Guild Wars 2

I’m not sure if this has been discussed before or if this is the wrong section but to be clear I’m simply discussing a profession mechanic and not debating which are the best duelists in PvP.

Now if you were to rank the best duelists in PvP, at the top of the list you would most likely would have Mesmer, Thief, Warrior. (Probably in that order)

Now what do these 3 have in common?
That would be Invulnerability. Not full invulnerability of course, but each of these 3 have a unique way to dish out their damage, their burst rotation, etc. while taking almost no damage in return.

The Mesmer has its Diversion shatter, a weapon skill which also makes them evade all attacks for 2 seconds, and quite a bit of stealth.

The Thief is not like the Mesmer or Warrior in being invulnerable, however one of the most common Thief builds played in TPvP is a build in which you spam Pistol Whip.
In Pistol Whip the Thief is able to dish out a large amount of damage during which, the Thief is evading all attacks. Naturally, the Thief also has stealth at their disposal during which the thief may not be invulnerable, but is still near impossible to catch or find.

And the Warrior, as well, has invulnerability in which they can dish out all their damage and take little to none in return. Berserker Stance would grant them 8 seconds of immunity to conditions, the Warrior has quite a bit of Stability, and Endure pain grants them 4 seconds of immunity to direct damage.
If a Warrior was to use all 3 at the same time they would be immune to condition damage, unable to be CC’ed and also immune to direct damage, all while still being able to use all of their attack skills to deal lots of damage during this time frame.
*Warriors have quite a bit of CC at their disposal, but that is to be expected.

Most of the time it’s these same professions, Mesmers, Thieves, Warriors complaining about everyone using bunker condi builds. In reality this is really the closest you can get to being invulnerable on other classes and still dishing out damage.

If an Elementalist was able to attack you during mist form and use a burst rotation all while being unstoppable and taking no damage at all this would truly make the Elementalist a lot more dangerous than they already are.

The Guardian like the Elementalist is an exceptional duelist, yet if a Guardian was to be able to attack during renewed focus, it would definitely make the Guardian a lot more dangerous.

Making skills like Endure Pain or Diversion, instead a channeling skill much like the Guardian’s Renewed Focus, would level the playing field. I do believe that may be too extreme of a nerf to these professions however. It seems like a likely solution but, I am not a developer so I simply wanted to start a discussion on this topic.

How would I “channel” diversion? Continuously create 40 clones over 40 seconds which each charge the enemy and daze for 1s? (i’d take that!)

Well

1. Sw/p is NOT a 1v1 build for thieves. Its popular because you can cleave like mad for high dmg while being invulnerable on point. Its not for 1v1s

2. The reason warrios can do stuff whilst endure pain is active is because it is only immunity to physical damage, not CC or conditions. Mistform, elixir S, and renewed focus are immune to EVERYTHING while active

Carpboy.7145:

2. The reason warrios can do stuff whilst endure pain is active is because it is only immunity to physical damage, not CC or conditions. Mistform, elixir S, and renewed focus are immune to EVERYTHING while active

A warrior running two stances with stability can be immune to everything for 4s, apart from maybe boonstrip + non-fear CC. This is a problem.
How they can use two stances at once is hard to understand, anyway – the skills really ought to cancel each other, as they did in GW1, so that obtaining full immunity isn’t possible for such a heavy-hitting class.

Carighan.6758:

How would I “channel” diversion? Continuously create 40 clones over 40 seconds which each charge the enemy and daze for 1s? (i’d take that!)

What I am saying is that it is kind of unfair that mesmers are able to attack while invulnerable, shattering your clones isn’t much of a drawback and there should at least be some penalty for being invulnerable as most classes when invulnerable are unable to attack at all.

Carpboy.7145:

Well

1. Sw/p is NOT a 1v1 build for thieves. Its popular because you can cleave like mad for high dmg while being invulnerable on point. Its not for 1v1s

You got me there it’s not a dueling build, the thief does however also have Sword/Dagger which used to be extremely good in duels and also has the shortbow which has many spammable evades. So I’m sorry for using a bad example in the original post.

KIllAQuaLL.9305:

Sword/Dagger which used to be extremely good in duels and also has the shortbow which has many spammable evades. So I’m sorry for using a bad example in the original post.

Im sorry but if you die to disabling shot spam…just no

cheese.4739:

Carpboy.7145:

2. The reason warrios can do stuff whilst endure pain is active is because it is only immunity to physical damage, not CC or conditions. Mistform, elixir S, and renewed focus are immune to EVERYTHING while active

A warrior running two stances with stability can be immune to everything for 4s, apart from maybe boonstrip + non-fear CC. This is a problem.
How they can use two stances at once is hard to understand, anyway – the skills really ought to cancel each other, as they did in GW1, so that obtaining full immunity isn’t possible for such a heavy-hitting class.

