I Tried EVERY BOON DPS IN GUILD WARS 2 - Thoughts

[@206Zelda]

There's just something hilarious about throwing flasks on yourself to give boons to others. "You see nothing but glass and blood, but you're filled with determination and inspiration."

[@MuklukYoutube]

Maybe you're just dousing yourself in hallucinogens and then you THINK you see them looking better.

[@JIMRbach193]

@@MuklukKZbin AHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAH! *snort*

[@mistereiswolf70]

Harbinger feels like a bardrunk that gets different power fron what they drink and with one trait you just turn them into a drunk who limes to share his drinks 😂

[@Jmvars]

33:34 Only Tempest has access to shouts. Catalyst does have aegis but it's on the earth sphere which you use on rotation every time it's off cooldown, so not even close to on demand since you would need to actually be on earth when the hit is coming, AND have energy to cast it, AND for it to not be off cooldown.

[@bobiboulon]

"you would need to actually be on earth when the hit is coming, AND have energy to cast it, AND for it to not be off cooldown" TLDR: Like Herald, but worse.

[@Nilruin]

@@bobiboulon The difference here being that Catalyst has options as to what sphere they wanna use for boon support and as mentioned above, Catalyst gets that aegis naturally as part of their rotation. Herald is required by design to be at negative upkeep to pulse Quickness, so you're likely not going to have the energy for aegis skills as a Herald unless you just swapped legends, and those shield skills are NOT a part of your DPS rotation. Also obligatory "if you're running shield as a weapon you're doing less damage objectively" so if you want that aegis, you gotta give something up to get it. TLDR: Like Herald, but better.

[@bobiboulon]

@@Nilruin Ahah, ok, I won't fight you on this, I'm not fluent enough in Herald-ism. :)

[@mirek1878]

A 50 min video? And I just got food? Oh boy, you got some timing!

[@Kject]

I play Chrono because i love the versatility. Ask what they need, A dps, Q dps, D dps.. just the click of 1 button. very similar rotations. Once you get used to the clone generations it's actually really fun! it just takes time...

[@lostpotato8363]

Plus you get stab coverage, some might and fury generation and the amazing mesmers utility skills. Yup chrono is my favorite

[@Joromonni]

Sounds like i need to go chrono

[@RecklessFables]

I haven't been playing much lately due to real life stuff, but I really miss my Chrono for leading Convergences and Rift hunting. edit: And I usually played it as Heal + rez + boons since I was shepherding PUGs and wearing cele, but I was also learning DPS.

[@kumikostan69]

"it just takes time..." Ha! I get it

[@zestyflamingo]

“Scrapper is the only one of these that has to care about the combo system” Me playing catalyst like maybe he just forgot, not knowing about the ensuing assassination that soon followed 😂

[@Vietcongster]

It was a genocide, he killed all of the... *checks notes* ... Oh nevermind, no one plays Quick Catalyst anyway

[@lukash7369]

me able and knowing to play qcata : „fair, i take quick scrapper everytime i need qdps “ as long as the energy system is like at the moment nobody should play it

[@Avatapaxn]

IN CONCLUSION: 10 Harbingers is the optimal raid squad

[@kostaspapas698]

2 scourges 8 quickharbs can literally clear anything that doesn't require stability 😂

[@maximillionserg]

The thing with mirage - you only shatter if you know you're back on 3 clones immediately. And Staff/Staff Mirage only has Staff 3 (2 Phantasms which will be clones after ~4s) and Staff 2 (1 Clone). So you mostly shatter F2+F1 ~2-3s after you used Staff3. If you use a trait named self-deception you can be a bit more shatter happy, because then, if you have 1 clone and use a deception ability (heal ult or the shard utility) you get a free one. Those extra clones can be used to provide a small amount of boons - but mostly for distort which gives 5 stab to the party.

[@TunatheTitan]

I do appreciate that muk actually uses office excel as an it person

[@AATproducer]

Forgot to talk about CC but other than that very insightful video :) Thank you for this comparison, it is great to see what the pro and cons of eachs specs are and it helped me to decicde to try out chrono and also what hardships and downsides i might face lerning this class

[@Notsram77]

Scrapper can provide Stability on demand with Bulwark Gyro's toolbelt skill. I don't know how it compares to other professions, but it also blocks projectiles while the bubble is up.

[@student76543]

I enjoyed the entire series tremendously and it gave me some inspiration for what to try next (Scrapper most likely, because I have a support mindset and want to be able to do utility things). But I do have to voice one point of criticism: Scourge has really, really good utility: On the default build (BiP, Serpent Siphon, Signet) you bring: - Aegis on a roughly 15 second cooldown - 1.5k-2k barrier constantly, making the healers' jobs significantly easier (seriously. It's easy to underestimate how huge this is) - Group cleanse every 4 seconds - A single target rez at range 900 (admittedly on a high cooldown and at significant HP cost) And that's before customizing the build for the individual encounter, because only BiP is really required in the utility slots (basically, any boss with adds will provide enough Lifeforce to not need Signet; same goes for a party that has Mesmer clones or Renegade legends). You can: - sacrifice about 2.5-3k DPS to take the "cleanse on barrier" trait (Abrasive Grit, Scourge first column) to easily outcleanse any healer that isn't a Healscourge (I do this in W2 for Sloth and Matthias and it made my experience on those fights so much smoother). With this trait, you (party) cleanse almost once per second - bring some of the best CC in the game: Golem and Spectral Grasp. Both of these have some hoops to jump through as opposed to - for example - Moa Signet, but their cooldown is significantly lower, so in a fight with repeated important CC phases (Samarog, Sloth, Matthias) you can have at least one of those up every time; often both. - Spectral Grasp doubles as pull (though both Mesmer and Firebrand are better at that) - Corrosive Poison Cloud is an underrated projectile block. Only about 40% uptime, so it's worse than Ventari bubble, but other than Ventari, CPC is fire and forget so you keep doing damage afterwards without worrying about your energy. - Sand Swell. Rather specific and worse than Mesmer portals but much lower cooldown which is why it's used for the hardest CMs - Well of Power: 5 pulses of party cleanse on relatively low cooldown. - Epidemic: Significantly nerfed, but still a good way to control adds. (I bring it on Gorseval or MO, for example) - Customizable amount of boon corruption (Scepter 3 is in the rotation, but you can bring more as needed) Sorry for the wall of text, I just wanted to be comprehensive. Overall, my verdict is that regarding utility, Herald and Firebrand are clearly superior to anything else, but Scourge competes with the Mesmers for the third spot. At worst, it should be placed below the two Mesmers and above Tempest.

