, on 04 February 2013 - 08:52 PM, said:

In GuanglaiKangyi's defense and from what I have observed when in strong groups or while watching extremely skilled players, is that skilled players don't need any extra support. Optimal builds, strong teamwork, and high skill levels negate the need for a support build. Good players can take care of themselves which means that the best way to help a team is to have high damage so content is cleared faster. Support is always welcomed, but should not come at the cost of damage. And to be perfectly honest you shouldn't accuse GK of creating a selfish build, when arguably AH is the most selfish build a Guardian can create since it provides almost nothing at all to the group.

How much of the situation you are talking about is applicable to the majority of people? Even if it was applicable, I question whether or not abandoning the idea of having a heavy support character is worthwhile.

I can guarantee you, you could take a great glass cannon warrior with the ability to solo Kholer and a party with the inability to dodge his pull and you will see that fight take a long time. Alternativle you could take a guardian with Stand Your Ground, Aegis and Retreat to completely negate the Kholer pull and guarantee success of the party allowing five people (one with a support built) to wail on Kholer until he dies. Run AC with pugs enough and you will see that being able to completely negate Kholer's pull is the best thing you can bring to a group in a pug situation.

Another guardian ability that I think is one of the most powerful things they can do in a group is to use greatsword five to get all the mobs in one location to CC and DPS to death. This means every hit counts for every mob and the mobs aren't running around chasting your party. The ability to keep those mobs in one place by surviving a few hits also gives the group time to do what they need to do.

The highest levels of play I've seen usually involved support skills (like Wall of Reflection - still usable in this build) so I'm not sure what your point is about not needing support skills. Even this build runs support skills, they are listed on the first page.

I don't understand what's selfish about AH, it gives a tonne of boons to the party and it performs some kind of tanky role.

If you want to run FotM at high levels with a premade team build, go ahead. That's not the reality for most of GW2 players. Most people will have to revive downed allies, most people will play with pugs, most people will get more milage out a build which is focused on more than just your own personal DPS, especially on a class like the guardian.If you want to focus on DPS on your guardian, I totally support that. I have multiple classes and all of them are good at different things. Having a warrior, ranger, mesmer, guardian, elementalist and engineer all at level 80, I personally feel that playing a guardian with support skills and abilities gives me the most milage out of my class. If I wanted a DPS oriented build that didn't utilise a lot of support, I will play one of my other classes.

Edited by Shiren, 26 February 2013 - 07:57 AM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Shiren, on 26 February 2013 - 07:42 AM, said:

How much of the situation you are talking about is applicable to the majority of people? Even if it was applicable, I question whether or not abandoning the idea of having a heavy support character is worthwhile.

I can guarantee you, you could take a great glass cannon warrior with the ability to solo Kholer and a party with the inability to dodge his pull and you will see that fight take a long time. Alternativle you could take a guardian with Stand Your Ground, Aegis and Retreat to completely negate the Kholer pull and guarantee success of the party allowing five people (one with a support built) to wail on Kholer until he dies. Run AC with pugs enough and you will see that being able to completely negate Kholer's pull is the best thing you can bring to a group in a pug situation.

Another guardian ability that I think is one of the most powerful things they can do in a group is to use greatsword five to get all the mobs in one location to CC and DPS to death. This means every hit counts for every mob and the mobs aren't running around chasting your party. The ability to keep those mobs in one place by surviving a few hits also gives the group time to do what they need to do.

The highest levels of play I've seen usually involved support skills (like Wall of Reflection - still usable in this build) so I'm not sure what your point is about not needing support skills. Even this build runs support skills, they are listed on the first page.

I don't understand what's selfish about AH, it gives a tonne of boons to the party and it performs some kind of tanky role.

