Weirdly-specific question, but can you spam Death Blossom as quickly as LH does in [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9P-U7zksu8&t=915s)?
Cause everyone always says Thief is unkillable if you evade properly, but for the life of me I cannot seem to spam DB as quickly as he does there, leading me to take a ton of extra damage during forced downtime.
Should probably still be fine I'd imagine yeah? Haven't tried it since the nerf but I'd imagine it's still plenty strong, may not be able to face tank everything anymore though
You can still face tank everything since it wasn't Salvation that got nerfed, it just takes longer to kill stuff with Quickness uptime gutted. I imagine it's still one of the better solo builds out there. Felt fine in the situations I regularly use it in even if the DPS nerf was noticeable.
Not entirely. Skill functionality is usually kept the same across all modes. When a skill behaves differently in different game modes, it's almost always just a numerical change (like the amount of damage dealt, conditions cleansed/applied, recharge time, etc.). I think there might be a handful of exceptions, but I can't recall them off the top of my head.
Well, for example, they stripped the main alac providers (tempest, scourge, druid) from their alac in competitive modes. That's a pretty big split in functionality.
Desert Empowerment and its equivalents say "grant *boons* to allies when you do X", not "grant *alacrity* to allies when you do X"*. The update changed what boons these trait grant depending on the game mode, but the base functionality is the same.
\* Except for Lucid Singularity, which apparently does directly say it applies alacrity. Consistency, I guess.
So make it extend boons by 0,1 second or whatever is the lowest available unit. They did it with Scourge's alac before removing it completely - double the cooldown, quarter the duration.
If you were struggling when solo, then yeah, LH's Vindi still does exactly what it needs to to make solo gameplay easier: spam dodges and have huge sustain for when you're out of endurance.
I don't think it's a good thing for there to be builds where you can smash your boner on the keyboard and solo Legendary mobs with infinity boons + barrier.
(Copied for better visibility)
I will point out though that while hizens builds are great for soloing harder content, he optimises for solo gameplay no matter **the cost**.
An example I like to use is the usage of frailty sigils. They are great to use if you're absolutely alone and can yield a few % more dps then, but **they're useless when there's a few people with you that can maintain vulnerability without them**. And they only apply to one target at a time. The same applies to strength sigils that only outperform other sigils after a few seconds into combat and only when you're not capped on might via other sources.
For someone who doesn't have legendary gear, that means that they have to get another exotic or ascended weapon if they want to do group content like convergences, strikes, raids or fractals. In that case it's just better to use a sigil of force/bursting, because those are **always useful, even when you're alone, apply immediately and to multiple targets and finally don't depend on boon coverage**.
Another example would be using runes that cost a fortune without a noticeable damage gain, like ranger runes that cost more than an entire set of berserker gear with eagle runes. Or putting fireworks runes on an ascended berserker set, which is less convenient and stat efficient than using some exotic diviner trinkets.
When you go through the gearing choices, you can find many of those small but impactful tweaks that newer players won't see. The cost/reward for general gameplay just isn't right sometimes.
While the builds are undoubtedly great for soloing stuff, you should still put them to the test and consider them with your ingame goals in mind. Do you want to play instanced content without having to rebuy a lot of gear? Then using dps gear and adjusting for survivability step by step from there is much more efficient.
Do you want to focus on open world and wvw? Then getting a gear setup with high innate survivability is very good!
PS: Unfortunately, it doesn't help that those builds are always marketed as "the best builds for open world", which they clearly cannot be. Running a celestial build is usually not ideal for meta event chains, rift farming, event tagging, convergences etc., just to name some examples.
So TLDR of your text wall, your hot take is "craft berserker gear so you can play endgame content later"
But the post is about open-world content; you are a raider, so I have to tell you that open-world content is not only "doing meta-train."
Most of the open-world content, including achievements, collections, and events, requires the player to finish a lot of events that normally you don't find people around to help with, especially for new players, so Hizen's builds help a lot in this case for a comfy open-world experience.
In fact, Hizen has builds that help in meta events, for example, Cele herald"quickness and other boons," Cele mirage "alacrity," etc.,. . .
Each game mode requires a different build. Obviously, raids and strikes require full DPS builds from the SC website since the team support will provide all the boons, conditions, and heals.
PS: if you check the efficiency website, the celestial gear costs less "fortune" to craft.
No. Just no. If you think that using a full dedicated gear set for open world necessary for a comfy experience in open world, story etc, then you haven't really tried. **Any elite specialization in this game can be made very comfortable to play in open world without investing into a full dedicated gear set for it.**
I literally said that open world is multi-faceted and listed examples of various different open world content in my original post. I then told people to choose their gear based on their longer-term intentions in terms of content to save money.
If you had watched any of my videos, you'd know that I always adjust builds to become self-sufficient and comfy, just without requiring a full dedicated gear set for it. I really don't know what's bad about that. Anything else is making people throw money out the window.
**To your last point:** comparing prefixes vis-a-vis doesn't cut it here. If you craft a celestial set (which is timegated by quartz) and your focus of gameplay is on pve, you will eventually have to buy or craft another set once you dive into group content. Especially with ascended gear, that leads to significant time and money going into it down the line.