[@JoshuaGraves113]

After watching Teapot play Scourge, it's easily the #1 or #2 spot in utility for the team. It can solo carry raids/fractals.

[@xslice55555]

I think what is worth pointing out is for Specter, the dps and alac rotation is identical more or less (at least with the scepter dagger build). What is also nice about it is like you said, rot wallow venom is very strong, so stacking it before the fight or during downtime is super strong. It's worth noting that you can specify your tether target (remember, your alac pulses off your tethered target) with your F1 and as long as you stay in range of them (I think 1200), you can provide alac from across the map. I think specter is such a fun starter alac build because it is press 3 until out of initiative, go into shroud and use skills for like 15 seconds, rinse and repeat. It can also bring a decent amount of utility and CC (like a lot of CC). Portals, swapping thieves guild for basi venom for CC, wells for movement that provide boons, pistol for additional CC. It's a lot more fun to play now than when it released (bringing 3 wells sucked), though worse than when you could provide alac with vipers gear and do 40k dps lol. That's my late comments on Specter, I know there's a triple dagger build but that just sounds cursed lol.

[@GreenLarsen]

Herald legend swap is only fixed if you want to max dps. After a few sec of the fight, you will have 20+ sec of quick on the group and at that time you can stay in any of the legends for a fair bit of extra time without problems. It will cost you a bit of dps, but that's all

[@ItsNaberius]

Really interesting video Muk, appreciate you putting so much work in to break down all of these different specs

[@embreis2257]

I watched every single video in the entire series and consider them all very educational and helpful, including the classes Muk didn't like. this series helped a lot in deciding which classes to pick according to one's personal taste and abilities. the summing up conclusion was just the icing on the cake. thank you for all your hard work and dedication so we don't have to. 😗

[@ratchet227]

29:00 Just for the melee/range thing. As far as i know the deadeye can be ranged too, it used to be played Riffle only (and still is on kite content like both Qadim's fight) and it still viable nowaday. Not optimised, but doable. Also the F1 doesn't TP to the target like DD or core thief one does. so no problem w this. The rota on this is basicly use signet, spam 3, when you're not reveald use Heal skill (the blue one w a silouhette as icon, can't rember the name XD), F1, or DE elite skill to clock and do ambush. However... it's a Riffle Thief, so you have to stay crouch to pump dmg (it still work without but w way less dmg), it mean very low mobility baseline On my (Power) DE i usualy have both Staff and Riffle equiped mainly because i'm lazzy and dogshit with daggers but also allow you to just swap weapon and go from melee to ranged rotation.

[@TheTolnoc]

As someone whose main character is an Asuran Scrapper, I really loved the introduction of combo fields, as taking advantage of inherent synergy feels very 'Science Class Fantasy' to me. After all, complex machinery is often just many small machines taped together with a prayer.

[@Tsaerid]

One small thing to note for harbinger that wasn't mentioned is that blight stacks will also give you some health regen to partially compensate for the reduced max hp, when you're all stacked up it's up to 325 health per second which is a nice bit of extra sustain if you don't get caught out and splattered in one hit.

[@chester1882]

I guess the biggest thing this series CLEARLY demonstrates is that not all Boons are applied equally and perhaps Anet should take a look at the harder ones (Tempest, Cata, Scrapper, Mirage) and raise them up to a similar effectiveness as Bladesworn, Herald, Scourge etc.

[@Identificador757]

Mirage in contraposition to chrono It doesn't gives alacrity shatering, It does evading and using Chaos Vortex from staff ambush skill and you really don't need clones to get nice boons like alac, 25 might and fury going even without a target. Shatering on mirage isnt mandatory at all, F2 sometimes for damage after using 3 skill on staff and ready to go, keep evading.

[@TheTolnoc]

Chrono having dual boon privilege is still funny to me. Druid AlacDPS is kinda funny, it's like you're constantly charging two very shoddy batteries, back and forth. You charge up Astral, then you plug in the battery to charge up Alacrity, then you plug in the Alacrity to recharge the Astral, etc etc back and forth forever. I imagine it's what being a waiter at a restaurant is like.

[@Kolbitar-p3y]

Thieves can use axes now, so deadeye has the option of going ranged. Holding staff 2 to win is still funnier though.

