Rhoellan Alts

coglin, on 11 January 2013 - 02:09 PM, said:

I never said every ele in the game will have top condition damage.  I never said every engy in the game will have top condition damage.  What I am doing is comparing the condition damage stat of 2 level 80 classes.  I make the assumption that both classes I am comparing (in this case, engy and ele) are in max exotic armor with exotic weapons and jewels, superior runes, and no sigil or consumable boost to the condition damage stat.  This assumption is made to keep everything on equal footing, seeing as obviously someone in rare armor isn't going to have an equal stat with someone in exotics or someone in masterwork.  This would be an unfair comparison and therefore invalid for the matters of this example.  

The comparison is over whether while an engineer is in a kit, which class will have more condition damage all other variables held equal between the 2 classes?  Knowing that the engineer weapon's stats do not apply on kits, it is quite obvious here that the ele will have a higher stat while the engineer is in the kit because the elementalist is using a weapon with +cond damage on it for sake of the example.  It doesn't even have to be a max condition damage weapon, something with +1 condition damage would put the other class ahead of the engineer in this scenario.

This information works both ways as well.  if you have a bleed necro but no one who can apply burn in your group then put on incendiary power by all means, because the necro will be getting close to as many bleeds as you will as an engineer and do more damage with them and has no ways to apply burn.  But do to the way burn scales and the fact that a common class has a high condition damage spec and can readily apply burns in this spec, in a general PvE content or a pug dungeon run where you don't know anyone's spec, bleed will be superior to burn.  It is more readily applicable and will do more damage after a small number of stacks.

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I agree.

Grenades are regarded as the engineer's primary DPS weapon, but I'm not sure how well they actually synergise. An elixir gun can certainly provide support to compliment a grenade kit, but if you're focussing on the elixir gun, you probably want a very different set of attributes to a grenadier, while flamethrowers have obvious synergy.

The standard FT/EG build normally has 30 firearms, at least 20 alchemy and at least 10 tools. If you're focusing on the elixir gun rather than the flamethrower, though, you might consider not taking Juggernaught and spending the points elsewhere - Inventions might be worth considering, for instance. Deadly Mixture also doesn't help the elixir gun a lot because the EG doesn't do much 'white' damage to begin with - you're mainly relying on conditions - so you might forego the alchemy as well.

At low levels, I found that elixir gun pretty much outclassed pistols - most things pistols could do, the elixir gun did better and with longer range. Using a rifle gives even more control/escape options as well as providing a source of large amounts of white damage that doesn't have some of the problems of the flamethrower (such as the miss bug - especially problematic when destroying objects, since the FT is more likely to bug on them and they don't suffer conditions - destroying any object with engineer pistols or elixir gun is an exercise in patience at best). This may change at higher levels where attribute setup (power versus condition damage) and the attribute bonuses on the pistol that are lost with a kit become more important - while I have a level 80 engineer, though, since around 50ish I've focused on either rifle/FT/EG, or pistol+shield/toolkit/Static Discharge, and so haven't directly compared pistol to EG at higher levels with a good pistol (especially since at the moment I have a distinct shortage of top-end pistols).

If you're standing there not moving and pew pewing at the boss, it's boring.

If you don't anticipate the action of your enemies or watch their animations to expect the next attack, your pet (and yourself) will die lots in dungeons, and it'll be frustrating.

If you don't use F1-F4 much, you'll think that the pet system is a joke and you'd be pissed.

If you don't weapon swap/pet swap every 7-16 seconds and you don't actively seek the back of your enemies, you'll feel that ranger damage is sub-par, and you'd be disappointed.

If you did all those, because the hints are in your traits and in your skill tooltips reminding you again and again that weapon swap/pet swap/pet management is at the core of the ranger profession, you'll find ranger to be a very fun and upbeat profession to play, and that pets are wonderful things to have, and there are so many unique tricks that you can do with them. It takes practice and experience to learn all of those skills, you don't just know when or when not to call back/swap/immune your pet from the get go, you need to learn the timing through running dungeons/events and paying attention (just like every other profession).