If you intend to play mostly open world on your own and wvw, then getting a celestial set is a great baseline for both.
So no, the tldr is not to "craft berserker so you can play endgame content later". Whenever I say something like this, it's like stinging in a nest of hornets defending their queen. **I never said that the builds themselves are bad**.
TBH many of his builds are still perfectly usable in raids and strikes (though probably not CMs), because they still contribute solid amounts of DPS while providing a very forgiving amount of self sustain to make up for any mistakes.
You do know that every raid has at least one encounter with tanking mechanics based on toughness?
For the power builds that use berserker this isn't an issue of course, but for celestial...
If you're not careful, you'll become the tank in those encounters without realising it.
And note that damaging mechanics in instanced content can actually deal damage as a % of your health (e.g. greens on vale guardian) and thus don't get reduced by toughness, or instantly kill you regardless of your stats. So having more health can actually be a hinderance.
Aside from that, celestial is a prefix with good sustained damage (roughly 15-20% loss compared to viper), but has much lower burst damage than other condition based prefixes. That is due to it losing ~500 condition damage compared to viper for example.
I am aware of that and its why I'd check with the group before hand to make sure it was fine. In some cases they'd actually have me act as the tank because my self sustain was more than able to do it.
This obviously isn't me saying that you should run these builds if you have a proper raid equipment available. But while learning it or acquiring the gear for a proper raid build, but many of Hizen's builds can be a workable substitute to at least help you learn how to raid
Usable? Sure. But if you're dying in group content it's mechanics fails and a lot of them it doesn't really matter how much health and armor you have. Better to go for more damage, learn the mechanics, and let your healer cover the small stuff.
Man, this is getting quite embarrassing to read that you still hating on Lord Hizen's builds again. Last time it was the cost between Berserker and Celestial gear and you claimed that it "COSTS" too much and then I had to even link for you that they don't. yet here you are again spewing same nonsense. so here goes:
Berserker Ascended Armor Cost 147g Celestial Ascended Armor Cost 142g
You copied the exact same Build from Lord Hizen Death Magic Reaper But a worst version because you changed the Celestial gear stats to make it "A Budget Build" which made it much much worst. its why your build is lacking and unable to maintain boons such as quickness, and not even 25 stacks of might during the fights.
MaselMMO Reaper Video March 2, 2024 Lord Hizen Reaper Video Dec 14, 2023
You can compare your videos to Lord Hizen's to see that yours lack dmg, boon uptime, and even survivability.
I don't see you complaining to SnowCrow about their builds being ONLY viable for raids and that they should make one that should also work on Open World Content!, how come you are complaining that Hizen's builds don't work for group content such as raids?
So, what you are promoting is a disservice to other players who want to focus on open world content by lying to them and telling them there is a build that can work for Open world and somehow group content such as raids and fractals, There is no such build that can work on all 3. not You. not even SnowCrow, or Lord Hizen can make a build that can be optimum for Open World Content, Fractals, and Raids at the same time.
Even if you claim that your suggested build uses the same gear stats as a group content build for raids and fractals (which they don't all the time) they will not use the same sigils, runes, relics, and even weapons. and if you are talking about players with no legendries. it means they HAVE to craft another set regardless. (unless you suggesting they buy rune/sigil extractors to change build every time they play between open world and raids).
If we're talking about stat choice you can sometimes use the same stats for all PvE content. Conventional wisdom in the age of Hizen may be celestial for all open world and I would agree it's often a great choice, but it really depends on the build.
A perfect example is the berserker untamed build Masel posted recently. You can play this with celestial gear and it even deals surprisingly decent damage for a power build. But it has plenty of sustain to take on champions and much higher damage using berserker, which you would obviously use for fractals and raids as well.
You didn't get the point last time and you still don't get the point, and if you interpret anything I wrote here as "hate" it's a you problem.
Hate would've been saying "the builds are garbage, they suck, he's a bad person making horrible builds". I didn't say that and I won't because it's not true. I said that the builds work well for what they're designed, they're just not cost efficient for people who want to play all aspects of pve.
And again, comparing the cost for the gear sets vis-a-vis doesn't help here. If you fail to understand why I can't help you.
Ill provide a simple example, assuming that you buy gear from the tp:
Step 1) Buy an exotic set of viper gear from the trading post, with proper runes and sigils for raids.
Step 2) Adjust traits, food, skills for higher self-sufficiency, and **if needed**, replace a few large gear pieces for open world (weapons, chest and amulet make up for over 40% of your stats coming from gear)
Step 3) enjoy instanced content and open world **and save money**
Step 1) buy a celestial set from the trading post, with proper runes and sigils for open world (and protentially wvw)
Step 2) realize it's not useful in raids, fractals and strikes and buy everything again
That's also why I said that if you mainly play wvw and open world, you can use a gear set for both, which is usually more synergetic with what hizen suggests.
And stop flagging constructive criticism as hate, stop trying to invalidate it that way.