[@drdoctor9146]

Time for pure DPS! Wanna see you play Holo :P

[@Akenaph]

Hey muk! Scrapper can do an insane amount of stability. You can swap shredder gyro for bulwark gyro and not only would that bring 3 stacks of stability, but also a projectile block, a ton of barrier for the team & some more superspeed, all with a very small dps loss from shredder. You can even bring more if you really have to through toss elixir B and even the trait but that comes at bigger dps bites. Imo the only reason herald does stability better is because it can do 10 man instead of 5, but that comes with the backdraw of having a wind up animation and being locked on legend swap (first example to come to mind is Gorseval needing an instant, reactive stability with hand smash) Edit: Forgot to mention that I really enjoyed this support series, even if i I don't necessarily agree with a lot of it. Thanks for the content and the different perspectives!

[@ihaveaplan.ijustneedmoney.9777]

And if you still have Blast Gyro in your loadout, you also have a group stunbreak! Small area, but good to have on emergency situations where a mechanic catches your stability bubble ALMOST off cooldown. Saved my group so many times during Harvest Temple.

[@Alphenis]

28:37 It's not the weapon. Renegade can be played full shortbow at a very, very small DPS loss (about -2k, you pick the staff for bonking CC bar instead). But you still need to go in melee half the time because the Demon farts are around you. 33:33 isn't shouts tempest only ? (meaning Cata doesn't have it)

[@AATproducer]

Renegades Legend abilities on Kala also have a range of 780 and mace 3 applies his conditions on a range of 1200 and axe 5 is 900 range (Mace 2 is 480 range, a bit short and axe 4 is also 900 range but you will teleport to the enemy if it hits). So even if you are on Kala and mace/axe, you still have options to do a little bit of ranged dmg

[@TheTolnoc]

AlacDPS Renegade is a fun one to me, as you can very, very easily spec into having a lot of Protection on hand if it's necessary. Every Renegade skill can grant Prot to you and 4 buddies with a trait choice, and that makes keeping up Relics that rely on Prot or Boon Granting very easy. You can even just throw down Soulcleave's Summit for a second or two on a whim to grant it at basically no cost to yourself.

[@DdavidoffC]

I saw that you were using the AED on Scrapper -- if you use the healing gyro instead, it turns your F1 into a water field that follows you around, basically guaranteeing that you always have an on-demand field to combo in (and it's faster than swapping to Mortar Kit to use one of those fields). Also, as a Quickness Catalyst main-ish, I forgive you. Two spheres in a row is definitely the way to go. It's fun, but on fights where you can't constantly be hitting something, your boon uptime really falls off.

[@elchialde6318]

for deadeye you can control right click your 2 so it does it automatically, then you can press everything else normally

[@Wyzai]

23:20 Confused here. I play Mirage and the alacrity comes from your Ambush skill, not your shatter. You don't need a target to apply it. You just need a target if you want to optimise uptime.

[@markfitzgerald7889]

Thanks for all your hard work I really enjoyed this series! Sooooo on to DPS builds right? 😂

[@kesamek8537]

Mirage can also give useful amounts of Protection instead of whatever Chaos Storm gives, which includes Aegis that can save the day. Underrated spec currently because of low dps following ANet's bizarre deletion of Confusion damage type. About which they need both a rethink and a slap.

[@eckee]

Would love to see if they can do both power and condi boon dps. Many groups I've been in wanted me to have both power and condi boondps to swap between bosses. Sure you can switch characters but clicking a couple of buttons to switch equipment and build is much easier imo. Especially if you're going to change between the bosses in the same wing.

[@sanguin3]

Some on top of my head that can do both condi and power boon dps: Herald, Berserker, Mechanist, Untamed, Harbinger, Chrono (the condi build brings much less utility though).

[@JH-vb1wo]

I played only reaper for about 4 months and I love it but it was going stale being the same class so I made a scrapper and willbender. I’m enjoying playing diff classes every day. However now that I have all specs maxed on necro, guardian, and engineer I want to try a support class. For my 7th months of guild wars well over a thousand hours I havmt tried a support class yet but that is something I want to try. Not sure if I should go scourge, firebrand or whatever as support

[@blackalphadragon96]

Chrono and mirrage are fun and you can aswell figure out your way to play them. Diffrent wepons roation ect. Its very fun to experiment on ^^

[@relzyn5545]

Firebrand is good, but other supports are better. Scourge is like, the best second healer (you don't want 2x Heal scourge, but a heal scourge + druid/chrono is incredibly strong)

[@holymoly8581]

it's hard to give you the advice. It really depends on what kind of support role are you looking for? DPS support? Heal support??

[@JustPixelNoIDontWantAnyNumbers]

herald can also easily swap over to DPS, although Herald DPS gets MASSIVELY outclassed by Vindicator. But yeah, Herald has a pretty major DPS Grandmaster trait it can take instead of Quickness, the rest can pretty much stay the same, theres only a slight variation on the rotation because you want to use Facet of Light, Facet of Darkness, Facet of Elements and Facet of Dragon to give you Forceful Persistence's buff, using Facet of Strength on CD for the damage buff. The rest just stays the same, its a fairly easy change. You can also still bring Jallis over Shiro for the street, although you will feel the DPS loss

[@Cross_111]

Actually vindi, dps herald or qpd herald all use exactly the same gear This is awesome because you can f.e. Dedicate 3 equipment templates to those builds and change what is best for the encounter One with GS & SwSw (where CC is not really needed) one with GS & staff (for cc fights that have larger hitboxes &/ you need am extra block) and SwSw & staff (for those fights with CC & where the Sw skills are more useful like, chilling, immob or shadowstep) Just hope they would buff the dps trait of herald a bit more to at leset push it over 40-41k bench 38 something is not enough with builds pumping 43-44k…