If you want to run FotM at high levels with a premade team build, go ahead. That's not the reality for most of GW2 players. Most people will have to revive downed allies, most people will play with pugs, most people will get more milage out a build which is focused on more than just your own personal DPS, especially on a class like the guardian.If you want to focus on DPS on your guardian, I totally support that. I have multiple classes and all of them are good at different things. Having a warrior, ranger, mesmer, guardian, elementalist and engineer all at level 80, I personally feel that playing a guardian with support skills and abilities gives me the most milage out of my class. If I wanted a DPS oriented build that didn't utilise a lot of support, I will play one of my other classes.

There's no reason why you can't take all of those skills you just listed and still deal max DPS.  It's not like Stand Your Ground only works if you're traited for AH.  And along those lines, AH doesn't apply any boons; it heals you, and only you, when you apply a boon to someone else.  Nothing about the boons themselves change, and your allies don't benefit from any of that healing you are getting.  In the most extreme case you actually stealing health from them because you are dealing less damage and killing things slower, so everyone else takes more damage while you heal yourself.

Finally, pugs are precisely the reason why you need to build for DPS.  In a group where you can guarantee that the other members will have DPS, maybe you can get away with not having it yourself.  That is, of course, supremely selfish because you are basically explicitly saying to your team "screw you guys, I don't feel like contributing so make sure you do my share of the work too".  Unfortunately, a lot of pugs also play according to this philosophy (whether they're aware of it or not), so you do need to cover for them in precisely those situations where you can't guarantee that there will be people to cover for your own lack of DPS.  If you have a team of five guys and none of them want to contribute, do you really expect to get anything done?

[indure]

Shiren, on 26 February 2013 - 07:42 AM, said:

How much of the situation you are talking about is applicable to the majority of people? Even if it was applicable, I question whether or not abandoning the idea of having a heavy support character is worthwhile.

I can guarantee you, you could take a great glass cannon warrior with the ability to solo Kholer and a party with the inability to dodge his pull and you will see that fight take a long time. Alternativle you could take a guardian with Stand Your Ground, Aegis and Retreat to completely negate the Kholer pull and guarantee success of the party allowing five people (one with a support built) to wail on Kholer until he dies. Run AC with pugs enough and you will see that being able to completely negate Kholer's pull is the best thing you can bring to a group in a pug situation.

Another guardian ability that I think is one of the most powerful things they can do in a group is to use greatsword five to get all the mobs in one location to CC and DPS to death. This means every hit counts for every mob and the mobs aren't running around chasting your party. The ability to keep those mobs in one place by surviving a few hits also gives the group time to do what they need to do.

The highest levels of play I've seen usually involved support skills (like Wall of Reflection - still usable in this build) so I'm not sure what your point is about not needing support skills. Even this build runs support skills, they are listed on the first page.

I don't understand what's selfish about AH, it gives a tonne of boons to the party and it performs some kind of tanky role.

If you want to run FotM at high levels with a premade team build, go ahead. That's not the reality for most of GW2 players. Most people will have to revive downed allies, most people will play with pugs, most people will get more milage out a build which is focused on more than just your own personal DPS, especially on a class like the guardian.If you want to focus on DPS on your guardian, I totally support that. I have multiple classes and all of them are good at different things. Having a warrior, ranger, mesmer, guardian, elementalist and engineer all at level 80, I personally feel that playing a guardian with support skills and abilities gives me the most milage out of my class. If I wanted a DPS oriented build that didn't utilise a lot of support, I will play one of my other classes.

Please don't misunderstand me, I personally don't follow any of GuanglaiKangyi's build advice and I still play mostly with an AH build. I completely agree with you that if your pugging a lot of dungeons with inexperience players, which I do, then having a better support/defensive build can really be helpful. I also run a lot of WvW and although a glass cannon build is fun, I find it underwhelming in WvW. That being said, GuanglaiKangyi is not wrong in his build advice for dungeons. He correctly identified above me, that Guardians can provide enough support through weapon and utility selection alone and to trait for further support is usually going to hurt your party's performance rather then improve it. With the exceptions being your party is not skilled enough to complete the content with out additional support, or the support is gain inherently while traiting for damage i.e. Superior Aria.

