My EJ rant wasn't about difficult content, it was about some kind of consensus on effective builds. There is nothing more irritating than trying to be the best at something and people telling you it doesn't matter what you do when it very much does. Literally every guide I've ever read has pages upon pages of people dissecting the writer's choices and making each other sound like a dumb ass who doesn't know the class, so you never know who's opinion to trust. I'm not sure I've ever read anyone say, "I've tried a lot of different builds and I agree this one has been the best so far." It's not just nitpicking about 5 trait points either, it'll be entire trait line choices. "Why did you go 20 into X? I would take those points and put them into Y." Like I said, it's really frustrating, at least for me.
There isn't much in PVE that requires that level of intellectual investigation. So you are likely to be eternally frustrated as there are no effective measures or requirements of such rigor in PVE.
The reason why an EJ even exists is because the "numbers game" of Warcraft is an absolute. GW2 is far more wishy-washy w/r/t PVE effectiveness.
I agree with this post. What I miss in GW2 is a quantifiable feeling of my contribution. I know it's a double edged sword but I'd love to have a dps meter in game or a way to gauge how 1 spec compares to another in a repeatable fashion.
Right now when in a group, it's almost as if you can get away doing no dmg as long as you survive people won't even know your contribution was less than that of a prop
Even with this you are supporting my argument. When I played cata, I had a specific spec that was best. There was almost no choice. X > Y so take X. I am not sure about now but in GW2, there are still choices. I can tweak my build depending on the other classes in the run, I can tweak it depending on what the group needs or I can tweak it for out and out dps on a single target. Choices are a good thing. People may not be making the right choices but that doesn't mean that having them is bad.
I am not saying that an EJ style thing is wrong for GW2. I used to visit there a lot when I played WOW. I enjoyed the discussions. I am saying that it's less relevent (if at all) for something like GW2. In WOW, there were certain fights that were gear checks. Working optimally there was required. Just, a strong guild could boost an idiot through them but while progressing, the whole team needed to contribute on those fights. Working optimally was critical to the success of the raid. Pre-Potting, Gemming, enchanting, etc. right made a huge difference and was more often than not the difference between a successful or failed fight. It was the difference between success or failure. In GW2, you are talking about a 5 second difference on a speed run, not exactly something to get excited about. EJ's exists because there is a need for it in WOW. There is not that need in GW2. The right spec along with the correct enchants, pots, etc could effectively double the DPS for a player in the same gear in WOW, if not more. In GW2, you are probably looking at a difference of 100% between someone in blues with no traits and no gems, etc compared to a player with full exotics, optimal traits (for their play style), etc. A lot of the EJ people are hardcore players and I don't really believe that GW2 has that many of them and I think a lot of those who do play are hardcore in other games and just hang out in GW2 for fun. Why don't you ask for them to add a subforum here for "elite" discussions or on GW2Guru.
I can only go on my main profession which is an engineer and I can tell you that it's not a cut and dried matter with engineers. Engineers can play with different kits as their primary choice. The traits are determined a lot by which kit you prefer using. Even then, one needs to look at what supporting characteristics are important for the group. Are stacking vuln and bleeds important or is something else more important. If I then look primarily on my build which is for grenades, what gear is best? Well, that also depends, how long is it going to take to down the boss? Are there a lot of adds? If the bosses generally won't take long then berserker gear is better whereas rampager is the best gear for bosses that take a bit longer. Runes are not cut and dried either, as are sigils. The rabid gear does approximately 96% of the damage that rampager gear does on bosses but it adds survivability. Of course that's not important for a speed run but if you look at the actual figures, berserker gear is only 98% of rampager.
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On the shaman if you only have a couple of people it definitely is as the health resets if everyone dies. I managed to solo one the of the phases on the shaman before I got tired of it so I am sure you can solo it.
So the queens gauntlet is temporary. There are 6 domes only 1 person can be in each at a time and you have 2 minutes to beat 5 boss mobs.