[@Kazgrel]

Another feather in the Herald cap (and you mentioned this in the vid specifically for it): It has a condi build for fights that favor condi, plus it has some range as well (shortbow). Only downside to it is you're basically forced into Dragon + Demon for legends; losing Demon for Dwarf on the condi build is a huge dps loss compared to swapping Shiro for Dwarf on the power build. It's super nice having that level of flexibility on a single class since I can just swap from power to condi whenever my raid team is working on bosses that favor one over another (ie no more me deleting tormenting deads on Souless Horror with arc divider :p)

[@traviscue2099]

I started as a Quickbrand years ago in raiding, and I had a lot of fun.. now I never seem to be hitting anyone with boons.. Thinking the Quick Harby might be my calling.. But it would be nice to get away from the Necromancer for a bit hmmm!

[@leftrom9738]

Ok, time for Anet to make a bazillion balance/skill class changes so that this video becomes obsolete, stabbing you in the back. Joking, I hope that this video stays relevant for a LONG LONG time; it's perfect for players to decide what they'd like to play (as a boondps class), thanks for your effort!!

[@TheTolnoc]

Mesmer in general is another class I've played a lot. Not in raids or other end game content, but I can definitely say that the play time you put into it is a huge part of managing clones/blades well. Just by wandering around and levelling one, I felt like I knew a LOT more about the class than when I started, and forcing myself to do some DLC areas as a Mesmer to get Mirage made it feel even better. It's such a great class to feel improvement via playtime.

[@usernamemctypey428]

"Tempest is boring once I learned it" Meanwhile the footage: Muk presses pistol skills in the wrong order in every attunement Jokes aside, I love condi alac tempest because of how fun it is to queue skills. You can almost always press the next button as soon as you finish pressing the previous one, without thinking. There's no penalty to pressing things too early like on Reaper or Bladesworn for example, you can just go ham with your fingers. (air pistol 3->2 being the exception, screw whoever designed that). I generally dislike how finnicky animation canceling is in this game but condi alac tempest rotation feels extremely fluid. That said: alac uptime on it is really tight, be prepared for that. Also just fyi, the benchmark for it is reduced by around 1k compared to actual max output due to running Elemental Power instead of Lesser Elementals.

[@humanbugman]

Gun to your head: healalac specter or quick cata?

[@MuklukYoutube]

Am I picking one to play or one to use the gun on?

[@VamanaGW2]

Would you ever consider sharing the cheat sheet with us for a little TL;DR of every class?

[@RougeOfLuck]

Deadeye also does fury and (almost) 25 might

[@enkeny]

I will write my thoughts about druid here. So because you're damage is low when you apply alacrity, it is not good. that means 29k dps (with food and infusion etc) with 100% alacrity up-time is not good, because you have phases. (Also it was my best run, so usually it is lower damage :) ) I feel sorry for druid because it is discarded before even tried. (catalysts got better...) But it is fact, there are many reasons. My problems with alacrity druids: You need very high concentration You must position yourself very well Your boon application range is small Very unstable build/mechanic High quickness dependency You can be locked out from your boon providing state It is better with good memory for weapon swapping / weapons cooldown management But doing damage was not a problem. In raid my damage was about the same as the other boon dps. Loosing Eclipse is not a problem, because you wan't to be in avatar form as less time as possible. there is 2 reason for it: 1 damage of course 2 the main reasons: you want to Save the ancestral force so you can enter again before the alacrity fell off. that is why it is critical to have quickness while you are in form. And it is also important to have something you can hit. Because the little time in avatar form you want big boon duration. That means full ritualists. Switching viper to ritualist you will lose precision and power, and it hearts Sharpened Edges and Vicious Quarry They can be used, but I switched to trapper build. Also there is no good rune for condition alacrity builds. (like fireworks or firebrand). Relic of herald is good if you need more boon duration. Nature magic gives 240 concentration. But you loose so much damage so it is not worth it. The best it can do is double the sun/storm spirit damage but the trap you switched out will do more In real fight, your ancestral bar will fill in different pace, if you go down, you lost all your ancestral force, for more adds, more AoE damage for your group can help fill the bar faster (use the heal glyph) Also the roots from Jacaranda, entangle, black holes are small AoE, so on moving bosses will likely do less damage. In the end it is harder to play than a heal druid and harder to play than a condi druid. But it is still playable.

[@Raythar]

In the "Can Swap to full DPS easily" column, I'd add Specter and Chrono (probably at the bottom). You need different gear for them, but the rotation is practically the same for both with a few minor differences. Maybe it's different from what you were intending with that column, but I figure it's worth mentioning.

[@PetrSzturc]

Hi, you got Mirage wrong, it can generate alacrity from 1st second. You just dodge and press 1. Also as everyone is saying I dont understand why you dont just equip some concentration gear and have easier time playing the classes. Otherwise thanks for content and thoughts.

[@Bunstonious]

I'm here for the excel visuals. The thing I have an issue with is that I click (yes, don't at me) and so much of these builds I can't play due to that. That being said I think I find Engineer and Rev more enjoyable to play and I wouldn't mind trying some of the others. I was gonna try messing with Warrior but might be outside of my skill.