Right and now that warrior has just used all 3 utilities and are now on a 40 sec/60sec CD. Are you gonna die in those 4 seconds?. If so i suggest changing your build up and getting some toughness. Or just kite him until endure pain is over

Guildwars 2 is not balanced around 1v1’s.

Carpboy.7145:

Right and now that warrior has just used all 3 utilities and are now on a 40 sec/60sec CD. Are you gonna die in those 4 seconds?.

Uh yes, that’s exactly how warriors work

You say 4 seconds but its worse if you use a condi build, the warrior is absolutely immune to you for 8 seconds and you can’t even CC them

KIllAQuaLL.9305:

shattering your clones isn’t much of a drawback

This is like saying “Spending all your initiative as a thief isn’t much of a drawback” or “Losing all your burst charge as a warrior isn’t much of a drawback”.

Assume I’m shatter-spec. My build revolves around shattering to cause damage.
I just used all my clones to not cause damage. It’s essentially a stalemate, you are interrupted but I lost my clones.

Assume I’m phantasm-specced. If I shatter my phantasms to interrupt you, it’s probably a last-ditch attempt because I lost ~75% of my damage potential.

Assume I’m interrupt spec! Ha! This one works. That being said it’s an edge-case because most the entire spec is about dazing/interrupting you, and Diversion should really be the least of your problems at that point. Though it is an important tool, but really, I specced fully into it. It should be good in that case.

Ultimately though: We’re talking duelling-“balance”. A game format which isn’t supported by the game and which is always going to be inherently imbalanced. Should really consider at least 5v5 combat.

Carpboy.7145:

cheese.4739:

Carpboy.7145:

2. The reason warrios can do stuff whilst endure pain is active is because it is only immunity to physical damage, not CC or conditions. Mistform, elixir S, and renewed focus are immune to EVERYTHING while active

A warrior running two stances with stability can be immune to everything for 4s, apart from maybe boonstrip + non-fear CC. This is a problem.
How they can use two stances at once is hard to understand, anyway - the skills really ought to cancel each other, as they did in GW1, so that obtaining full immunity isn’t possible for such a heavy-hitting class.

Right and now that warrior has just used all 3 utilities and are now on a 40 sec/60sec CD. Are you gonna die in those 4 seconds?. If so i suggest changing your build up and getting some toughness. Or just kite him until endure pain is over

The War can be running full zerker gear and stunlocking, or otherwise dishing out massive damage, while invulnerable. And regenerating health at a ridiculous rate.
They can res an ally or apply strong AoE pressure to a capture point while at no risk themselves - forcing others to use their precious utilities to survive, too.

Have you ever played Ele against a decent hambow? Or even a bad hambow? Speccing for toughness means you’re even more vulnerable to condi and still die in just a few hits (while dealing very poor amounts of damage) and their survivability utilities are all on much longer cooldowns than the Warrior’s stances.

Without wishing to appear rude, your post is quite misinformed and you’ve made a strange generalisation. Saying “Most of the time it’s these same professions, Mesmers, Thieves, Warriors complaining about everyone using bunker condi builds.” is an erroneous statement to make. Complaints about condi bunkers are not class specific. It’s a whole community thing where many players consider the trade-off between survivability and dps in a condition build to be almost non-existent. Whereas the trade-off in direct damage builds is entirely there and entirely obvious.

Also, do you mean ‘Blurred Frenzy’ for Mesmers? It’s a self-route two and a half second evade on a base 12 second CD. Unless you route your opponent (with a super buggy immobilise skill) most people will simply walk out of it. It can be countered by using any defensive skill that procs an instant on-hit effect, for example an Ele can just use Shocking Aura and the Mesmer Blurred Frenzy will be interrupted. It’s also subject to retaliation damage.

The only invulnerability available to Mesmer is Distortion which is a shatter skill on a base 60 second CD with uptime entirely dependent on number of clones available when the skill is used. It’s a sacrifice of dps in order to obtain damage immunity for a few seconds. I consider it to be one of the best designed skills in the game.

Simonoly.4352:

Also, do you mean ‘Blurred Frenzy’ for Mesmers? It’s a self-route two and a half second evade on a base 12 second CD. Unless you route your opponent (with a super buggy immobilise skill) most people will simply walk out of it. It can be countered by using any defensive skill that procs an instant on-hit effect, for example an Ele can just use Shocking Aura and the Mesmer Blurred Frenzy will be interrupted. It’s also subject to retaliation damage.