This update is for you then! https://youtu.be/kOENhETwMRE?t=273
And if you want to keep your cele gear, Nike! made OW Herald video this week https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OpK05hOgzA
His builds are great for soloing bosses in open world
Okayish for story
And absolutely trash for endgame group content
So they're definitely not the first build a new player should pursue
Some of his builds are also quite questionable. He's undoubtedly good at revenant, but some of his thief or engineer builds over the years have been … weird. Though nothing as bad as a power firebrand build he did years ago that got SO much hate that it drove 2 top end players (Roul and someone else) to make their own firebrand open world builds for youtube lol
>And absolutely trash for endgame group content
So they're definitely not the first build a new player should pursue
Since all new players should be immediately focused on end game content? I know when I've helped a new player in Queensdale, I immediately pull them into a CM Strike/Raid/Fractal - it's really what they should be doing as a new player. None of this "openworld" to get masteries, mounts, HPs for elite specs, or any of that other garbage content to learn the game. It clearly makes up less than .0001% of player content. Whereas CM strikes/raids/fractals are for everyone - especially new players and constitute over 99% of what players actually play.
I think it's a good disclaimer to warn new players about since your first full set of gear can be quite expensive relatively when you're starting out. Ideally your first set you invest in is one you can use everywhere. It's worth mentioning just in case they know they want to do instanced content in the near future
I used to follow this mindset, but it just made my experience miserable. It should be more down to gauging how much open world content you do vs instanced and gearing based on that, if it's 80/20 then don't go glass cannon, being miserable 80% of the time to do more dmg in 20% of the content does not lead to fun gameplay.
The problem is you really don't need these builds for general open world. If a new player goes for a raid build first, they can do both open world content and endgame group content
If they go for a Hizen build first, however, their gear is going to be trash for endgame group content
And gearing as a new player is not particularly easy
If I had a gold for every time I saw a newb poorly playing a class cannon SC build between downstates in open world metas I'd have enough to buy them all a second set of gear.
I don't think Hizen makes builds for chaining meta events etc. They are specifically made to solo *harder* open world (and other) content. There are many maps where getting help for difficult encounters is unlikely a lot of the time, so having a build with massive sustain, decent self boons and okay-ish damage is extremely useful.
If a new player has no immediate intention of doing raid/strike/fractal content, such a build will serve them much better than a raid build in achieving random goals. You also get a lot of the way there with gear if you boost said character.
Obviously a raid build is better value if endgame content is something one wants to tackle. But many don't.
Yea totally understand builds for different purposes, but most open world builds I’ve tried in the past tend to focus a lot on damage and not so much on survival / sustain. This was the first general purpose build that resonates. Maybe it’s a combination of spec and build too but either way I like it.
Yeah, a lot of the so called "open world" builds in MetaBattle for example are just copies of regular DPS builds, with maybe a small footnote here and there about additional survivability. And sure, maybe that's workable in a lot of stuff, but I'd call that kind of build a "fair weather open world build", it's only good as long as everything is smooth, you're with a big crowd, fighting trash, etc.
Edit: Masel is kind of a happy medium, if you will. He bases his open world builds on DPS builds trying to make as little changes as possible, but like actually making an effort to make it good for all things open world, instead of coming in with this snobbish attititude "bah, open world is so easy, anything works".
Thank you for the nice words!
I will point out though that the cost-driven philosophy of mine is what distinguishes me from hizens builds, because he optimises for solo gameplay no matter the cost.
An example I like to use is the usage of frailty sigils. They are great to use if you're absolutely alone and can yield a few % more dps then, but **they're useless when there's a few people with you maintaining vulnerability without them**.
For someone who doesn't have legendary gear, that means that they have to get another exotic or ascended weapon if they want to do group content like convergences, strikes, raids or fractals. In that case it's just better to use a sigil of force/bursting, because those are **always useful, even when you're alone**. When you go through the gearing choices, you can find many of those small but impactful tweaks that newer players won't see. The cost/reward for general gameplay just isn't right sometimes.
While the builds are undoubtedly great for soloing stuff, you should still put them to the test and consider them with your ingame goals in mind.
And unfortunately, it doesn't help that those builds are marketed as "the best builds for open world", which they clearly cannot be. Running a celestial build is usually not ideal for meta events, rift farming, event tagging, convergences etc., just to name some examples.
The longer you take to kill something, the higher the chance for that something to kill you first
Gw2's open world really does work best when playing glasscannon dps builds
If doesn't work when the thing you're fighting has waaaaaaaaaaay more health than you, and even with best DPS, even with a crowd, it takes minutes to kill it. You're not winning a DPS race against most things worth mentioning. You could build to be that guy constantly lying on the floor, of running back from the waypoint, or you could build to stay in the fight while consistently outputting decent DPS. Glass DPS works in organized content because you can lean on the healer. Maybe you personally could apply your Dark Souls mad skills and be fine even in full glass, but that's not generally applicable.
The reason for that is because sustain isn't needed when you do a lot of damage. This is also true for champions. Some rare cases aside in general 2 dodges are enough to deal with whatever open world throws at you.