[@MuklukYoutube]

OH MY GOD YOU CLI - yeah ok to each their own

[@Bunstonious]

@@MuklukKZbin Pretty much the response I get literally every time I talk to anyone is: "have you tried xyz". Yes and I have no it doesn't work lol. But in all seriousness though, thankyou for the videos Muk, it's helpful for those like me, and I adore the no-frills excel visuals :D

[@DannyOE4]

Not gonna lie I think you hyped me into making a Deadeye. Good dps AND I get to provide boons. Sold. Kinda getting tired of not really putting out numbers on my Mirage.

[@dfg12382]

Untamed does indeed also bring might (added to the quick trait a patch or so ago) and Fury (Storm Spirit).

[@xLeopanther]

I love qUntamed for open world, cause it just gives itself all the essential boons (-alac) to function the same as in a group setting and hit similar numbers, while also having a ton of inbuilt sustain and life-saving options that don't come at the cost of dps. Also tons of cleave.

[@MathiasN]

Next balance update we shall wait updated version ;)

[@mr1357989]

untamed power quickness is the most fun build in the game imo, I have played almost every single build in the game over the last 12 years, and the power quick untamed hammer/mace/mace rotation is so goddamn fun and fluid, and you just feel plain unkillable, there is basically nothing you cant solo with that build

[@xezzee]

Mukluk has not heard about Rebinding Keys /jk I was promized a Fight 50:30 First why the heck is Harbinger the easiest dps Mukluk? Harbinger has some rotation rules as well 18+3 skills you need to press and weapon swap! (auto-attack x3) Specter has less rotation rules as well 8+3 skills you need to press and weapon swap! (auto-attack x2 + elite skill depends) pMech has 7 skills you press off-cooldown. How come 7 skills off-cooldown is harder than 18+3 skills with weapon swap? Tempest's Overload boon range should be overall 360 or 600 as currently the might range is 180 and protection is 240 which feels horrible :< plz buff boon range! Also Tempest feels boring because Overload is sooo long and you can't do anything while you Overload. Personally I like it. You should have included between Melee and Range a Hybrid, those classes that either has mix of range and melee skilsls or can choose full meleee or range. Mechanist and Specter both have choice which effect if they are mostly Melee or Range! On same note if Rifle Mechanist is good then Longbow Untamed is good because both are 4k dps drop 😏 Scrapper swaps 1 trait between Boon DPS and DPS! ... I hope Mukluk explains how Harbinger is much simpler than braindead faceroll Mechanist 🤣

[@theswift_gaming]

I'm late to the party, but if you play more chrono in PvE don't wait for phantasm's to spawn... Just generate clones as fast as possible, and shatter them when it gets to 3. You only need to 3 clone shatter your Mind Wrack (F1). The others can be less optimal for general play, and it's better to keep the cds rolling on your weapon skills in 95% of the situations. Great content!

[@OldTime--Gamer]

BASIcally anet made Engineer so much unfun to play even scrapper with these stupid combois, the mech was so fun in the beginning but had to make it play like shit with the rifle. There are so many bs boons and META that is healing healing healing healing healing healing healing healing healing healing healing healing and then CC CC CC CC CC CC CC CC CC CC CC CC wtf is this PVP , WVW became so boring cuz ANET UPDATES ! OPEN WORLD actually doesn't matter if you do 10k dmg or 30k everything is so easy and nerfed. RAIDS tried them few times only hard try hard sweats like they are competeiing for para special game olympics ! WEhen atards start putting all booons to all clases all broke loose to smithereens now can't balance jack shit of any game mode. I think i am done with this game rarely even get pvp pve or wvw dailies anymore. WVW restructuring killed the whole server now is empty as hell, then to wait a whole month to move to another guild F that man. Basically the next Exp will be even wrose than soto and EOD combined, they just milk what they can until they have some user base. Also LW s4 mabs FULLLL OF BOTS ! The perma stealth meta is annoying, the light armor class has more strehnt vitality and armor than heavey class armor wtf.. Also last month in pvp immmortal players, ports from one side of the map to another. etc etc This game became jsut in 1 year so broken and frustrating that it hurts.

[@dukefx32]

Yes, berserker requires a lot of button mashing, but the way you play it is quite mindless. Stick to axe and switch for utility only. I use a staff as secondary and only switch for movement skills or #4 if we absolutely need a little bit more CC. As for axe: F1, #2, #4, plus auto attacks are enough. #5 only during Berserk downtime (it kills boon uptime if you're playing qdps since you need to spam F1). #3 only for range, don't use it even at low health. Since #2 and #4 are basically double strikes, plus you get double adrenaline on crit they will keep your adrenaline up easily for F1 spam. Your utility skills are also in lazy mode. Wild Blow should def. be there. You get adrenaline, berserk extension, fury, and CC all in one.

[@apex403]

I actually swapped from scourge to berserker. I find berserker super relaxing to play (maybe because i have f1 & f2 bound to my mouse buttons) so it was just a dance between left hand - right hand - left hand - right hand. Scourge, I felt like my apm was higher keeping the sand up and going through ALL of the abilities compared to berserker lol Each their own though! appreciate the insight and research you did! Question - which website do you use for builds? Do you reference a few, or did you stick with one website for consistency of creator?

