Rate the Primary Attributes

How can you say strength is bad? When you look at the "attribute" you must include the skills that come with it. The str. line has roughly the same amount of skills as the tactics line, which is quite alot, and most of them are useful in different situations.

I would still say fast casting is the worst. Theres no e-management (like most of the other primaries) incorporated in the line, and there are only a few skills in it and require it to be atleast max to be entirely effective. How many mesmer spells take longer than 2 seconds to cast? Most if not all mesmer interrupts are already at 1/4 second cast, and I would like to tell the player who can interrupt a 1/4 cast time consistently to get a life and use their reflexes in a something useful, like a sport. I still argue that fast casting is the worst primary attribute because it does not benefit mesmer skills as greatly as other professions primary does.

Well if you dont have anywhere else to dump your points then putting in strength is better than nothing, similar with eles, most builds only use 2 lines.
Also i thought strength only applies to the base dmg of attack skills, not all hits.

It's not really reflexes if someone's interrupting a 1/4s cast consistently. It's more like experience and being able to predict the enemy's movements (or blind luck and spamming ints <_<). A lot of interrupts themselves are longer than 1/4s, which means that even if you reacted immediately after seeing the casting animation, you couldn't catch the 1/4s spell being cast. However, if you knew beforehand exactly when they'd use it, you'd have a much better chance of firing off an interrupt at the right time. ;x

Why would having many strength skills do anything? The usefulness of a line is defined by how many skills see play, not by how much crap it has that has never been seen in a GvG. Many strength skills also see play without having to invest much, bull's strike, protector's strike, burst of aggression, flail, shield bash have all seen play with 0 strength invested.

If we're talking about linked skills as well, energy storage suddenly shoots up several notches, as does critical strikes.

Imo:

Soul Reaping
Expertise
Divine Favor
Energy Storage
Critical Strikes
Fast Casting
Leadership
Mysticism
Strength
Spawning Power

But how many people are psychic? o.o Which interrupts are longer than 1/4 second in the mesmer line? If you see one, be sure to tell me.

Oh and not linking a primary attribute to skills it has is like the common argument against mesmers: they are conditional. Some work better in certain circumstances, while others do not. That is why I said the skills in the line "must" be included. The only two mesmer skills I've atleast seen some use in is Mantra of Recovery and Power Return, 3 of the 8 skills in the mesmer FC line only work when using signets making it even more useless. The str line of the warrior has skills that have been used or people are using them at the moment. IWAY, Battle Rage, Bulls Strike,Defy Pain, Dolyak Signet, Endure Pain, Flail, Lions Comfort, Rush, Protectors Strike, SPRINT. Just to name a few I am familiar with. *Not all of those are being used at the moment but have been at sometime or another in high level PvP(ex. Protectors Strike w/ a hammer makes the hammer attack quickly like with distracting blow and was used extensively in the past) or in PvE.

It's not psychic to know that a monk who just got a key spell interrupted is likely to use it again as soon as it recharges (just an example).

Also, you never specifically stated that the skill interrupting the 1/4s cast was a mesmer skill, just that most mesmer interrupts are 1/4s. I never said mesmer interrupts were longer than 1/4s, just that some interrupts were.

You make m laugh no offense to any wars but wars are MAINLY used as tanks in PvE and strenght is essential for that. Divine Favor and Soul Reaping are the best.

1. Expertise/Energy Storage are the same

1 1/2. Fast Cast

2. Leadership/Mysticism/Soul Reaping for energy

3. Divine Favor/Spawning More Healing

4. Critical Strikes/Strength Damage

Str essential for tanking..since when? tactics is superior

I can run Droknar and all of South Shiverpeaks with a Me/W or Me/A.

Strength is terrible.

You're "special" though the average joe runner uses str..