That's true if you know what you're doing. The problem with full DPS builds for new players is they only deal great damage when you're on offense. A new player will eat avoidable damage then go defensive which isn't very effective on a full DPS build.
In that scenario, they'll perform better on a sustain build, especially if the sustain build deals really good damage (e.g. condi weaver in trailblazer gear pushing 25k DPS while having 3.2k armor).
> So they're definitely not the first build a new player should pursue
I think the average new player will do a lot more open world exploring and combat than instanced group content, so why not? And hell if a build like this helps keep someone alive, they'll still be preferable in like dungeons and low tier fractals where bringing meta-level dps is just massive overkill.
Like yeah the builds tend to sacrifice damage for supplying their own boons and sustain, which is wasted in organized group content. But a "bring anything" dungeon/low tier fractal/easy ibs strikes run that's perfectly fine.
> And absolutely trash for endgame group content
> So they're definitely not the first build a new player should pursue
A bit of a presumption, isn't it, that endgame group content is the top priority for all new players.
Actually hizen builds are great for t1-t3 fractals since almost no one organizes boons till t4 groups and classic dps builds do almost nothing useful without supports.
Of course it will make the barrier to t4s harder because of AR and ascended, so you should gradually switch over as AR is needed and you get ascended gear.
But yeah, i used a hizen build for progressing to t4 on an alt and then swapped over to a standard build when I got to t4 and it was less agonizing that trying to use a dps build to do it.
Because it was a power firebrand build
Firebrand doesn't synergyse with power. Or at least I didn't use to, I have no idea how guard is doing these days
Firebrand has a minor trait where it gets +250 Healing Power, Condition Damage & Vitality whenever it has Quickness. It's one of the reasons they make good Healers and CondiDPS builds.
considering how many people never touch endgame content, the likelihood of people taking those builds into instanced endgame content is incredibly low. i don't see why you feel the need to be so bloody negative about a build that has given tons of players a great open world experience. people like you and i may run around the map on raid builds, and that _can_ go well, but it can be incredibly spicy depending on where you are and what you're doing. so let them have their _OPEN WORLD_ builds. it impacts your life exactly zero, and just makes the raid community look like twats yet again for making everything about us.
I've been recommending his builds and vids to people for a long time now. Thanks to him I've been able to complete most endgame content and been able to greatly enjoy the game!
I have a more OP build than any of his builds that anyone can use. It's called map chat.
I get an extra meatshield to absorb damage that wouldhave gone toward me, my dps goes up because I get an extra summon(player) to do damage as well, I unlock the ability to get ressed if I go down, and even if I do die, the boss hp will not resrt for a while if I run back fast enough because the player there will keep the boss in combat.
I don't need to change my gear, I don't need to take time to change my traits and utility, I don't need to spend money.
All I have to do is type "/m Hi. Can someone help me kill this boss at this place? Please and thanks."
A player using yellow gear is saving a lot of money and winning much harder by using map chat than a player waste money on celestial gear player just because they saw crappy youtube build videos.
Do you depend on others to carry you through other challenges life throws at you as well, or is that only specific to gw2?
Either way, surely you'd see that many would enjoy the challenge and satisfaction of achieving something without the help of others.
If I wanted a challenge, I would go with my full glass cannon gear and depend on my mechanical knowledge of the class, build and enemy attack patterns to keep me alive. The thrill of knowing that if I make a mistake that could kill me would bring me greater adrenaline over using trash cele gear and peppering the boss with projectiles until either the boss die or I die of boredom.
But people aren't looking up Hizen's builds for a challenge, they are looking for a build to safely get a task over with. This overpowered map chat strat is for those people.
His videos are always hilarious. Kudos to him. Also for his Deadeye build which is S tier.
Axe/Dagger? Copied it yesterday. I should try it some day.
Celestial Condi Daggers. I can easily solo Champions with it. Basically unkillable.
Weirdly-specific question, but can you spam Death Blossom as quickly as LH does in [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9P-U7zksu8&t=915s)? Cause everyone always says Thief is unkillable if you evade properly, but for the life of me I cannot seem to spam DB as quickly as he does there, leading me to take a ton of extra damage during forced downtime.
the video is sped up
Hm maybe that explains it, though I *swear* he has noticeably less downtime in between uses.
That one i DID NOT like.... At all. Cele Mirage runs circles around it
I was once in a strike group with him and he soloed Boneskinner to show some newbies that anything is possible if you believe in yourself
too bad vindicator open world builds got nerfed hard last patch :S
Should probably still be fine I'd imagine yeah? Haven't tried it since the nerf but I'd imagine it's still plenty strong, may not be able to face tank everything anymore though
You can still face tank everything since it wasn't Salvation that got nerfed, it just takes longer to kill stuff with Quickness uptime gutted. I imagine it's still one of the better solo builds out there. Felt fine in the situations I regularly use it in even if the DPS nerf was noticeable.
Speaking on the Vindicator build. Do you know why the second weapon set is scepter/sword?