[TastySlop]

It's been several weeks now since I dropped AH from my guardian, and my observation is that I do not see any loss of survivability, probably because of the omnomberry pie. The improved damage is shocking - what a difference! (I'm using GS+scepter/focus, not sword.) Also, dropping AH has no effect on support. I'm still using the same support skills.

[KaptainO]

TastySlop, on 26 February 2013 - 04:59 PM, said:

It's been several weeks now since I dropped AH from my guardian, and my observation is that I do not see any loss of survivability, probably because of the omnomberry pie. The improved damage is shocking - what a difference! (I'm using GS+scepter/focus, not sword.) Also, dropping AH has no effect on support. I'm still using the same support skills.

Well they just nerfed Omnomberry Pie/Ghost (and every other food item that triggers an effect off crits) by adding an internal cooldown.

[indure]

KaptainO, on 26 February 2013 - 08:58 PM, said:

Well they just nerfed Omnomberry Pie/Ghost (and every other food item that triggers an effect off crits) by adding an internal cooldown.

They secretly want all guardians to be AH.

[Shiren]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 26 February 2013 - 08:17 AM, said:

There's no reason why you can't take all of those skills you just listed and still deal max DPS.  It's not like Stand Your Ground only works if you're traited for AH.  And along those lines, AH doesn't apply any boons; it heals you, and only you, when you apply a boon to someone else.  Nothing about the boons themselves change, and your allies don't benefit from any of that healing you are getting.  In the most extreme case you actually stealing health from them because you are dealing less damage and killing things slower, so everyone else takes more damage while you heal yourself.

Finally, pugs are precisely the reason why you need to build for DPS.  In a group where you can guarantee that the other members will have DPS, maybe you can get away with not having it yourself.  That is, of course, supremely selfish because you are basically explicitly saying to your team "screw you guys, I don't feel like contributing so make sure you do my share of the work too".  Unfortunately, a lot of pugs also play according to this philosophy (whether they're aware of it or not), so you do need to cover for them in precisely those situations where you can't guarantee that there will be people to cover for your own lack of DPS.  If you have a team of five guys and none of them want to contribute, do you really expect to get anything done?

Everyone has DPS. You can go about your merry way with your DPS builds and you're insane hair splitting logic about lacking DPS = stealing health from your allies (for real?) but I can guarantee you will have more success running pugs against Kholer if you can guarantee no-one will be pulled.

Arguing that AH is a selfish build because it only heals you is another example of your crazy tunnel vision logic. To get the heals from AH you need to be providing boons. That means most AH builds will a variety of boons it gives to its allies. The trait AH only benefits the guardian, but to make the most of it you will be providing boons all over the place. You want people to run your build (or see it as superior) but that's no reason to say completely unfounded and incorrect things about other builds. It just makes your arguments look crazy.

I also didn't say this build (or any build) can't slot support skills, in fact I recognise in the listed skills you have mentioned most of the skills used by common AH builds. There was some bizarre argument against support builds, when slotting all support skills on any guardian buils is completely viable. I won't be bumping this crazy mess any more.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

KaptainO, on 26 February 2013 - 08:58 PM, said:

Well they just nerfed Omnomberry Pie/Ghost (and every other food item that triggers an effect off crits) by adding an internal cooldown.

I just tried it.  It's not as bad as you think.  it's only 1s cooldown so it still procs like crazy.  Only thing it affects is you no longer get absurd amounts of health from Smite.

[process.execution]

Hey GK, quick question. I only switched to your build a couple of days ago (from AH) and I've found that, between the huge increase to damage output and some extra healing from mace/shield when I'm getting swamped, I don't really need the lifesteal from Omnom pies all that much.

What do you think about using Ghost Pepper Poppers instead of Omnom pies? They'd only be worth using during the day of course but you'd probably be able to maintain an additional 6-7 stacks of Might with them.