Guild Wars 2

I wouldn’t say guardian is easier to kill, no bunker should ever die 1v1 unless they’re bad though.

Yes, they should. Thinking they shouldn’t is the same line of thinking as healers thinking they should be invincible 1v1 and even 1v2 in other games.

It’s a team based game. This is really only an issue with an uncoordinated team. A couple good stun locks + well timed attacks and bunkers drop fast. (besides those few invulnerable abilities)

meh… not to undermine the arguments made here but I prefer fighting a long endless battle where I have opportunities to catch a player off guard with an ability or outplay them rather than the spam shank die glass cannon builds that kill in one second then run away. To me pvp is about the battle not the kill. If we remove the length a battle takes to makw them all spamm fests then you rwmove the strategy from the actual gameplay. This is speakijng strictly about 1v1 encounters though. In a full team enviroment with one or more bunker builds acting as part of the zerg or in conjunction with spam dmg builds there really isnt the chance for that scenario. It seems like there really isnt anything in this gamw that lends itself to really focusing on skill of a player in battle instead of who found the classes gimmick and exploited it best…. :/

Gotta chime in because I play a bunker engineer—I haven’t bunkered much with a guardian, and it does seem easier, but I can tell you that as an engineer I will typically use 21-22 different skills in a 1v1. If I use them all correctly, I usually live. I have 3500 defense and can still be downed by an average burst profession in about 3-4 seconds if I don’t actively avoid damage. Oh yeah, and engineers have no stability. So, if you think that a bunker engi is “easily” healing through all your damage…

On the other hand, it is a letdown that the vision of “damage – support – control” actually just turned out to be “burst” and “bunker.” I hope as weaker professions continue to get fixed we’ll see more variety and more tactics.

Don’t count out Mesmers as good bunkers.

I’ve done a couple different Mesmer Bunker builds that can be quite silly.

iDefender for dmg reduction and an extra layer of retaliation, iDisenchanter for a 2 boon/2 condition strip every 4 seconds (with trait). Chaos Armor with proc traits for pretty much infinite Regen/Prot/Swift, with blinds, and 66% chance of Confusion on hit, on top of toughness/healing/condition amulet and 9% dmg reduction trait, and iDefender. Was even playing around with the boon share signet in conjunction with iDefender to make them stupid hard to kill.

Necro’s can do some decent bunkering, Well of Blood is basically temporary god mode since it scales so kitten well with Healing. With a 32s cooldown you can rotate that between Death Shroud to absorb dmg, and Plague Form for pretty much 20 seconds of God Mode, and Well of Darkness/CC + pretty much immunity to Conditions. Not sure if they’re better than Guardians at bunkering since they have more windows of vulnerability, but… yeah, they may not have great sustained heals, but with all the dmg reduction/protection, that perma regen and strong occasional heal goes so far, i’ve held off multiple people for a stupid long time with that build.

Bunker Engy’s from my Experience haven’t been too bad, sometimes I won’t be able to kill them (speaking from playing different classes/builds), but I don’t have a problem kiting them on a point, avoiding bombs and usually just forcing them off a point.

you want to kill easy a ‘tank’ ?

make a mesmer or thief, there is your answer.
thenk you for this “pvp balanced”

Sarcasm ON

Well this is really a tough one now isnt it.

You see, whenever someone speaks up about getting killed in 2seconds or less by someone the general reply from the people that play that profession is “l2stack vitality/toughness/go defensive”

So, people did. Bunkers are the only ones that dont die in a split second to a Thieves insane burst that you never saw comming due to stealth+shadowstep/steal. Or other high-burst builds that you may have seen comming, but still kittened you up in a single moment. Leaving you sitting there wondering just what in the kitten just happend.

If Glasscannons can bring down Bunkers aswell, then there is no reason why anyone would be anything but a high-burst build.
And then this game might aswell be called Stealth Wars 2. Because getting on someone without them even noticing you untill you start unloading damage will win every single fight.
Whats harder to deal with. The Warrior you see jogging in your direction, and doing the bullcharge animation that you can dodge. Or, a Thief you never saw that instantly blinks to you and losing half your health instantly is the sign that you are now in a fight.

