226 replies to this topic

[GammaWolf]

300 precision + 15% crit rate (RHS) + Full zerk gear is overboard on precision. There is little reason to waste 30 points when you already have enough precision through gear. More than 15 radiance is not worth it.

As I said, the main reason to go zerk is to maximize critical damage. Getting ~110 critical damage is more important than 15% extra critical chance when you can already get around 45% and not be limited to 1h sword which is a bad weapon compared to GS.

Edited by GammaWolf, 05 February 2013 - 05:15 PM.

[Skibba]

GammaWolf, on 05 February 2013 - 05:08 PM, said:

300 precision + 15% crit rate (RHS) + Full zerk gear is overboard on precision. There is little reason to waste 30 points when you already have enough precision through gear.

You may think it's 'overboard' but in full berserker gear 30 points in radiance gives more dps than 30 points in valor.

[GammaWolf]

Based on what? I haven't seen anyone test with 110 critical damage.

Also you are limited to 1H sword which has a decent auto attack, but otherwise sucks. There is no way it is doing more dps than GS which has a comparable auto attack as well as multiple AOEs and a gap closer that hits much harder.

Edited by GammaWolf, 05 February 2013 - 05:23 PM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

zosek, on 05 February 2013 - 03:47 PM, said:

Hey,

great build. I'll defenitely give it a try. Just a quick question. How do you deal with conditions? Maybe i missed it, but i cannot find any skill that would remove conditions (apart from the signet, but that is passive and it doesnt remove when you want to)

Like I said in one of the other threads here, I've yet to run into a situation in a dungeon or in the open world where there's actually been any conditions worth worrying about.  In fact, back when I was running Pure of Voice with 30 Honor, I'd have to actively seek out conditions to get hit by so I would have something to convert.  It came off as a bit of a waste and honestly I don't think you need condition removal in dungeons at all.  I usually don't even use Signet of Resolve since I like Shelter's block better.

GammaWolf, on 05 February 2013 - 05:22 PM, said:

Based on what? I haven't seen anyone test with 110 critical damage.

Also you are limited to 1H sword which has a decent auto attack, but otherwise sucks. There is no way it is doing more dps than GS which has a comparable auto attack as well as multiple AOEs and a gap closer that hits much harder.

Simple math.  [1 + (.75 x 1.27)] x 1.1 x 1.05 is much more than 1 + (.6 x 1.47).  You don't need me to hold your hand for simple arithmetic like that.

Edited by GuanglaiKangyi, 05 February 2013 - 05:31 PM.

[Skibba]

GammaWolf, on 05 February 2013 - 05:22 PM, said:

Based on what?

https://docs.google....WVXMVZLcDg/edit

This, and other spreadsheets which are available both on these forums and the official forums.

GammaWolf, on 05 February 2013 - 05:22 PM, said:

Also you are limited to 1H sword which has a decent auto attack, but otherwise sucks.

You're not limited to 1H sword in this build. TheKnox has shown that the same build with GS equipped does approximately the same damage.

Personally, I would rather use the GS than 1H sword, but my point was that your comments below are incorrect.

Quote

The point of right handed strength is to give higher crit chance while using defensive gear.

When going zerker gear, maxing the crit damage line is essential which works great on guardian because you get toughness as well.

The standard AH build, but with full zerker gear would be more effective as a dpser in that you would still be providing a lot of team buffs and self-healing.

Edited by Skibba, 05 February 2013 - 05:34 PM.

[GammaWolf]

Skibba, on 05 February 2013 - 05:32 PM, said:

https://docs.google....WVXMVZLcDg/edit

This, and other spreadsheets which are available both on these forums and the official forums.



You're not limited to 1H sword in this build. TheKnox has shown that the same build with GS equipped does approximately the same damage.

Personally, I would rather use the GS than 1H sword, but my point was that your comments below are incorrect.

That sheet as far as I can tell was using 65% critical damage, not 110%. Its not even possible to test max crit damage right now because nobody has enough laurels to get the ascended amulet.