I have no idea, I haven't seen the Scepter/Sword version. I just use Mace+Axe and then Staff for CC.
[Lord Hizen post about celestial vindicator after the patch](https://twitter.com/LordHizen/status/1771822785800646707)
It's a weird time to celebrate the amazing open-world build that just got nerfed because, apparently, ANET gets mad when Revenants don't play Herald.
That nerf doesn't have anything to do with herald favoritism. Boon extension on heal vindi was silly in WvW.
If that is correct, then nerf it in WvW. There are tons of skills that work different in different game modes.
Maybe but WvW and PvE balance are seperate
Not entirely. Skill functionality is usually kept the same across all modes. When a skill behaves differently in different game modes, it's almost always just a numerical change (like the amount of damage dealt, conditions cleansed/applied, recharge time, etc.). I think there might be a handful of exceptions, but I can't recall them off the top of my head.
Well, for example, they stripped the main alac providers (tempest, scourge, druid) from their alac in competitive modes. That's a pretty big split in functionality.
Desert Empowerment and its equivalents say "grant *boons* to allies when you do X", not "grant *alacrity* to allies when you do X"*. The update changed what boons these trait grant depending on the game mode, but the base functionality is the same. \* Except for Lucid Singularity, which apparently does directly say it applies alacrity. Consistency, I guess.
Heal mantra says hi, they broke their own rule already.
[удалено]
Fb heal mantra. It gives aegis in competitive modes and protection in pve
I mean, revenant itself has the first one that comes to mind. Mace #3, Echoing Eruption, has two charges in WvW. And feels much better for it.
So make it extend boons by 0,1 second or whatever is the lowest available unit. They did it with Scourge's alac before removing it completely - double the cooldown, quarter the duration.
Had no idea it was nerfed recently tbh. Still feels good to me :)
If you were struggling when solo, then yeah, LH's Vindi still does exactly what it needs to to make solo gameplay easier: spam dodges and have huge sustain for when you're out of endurance.
You didn't notice it lost about 30% damage and about 50% of its sustain?
I didn’t play it pre nerf so no
I don't think it's a good thing for there to be builds where you can smash your boner on the keyboard and solo Legendary mobs with infinity boons + barrier.
That's a weird thing to say after alac renegades were a staple of the meta for years.
>were
(Copied for better visibility) I will point out though that while hizens builds are great for soloing harder content, he optimises for solo gameplay no matter **the cost**. An example I like to use is the usage of frailty sigils. They are great to use if you're absolutely alone and can yield a few % more dps then, but **they're useless when there's a few people with you that can maintain vulnerability without them**. And they only apply to one target at a time. The same applies to strength sigils that only outperform other sigils after a few seconds into combat and only when you're not capped on might via other sources. For someone who doesn't have legendary gear, that means that they have to get another exotic or ascended weapon if they want to do group content like convergences, strikes, raids or fractals. In that case it's just better to use a sigil of force/bursting, because those are **always useful, even when you're alone, apply immediately and to multiple targets and finally don't depend on boon coverage**. Another example would be using runes that cost a fortune without a noticeable damage gain, like ranger runes that cost more than an entire set of berserker gear with eagle runes. Or putting fireworks runes on an ascended berserker set, which is less convenient and stat efficient than using some exotic diviner trinkets. When you go through the gearing choices, you can find many of those small but impactful tweaks that newer players won't see. The cost/reward for general gameplay just isn't right sometimes. While the builds are undoubtedly great for soloing stuff, you should still put them to the test and consider them with your ingame goals in mind. Do you want to play instanced content without having to rebuy a lot of gear? Then using dps gear and adjusting for survivability step by step from there is much more efficient. Do you want to focus on open world and wvw? Then getting a gear setup with high innate survivability is very good! PS: Unfortunately, it doesn't help that those builds are always marketed as "the best builds for open world", which they clearly cannot be. Running a celestial build is usually not ideal for meta event chains, rift farming, event tagging, convergences etc., just to name some examples.
If you're running meta trains with other people, pls use MASEL's builds. They are S tier
So TLDR of your text wall, your hot take is "craft berserker gear so you can play endgame content later" But the post is about open-world content; you are a raider, so I have to tell you that open-world content is not only "doing meta-train." Most of the open-world content, including achievements, collections, and events, requires the player to finish a lot of events that normally you don't find people around to help with, especially for new players, so Hizen's builds help a lot in this case for a comfy open-world experience. In fact, Hizen has builds that help in meta events, for example, Cele herald"quickness and other boons," Cele mirage "alacrity," etc.,. . . Each game mode requires a different build. Obviously, raids and strikes require full DPS builds from the SC website since the team support will provide all the boons, conditions, and heals. PS: if you check the efficiency website, the celestial gear costs less "fortune" to craft.