It’s still an evade while doing damage skill on a relatively short cooldown. We all know it’s not as crazy as pistol whip but Mesmer still has quite a bit stealth to make up for that.

Carighan.6758:

This is like saying “Spending all your initiative as a thief isn’t much of a drawback” or “Losing all your burst charge as a warrior isn’t much of a drawback”.

Yes shattering your clones isn’t much of a drawback since you’ll have invulnerability and free reign to pop your heal skill, summon your hard hitting phantasms once again, pop mass invisibility or simply do a burst rotation and it’s as if nothing happened.

Now if you weren’t able to summon phantasms or use a second shatter while in distortion that’s a bit different don’t you think? Or even if your whole bar is locked while in distortion and you’re only able to move? Really changes the Mesmer completely does it not?

Only the warrior, the thief and mesmer can heal while evading/invulnerable, It’s impossible to interrupt withdraw against a Thief. They get a free evade and a heal and Warrior can heal up while in endure pain/berserker stance as well.

Their skill bars don’t get locked unlike other classes and this is a large reason why they’re almost unbeatable in a duel.

KIllAQuaLL.9305:

Their skill bars don’t get locked unlike other classes and this is a large reason why they’re almost unbeatable in a duel.

I would argue that the reason you find them so difficult to beat in a duel is probably that the devs couldn’t care any less. There is no “1v1 balance” in their list. Or at least I hope there isn’t, because I prefer my PvP to get more balanced over time.

I completely disagree with the OP’s notion that Mesmer, Thief, and Warriors exceeds other professions in dueling.

The most broken professions in 1v1 are Engineers, Necromancers, and Elementalist. A lot of AoE, Conditions, and CCs coming from these professions.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I completely disagree with the OP’s notion that Mesmer, Thief, and Warriors exceeds other professions in dueling.

The most broken professions in 1v1 are Engineers, Necromancers, and Elementalist. A lot of AoE, Conditions, and CCs coming from these professions.

Here’s a well known secret to beating Engineers and Necromancers, CC and/or blinds. That’s all you need

One Warrior using HamBow will shred them. Just pop stability and berserker stance and down goes the Engineer, works everytime. Oh and you don’t even need stability vs the Necromancer all you need is Berserker Stance since you’re immune to fear. All you do is CC them to oblivion and move on with your day. And just beat the Ele the same way, except with endure pain instead of Berserker Stance.

As a Thief all you need to beat the Necromancer or the Engineer is blind their inital counters and then hit that Pistol Whip, get out of range with Infiltrator’s Strike, rinse and repeat.

And the Mesmer will have a field day interrupting the Engineer, Necromancer or the Elementalist as they all have limited Stability.

The Engineer and Necromancer have limited condition removal so a good immobilize and their day is ruined.

KIllAQuaLL.9305:

The Engineer and Necromancer have limited condition removal so a good immobilize and their day is ruined.

You’re joking, right?

After reading the posts you’ve made here and looking at your posting history, I’ve formed a slightly different idea of why you find these classes so hard to fight.

You’re a very inexperienced player. All 3 of these classes punish inexperienced players quite a lot. However, most players simply try to get better, while you feel it sufficient to simply come to the forums and cry for nerfs.

Pyroathiest.4168:

KIllAQuaLL.9305:

The Engineer and Necromancer have limited condition removal so a good immobilize and their day is ruined.

You’re joking, right?

Not at all

Pyroathiest.4168:

After reading the posts you’ve made here and looking at your posting history, I’ve formed a slightly different idea of why you find these classes so hard to fight.

You’re a very inexperienced player. All 3 of these classes punish inexperienced players quite a lot. However, most players simply try to get better, while you feel it sufficient to simply come to the forums and cry for nerfs.

They punish pretty much anyone they go against, they excel at dueling for many other reasons but I would rather not get off topic when this is solely about the glaring imbalance in invulnerability skills across classes. There simply is no equal in other classes and it doesn’t matter about skill or experience, the class is the class and it won’t matter how well you play it or how long you’ve played it when you’re unable to do anything against your opponent.

I wouldnt ditch out necromancer short so quickly yet… Minion master and conditionmancer both are very dangerous threat in pvp when played right and can easily topple down builds like warriors who runs on health regeneration and buffing with mass debuff and poisons. heck is their fear also allows them for a long time crowd control. Thief is good at playing hide and seek but thats prety much all its epic at.