I have a feeling since it's temporary and you have 2 minutes to beat 5 mobs I doubt this will be any sort of challenge....
1. This is a logical fallacy. There is only "one" best spec, the goal is to find it. You can tweak your own build to be better depending on what team you run with, but this falls under a category mentioned before "half-assed optimisation". If you truly optimise you'll run the team setup with the best dps and the individual builds that get them.
2. You touched on it shortly, but I also addressed this before: DPS-checks/gated content are the only reason in WoW why people theorize. There are no mechanics that force you to theory-craft since you can just wait till you out-gear it.
(I've also been in top 100guilds in WoW of which less than 50% actually pre-potted and used the 100% correct enchants since they "prefer mongoose", gear really isn't as much of a factor in WoW as people make it out to be (there's a reason why World-first guilds can do content without being in the correct item-level gear)
3. Basically the same point as 1. Optimising around un-optimised groups is silly.
This is another reason why I "dislike" the current GW2 theory-craft community, they say Condition Damage is bad since it overlaps with others blablabla. On it's own that's a good point and very important for people who pug/don't have a fixed team. Once you do have a fixed team you can work around it and condition damage has the potential to do insane amounts of DPS (necro and engineer mainly)
Of course, but that's taking it to extremes. Playing engineer with grenades is interesting to say the least but it's certainly not for everyone. Someone forcing themselves into a specific playstyle because it provides the best DPS while optimal is a very quick way for someone to leave the game. The same can be said for forcing people to play specific professions to maximize DPS. If thats what you are referring to.
If not, you mention getting the optimal builds for the team. In something like WOW, the optimal build for enhancement shaman was X, regardless of what the rest of the team was. The only decision was whether to bring an enhancement shaman or not. At least in GW2 (while you can still force the professions), you can tweak the traits to match the group. If I understand the latest WOW changes, you can do the same there now. That sort of choice goes against the grain of EJ as my groups optimal build for my profession is not the same as yours as I could have different professions in my group.
Let me word it slightly differently. There is a lot less reason to theorycraft in GW2 then there is in WOW. Just as there is even less reason to TC in mushy monsters.
I don't think CD is bad. I actually really like the mechanic because it favours different gear. It encourages different playstyles rather than just "berserker = best". The limitations of it are the 25 stack limits which means you can really only run one profession that works that way. Of course you can build a group around it. My point was that it's still not cut and dried. Rampager is not always better than Berserker or vice versa. It's those things that actually make an EJ type situation far more difficult in GW2 which is compounded by there being less reasons for it in the first place.
It's not always about pushing to be 2% better. Part of my frustration was due to reading people post questions like, "What's the best class to play for X?" and then people reply saying "it doesn't matter" and "play what you want". Oh, okay. So, if I'm looking to do long range, AoE damage I'll be just as effective with a D/D thief as a staff elementalist? Good to know!
Even narrowing it down to class, say I want to do the most DPS with my warrior, so mace & shield should be okay, right? My point is there are very clear examples of how one thing is significantly better than another so to say it doesn't matter is ridiculous. I don't want to kill something in 10 swings if I can do it in 5.
Maybe there isn't a PvE content reason to crunch numbers, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. At the very least I believe depending on the situation there is a "best" class/spec for everything, from that point it's tweaking it to your own personal preferences. The problem is in GW2 it is hard as Hell to find. Everyone acts like their version of a build is flawless and the other person is a clueless moron. At least on EJ most people could agree whether or not a talent was mandatory or at least highly recommended, you can't even get people in GW2 to agree on an entire trait line.
Like I said, sometimes I just want to try stuff out, so being able to copy a cookie cutter build I know has been tried, tested, and true in 5 minutes to play around with was awesome. GW2 I spend copious amounts of time reading people bicker back and forth trying to figure out on my own WTF is the best thing to do. This person says 30/30/20/0/0 but this person says 20/25/5/10/20 and neither one of them can agree on any utilities, but this is supposed to be the "best" spec for X. It can't be both ways! >_<
Looks like they will take down the servers tomorrow morning for 6 hours. First time in almost a year that I can remember them doing that.