I hate bunkers as much as i hate glasscannons (in particular thieves/mesmers because they appear out of nowhere and are impossible to catch) But taking down Bunkers a notch cannot be done unless you bring down all glasscannons a notch aswell.

Ok, one thing I don’t understand…

… if bunkers are supposed to be countered by glass cannons, what is supposed to counter glass cannons?

Sky.9347:

Ok, one thing I don’t understand…

… if bunkers are supposed to be countered by glass cannons, what is supposed to counter glass cannons?

The whole point of a bunker class is to delay. Not kill people. Delay. You sacrifice your offense for more defense.

A glass cannon character doesn’t need the added defense against a pure defensive character. They will already put out little damage and won’t be able to down you. So picking up more defense is pointless. Just stack offensive power.

A well-rounded character though will take a mixture of both. You will have the defensive utility and traits while being able to dish out damage. Since the glass cannon doesn’t have much to stop your damage, and you just stopped his burst, he will go down.

Problem with being well-rounded vs bunker is that while you’re able to eventually down him, the added defensive power you picked up plays against you. No reason to get damage immunities/reduction when you’re not taking damage. So you’re playing into the hands of the tank class; which is delaying.

Daays.4317:

Sky.9347:

Ok, one thing I don’t understand…

… if bunkers are supposed to be countered by glass cannons, what is supposed to counter glass cannons?

The whole point of a bunker class is to delay. Not kill people. Delay. You sacrifice your offense for more defense.

A glass cannon character doesn’t need the added defense against a pure defensive character. They will already put out little damage and won’t be able to down you. So picking up more defense is pointless. Just stack offensive power.

A well-rounded character though will take a mixture of both. You will have the defensive utility and traits while being able to dish out damage. Since the glass cannon doesn’t have much to stop your damage, and you just stopped his burst, he will go down.

Problem with being well-rounded vs bunker is that while you’re able to eventually down him, the added defensive power you picked up plays against you. No reason to get damage immunities/reduction when you’re not taking damage. So you’re playing into the hands of the tank class; which is delaying.

Well rounded characters are dying in 2-3 seconds to burst builds.

Burst builds kill one another even more quickittenhan that.

Now, you are saying Burst should be killing Bunkers, too.

What is the answer to Burst builds? Balanced doesn’t work. By the time you have enough to “stop his burst”, you’re going to have a very difficult time finding enough damage to threaten anyone except the most frail of builds.

EDIT: I don’t like the idea of a bunch of glass cannons roaming around waiting for the single missed dodge or popped cooldown that will enable them to drop their opponent in a few seconds.
That should be an option, but it shouldn’t be the only option.

Look what you’re saying.

Burst has it’s answer. It can kill and be killed by a well-rounded player and be killed by another burst class.

If burst can’t kill a tank class, a tank class can’t kill a tank class, and a tank class can live long enough for vs a well-rounded character for backup to arrive, then something isn’t right.

You have a spec that is unkillable in two cases and fulfilled his role in the 3rd.

Hence why bunkers are ruining the game.

The meta that has developed from the current balance in this game is faceroll stupid. Bunkers and portals. Both need a look, because they completely destroy the pacing of the game and the need for sharp, intelligent rotations. Obviously there are counters to both. We know them. We use them. But that doesn’t change the fact that the current playstyle that this game encourages is for kittens.

Daays.4317:

Look what you’re saying.

Burst has it’s answer. It can kill and be killed by a well-rounded player and be killed by another burst class.

If burst can’t kill a tank class, a tank class can’t kill a tank class, and a tank class can live long enough for vs a well-rounded character for backup to arrive, then something isn’t right.

You have a spec that is unkillable in two cases and fulfilled his role in the 3rd.

Hence why bunkers are ruining the game.

If you nerf bunkers, burst builds will be all that’s left. Balanced builds do not often stand up well to pure burst. Burst vs. Burst is all about whoever gets their opener off first.

I think both bunkers & bursts need to be toned down. I think doing one without the other will destroy what balance there is.

I don’t believe they are unkillable. Sustained damage will do far better against a bunker than burst damage.

In a way, bunker specs are the only ones working correctly: a bunker gives up his damage, mostly for the ability to “control” a little bit more. Most other builds have damage, support, and control.