[@Tevesh42]

I think you overestimate difficulty with phases of mirage quite a bit - you give most of alacrity (2.5s) without any clones (extra 0.5s per clone). Also staff 2 is super low cd and instantly gives you a clone, so after a phase you can immediately give 3s of alac after you finish ambush. Sure getting to all 3 clones after every phase sucks, but if your priority is alac uptime it's not so bad. Even better with Self-Deception trait, assuming your healer can provide perfect uptime on regen. Not even talking about how ritualist gear does not lose you much dps and makes alac just always overcap. Also you completely glossed over inherent tankiness of mirage - I love using it for learning CM strikes, because you are just dodging all the time. Also with just very basic rotation (ambush whenever you can, swap weps on cd, maybe shatter F2 if you have time), you give vast majority of your optimal dps, so easy to concentrate on mechanics. All other skills basically give you more boons / dodges. And once again ritu gear makes this even better. So overall mirage is great for beginner. Def better than chrono, swapping to that was painful for a bit for me. But I agree it could use some improvements for phase-heavy fights (or just revert the silly confustion nerf).

[@preshrunk_cyberpunk5479]

"...ahhh didn't you hear Mukluk said Catalyst is a dead class, mmm get out of my party peasant!" echoes through my mind every time i see any Ele now. Including my own 😂

[@methanbreather]

ANET fucked up with EOD. Willbender is too OP in wvw. And anet does nothing Harbinger is OP everywhere and ANET does nothing. Catalyst is total garbage that needs to be redesigned from the ground and anet does nothing. Instead they release pistol on ele. A weapon that is useless wherever there are reflects that adds ANOTHER stupid, unneeded and not asked for mechanic on top of all the other stupid unnecessary mechanics. I am so fed up tbh.

[@john-sally]

Hello Mukluk, I'm sorry I'm late to the party - great video loved it all, really sorry to hear you couldn't make Quick Cata work so I thought I'd give you a hand here as a elementalist enjoyer. I'll start with obvious CONs and things that sadly make this class/spec generaly bad with quickness uptime: 1. some encounters don't even refill your energy when you get in combat, so you have to fill it up out of instance first - this also means when you have to gg and then start encounter again you will run into same issue. 2. when you downstate and get picked up, your energy starts at 0 no matter how full it was before - again huge issue with that outnof the way, let's get to the point of what you pribably ran into.. nowdays meta for catalyst is with sword and warhorn, however the usage of spheres is very different from what it used to be on hammer rotation, which means you use less spheres and thus generate less quickness - this is especially true if you tried to do SnowCrows rotation - so for quickness catalyst I recommend hammer + firework runes (25% boon duration) because even in a static fight like Mursaat Overseer, with 0 boon duration, you will very likely run into uptime issues unless you literally execute the rotation perfectly. with that said, if you ever want to give it a valid try, I recommend hammer as weapon of choice, attunements order as follows: Fire, Air, Water, Earth opener: fire sphere, air sphere, water sphere, then recharge energy on earth and loop spheres like this: earth sphere fire sphere, recharge with air tornado + autoattacks and then air sohere, water sphere and recharge on earth and so on. Unfortunate truth is, while the rotation is not even that difficult to learn, the fact it needs to be executed fast is where people struggle the most - especially when having to move around at the same time in real fights as oppose to static golem. I hope this will shed some light on the build and help you understand maybe why didn't it work to begin with. Have a good day sir

[@mkr767]

The issue with the berserker is that it needs to do INSANE dmg imo to justify not having anything else other than boon+dps to bring to the table. So, what I'm aiming at is that it should do WAYYY more dps than thief (whichever spec it was) to justify its place in a party. Sadly, that's on the Anet's part and not on the players' part, as I still love my berserker and hate that I feel bad playing it in group content (as support dps) since I'm aware how very little uses and perks it actually has for the group...

[@roboblade6046]

Willbender is gaining more boons slowly but surely, being able to give might at a dps loss was a *very* welcome addition EDIT: also, resident boonbender truther here, willbender's alacrity has the same radius as herald's quickness. Granted, most of it's other very few boons are mainly in the blue circles it puts on the boss, but the alacrity range is huge

[@sanguin3]

I guess the reason why Muk didnt put the build with Herald and Bladesworn is because its alac application is extremely unreliable. The meta power alac Willbender build runs with < 10% boon duration so there's pretty much no buffer and your alac will definitely fall off when the boss goes invul.

[@mathiasrojas2712]

i feel like another section could have been CC Also i feel like specter's barrier and heal also are a good thing to take into account. You might not know but scepter/pistol 3 first cast heals even downed people so you can ress from range while moving towards them (really good in q2 pugs in my experience).

[@qwoz2327]

Bladesworn needs love both as an a.dps and regular dps Why do we have a spec that barely works half of the time and doesnt even get rewarded for the fights it plays well? (inb4 "actually it has a 43k bench on w/ all buffs on a training dummy" as if that's actually indicative of a pve environment)

[@NanoAffect]

Quick Deadeye and Power Daredevil use same gear, only difference is the relic, but the difference isnt huge if you use thief for both of them. Power Daredevil says you need axe/pistol but thats only for the opener which means all you need is the staff for both builds.

[@Relhio]

Harbinger teeters the realm of a witch hunter, and since they will use any tools to uproot evil, including using their own magic against them, it does make some sense. Plus it's the only sort of alchemist we have; I don't know what to say about the kung-fu tho.

[@peaceonworldkiwi]

Firebrand Mantras do have a small radius, so if your group is good at stacking, you don't have to worry about aiming the cones. Now, the tomes, however, must be aimed, because they have no radius.

[@l0I0I0I0]

I would love to join your discord and in game guild?