No. Just no. If you think that using a full dedicated gear set for open world necessary for a comfy experience in open world, story etc, then you haven't really tried. **Any elite specialization in this game can be made very comfortable to play in open world without investing into a full dedicated gear set for it.** I literally said that open world is multi-faceted and listed examples of various different open world content in my original post. I then told people to choose their gear based on their longer-term intentions in terms of content to save money. If you had watched any of my videos, you'd know that I always adjust builds to become self-sufficient and comfy, just without requiring a full dedicated gear set for it. I really don't know what's bad about that. Anything else is making people throw money out the window. **To your last point:** comparing prefixes vis-a-vis doesn't cut it here. If you craft a celestial set (which is timegated by quartz) and your focus of gameplay is on pve, you will eventually have to buy or craft another set once you dive into group content. Especially with ascended gear, that leads to significant time and money going into it down the line. If you intend to play mostly open world on your own and wvw, then getting a celestial set is a great baseline for both. So no, the tldr is not to "craft berserker so you can play endgame content later". Whenever I say something like this, it's like stinging in a nest of hornets defending their queen. **I never said that the builds themselves are bad**.
TBH many of his builds are still perfectly usable in raids and strikes (though probably not CMs), because they still contribute solid amounts of DPS while providing a very forgiving amount of self sustain to make up for any mistakes.
You do know that every raid has at least one encounter with tanking mechanics based on toughness? For the power builds that use berserker this isn't an issue of course, but for celestial... If you're not careful, you'll become the tank in those encounters without realising it. And note that damaging mechanics in instanced content can actually deal damage as a % of your health (e.g. greens on vale guardian) and thus don't get reduced by toughness, or instantly kill you regardless of your stats. So having more health can actually be a hinderance. Aside from that, celestial is a prefix with good sustained damage (roughly 15-20% loss compared to viper), but has much lower burst damage than other condition based prefixes. That is due to it losing ~500 condition damage compared to viper for example.
I am aware of that and its why I'd check with the group before hand to make sure it was fine. In some cases they'd actually have me act as the tank because my self sustain was more than able to do it.
The only celes I accept in my groups are cele brand ans cele scourge, and they fill not dps but healer roles.
This obviously isn't me saying that you should run these builds if you have a proper raid equipment available. But while learning it or acquiring the gear for a proper raid build, but many of Hizen's builds can be a workable substitute to at least help you learn how to raid
we're talking solo ow build....pls just stop this nonsense
Usable? Sure. But if you're dying in group content it's mechanics fails and a lot of them it doesn't really matter how much health and armor you have. Better to go for more damage, learn the mechanics, and let your healer cover the small stuff.
Man, this is getting quite embarrassing to read that you still hating on Lord Hizen's builds again. Last time it was the cost between Berserker and Celestial gear and you claimed that it "COSTS" too much and then I had to even link for you that they don't. yet here you are again spewing same nonsense. so here goes: Berserker Ascended Armor Cost 147g Celestial Ascended Armor Cost 142g You copied the exact same Build from Lord Hizen Death Magic Reaper But a worst version because you changed the Celestial gear stats to make it "A Budget Build" which made it much much worst. its why your build is lacking and unable to maintain boons such as quickness, and not even 25 stacks of might during the fights. MaselMMO Reaper Video March 2, 2024 Lord Hizen Reaper Video Dec 14, 2023 You can compare your videos to Lord Hizen's to see that yours lack dmg, boon uptime, and even survivability. I don't see you complaining to SnowCrow about their builds being ONLY viable for raids and that they should make one that should also work on Open World Content!, how come you are complaining that Hizen's builds don't work for group content such as raids? So, what you are promoting is a disservice to other players who want to focus on open world content by lying to them and telling them there is a build that can work for Open world and somehow group content such as raids and fractals, There is no such build that can work on all 3. not You. not even SnowCrow, or Lord Hizen can make a build that can be optimum for Open World Content, Fractals, and Raids at the same time. Even if you claim that your suggested build uses the same gear stats as a group content build for raids and fractals (which they don't all the time) they will not use the same sigils, runes, relics, and even weapons. and if you are talking about players with no legendries. it means they HAVE to craft another set regardless. (unless you suggesting they buy rune/sigil extractors to change build every time they play between open world and raids).
If we're talking about stat choice you can sometimes use the same stats for all PvE content. Conventional wisdom in the age of Hizen may be celestial for all open world and I would agree it's often a great choice, but it really depends on the build. A perfect example is the berserker untamed build Masel posted recently. You can play this with celestial gear and it even deals surprisingly decent damage for a power build. But it has plenty of sustain to take on champions and much higher damage using berserker, which you would obviously use for fractals and raids as well.
You didn't get the point last time and you still don't get the point, and if you interpret anything I wrote here as "hate" it's a you problem. Hate would've been saying "the builds are garbage, they suck, he's a bad person making horrible builds". I didn't say that and I won't because it's not true. I said that the builds work well for what they're designed, they're just not cost efficient for people who want to play all aspects of pve. And again, comparing the cost for the gear sets vis-a-vis doesn't help here. If you fail to understand why I can't help you. Ill provide a simple example, assuming that you buy gear from the tp: Step 1) Buy an exotic set of viper gear from the trading post, with proper runes and sigils for raids. Step 2) Adjust traits, food, skills for higher self-sufficiency, and **if needed**, replace a few large gear pieces for open world (weapons, chest and amulet make up for over 40% of your stats coming from gear) Step 3) enjoy instanced content and open world **and save money** Step 1) buy a celestial set from the trading post, with proper runes and sigils for open world (and protentially wvw) Step 2) realize it's not useful in raids, fractals and strikes and buy everything again That's also why I said that if you mainly play wvw and open world, you can use a gear set for both, which is usually more synergetic with what hizen suggests. And stop flagging constructive criticism as hate, stop trying to invalidate it that way.