But I was referring to mesmer skills. Fast casting makes skills cast faster, therefore I was implying in my post that even without fast casting, a mesmer can still interrupt just as well as with it by using mesmer interrupts. I was trying to say (although confusingly) that since any class but a mesmer without fast casting while using skills are more easily interrupted when casting longer spells. These spells are usually to do massive damage or are more frequently used. Most mesmers bring atleast one type of interrupt in their bar when running a dom mesmer(most common mesmer) and some even only bring interrupts. If they are using those spells that are doing "massive damage" like the other classes, the cast time is still only 1/4 second, and interrupting something like that is extremely hard. I don't really think a mesmer would try to use distracting blow/disrupting chop or savageshot seriously. =/

well lets see I mite seem nooby but call me old school. Dolyak+Defy+endure=close to a freakin 55

Expertise is the greatest in my opinion with attributes like mysticism being pretty low.

And you're outta energy...tanks shouldn't be all defense so you'd need energy for attacking unless you went adren

well let's see Dolyak Signet=signet so no energy, Defy Pain=low adrenaline, endure Pain=5 energy so I used 5 energy and some adrenaline for not being able to be knocked down +62 armor, and + 628 health at 16 strenght. It seems worth it to me and that's only 3 skill slots so with a res you have 4 slots for attack skills.

Hahaha what?

I would have to say:

Soul Reaping
Expertise
Critical Strikes
Mysticism
Energy Storage
Spawning Power
Fast Casting
Strength
Divine Favor
Leadership

Very wrong.



12chars

Excluding Aura of Restoration, Energy Storage is 100% energy management. And I don't see better energy management than having 100 MP with 4 pips of regeneration, excluding Soul Reaping.
and ... Only newb melee get owned by casters. The same "newb" flaming story in a balanced game.

If you take into consideration that each primary has it's own skills, spawning power has energy management too.
A spawning spec'd ritualist halves their spell costs with attuned up. I think it's important to acknowledge all the skills linked to a primary rather than just taking the passive effect a primary gives. The primary skills still greatly differentiate the classes, as their is only 1 way to use primary skills at higher than 1, spells only, with another profession.
Note: I said higher than 1 because I'm guessing you can get it to 1 from god's blessings.

Energy Storage skills are all about energy management, because the attribute's effect itself is most definitely not energy management. Energy management is basically about augmenting your natural energy regeneration in the middle of battle; all a bigger energy pool does is let you fire off a bigger opening salvo, and eat exhaustion easier. Bigger energy pool != e-management.

A larger energy pool is not Energy management. Energy Storage skills are great energy management - in particular Ether Prodigy, however, having a larger energy pool is not energy management - Energy Storage itself as an attribute isn't energy managment.

As a mostly pve player, i rate Soul Reaping very high. Not in the least because you can use it freely with just about any spellcasting secondary.
Also, it's funny during the mad king party.

all crap except Soul Reaping :x

It looks like nobody at all is reading the first post.

It specifically states to IGNORE THE SKILLS ATTACHED TO THE ATTRIBUTE.

We are weighing the inherent effects against one another, and nothing more.

So, basically you wanted dervishes to get a lot of energy and a lot of healing with enchantments... hummm... i see... and do you consider it balanced?

You dont like Strenght? Have you ever tried to use a warrior him 16 Hammer and 13 Strenght? Its simply devastating. Maybe if you started thinking outside the box and stopped playing only with sword you would see that hammer what you are looking for; big numbers popping on the screen. And dont get me that crap that you also use hammer because if you do, you are the exception. (no wonder the prices of hammers are ridiculously low compared to sword)
Hammer is the word when you think of extreme physical damage, nothing in the game will deal more damage in melee then hammer.
Axes will work fine with strenght 8-80 of the time, since you can deal ridiulously low dmg or extremely high critials.
Since you play with sword, strenght will work avaragely well. Dont like the damage? Play with Hammer

Critials are just awsome, i hardly ever use a normal attack with my assassin.