[@dominicgarrett9467]

Quick catalyst main here.. :/ it's not that bad once you figure it out :D piano.. yes... fluent once you figure out the rotation though

[@arianekunzli9903]

Great work Mukluk 👏 Love your PRO content Always good investment of my time

[@maakonis11]

Why on earth Scrapper hammer 2 doesnt generate quickness? only Anet knows....

[@elocfreidon]

Scrapper is what made me learn to master combo fields and I've become a much better player for it. Arenanet needs to make combo fields more prevalent rather than just focus on boon meta.

[@RhoVabien]

As a revenant main with over 1000 hours, mostly playing Herald, I agree with you, I also think that the class has too many tools and it is way too easy.

[@druidicleonnnjj]

I really miss alacrity being on spirits for ranger. I loved playing Untamed Alacrity in Fractals and Strikes.

[@James-cy6ku]

I would say scrapper falls under "Can swap to full dps easily". Great video!

[@sanguin3]

Scrapper still needs some Diviner pieces, the 0% boon duration build is just unmaintainable.

[@l0I0I0I0]

I'm curious. I only play PVE.

[@AATproducer]

Renegade also gives about 63% uptime on fury (could be increased to 100% with relic of the midnightking) and can give a lot of might with his F2 and his fire fields in his rotation

[@Alphenis]

F2 cost energy, and it's only 10 might.

[@AATproducer]

@@Alphenis but with the cool down it is going between 10 and 20. Also as I mentioned you have firefields and on mace even blast finishers. Of course F2 cost energy but is doable.

[@KnotSavage]

yeah i think tempest deserves to be way higher in the easy category, maybe its just the juxtaposition to its other spec but i feel like its easy to execute once you like just understand their abilities

[@ramschasar7654]

So in the endgame i can play a healer now? I really enjoy it in new world. Im basically a gw veteran that loved the first game.

[@luisjosp5]

13:00 Thats why it'd be nice to CUSTOMIZE YOUR UI in this game. That way, you could move around stuff like "clones on ur mesmer", "pages on ur FB", "Heat on ur Holo" & so on...to better track those things...

[@uandubh5087]

I really don't like that most of these can be in full dps gear and still reach 100% boon uptime, just feels wrong.

[@The92Ghost]

Catalyst has a trick when you want to keep up boons. You need to remember that once you spawn the Jade Sphere, you do not build energy, and you have to wait for the JS to expire to rebuild energy, or you can build maximum energy and then go quickly through each element JS to apply it and return on Earth 4 Warhorn to increase that quickness and then to Fire Warhorn 4 to add seconds. Its a bit annoying to keep up with it but when there is way too much moving around you are gonna fall behind on quickness by a lot.

[@elmerserrano3705]

Warrior needs such a huge rework, nothing on it feels good to play. Makes me very sad.

[@blastmanutz7798]

Firebrand needs its boon application to become at least a 360radius and then it will become a blast to play. I might even finally migrate to guardian after playing revenant for so long. Just for some fresh air. But let me tell you, coming to FB after maining Herald is like pushing the self hurt button and enable masochism mode. Holy shit.

[@aWildMoke]

I was thinking of levelling a Firebrand because I thought Guardian looked more fun than Revenant but now i'm second guessing because I see some people say it's easy and others say it's way too hard. I just don't like playing classes if they're flavor of the month and they're probably going to get nerfed soon because they're too good. What's the chances of Firebrand getting buffs before the next expansion do you think?

[@blastmanutz7798]

@@aWildMoke pff getting buffs is anyones guess but FB is indeed kinda at the middle of the road at the moment. Meaning it could get buffed as well as getting no changes if Anet wishes to nerf the overperforming builds down to FB level. If you like the theme of a Guardian do make a FB though, you will be very welcome everywhere basically. It still performs good if played well. Playing it well basically means to have a group that can stack at least somewhat decent and you know to position yourself behind them so your cones hits. Everything else about the class is pretty easy to learn with sufficient skill cap headroom to improve as you learn it more. FB really has a tool for everything minus a clunky res skill but then there's only really necro and ranger that can res good, maybe warrior too but that banner is on a long CD. The rest of us just have to manage ressing the old school way :)

[@TheMikkelet]

How do you keep up Q on untamed? You can only apply lik 5s (with 0 con) every ambush, and weapon swap is like 9s... you'd need some 1500 con to double its duration, and that's a lot of attribs spent on power

[@MuklukYoutube]

A trait resets "ambush" on weapon swap. So every 10 seconds you unleash -> ambush -> weapon swap -> ambush. So you do two ambushes each time the weapon swap cooldown comes up.

[@lazerwolf1997]

Willbender has Holy Reckoning (it's taken almost always) that maintains a lot of might, can get to 25 stacks most of the time. The signet is a "flex" slot and it allows you to bring any utility of Guard's toolbox. The elite is a complete flex slot. Much like Herald and Bladesworn, it has 600 boon range (except for symbols of course). As a Willy enjoyer these are my two cents here. Nonetheless, very entertaining video, fun to watch as always

[@emewyn]

Is there a reason you tried power quick untamed instead of condi? I picked the condi build on Snowcrows because it has a ranged weapon and the benchmark is a little higher, but if power is easier or has some other advantage I might switch.

[@MuklukYoutube]

They were very similar in numbers but power had way more CC in its kit. So I chose that one.