Even then all that a test like that proves is how much dps can be done in that situation. A build with more toughness might do more damage because it spends less time dodging and healing in an actual boss fight. Not easy to test without a WoW-like add on.

My point about RHS is that a soldier armor build with not much precision could still get close to 40% crit with just the 300 precision + RHS, but would be limited to 1H weapons.

[Minion]

My crit damage is 98, and I don't even use ascended gear.

There is a major difference between having more than 100% crit chance and more than 100% crit damage. The difference being >80% crit chance is worthless.

[zosek]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 05 February 2013 - 05:26 PM, said:

Like I said in one of the other threads here, I've yet to run into a situation in a dungeon or in the open world where there's actually been any conditions worth worrying about.  In fact, back when I was running Pure of Voice with 30 Honor, I'd have to actively seek out conditions to get hit by so I would have something to convert.  It came off as a bit of a waste and honestly I don't think you need condition removal in dungeons at all.  I usually don't even use Signet of Resolve since I like Shelter's block better.

How about the swamp fractal? Right now i'm using soldier runes and its nice to have that condition removed if you need (and i always need it, i always forget the damn traps!). If i dont remove cripple, i'm to late...
But i guess i could go with prayer to kormir and purging flames/smite condition just for that fractal.

[TheKnox]

It is certainly true that every additional % of crit  has less relative impact than the previous %.  It is also true that you start to see diminishing returns on the impact crits have on procs at very high crit chances.

It is definitely not true that crit becomes worthless after any point short of 100% crit chance.  Even the build posted in the OP, which is absolutely swimming in crit only gets up to 98-ish%.

Unfortunately, there are only 3 levers reasonably available to guardians to increase damage: Power, Precision and Crit Damage.  If you have "enough" survivability, that is pretty much the only route you can take.

[indure]

zosek, on 05 February 2013 - 09:36 PM, said:

How about the swamp fractal? Right now i'm using soldier runes and its nice to have that condition removed if you need (and i always need it, i always forget the damn traps!). If i dont remove cripple, i'm to late...
But i guess i could go with prayer to kormir and purging flames/smite condition just for that fractal.

Consider for swamp fractal, Utilities: Retreat, SYG, and Judges Intervention. For Elite: Renewed Focus.

Start with Retreat to get a block and 20s Swiftness. If block goes down replace with VoC. As soon as your about to run through known trap areas use SYG or Renewed Focus to run through them. I usually save SYG because it is a stun breaker and I can use it easier if I need to jump over blocked trees. As for Judges Intervention target a mosquito that is next to your destination and you can bypass 25% of the map and traps.

Edited by indure, 05 February 2013 - 11:08 PM.

[Strife025]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 05 February 2013 - 05:26 PM, said:

Like I said in one of the other threads here, I've yet to run into a situation in a dungeon or in the open world where there's actually been any conditions worth worrying about.  In fact, back when I was running Pure of Voice with 30 Honor, I'd have to actively seek out conditions to get hit by so I would have something to convert.  It came off as a bit of a waste and honestly I don't think you need condition removal in dungeons at all.  I usually don't even use Signet of Resolve since I like Shelter's block better.

Speed run Arah and tell me you don't need condition removal

It's actually pretty useful in quite a few dungeons.

[armoured bearshark]

Strife025, on 06 February 2013 - 12:20 AM, said:

Speed run Arah and tell me you don't need condition removal

It's actually pretty useful in quite a few dungeons.

^This, take one step in arah and you have 11 stacks of vulnerability, poison, 8 stacks of bleed and a 3 minute cripple l-0-l

[KaptainO]

I have a question for the "I'm too pro to use AH crowd".

I tried dropping survivability and "learning how to dodge" and I do fine with single bosses where I can watch their attacks and avoid most of them, but what do you do against lare groups of mobs that hit relatively hard?  even if i had enough endurance to dodge all their attacks I am not able to keep track of every mob attack animations and the time I would spend with evade frames would cut down my dps significantly.  What do you do for those fights?

