Sapphire.3609

It does feels very unrewarding to play Renegade and having to take Mallyx just to deal with NPNG only to gain basically nothing when the boons do get stripped. Even though you could deal with it by bringing a Necro or Spb, it feels as though that hinders optimal fractal setup/DPS without much reward just to deal with this instability. As people have mentioned above, well-designed instabilities can pose a threat while making the player feel rewarded at the same time. Boon Overload is a great example of this as it increases incoming damage but also lets supports take way less boon duration gear. Along those lines then, some changes off the top of my head could be: No Pain No Gain: enemies receive might, fury, protection periodically; stripping a boon increases the enemy's damage taken by 3% per boonWe Bleed Fire: enemies create flaming missiles periodically; evading/blocking a missile reduces incoming damage by 30% for 10 seconds

It's true that the series of nerfs to the spec removed a lot of its complexity and overall flow of the class. In terms of raid balance, I believe Anet has come close to their goal - Chrono is pretty balanced right now. Frankly, a lot of the stuff Chrono had before the nerfs were blatantly overpowered and shouldn't really be in the game, such as distortion share. That being said, overnerfs did also happen; the changes to the Chrono shatters were very unwarranted and made the spec a chore to play in general. Arguably the biggest problem with the changes that have happened to Chrono is that it doesn't really see any play in PvP, WvW, and high-tier fractals anymore. There shouldn't be any surprises though, since Anet has traditionally been terrible at balancing a spec across game modes and often sacrifices some game modes in an attempt to balance in one particular game mode.

Great classes for both fractals and raids: Power DragonhunterPower Sword WeaverHeal FirebrandAlacrity RenegadePower Berserker (Banner Slave)Some classes that are meta in fractals but not necessarily a big part of the current raid meta: Power Quickness FirebrandPower SoulbeastSome classes that are meta in raids but not necessarily a big part of the current fractal meta: Support ChronomancerHeal DruidCondition Damage Classes (Mirage, Firebrand, Renegade)Power DaredevilPower Chronomancer

Dragonhunter with greatsword / scepter+focus is a semi-ranged build, with the scepter set capable of 900-1200 range. In general it is a very bursty build that excels in open world, dungeons, and fractals. You mentioned range, which is nice in some aspects of open world, but you don't really want to stay at range for content like fractals, as you won't get boons/heals from your party. Regardless, the power Dragonhunter build offers you some range when needed and is one of the best power DPS builds in fractals.

The title of your post suggests that you are trying to get 5/9 condition damage agony infusions. There's literally zero reason to get these, as you won't be using them in fractals (so the +9 AR is useless). If you are looking for these infusions for raids, consider WvW infusions, as said above.

Is your GW2 installed on an SSD? It makes loading significantly faster.

For Power Quickbrand, you can go as low as 15% boon duration and still maintain permanent quickness in your subgroup if you have alacrity.For Condition Quickbrand, you don't need any concentration gear because Firebrand runes provide 30% quickness duration as well as 10% boon duration. Keep in mind that in raids you almost always have a Chrono in the other subgroup that's going to be pressing their Signet of Inspiration to extend quickness in your subgroup as well, so in most cases you can actually get away with running 0% boon duration in raids.

As some have said earlier, the reason why Druid is pretty much irreplaceable (almost) in raid squads is the fact that they can provide 25 Might, class-specific offensive buffs, as well as healing to all 10 players, among other things. These are very important squad considerations condensed into a single player (i.e. very efficient). This is so good because: Grace of the Land is 10-target MightSpirit bonuses are 10-targetUnlike 5-target based boon-share, 5-target healing will leak to the other subgroup, provided your subgroup is topped-off, making a single Druid capable of healing the entire squad.Also mentioned above, other classes can provide some of these (Tempest, Herald, Warrior(?) for 25 Might to entire squad, Soulbeast for spirits, other solo-healers, etc.), but almost always aren't as efficient as just bringing a Druid. Some Snowcrows meta compositions actually don't include Druid if they can find a way to provide what the Druid provides more efficiently.Their meta Slothasor composition currently has: Two Alacrity Renegades (one for healing and Alacrity, one to top off Might), these are brought for superior CCDPS Soulbeast for spirits, as healing and Might are already covered by the RenegadesTheir meta MO composition currently has: Boon Thief (healing, 10-target all boons except Alacrity)DPS Soulbeast for spirits, as healing and Might are already covered by the Boon Thieftldr, it's all about efficiency and role condensation. A lot of classes can provide the unique combinations of boons/buffs required for comfortable raid clears, but some classes (such as Druid or Boon Thief) can do it in a much more efficient manner.

I've come across the event pretty recently - just wait near the oakheart until the event spawns. If it doesn't spawn in a long time then the event might be bugged; try joining a different instance.

You are already rewarded for your efforts/progress towards a boss starting at 75% in the form of "pity" shards/crystals. There's no reason people should have GH decorations (or kill proof) for a boss that they've never killed.

I agree that this could be a good idea especially for those that don't have a solid 1-2 hours of playtime everyday. That being said, I think this would turn into an LFG nightmare (at least in its current state) because there would be so many different fractal groups all with different fractal names of dailies from different days, resulting in a lot of clutter.

I think the downstate is a nice mechanic pretty unique to GW2, and a lot of raid encounters are balanced around having the downstate as a safety barrier before completely dying so that allies can resurrect you (e.g. some boss attacks/mechanics will instantly down you while other more punishing ones will kill you, bypassing the downstate by design). Removing the downstate would be like removing an important part of combat in this game, and would make certain encounters unnecessarily challenging, even for people that are already experienced at them (e.g. Qadim 1.0 CM, as seen in the ERP).