[@tresgrospoutou]

at the end druid is designed like shit for boon....no damage, no other boon...shitty now

[@bjornwrecemocny4725]

I hope, if ANet dont play the game - that they have time to watch Your wideo:)

[@xoawolf]

Why does this 12:26 sound as if it could be played to Song of Storms from Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time? And for some reason that feels fitting for Ele. XD

[@paulminor4707]

the boon "range" Of firebrand mantras has been fixed for a LONG time now. before EoD iirc. you now have a Cone of about 60 degrees at 600 range AND a circle with 450 radius. Boon prio goes as follows: Subgroup in Cone > Subgroup in Circle > Squad in Cone > Squad in Circle > anyone else in Cone > anyone else in circle. you will almost always hit your group and you can even turn away from the main group and go away a few steps to hit a straggler with the cone, and the circle will still give boons to your subgroup. TLDR: Firebrand boon radius is nothing to worry about, just pretend its 450 radius.

[@wild_shaman]

As a casual player I got why my cata faced down. And thinking on switching main untamed to scrapper(Yup, I hammer bonking enjoyer)

[@MuklukYoutube]

Thank you!

[@nhornyak8118]

I'm a herald and I like it. Having the road even for soloing is so op

[@bobiboulon]

Now hear me out: I'm an elementalist enjoyer. I main elementalist. My oldest character is an elementalist. But I despise the current qdps catalyst. However, I love playing catalyst with my homebrewed openworld build, and it includes the quickness trait. But not really for the quickness, more for the other boons that trait gives. I probably have a 50% uptime on quickness, maybe less, and I see this as some kind of small perk on top of the rest.

[@ryancummings2878]

Chrono is the only spec in the game that can fill ANY in a standard group. Power/Condi Dps, Power/Condi Alacrity or Quickness Dps, and Also Heal Alacrity or Quickness. It can tank aswell

[@Warcrafter4]

One thing about Cata I realized is that its just a less good Berserker mechanically: Both gain bar points on hit. Both can use a 10 bar points costing skill to give quickness. Both have to fill their bars to 30 before they can properly give quick(Entering berserk/full jade orb) However Berserker gets utility/Ult skills to near instantly fill up their bar. Meanwhile there is a 5 second bar recharge prevention penalty on Cata whenever they use their quickness skill. So Cata is literally an objectively worse designed Berserker.

[@arkanaloth2617]

I salute your dedication..... *but* I'm concerned for your remaining thin shreds of sanity... LOL :D Cata is rough.. I play cata, I like cata... but I wouldn't go anywhere near quickness cata cause it's hard enough *as is* without trying to keep track of boon up-time and were it not for my Razer Tartarus V2 *AND* Corsair Scimitar I couldn't play Cata at all.

[@Sevard85]

Scrapper can bring stability with Bulwark Gyro tool belt skill - Defense Field. And also it's really easy to swap it to full dps build - you just need replace Kinetic Accelerators trait with Applied Force and get Grenades Kit. Rotation is different though.

[@_zargholl]

Scourge can "swap" to full DPS easily as well. Keeping the ritualist armor on full dps scourge is only around 1k or less than 3% dps loss, nothing big. The alac scourge can also provide full alacrity uptime in full dps gear and even gain damage, but it requires a bit more awareness of the shades and in general we wanted to give players a bit of a padding due to to inconsistent shade targetting system. So yeah, dps scourge can be played with alac gear and vice versa. For harbinger, same thing, they have different sigils and runes if you want to be optimal, but playing both with the same gear is an incredibly minute damage loss. love the vid otherwise btw, huuuuge fan :D

[@lorenasun336]

Thanks for you video Muk! The spreadsheet is fun! Always enjoyable to see how people rank and view a role in this game, and so happy you enjoyed untamed! :) If you (or others) are interested more in some untamed things, boon wise it provides a nice amount of might as default thanks to the quickness trait that got might added to it recently-ish and fury from storm spirit and tiger's f2 (and pet swapping gives both might and fury). You can also trait more boonstrip by taking corrupting vines (which is the default trait given on SC, but some people may not realize it). Iirc, frost trap can be dropped to bring another utility, like stone/frost spirit, "protect me!", etc. if needed! If you wish to provide more boons, however, you can slot m/m+hammer (regen, vigor, protection, more cc, even more self sustain), jungle stalker (more might, plus pet swapping), and water spirit (vigor) or healing spring (condi cleanse)! You lose ~2k dps but you're boon output is on par with (or at least close to) herald, as in you become good at filling in the boon gaps if needed and some boons like might and fury you cover nearly completely. It's a build that not too many people are aware of hence why I wanted to mention it! It's a potential option if your sub's healer isn't doing too hot or in solo heal scenarios where the heal is in the other sub and you need to cover more boons for your sub consequently. As you also mentioned, (hammer+)sw/ax and sw/m are also options, and they actually net around the same dps (~35k) so either option is good! The only thing is that sw/ax has a better burst profile and quicker dps value, so it would be ideal for short phrases and fractals. In general, mace on any ranger class is a bit less forgiving since it requires good loop timing (for off hand mace) and a target to hit (double and off hand mace). Condi quick untamed is also an option in certain cases, but it's usefulness outside of raw dps is much more reduced compared to its power variant and less forgiving toward mistakes. Sometimes dagger ambush can get you into a bit of trouble too. But! It is still a good option on fights like Dhuum, Deimos, 99cm, and 98cm. Its raw dps is very good and can surprise party/squad members if played well!

[@TheTolnoc]

Is it bad that I forget Maces exist as a weapon most of the time?

[@illmattic024]

I got a really cool mace skin out of a black lion chest and I don’t really have any use for it unfortunately