I think what we are seeing now is bunkers as a reaction to burst specs that can have great support skills on their second weapon set, great control from their traits/utility/main weapon set, and still lay down huge damage.

I like the idea of fulfilling a “role” on a team, which is why I play a bunker. I started out playing a rifle CC build, before I realized that my teammates could put down about as much CC and actually hurt people, too.

Most other good builds right now just seem like tiny variations on the same old theme of knocking someone down and killing him before he can get up. This is still a “role-playing game,” right? Why not let people play the point defender role? It’s the only other “role” left to fill.

We faced a team of 4 guardians and a necro in kylo the other day. We easily won it with our normal/balanced comp.

Zzod.5791:

We faced a team of 4 guardians and a necro in kylo the other day. We easily won it with our normal/balanced comp.

Did they have hands?

Here is a screen of match.

http://oi48.tinypic.com/345yfd5.jpg

Daays.4317:

Look what you’re saying.

Burst has it’s answer. It can kill and be killed by a well-rounded player and be killed by another burst class.

If burst can’t kill a tank class, a tank class can’t kill a tank class, and a tank class can live long enough for vs a well-rounded character for backup to arrive, then something isn’t right.

You have a spec that is unkillable in two cases and fulfilled his role in the 3rd.

Hence why bunkers are ruining the game.

You’re thinking too small time chump. PvP in it’s current form is NOT about kills. It’s a territory-based game mode. That’s exactly why bunker builds exist in the first place. The longer you stay on the point, the more points you’ll accumulate for your team.

Every profession has some kind of knockback or pull. Maybe you just need to change your strategy up? If there is an unkillable bunker on a point, maybe try one of those? If you’ve kept that bunker off his point for a total of 2 seconds, you’ve effectively countered his entire spec by neutralizing the point.

Also you’re under this strong impression that bunker builds should be able to be downed by a single player. Why is that? If a player sacrifices all of his damage for sustainability, wouldn’t it make sense that he’d be just as efficient as a full damage build?

Either way, there is a LOT of 1vs1 talk about bunkers. Stop 1vs1ing them? Learn to play as a team.

Lawbringer.1956:

Haku.5068:

Sezu.8564:

How are bunkers ruining tPvP? This doesn’t even make sense to me. You can’t blame people for building tanky when the whole objective of tPvP is capping and holding points. If anything, 5 people on one team all thinking they can roam is ruining (pug) tPvP.

Even Jonathan Sharp can agree on the bunker thing. Bunkers are so effective that they rule out the use of some pure glass cannons. Bunkers are supposed to be countered by glass cannons with their raw burst that can overcome their defenses. Right now the answer to holding a point is BUNKERS BUNKERS BUNKERS. This in no way promotes team variety. Especially when at a given time one bunker may be more effective than another, meaning if you want to run ultimate cheese then you need to run 2 of those bunkers, or maybe 1 with a soft bunker like a portal mesmer.

Pretty sure condition builds with armor ignoring bleeds and healing reducing poisons are suppose to counter bunkers, burst builds are suppose to kill condition builds before they can stack bleeds

Thank you.

I don’t see problem with bunkers. They don’t die but they couldn’t kill rabbit in pvp. They have pure tactical use, to hold a point and if they are good, take more then 1 roamer to die. Try putting some vulnerability on them instead of trying out your usual (Heartseekerx5 or Hundred blades, run away until cd is over) combos. What is the problem if the 1v1 takes at least 30 seconds and group fights taking a bit longer. If bunker builds were removed that would leave us with glass canons one-shooting each other down on sight. The pvp is in the burst wars 2 state as it is.

Well: have 2 bunkers, capture 2 shrines, and guard them without any problem. Checkmate
That’s why organized guild teams win and go to paid and everything and randoms lose, it’s not because of the skill it’s because of more organized bunkering, which is quite sad.
Even IWAY in gw1 was better and more balanced.

My short answer: I’m now convinced the only people who have a problem with bunkers do not try to time CCs.

Look for the fist pump animation… interrupt that. You just put the bunker’s full heal/big heal/game changer on a 10 (if memory serves) second cooldown.