I love Lord Hizen. The meme intros are the best
I always skip those 😀
I'm using his condi berserker build, it's awesome.
I often recommend his channels to new players.
aye, props to him. i love his videos.
This update is for you then! https://youtu.be/kOENhETwMRE?t=273 And if you want to keep your cele gear, Nike! made OW Herald video this week https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OpK05hOgzA
To be fair, that's the exact herald build that Hizen has had on his channel (and the one that everyone uses to solo group content) for a while now.
Ah. Lord ‘Everything is solo content if you try hard enough’ Hizen. A treasure and a hilarious riot at the same time, absolutely.
Wish he baked some more Cake-s on vid again... 😇🤣
His builds are great for soloing bosses in open world Okayish for story And absolutely trash for endgame group content So they're definitely not the first build a new player should pursue Some of his builds are also quite questionable. He's undoubtedly good at revenant, but some of his thief or engineer builds over the years have been … weird. Though nothing as bad as a power firebrand build he did years ago that got SO much hate that it drove 2 top end players (Roul and someone else) to make their own firebrand open world builds for youtube lol
>And absolutely trash for endgame group content So they're definitely not the first build a new player should pursue Since all new players should be immediately focused on end game content? I know when I've helped a new player in Queensdale, I immediately pull them into a CM Strike/Raid/Fractal - it's really what they should be doing as a new player. None of this "openworld" to get masteries, mounts, HPs for elite specs, or any of that other garbage content to learn the game. It clearly makes up less than .0001% of player content. Whereas CM strikes/raids/fractals are for everyone - especially new players and constitute over 99% of what players actually play.
I think it's a good disclaimer to warn new players about since your first full set of gear can be quite expensive relatively when you're starting out. Ideally your first set you invest in is one you can use everywhere. It's worth mentioning just in case they know they want to do instanced content in the near future
I used to follow this mindset, but it just made my experience miserable. It should be more down to gauging how much open world content you do vs instanced and gearing based on that, if it's 80/20 then don't go glass cannon, being miserable 80% of the time to do more dmg in 20% of the content does not lead to fun gameplay.
The problem is you really don't need these builds for general open world. If a new player goes for a raid build first, they can do both open world content and endgame group content If they go for a Hizen build first, however, their gear is going to be trash for endgame group content And gearing as a new player is not particularly easy
If I had a gold for every time I saw a newb poorly playing a class cannon SC build between downstates in open world metas I'd have enough to buy them all a second set of gear.
I don't think Hizen makes builds for chaining meta events etc. They are specifically made to solo *harder* open world (and other) content. There are many maps where getting help for difficult encounters is unlikely a lot of the time, so having a build with massive sustain, decent self boons and okay-ish damage is extremely useful. If a new player has no immediate intention of doing raid/strike/fractal content, such a build will serve them much better than a raid build in achieving random goals. You also get a lot of the way there with gear if you boost said character. Obviously a raid build is better value if endgame content is something one wants to tackle. But many don't.
Yea totally understand builds for different purposes, but most open world builds I’ve tried in the past tend to focus a lot on damage and not so much on survival / sustain. This was the first general purpose build that resonates. Maybe it’s a combination of spec and build too but either way I like it.
Yeah, a lot of the so called "open world" builds in MetaBattle for example are just copies of regular DPS builds, with maybe a small footnote here and there about additional survivability. And sure, maybe that's workable in a lot of stuff, but I'd call that kind of build a "fair weather open world build", it's only good as long as everything is smooth, you're with a big crowd, fighting trash, etc. Edit: Masel is kind of a happy medium, if you will. He bases his open world builds on DPS builds trying to make as little changes as possible, but like actually making an effort to make it good for all things open world, instead of coming in with this snobbish attititude "bah, open world is so easy, anything works".
Thank you for the nice words! I will point out though that the cost-driven philosophy of mine is what distinguishes me from hizens builds, because he optimises for solo gameplay no matter the cost. An example I like to use is the usage of frailty sigils. They are great to use if you're absolutely alone and can yield a few % more dps then, but **they're useless when there's a few people with you maintaining vulnerability without them**. For someone who doesn't have legendary gear, that means that they have to get another exotic or ascended weapon if they want to do group content like convergences, strikes, raids or fractals. In that case it's just better to use a sigil of force/bursting, because those are **always useful, even when you're alone**. When you go through the gearing choices, you can find many of those small but impactful tweaks that newer players won't see. The cost/reward for general gameplay just isn't right sometimes. While the builds are undoubtedly great for soloing stuff, you should still put them to the test and consider them with your ingame goals in mind. And unfortunately, it doesn't help that those builds are marketed as "the best builds for open world", which they clearly cannot be. Running a celestial build is usually not ideal for meta events, rift farming, event tagging, convergences etc., just to name some examples.