Dare to put in your stability ill boon strip it from you… I dont care if you have zerker stance or not… it doesnt immunise you to my knockdown, nothing will as long as i got a focus in my offhand. You better have a lot of strong aoe because your prety warrior will get swarmed and pummeled to death… Put a thief in against me and your only escape is stealth, if i ever manage to immobilize you with my dagger or my minion your a goner. Mesmer are trickyer as they can disapear constantly hide behing multi targets and got near endless stun/immobilize breaker.

KIllAQuaLL.9305:

Pyroathiest.4168:

KIllAQuaLL.9305:

The Engineer and Necromancer have limited condition removal so a good immobilize and their day is ruined.

You’re joking, right?

Not at all

Pyroathiest.4168:

After reading the posts you’ve made here and looking at your posting history, I’ve formed a slightly different idea of why you find these classes so hard to fight.

You’re a very inexperienced player. All 3 of these classes punish inexperienced players quite a lot. However, most players simply try to get better, while you feel it sufficient to simply come to the forums and cry for nerfs.

They punish pretty much anyone they go against, they excel at dueling for many other reasons but I would rather not get off topic when this is solely about the glaring imbalance in invulnerability skills across classes. There simply is no equal in other classes and it doesn’t matter about skill or experience, the class is the class and it won’t matter how well you play it or how long you’ve played it when you’re unable to do anything against your opponent.

I main a ranger.
My main roaming build does not have other condi cleanse than my heal (, and no stunbreak.
At the beginning, I used to be owned by pretty much everyone.
Now, I have a win/lose ratio of (all numbers are approximate, and don’t include 2V1)
70% against War (25% vs Hambow)
40% against mesmers (lowered by PU, most other builds, I do fine)
70% against thieves (I consider the thieve running away a victory)
33% against engies (3 fights, the one won, he wasn’t condi)
40% against ele’s (most fights were friendly duels with staff ele in PvP)
50% against necros (most against PvP power builds duels)
50% against guards. (most in PvP duels)
(had very few fights with the last 4, and only one against a ranger, which I won, but he was, imho, a zergling, and zergling kills don’t count);

So yes, winning duels is pretty much a l2p issue. All builds have points in which they are lacking. build on it.
A trick I learned is to start the animation of a strong attack, watch them blow their CD while you interrup youself to place a few normal attacks/evades/temporisation, then go on when the effects are off…

I admittedly am not really good (tend to spam my evades, and too slow at pressing buttons), I have a mixed-up build that’s not really good (because I just change a few traits and the armor when I wander off the bus, instead or going for a full retrait, and friendly duels in PvP in these ratios were with lightly changed bus builds) and I don’t care about food or stacks (I have stacking weapons, but I stack then in normal gameplay, instead of going out of my way for stacks, and mostly use the food when in guild, or group roaming).
So, all in all, if I am able to win fights against the “invicible” classes and builds, with a sub-optimal class and build, while most of them are running an optimal roaming build with stacks and all…
L2P…

KIllAQuaLL.9305:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I completely disagree with the OP’s notion that Mesmer, Thief, and Warriors exceeds other professions in dueling.

The most broken professions in 1v1 are Engineers, Necromancers, and Elementalist. A lot of AoE, Conditions, and CCs coming from these professions.

Here’s a well known secret to beating Engineers and Necromancers, CC and/or blinds. That’s all you need

One Warrior using HamBow will shred them. Just pop stability and berserker stance and down goes the Engineer, works everytime.

Meh. Work on noobs perhaps. Engis will pop their elixirs too just to buy time until your buffs wears off then they’ll watch you bounce all over the place.

Oh and you don’t even need stability vs the Necromancer all you need is Berserker Stance since you’re immune to fear. All you do is CC them to oblivion and move on with your day.

Right. Never mind the fact that Necro can go in Death Shroud until you blow all your cooldowns before they overload you with conditions. Right.

And just beat the Ele the same way, except with endure pain instead of Berserker Stance.

You’re clueless. If you choose Endure Pain, you’ll get CC’d a lot, you’ll never catch the Elementalist. And how are you going to CC an Elementalist that is immune from Conditions? If you don’t know what I’m talking about is proof that you’re clueless.

As a Thief all you need to beat the Necromancer or the Engineer is blind their inital counters and then hit that Pistol Whip, get out of range with Infiltrator’s Strike, rinse and repeat.

lol. Right. Thieves are the easiest to deal with using Engis and Necros, especially Elementalist.

And the Mesmer will have a field day interrupting the Engineer, Necromancer or the Elementalist as they all have limited Stability.

Wishful thinking. All three of these professions destroys illusions without effort.

The Engineer and Necromancer have limited condition removal so a good immobilize and their day is ruined.

Bad players are bad. Nothing to do with professions.