The guardian elite and block bug (if it still exists, I haven’t played my guardian in a while now) I think are somewhat valid complaints, though.

i dont see the problem with teams running 1-2 bunkers, personally my tpvp only runs 1bunker with myself as a staller on the first point. having more than 1 guardian is pretty cheap but, its not the end of the world.. as far as the whole rock-paper-scissors issue people keep saying about im not sure i agree totally, people saying

condition->bunker->cannon->condition

i dont think this hold true, in my option condition beats both bunker and cannon if they do not have sufficient condition removal, however if they have lots of condition removal of course its the other way around. its not so simple as a condition beats bunker as they are likely to have quite good condition removal options as a solo or team. cannons however are unlikely too, assuming you can avoid the initial burst condition will beat cannon.

for example i play condition thief i would say given a 1 vs 1 situation with an equally skilled bunker guardian i will win eventually. given a 1 vs 1 with a bunker necro i will most certainly lose to an “equally skilled” one. or at least be throughly neutralised by them in a team fight. vs a cannon thief i can get taken by surprise and downed very fast as i have a fair amount of hp but not great toughness. for the first 2-3 seconds the fight is in there advantage after that short period. the chance of me winning goes up dramatically, same thing vs glass cannon warrior, no excuse to be hit by those burst.. but if you are unlucky you can get creampuffed in seconds, to get to my fundamental point you cant make sweeping judgements like all bunkers are op. or all cannons are op, look at individual builds, and obviously in conquest where the point is to stand and claim points, being able to do that effectively is going to be a tactical advantage. if we ever get team deathmatch, i doubt bunkers will be op :P though i can still see one as a flag defender if we had ctf

Rell.8395:

Get bunkers or lose in a proper tPvP plain and simple. Several classes have outrageous bunker builds: necro, engineer, ele, guardian. The order is from the worst to ok. Surprisingly, guardian bunkers (might be b/c of the low hp and lack of multiple invul) are much easier to nail down. To all those people crying that necros are weak, they’ve no idea how powerful necs are in proper team. The most ridiculous thing are the invul abilities. Those few seconds can make them go from close to dying to full hp. I thought GW2 was supposed to have less heal and be more action/reaction oriented. This is more like grabbing every reg/passive proc reg/heal possible and just run around inside a kitten circle.

By contrast few professions ( thief -warrior ) got outrageous burst build, of course the thief is thr worst offender in this game when talking about burst, to be killed in 2s with little chances of survival is kittening absurd.
I don’t want go through the “same old dance – l2dodge” noob, because in that case I should start from the fact that I play a 13k HP ele with valkyrie amulet…and normally thieves and warriors die when faced alone, for now let’s just consider the fact that when I run a more tanky build( 2k toughness = 3k armour) I can receive around 12k dmg in 2 hits from a burst thief…immagine what happen when I go around with 1030 toughness.
So what will it be?
In my opinion we can start talking about nerfing bunkers..when they gonna seriously nerf the dmg of thieves/mesmers and warriors, but as long as 3 professions out of 8 can literally 2 shots all others, I believe it’s safe to assume that bunker builds are here to stay

LOL @ people who think 8% nerf is not a big deal.

In any well calibrated game, i.e. LoL competitive or WoW worldfirsts, an 8% nerf is all it takes to move a class from best to useless.

I play a Rune of the Soldier + Purity of voice Bunker guardian. Which means I have 3 shouts and each removes 2 conditions from myself every 24 to 48 seconds. I also have purity which removes 1 condition on a 10 second cooldown. Over the course of a fight a condition necro will eventually kill me in 1v1. If they are staff and scepter/focus. Their sustained damage and corrupt boon will eventually take me down. That leaves a 4v4 at the other point which lends to the fact that condition does indeed eventually take down bunker builds. If you really want to defeat a bunker build. Send 1 burst and 1 condition. Like theif+necro. Once their loaded with conditions pop the fear and Assasins trinket to burst them down for the finish. It’s what me and my friend do vs bunkers. That would mean there’s a 3v4 at another point. But assuming we have a bunker too then we would be winning that point. Bunkers add strategy to the game. A condition build can 1v1 a bunker over time. Or a condition + a burst can take them down quickly with some strong cc after you bait out some of their cooldowns. By quickly I mean 20 seconds or so which may be enough time for the enemy team to react but in my experience it usually means a capped point at least.