I'm not opposed to ditching AH, in fact I'd love to open up a host of new build options that didnt have 30-50 of my build points pre-allocated.

I was trying to get a 10/25/0/25/10 build working a while back and it did *ok*.  The idea was use GS and pick up all 3 +10% damage traits (Zeal 10, Radiance 25, Honor 25) as well as -20% cd on 2handers, Refresh VoJ on kill, Blind on VoJ, Blind = Vuln, Might on VoJ and a choice of Master of Consecrations or Unscathed Contender from Virt 10.  You could also go +50% spirit weapons duration and -20% spirit weapons cd if you need more SotA, but I think you're probably better off with the WoR.

Unfortunately you do give up Altruistic Healing, Empowering Might and Retributive Armour but you can't have everything right?

Edited by KaptainO, 06 February 2013 - 09:37 PM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Lifesteal food works fine for multiple mobs.  In fact it's probably better than AH for big mobs since you're getting way more hits to proc it with.  Otherwise regular mobs actually aren't that different from bosses; they either have trash attacks that deal nothing or obvious ones that are easy to avoid even if you don't see the actual animation coming.  If the mobs really do hit so hard that regular healing isn't enough, AH probably won't make a huge difference either.

[Flour]

So far, with food, and not fully geared, this build really makes me having fun in dungeons. And fun is what I want to have while playing the game. Thanks GuanglaiKangyi.

[Edath]

Strife025, on 06 February 2013 - 12:20 AM, said:

Speed run Arah and tell me you don't need condition removal

It's actually pretty useful in quite a few dungeons.

'Purging flames' w/o counting it's other effects....

[Strife025]

Edath, on 07 February 2013 - 12:50 AM, said:

'Purging flames' w/o counting it's other effects....

Speed run = not fighting trash, meaning you're not going to stand there dancing in and out of Purging Flames while running through trash that cripples, chills, and poisons you.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Purging Flames only works once anyway.  Just bring a staff and use all three condition removal skills, or two and Stand Your Ground.  That'll get you through pretty much anything easily.

[Edath]

Oops, didn't think About the trash skipping. For those kind of situations i tendto use order of whispers spykits, and swap my utilies, so still no need of condi removal. U can even swap some traits. When u engage a boss, swap back to regular traits and utilities, so in general u still don't need perma condi removal builts.

[KaptainO]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 06 February 2013 - 10:40 PM, said:

Lifesteal food works fine for multiple mobs.  In fact it's probably better than AH for big mobs since you're getting way more hits to proc it with.  Otherwise regular mobs actually aren't that different from bosses; they either have trash attacks that deal nothing or obvious ones that are easy to avoid even if you don't see the actual animation coming.  If the mobs really do hit so hard that regular healing isn't enough, AH probably won't make a huge difference either.

Yup, I always use Omnom Pie and Master Maint Oil, but that's in addition to AH/EM in my regular build.

I'm at 27 in fractals now and the trash I'm talking about is stuff like the dredges when you're standing  on the 2 buttons (assumign you dont ash legion spy kit) or by the door if we get too many bombs/shots on the door and they over spawned or the cultists on the arm seals in cliffside or some of the bigger groups in the streets and especially the courtyard in the ascalon fractal, or the svanir at the big campfire in snowblind.  Sometimes they go fine, other times it's a little more hairy and there can be so many mobs both on your screen and off that are attacking you or using aoe or applying conditions that dodging them all seems unlikely and I worry losing ~1,050 toughness, 265 vit, AH and party wide condition removal on shouts will cause loss in dps through wither being downed/defeated or spending less time attacking and more time trying to avoid being hit and/or healing up.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

KaptainO, on 07 February 2013 - 02:50 PM, said:

Yup, I always use Omnom Pie and Master Maint Oil, but that's in addition to AH/EM in my regular build.