As others have speculated, it might be due to the wallet system they are implementing.
Traits can probably make as much as 40% difference in GW2 so while it's not groundbreaking, it certainly is substantial. 40% less time in a dungeon is significant. I think the problem is that there is no gate content (which is by design) and without that, it will never matter.
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I have to agree that it was frustrating for me too with my engineer. It might help if GW2 exported logs that people could work with for theorycrafting (build a sim) but the moment that happened then people would use it to create meters and start calling people out.
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Ouch, that's one of the things I have liked about GW2, almost no downtime at all.
I'm pretty pissed they're doing that on the last day of the voting/bazaar being available. Now I have to make sure I get everything done today because I don't know how much longer I'll have tomorrow...
Also it's happening from morning to midday in the EU =( I wish it was after midnight.
I hope it is about the wallet, I'm looking forward to that.
Isn't that taking it a little too literal though?
I mean, if you want to play at range logically you choose a long range skill set. Filling the traits with whatever skills that have synergy with your goals.
For example, I want to play a rifle Warrior. Well, I am not going to equip a greatsword & 2x axes. Naturally. I am going to get a rifle, pick rifle traits and so on. There might be this or that trait a tiny bit better than say, extra crits on full rage. But "it doesn't matter/play what you want" applies still- it doesn't matter too much. I can play what I want as a rifle Warrior provided I am logically pursing my goal: using a rifle at range.
If I want to make a defensive build, I am not going to select 8 offensive skills and 9 offensive traits. Though it's highly doubtful I am going to fail or be seriously effected by choosing a stability defensive skill over a stun break defensive skill.
I can't think of a single thing in GW2 PVE that isn't easily understood or practically workable.
Last edited by Fencers; 2013-08-05 at 05:01 PM.
His question was "who is best range attack", would the answer be "warrior with rifle"? Even to use your example though, if someone says "how do I get best dps with warrior with rifle", the answer isn't "just pick stuff that looks good, it'll be okay". He's not asking "can I play the game as a warrior with a rifle?" He's asking how to optimize things.
If someone would like resources to tell them stuff, saying "you can play the game without" doesn't really help them.
Does that mean support tokens will stop dropping? Oh please, oh please, oh please?!
It was more to point out how thoroughly unhelpful that response is.
As I said in an earlier post, even when I have tried to map out my own builds when I post them for critique I'm frequently told many of the traits or utilities I've chosen are terrible because they're either bugged or greatly under perform their tooltip. Conversely, someone might point out a trait/utility I thought looked underwhelming, but turns out synergizes amazingly with a particular weapon or other attack, which is something else I would not have known. That's the stuff I want to know.
Hell, I saw one elementalist guide that said that 30 points into Power actually doesn't net you that much additional damage and suggested not going into that trait line at all. So picking what you think is the best/most obvious choice isn't sometimes. This is why I love my theorycrafters and number crunchers. :P
Last edited by Lane; 2013-08-05 at 05:34 PM.
Sure, but even if they ask a more specific question- like long range aoe damage rather than my rifle example; you could still look at that stuff in a logical and clearly understood way.
Okay, this weapon offers mostly single target attacks that are shorter range than this other weapon offering more aoe attacks.
That's pretty simple to understand. And that sort of logic is consistent throughout all of GW2. It's a game of great simplicity.
From a practical POV, it doesn't matter how one chooses traits and skills overmuch. Once again, as long as you are not doing something clearly against your stated goal; want to do damage -> choose damage skills/traits /= defensive skills/traits.
I understand the user is looking to simply be told an answer definitively. That's fine. I am saying one likely won't ever find one due to the nature of the game design.
Maybe even asking the question is somewhat faulty. Like asking, "So where are the raids?"- it speaks to a game that is simply not designed as GW2.