Strong necro.

Nigron.9620:

I play a Rune of the Soldier + Purity of voice Bunker guardian. Which means I have 3 shouts and each removes 2 conditions from myself every 24 to 48 seconds. I also have purity which removes 1 condition on a 10 second cooldown. Over the course of a fight a condition necro will eventually kill me in 1v1. If they are staff and scepter/focus. Their sustained damage and corrupt boon will eventually take me down. That leaves a 4v4 at the other point which lends to the fact that condition does indeed eventually take down bunker builds. If you really want to defeat a bunker build. Send 1 burst and 1 condition. Like theif+necro. Once their loaded with conditions pop the fear and Assasins trinket to burst them down for the finish. It’s what me and my friend do vs bunkers. That would mean there’s a 3v4 at another point. But assuming we have a bunker too then we would be winning that point. Bunkers add strategy to the game. A condition build can 1v1 a bunker over time. Or a condition + a burst can take them down quickly with some strong cc after you bait out some of their cooldowns. By quickly I mean 20 seconds or so which may be enough time for the enemy team to react but in my experience it usually means a capped point at least.

Nah the other team will run Svanir runes and break the stun to be invincible for ages, along with the mace block bug.
They’ll also use their Tome of Courage with perma stability to full heal everybody, you can’t do much about that.

Jax.5261:

Nigron.9620:

I play a Rune of the Soldier + Purity of voice Bunker guardian. Which means I have 3 shouts and each removes 2 conditions from myself every 24 to 48 seconds. I also have purity which removes 1 condition on a 10 second cooldown. Over the course of a fight a condition necro will eventually kill me in 1v1. If they are staff and scepter/focus. Their sustained damage and corrupt boon will eventually take me down. That leaves a 4v4 at the other point which lends to the fact that condition does indeed eventually take down bunker builds. If you really want to defeat a bunker build. Send 1 burst and 1 condition. Like theif+necro. Once their loaded with conditions pop the fear and Assasins trinket to burst them down for the finish. It’s what me and my friend do vs bunkers. That would mean there’s a 3v4 at another point. But assuming we have a bunker too then we would be winning that point. Bunkers add strategy to the game. A condition build can 1v1 a bunker over time. Or a condition + a burst can take them down quickly with some strong cc after you bait out some of their cooldowns. By quickly I mean 20 seconds or so which may be enough time for the enemy team to react but in my experience it usually means a capped point at least.

Nah the other team will run Svanir runes and break the stun to be invincible for ages, along with the mace block bug.
They’ll also use their Tome of Courage with perma stability to full heal everybody, you can’t do much about that.

Gotta watch out for those backstab thieves and frenzy+bulls rush warriors too.

Man, I wish spirits were actually useful! They die so fast and don’t do anything.

Stop necroing year old threads.

It’s a shame that a year later bunkers still make tPvP utterly boring and since then the meta and commonly run builds have only become more cheesy, simplistic and boring.

I was reading this thread without noticing the dates and everything seemed completely valid.

Except warriors weren’t mentioned.

bunker builds are proxy singed of LoL

in LoL they were banned, in gw2 it is legit strat -_-

Bunker/stunwarrior meta confirmed.

I once did 20k mug combo, 10k worth of autoattacks and 2×8k heartseekers on a necro in WvW, and still lost the fight. It was wvw aye, but the point is, they can face tank almost everything.

Bunkers… BUNKERS,BUNKERS,BUNKERS… bunkers… bunkers…bunkers… bunkers…bunkers… bunkers…bunkers… bunkers…

Anet had no idea what they were doing when making GW2, plain and simple.
They never intended for a bunker/spike meta… but that’s all the game has had for a year, and it blows.

It’s not bunkers, it’s the capping system. In GW1, hero battles for example, there were already heavy defensive builds that could hold a shrine for a while. However, if it was 2v1 on a shrine, then the team with 2 would recap it, and that’s why people didn’t play like 1 hero = 1 shrine.
Then, you would have to make a hero follow others to not let recap, etc…

Here it’s 5 players( not 1 player controlling 3 heroes), and most players just sit on a shrine with some defensive build.