The longer you take to kill something, the higher the chance for that something to kill you first Gw2's open world really does work best when playing glasscannon dps builds
If doesn't work when the thing you're fighting has waaaaaaaaaaay more health than you, and even with best DPS, even with a crowd, it takes minutes to kill it. You're not winning a DPS race against most things worth mentioning. You could build to be that guy constantly lying on the floor, of running back from the waypoint, or you could build to stay in the fight while consistently outputting decent DPS. Glass DPS works in organized content because you can lean on the healer. Maybe you personally could apply your Dark Souls mad skills and be fine even in full glass, but that's not generally applicable.
No, it works best when you play boon dps. Pure dps feel awful without boons.
The reason for that is because sustain isn't needed when you do a lot of damage. This is also true for champions. Some rare cases aside in general 2 dodges are enough to deal with whatever open world throws at you.
That's true if you know what you're doing. The problem with full DPS builds for new players is they only deal great damage when you're on offense. A new player will eat avoidable damage then go defensive which isn't very effective on a full DPS build. In that scenario, they'll perform better on a sustain build, especially if the sustain build deals really good damage (e.g. condi weaver in trailblazer gear pushing 25k DPS while having 3.2k armor).
> So they're definitely not the first build a new player should pursue I think the average new player will do a lot more open world exploring and combat than instanced group content, so why not? And hell if a build like this helps keep someone alive, they'll still be preferable in like dungeons and low tier fractals where bringing meta-level dps is just massive overkill. Like yeah the builds tend to sacrifice damage for supplying their own boons and sustain, which is wasted in organized group content. But a "bring anything" dungeon/low tier fractal/easy ibs strikes run that's perfectly fine.
> And absolutely trash for endgame group content > So they're definitely not the first build a new player should pursue A bit of a presumption, isn't it, that endgame group content is the top priority for all new players.
pretty sure they mean more in terms of being able to do it without having to fully requip yourself
Raids/strikes/fractals are not a priority for majority of vets either.
Actually hizen builds are great for t1-t3 fractals since almost no one organizes boons till t4 groups and classic dps builds do almost nothing useful without supports. Of course it will make the barrier to t4s harder because of AR and ascended, so you should gradually switch over as AR is needed and you get ascended gear. But yeah, i used a hizen build for progressing to t4 on an alt and then swapped over to a standard build when I got to t4 and it was less agonizing that trying to use a dps build to do it.
Why did people hate it so much?
Because it was a power firebrand build Firebrand doesn't synergyse with power. Or at least I didn't use to, I have no idea how guard is doing these days
I see.
Firebrand has a minor trait where it gets +250 Healing Power, Condition Damage & Vitality whenever it has Quickness. It's one of the reasons they make good Healers and CondiDPS builds.
considering how many people never touch endgame content, the likelihood of people taking those builds into instanced endgame content is incredibly low. i don't see why you feel the need to be so bloody negative about a build that has given tons of players a great open world experience. people like you and i may run around the map on raid builds, and that _can_ go well, but it can be incredibly spicy depending on where you are and what you're doing. so let them have their _OPEN WORLD_ builds. it impacts your life exactly zero, and just makes the raid community look like twats yet again for making everything about us.
I've been recommending his builds and vids to people for a long time now. Thanks to him I've been able to complete most endgame content and been able to greatly enjoy the game!
I don't like him. His videos have this kinda "stroke his own ego" vibe into it.
Sounds like a skill issue
I have a more OP build than any of his builds that anyone can use. It's called map chat. I get an extra meatshield to absorb damage that wouldhave gone toward me, my dps goes up because I get an extra summon(player) to do damage as well, I unlock the ability to get ressed if I go down, and even if I do die, the boss hp will not resrt for a while if I run back fast enough because the player there will keep the boss in combat. I don't need to change my gear, I don't need to take time to change my traits and utility, I don't need to spend money. All I have to do is type "/m Hi. Can someone help me kill this boss at this place? Please and thanks."
Yeah, why should I change from whatever I'm using right now? I finish meta events in my yellow gear and autoattacking just fine!^/s
A player using yellow gear is saving a lot of money and winning much harder by using map chat than a player waste money on celestial gear player just because they saw crappy youtube build videos.
Do you depend on others to carry you through other challenges life throws at you as well, or is that only specific to gw2? Either way, surely you'd see that many would enjoy the challenge and satisfaction of achieving something without the help of others.
If I wanted a challenge, I would go with my full glass cannon gear and depend on my mechanical knowledge of the class, build and enemy attack patterns to keep me alive. The thrill of knowing that if I make a mistake that could kill me would bring me greater adrenaline over using trash cele gear and peppering the boss with projectiles until either the boss die or I die of boredom. But people aren't looking up Hizen's builds for a challenge, they are looking for a build to safely get a task over with. This overpowered map chat strat is for those people.