I'm at 27 in fractals now and the trash I'm talking about is stuff like the dredges when you're standing  on the 2 buttons (assumign you dont ash legion spy kit) or by the door if we get too many bombs/shots on the door and they over spawned or the cultists on the arm seals in cliffside or some of the bigger groups in the streets and especially the courtyard in the ascalon fractal, or the svanir at the big campfire in snowblind.  Sometimes they go fine, other times it's a little more hairy and there can be so many mobs both on your screen and off that are attacking you or using aoe or applying conditions that dodging them all seems unlikely and I worry losing ~1,050 toughness, 265 vit, AH and party wide condition removal on shouts will cause loss in dps through wither being downed/defeated or spending less time attacking and more time trying to avoid being hit and/or healing up.

Trying to tank those guys at level 30+ is suicidal to begin with.  Otherwise having a focus or shield is way more useful since you can block things more often.  The dredge on the switch is particularly pointless to have AH on since you have no one nearby to proc AH on anyway.  The 70 per tick on yourself will make no sort of difference whatsoever.

[KaptainO]

It's not just the AH, it's 1,000 Toughness, 2600 HP, and AH.

What do you do vs those types of pulls?  Sure Dredge buttons you can spy kit, Dredge doors you can try to make sure the party doesn't put down too many bombs at once.  What about Ascalon streets and courtyard?  We started putting up the staff#5 wall to block the 4 warriors from just using their "Rush" ability to insta-gib whoever got first aggro but the courtyard can be a huge hassle with the ballista and multiple groups aggroing.  Cliffside I'll often have 4 conditions on me (burn/bleed/poison/vuln) and if my only options to heal are "go into melee range and get more conditions from the wells" or "use my signet" every 30 seconds (at reduced effectiveness from the poison since I have no way to remove it) that seems poor.

I'm not saying it's impossible, clearly some people manage and even thrive with the type of build you are suggesting, I just don't understand how and am trying to get insight in to what you're doing differently.

Or maybe I'm just not "pro" enough to play at that level and I need to compensate by adding survivability to my build.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

KaptainO, on 07 February 2013 - 04:51 PM, said:

It's not just the AH, it's 1,000 Toughness, 2600 HP, and AH.

What do you do vs those types of pulls?  Sure Dredge buttons you can spy kit, Dredge doors you can try to make sure the party doesn't put down too many bombs at once.  What about Ascalon streets and courtyard?  We started putting up the staff#5 wall to block the 4 warriors from just using their "Rush" ability to insta-gib whoever got first aggro but the courtyard can be a huge hassle with the ballista and multiple groups aggroing.  Cliffside I'll often have 4 conditions on me (burn/bleed/poison/vuln) and if my only options to heal are "go into melee range and get more conditions from the wells" or "use my signet" every 30 seconds (at reduced effectiveness from the poison since I have no way to remove it) that seems poor.

I'm not saying it's impossible, clearly some people manage and even thrive with the type of build you are suggesting, I just don't understand how and am trying to get insight in to what you're doing differently.

Or maybe I'm just not "pro" enough to play at that level and I need to compensate by adding survivability to my build.

For the warriors I just pop Shield of Wrath and let the warriors hit it, then burst them down before they can Rush again.  If you're using Shield you can SoA to interrupt them mid-Rush, or use VoJ to blind them.  For the courtyard just be careful with your pulls.  You really only need to pull out the Warriors and kill them first, you can actually aggro multiple groups without too much trouble so long as you get the Warriors to the front.  That fractal is so laggy you can't see shit 90% of the time anyway so it's probably safer to just pull the courtyard groups one by one anyway.

As for cliffside you can just avoid the wells.  Alternately, just put CoP on for the Archdiviner and pop a convert once he's done channeling the wells.

[KaptainO]

When you're theorycrafting a build what "assumptions" do you make regarding outside factor?