I consider Fast Casting a bit sad, since there is no point of having 16 points on fast casting because it would give about the same cast bonus as it were 12 or 10. And hardly ever you see a good build wich requires skills from other classes with high casting times, wich the other profession couldnt easly overmatch =/
Someone suggested that it could increase the chance of reducing the cast time, thats not a bad idea, not bad at all

Spawning power could have +5% bonus, or not, maybe 4,5%, 4% is just to low, they are already easly killed and todays skills still makes spirits too fragile, like Spiritual Pain.

I would prefer that Expertise would work only on ranger skills, im tired of seeing ranger playing other professions role.

The rest i got nothing to say.

Yes do I play GW and have been since it started. But I'm not sure YOU do. and I KNOW you can't read. If you had then you would of seen my saying GW is not JUST a pvp game. If GW was JUST a pvp game why are the majority of the people in the PVE areas, and playing the PVE part of the game. Also why does GW even have PVE areas? I know thinking is hard for you pvp types but you really should try it some time.

Once again you have proved you can not or do not read peoples post before replying. I said I that me my self ALONE does not see the use for expertsie but I sure that people who use HIGH energy ranger skills DO. You did know right that you had to get rank 12 in expertise for it to lower the energy cost that much did'nt you ? Probley not. I bet you aslo did'nt know you would have to spend all most half your arrribute points in order to do so.

As I said before IF your useing HIGH energy skills then Expertise is GOOD. If your a B/P ranger like ME. IN MY OPINION its not worth the investment. If I have Expertise at rank 12. That leaves me with 103 AP left. Since I aslo need marksmanship at 12 as I'm a B/P ranger that leaves me with 6 points. Not enough to get a decent rank in Beast mastery. Let alone points in Wilderness survival for troll ugnent or in healing prayers for a self heal.

Spawning power is kinda useless unless you are using spirits that inerently lose life (Union, Shelter, etc). When I PVP with my Rit (which isn't often anymore since everyone hates Rits in PVP, myself included) I don't put any points into Spawning at all unless they're leftovers that won't go anywhere else. If you're using offensive spirits you can get by with 0 SP and not tell the difference. People are trying to kill YOU, not your summons, most of the time.

Spawning Power should also affect the duration of summoned spirits. Then it might be useful.

Anyone who doesn't think Expertise is useful ought to consider that the attribute itself got nerfed. Bunny Thumpers, Touch Rangers (which have mostly gone away, thank goodness) come to mind...

If Lion's Might hadn't gotten pre-nerfed to hell (disable sigs for 12 seconds? Thanks imbAnet, we MIGHT want to rez our teammates sometimes...), Strength might have been more viable outside of PVE. The extra armor penetration is a joke, ask any Thumper if they really miss it. Hell, Penetrating Blow has 20% AP and how often do you see that in PVP? Someone already said, Sprint and Rush are the only reasons for using Strength in PVP anyway. Set it to 9 if you can't dump the points elsewhere, then forget it's even there.

Divine Favor is awesome, period. PVE or PVP, it kicks butt. Of course, that goes without saying.

Energy storage is only needed because the damn skills either cost too much or cause exhaustion. You play Monk primary for Divine Favor, not because of Divine Favor. DF is a bonus. ES is a workaround. People who play Ele primary do so because the skill requirements are ridiculous. Most other casting classes get by fine with 45-55 energy and 4 pips. Someone said that ES is energy management in itself, but that's not quite true. Energy management is getting energy and conserving energy, not having a boatload of energy. My ele runs at 80+ base energy, and I got decimated by a Me/N who ate me alive with e-denial because I had too much. The best ele e-management skills (non-elite) are the attunements, and they're not specced in Energy Storage.

Fast Casting has me somewhat confused anyway. The Mesmer has very few spells with ridiculously long casts (thank goodness Diversion is 3 seconds, as it is easily the most powerful spell in the entire game). And many of their interrupts are also e-management, since they give you energy and interrupt your foe at the same time, but those are already 1/4 second. I see FC more useful for spikes than anything else, since you can chain off a series of spells in a short amount of time. FC air spike, anyone? But FC does not increase or decrease the utility of spells.