Actually, you can learn those things even while leveling as long as you're paying attention. One reason of why many rangers do not take the time to figure those things out compared to other professions, is because ranger can get away with standing there and auto shooting things to death and hence people start to think that this is how a ranger is supposed to be played. And they'd of course feel frustrated when they head into a dungeon and suddenly their pet start dying, they'd think "ranger sucks" rather than "I haven't learned a mechanism yet" --- And indeed, if you haven't ever tried it, you don't even know that it exists, so it's not their fault at that point to feel frustrated at the system. If you don't just play the minima that lets you level, and try to find the "best" or "most efficient" or "new" ways to play even when you can face roll the content, you'll be pleasantly surprised by the potential that ranger has (that is, compared to the general opinion). Besides, pew pew pew and afk is not fun anyways, if you're looking for fun in a game, why not try new things? Why not try figure out the best combo that gives you maximum fury uptime and highest stacks of might? Why not try to maximize quickness uptime? Those things are fun, and will make your gaming experience more smooth in general later on anyways.

Last word of advice is that, somethings may seem impossible right now (for example, you may think to yourself "how on earth can I call back a pet in a split second before the boss does aoe? I can't even react that fast" or "how on earth do I swap to sword and melee the boss without instant down? I'm only a medium armor"), which you may or may not want to express on a public forum like this. Just know that it's definitely possible, others have tried and succeeded, so you can definitely do it too. There are many rangers out there who never have their pet die more than once in a dungeon, and they got there by familiarizing with their options. When you've ran a dungeon a few times, you'd know what the mobs do and what the boss does, and you'd be anticipating for each event and lining up your skills ready to use.

Rhoellan Alts, on 04 October 2012 - 05:17 AM, said:

50% larger. What does this even mean? Best head to the Heart of the Mists and test them out.

Rhoellan Alts, on 04 October 2012 - 05:17 AM, said:

Approximate 70 per hit at level 80 with no Healing Power.

Rhoellan Alts, on 04 October 2012 - 05:17 AM, said:

If I remember the number right, it was 50 points to whatever bonus given, with the exception of Signet of Resolve, which removes 2 Conditions every 10 seconds, instead of 1.

Rhoellan Alts, on 04 October 2012 - 05:17 AM, said:

Fire Inside causes attacks from the Sword of Justice and Hammer of Justice to apply Burning on enemies hit. Burning does 328 damage per second at level 80 with 0 Condition Damage, and scales all the up to 678 damage per second with 1400 Condition Damage.

Rhoellan Alts, on 04 October 2012 - 05:17 AM, said:

Yes.

Rhoellan Alts, on 04 October 2012 - 05:17 AM, said:

If you're referring to the Zeal Major Trait Sceptre Power (+5% Sceptre Damage) then it affects both Orb of Wrath (Sceptre #1) and Smite (Sceptre #2). If your

Rhoellan Alts, on 04 October 2012 - 05:17 AM, said:

The Sword of Justice, when fully Traited does significant damage. But it's still a Utility skill with a Cooldown and you still need to rely on your regular weapons.

Rhoellan Alts, on 04 October 2012 - 05:17 AM, said:

If you're looking for additional DPS from Utility skills, especially while staying at range, then the Sword of Justice (with reduced cooldown and increased duration) is a good choice. I have already outlined my thoughts on the Sceptre/Torch above.

Sadly, the two best AOE weapons of a Guardian is the Greatsword and Hammer. If you plan to go ranged as Guardian, well...

WIth Staff/Sceptre+Torch, you'll be able to stay long ranged for single targets and mid-range for AOE with the Staff. With that in mind, I would go for Symbolic Power (increased Symbol damage) and Writ of Exaltation (Increased Symbol size), augment my damage with the Sword of Justice, which is also buffed by a Fire Inside (Spirit Weapons cause Burning) and Eternal Spirit (Spirit Weapons are not destroyed when commanded). This allows me to use the Sword of Justice to apply AOE Burn with its Command function, hence, with other sources of Burn, increase my Guardian's personal damage with Fiery Wrath (increased damage on Burning targets) and Radiant Power (increased damage on targets afflicted with Conditions).

When using the Staff in combat, never underestimate the damage output of Orb of Light and Symbol of Swiftness. The former I tend to send through packs of mobs and not detonate it. Without detonation, the recharge of Orb of Light is actually very fast for its damage, i.e. 2x Staff auto-attack, a 3s recharge and hits unlimited enemies in a straight line of 1200 range.