For example, how many stacks of might do you assume you are getting from other people, what sort of Fury uptime do you assume?  Do you assume any other buffs like Warrior Banners and such?  Do you assume single target? 3 targets? 5+ targets?  How many party members do you assume are within Empowering Might range? How much Power do you assume they have (in order to figure out how much more dps the extra might you grant them will give).

Just wondering what kinda baseline framework you are evaluating the builds under.

Thanks!

[GuanglaiKangyi]

KaptainO, on 08 February 2013 - 03:12 PM, said:

When you're theorycrafting a build what "assumptions" do you make regarding outside factor?

For example, how many stacks of might do you assume you are getting from other people, what sort of Fury uptime do you assume?  Do you assume any other buffs like Warrior Banners and such?  Do you assume single target? 3 targets? 5+ targets?  How many party members do you assume are within Empowering Might range? How much Power do you assume they have (in order to figure out how much more dps the extra might you grant them will give).

Just wondering what kinda baseline framework you are evaluating the builds under.

Thanks!

I'm not "assuming" anything.  For starters, it isn't really productive to do so to begin with, unless you know exactly what your teammates are running.  For that reason, while it's good to have some sort of overall party damage boost (i.e. Empowering Might), you don't want to go "full support" if that means you are giving up all your DPS to do so.  I've had pugs where the entire party ended up as "full suport" and I had to tell them to holy shit please stop stacking useless boons on each other and just attack.  Any competent warrior will bring Banner of Discipline, because it's straight-up overpowered with 100% fury uptime and a passive precision and crit damage boost, so you can generally "assume" that you will at least have that, but beyond that it's better to just act like your party will be useless (if you're pugging, usually they actually will).  If you're assuming a competent group, you can factor in 25 stacks of might, 20 stacks of vulnerability, permafury, etc.

Also, for the purposes of this build, single-target and multi-target damage are the same, since all your damage comes from the auto-attack anyway.

[beadnbutter32]

Please include a build editor link for this.

Your wall of text is hard to read, and very disorganized, making its usefulness as a reference diminished.

Isn't this the classic cookie cutter crit build with Sword instead of GS?

I guess the market is often right.  Bloodlust is by far one of the most expensive sigils so everyone must use it right?  Same thing with Berzerkers right?

Its a chicken egg deal for new players, how do you get Berzerkers - run COF - how do you run COF - only with exotic Berzerkers - - -

Who said this game was not a gear based?

Edited by beadnbutter32, 10 February 2013 - 01:10 PM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

beadnbutter32, on 10 February 2013 - 01:09 PM, said:

Please include a build editor link for this.

Your wall of text is hard to read, and very disorganized, making its usefulness as a reference diminished.

Isn't this the classic cookie cutter crit build with Sword instead of GS?

I guess the market is often right.  Bloodlust is by far one of the most expensive sigils so everyone must use it right?  Same thing with Berzerkers right?

Its a chicken egg deal for new players, how do you get Berzerkers - run COF - how do you run COF - only with exotic Berzerkers - - -

Who said this game was not a gear based?

You act like this is somehow my fault.  It's not like I'm forcing you to optimize your gear.

Bloodlust isn't that good, though.  For all of the kill stacking sigils you have to kill 25 mobs which takes forever and rarely happens in most dungeons.  Even in some of the longer dungeons with most mobs you won't hit 25 stacks until the dungeon is almost over.  You're better off just using regular Force or Accuracy sigils if that's what you want.

[Minion]

If you're all for optimisation, why would you not run the +100 prec/+10% crit damage curries? Omnom pie is a crutch for your own survival and selfish to the team since it is not the best.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Minion, on 12 February 2013 - 03:10 AM, said:

If you're all for optimisation, why would you not run the +100 prec/+10% crit damage curries? Omnom pie is a crutch for your own survival and selfish to the team since it is not the best.

There are lots of foods that are good with this particular build.  It's really just personal preference if anything.

I'm interested to hear your take on how using omnoms is selfish and using AH isn't, though.

[TastySlop]

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