Soul Reaping, well its value is much higher in PVE for obvious reasons. Blood spike teams can benefit from it in higher levels of play, since quick kills are expected. But if nobody dies...

Perhaps we're not thinking about same b/p.

In my definition in b/p is where you run b/p so that pets die and provide corpses for MM. In addition, b/p teams bring monks, so you don't need self heal, since as soon as MM gets the momentum, you either won't be taking damage, or the damage will be way above what troll unguent can outheal.

If anything, expertise has always been very apreciated with barrage builds, since it allows you to spam barrage indefinitely. Even more, you don't need a single beast master skill, since your pet is just minion fodder, and the faster it dies the better.

But then again, the only place where I ran b/p were tombs and urgoz, at those were all with 16 marks/13 expertise.

Not sure why I feel the need to reply to you when I know you'll just disregard my points as a PvPer's trash, but eh. Can't blame me for trying.

http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/showp...8&postcount=33

Lol. Sure, you clarified later by adding "just", but the point remains that you said it, Mr. PvE.

Wait, so you do see the use in it, when you claim to not see the use in it. <_< I'm aware of the ranks of expertise and the reduction, but thanks for the reminder, Mr. PvE.

R/Mo using Healing Prayers, I'll be sure to invite you into my next group. Anyway, Expertise rocks, regardless of whether you use it or not. Not going into much detail, since Antheus covered why Expertise rocks even for B/P pretty well.

for someone who played the game for a long time you sure aren't very experience and not very knowledgable about the game

You overestimate the effect of FC (at 16 a 2s spell would be 1.05s), but yes, I'd rather cast 2s spells in 1.5s than have 90 energy, because max energy by itself does very little. Unless you have energy management, estorage will let you cast X more spells (where X isn't too large... probably between 3 and 6) and then sit there being useless.

Many people already stated that this is wrong, but here's some solid math to back them up:

Let's pick a skill that's affected by both expertise and estorage... say, vampiric touch. It has 3/4s cast and 3/4s aftercast, so if you spam it, the cycle is 1.5s.

E/N @ 16 estorage, 98 energy, +1.33e/s (4 pips)
Vampiric touch effectively costs 13.005e, since you recover 1.995 per cycle
98/13.005 = 7.5 casts
(Ele's energy pool lasts him 11.3 seconds)

R/N @ 16 expertise, 40 energy, +1e/s (3 pips)
Vampiric touch effectively costs 3.5e, since you recover 1.5e per cycle
40/3.5 = 11.4 casts
(Ranger's energy pool lasts him 17.1 seconds)

Here, energy storage gave the ele a huge headstart (since that's what estorage does) and he still lost. Now that both of them had run dry, let's see just how much expertise outclasses energy storage:

E/N's vamp touch costs 15 and recovering 1.33e/s, he can use it once every 11.2 seconds.
R/N's vamp touch costs 5 and recovering 1.0e/s, he can use it once every 5.0 seconds.

Of course, expertise doesn't affect the cost of spells, because if it did, it would be broken in half. However, the point is that energy storage simply sucks, not what expertise can and can't be used for. Let's look only at the E/N spamming vampiric touch (or, searing flames, doesn't matter in this case) over one minute, as opposed to 11.3 seconds:

16 Estorage (98 energy) = 7.5 casts in first 11.3s
+ naturally recovering energy for the remaining 48.7s:
48.7/11.2 = 4.34
7.5+4.34 = 11.84 casts in 1 minute

0 Estorage (50 energy) = 3.84 casts in first 5.76s
+ naturally recovering energy for the remaining 54.24s:
54.24/11.2 = 4.84
3.84+4.84 = 8.68 casts in 1 minute

Less than 40% difference for half of your attribute points and the results will only be getting worse if the time is increased. So, eles, do yourself a favour - take out some points from estorage and take something useful, like gale, or leech signet, or steam.

I can't believe you think what you just said is even remotely true... A large energy pool is NOT energy management... the second you finally run out of energy, you may as well have an energy pool of 25. Energy mangement is either reducing the cost of skills, thus gaining enough energy back through your natural regen that you never run out, OR simply having a steady supply flowing in on top of the natural +4 regen, so those expensive energy costs are not so taxing.

Energy storage SKILLS provide energy management, the inherent effects of the attirbute do not.

See pic above if you still beg to differ.

As I've said before - In general Expertise = best, and strength = worst. OMG str SUXXXXXX!

...or Ether Prodigy?

This coming from a pvp'er:

• Expertise. Rangers are one of two classes that can use any secondary because of their incredible energy management. They can take any overpriced skill in the game and make it broken easily. Nerf expertise anet, kthx.

BTW nice post alleji, but you forgot touch rangers killed themselves with OoB because I backfired them.

Also alleji, expertise now affects some spells.

• Divine Favor. There's a reason why primary monks are the best healers. This is it.
• Soul Reaping. Like rangers, necromancers can have an infinite energy supply if put in the right build. It's the sole reason why necros are the best holding classes for HoH.
• Energy Storage. The great thing about eles is that you can use gale a quadragajillion times before your energy gets low.
• Leadership. In small teams, paragons are the garbage class. In HA, GvG, or PvE, they can give themselves a huge influx of energy by spamming adrenaline based shouts. Even having Watch Yourself going up every 6 seconds gives them the equivalent of 3 energy regen if it affects 6 people, letting them spam their energy based shouts/chants later.
• Mysticism. The health gain is laughable, but the energy is what counts on a Dervish. With the skill selection they ahve, plus prot monk support, they can keep their energy up relatively easily while spamming attacks at the same time.
• Critical Strikes. Great with daggers and double strikes, bad on any other weapon. The only other way to abuse this attribute is to wield a scythe and average 60 damage per hit.
• Fast Casting. One of two primary attributes not linked to energy. Its uses are few. Putting it too low makes no difference in cast times, putting it too high restricts your other attributes.
• Spawning Power. So...a select few skills in the game make weak creatures slightly less weak. Weak.
• Strength. Armor penetration, even at rank 16, makes such a small difference that I usually only put 9 str into my warriors for the shield. Absolutely the worst primary attribute.

Congratulations, you pointed out the only valid reason to put more than 6 points into estorage. Want a cookie or something?

Not all eles run eprod... anet released 2 more elite skills for eles in nightfall. (Another cookie if you can name them.)

Shock horror you got something right for once. Your points ARE just pvers trash. Sure I can blame you. After all pvpers are to blame for everything thats wrong with GW are'nt they

If this IS a PVP game why are thier PVE areas and why are the MAJORITY of people who play this game in THOSE areas. Surely if this was a pvp game it would have NO pve areas and therefore NO pve players.

Yet another case of your inability to read english and people posts before replying. As I said I do NOT see the use for MY ranger to use expertise as I mostly use skills which costs 5 energy. BUT I could see the use for it IF other rangers where to use HIGH energy skills.

Like I would ever join a pve group full of "pro" pvpers . I did that once in tombs and it was the WROST group I EVER played with. They could'nt even clear the first lvl. I never said that expertise was BAD for everyone. Just that I did not see the use for it on MY ranger and that he does not use it. I could'nt care less if you think thats a bad idea or not.

As for B/P in tombs the GOOD groups take Winnowing which need Wilderness Survival, and a good lvl in that as well. So how you supposed to get that when you have put all your points in to Expertise and Marksmanship is intresting. Aslo if you have 0 points in Beast Mastery your skills are disabled for 10 seconds every time your pet dies. Which annoying to say the least. Aslo it will only rez at 10% of max health. Which is not good if your in need of something to protect you from a Grasp of Insanity or other nasties there.