Guild Wars 2

Now, I’m sure everyone has experienced the 6/23 patch. Some people have changed up their builds. Some people have changed entire classes. Some people loved the crap out of their new toon. Some people starting crying bloody murder. Most of us who’ve been rolling around the forums lately have come to witness ridiculous amounts of ragesaltkittenQQ, some justified and some…not.

Now, my intentions for thread is call all tournament/class aficionados and maybe even anet to come discuss the current hot topics. I’m fairly certain this won’t stop mindless QQ, but I’m fairly certain that this should be able to assist our more knowledgeable and level-headed players in finally making sense of this and maybe, in turn, getting the ragers heads on straight.

Before we begin, I’ve currently begun running around with a marauder engi and am currently loving the absolute crap out of him. I’ve been rocking a ridiculously beautiful win ratio (in unranked, cuz I’m still not confident enough to run into ranked and potentially ruin a serious player’s time). That being said, I’m not having much trouble with mesmer (yeee lock on), but I do know I haven’t even begun to witness the true pros at their class, so I’ll reserve my judgement until then. As for D/D ele, I generally tend to gank them and hope for the best. Fortunately, not much can stand up to a free casting engi, especially if its already occupied

ALRIGHTY, ZA HOT TOBICS:

-Mesmer. How do you better players tend to deal with them? How do you formulate your tactics when you know the enemy team has a mesmer that isn’t crap? Assume the usual mantra PU sword/torch + GS build.

-D/D Cele Elementalist. Same questions asked for mesmer. Assume water/arcana/fire.

-Rampage. Now, this isn’t really an issue for anyone with eyes and ears, but people still bring this up from time to time. What are the best tactics to stop the “unstoppable” juggernaut.

-Burning. Again, same deal with rampage. A single cleanse and memorizing burn stacking animations is usually all that is needed, but people just drool over the numbers and their minds go blank.

I think that about covers it.

Oh and if any ANET employee feels like answering, dropping any ETAs for future plans (as far as you’re willing to allow) would be fantastic.

NOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW GO!

PvP is co-op. If you can’t handle a 1v1, call your team for support or go help your team. Don’t be a bunker if you can’t bunk. You’re better alive, supporting your team or de-capping a point than losing 1v1’s and constantly dying. Nothing wrong with ganking despite what people might think.

Solo Q is a different story.

@Spell
So the only way to kill an Ele or Mesmer is 2v1 him, and that makes tpvp balanced? That’s not advice and coop is not fair.

OP, I may have a few players in my guild who play Engi who might offer some advice in your engagement situations. I’ll message you in-game if I get more info.

Regarding the purpose of this thread:

Mesmers
It comes down to whether or not they’re outplayable. The only success i’ve had is if I apply my heavy bursts first as i’m not going to during the fight. As a Burn Guard main, it’s easy to do but if that initial engagement fails, i’ll have no chance. My best bet is to push them off point. If not, they’ll come back 6s later to burst me down.

As a hamguard, I can burst down a Mesmer in one swoop assuming I have at least 1 or 2 players on him. The Mesmer would have to be Zerker gear for me to deal 8 – 10k dmg right off the bat. I’m still dependant on that Thief or X class to help me finish the job. I’m also dependant on them for survivability. It’s why most run bunk Guardian and it’s why I run a Settlers bunk burn build instead.

Again, everyone has issues with Mesmers because no one can outplay them, outsustain them and outdamage them effectively.

Elementalists
To be honest, they received a slight buff since patch but are otherwise the same they’ve always been… heavily resilient and hard to outplay; very few weaknesses. Practically on the same tier as Mesmers, both classes are strong in their own light.

Everyone else is more outplayable in comparison. We’re strong in our own way but we have our apparent weaknesses. They say Engi got worse… but they didn’t, they can just get outplayed easier.

This is my experiences as a Guardian main

To the OP, learn to multiclass if you can’t find a tactic that works for you on engi:

-More than one ele on enemy team, I switch to signet necro( sometimes using plague signet over locust), send all condis back, rip boons, condi burst when in water..win
-Against mesmer, I switch to ranger, sic’em on owl with beast mastery and LB, call target at the right time when mesmer already used distortion..win

On top of that I just kite, kite and kite some more, abuse LoS……still your thread is really ambiguous, you want viable counter to a couple professions? there they are and they are more; you want counter against better player than you? ..you won’t find any, get better yourself

I’m not complaining lol. And I HAVE played other professions (only really got into depth with guard, but that isn’t saying much). I was just hoping to see if I could toss out a line and pick up a few choice tidbits from other players and perhaps even help out other people who are too afraid or just don’t care enough to wade through the general toxicity and condescending nature of this side of the forums :P. Also, looking for advice on how to beat better players than I am is kinda how getting better works, unowatimsayin?

In other words, I AM HERE FOR SCIENCE >:U.

Feedback:

• Mesmer is actually undefeatable in a 1v1 as long as he is reasonably experienced. By undefeatable I mean: “You cannot kill them without a +1”. The Mesmer may not be able to kill you either but you won’t be sealing the deal on a Mesmer kill by yourself. They have too much raw sustain vs physical and condi, too many stunbreakers, too much disengagement, too many insta-hitting no animation daze/stuns and plenty of bugs attached to help them exploit these strong attributes. The only thing you can do is survive against the Mesmer while you hold a point or decap it out from under him “as his stealthing will forfeit the point”, while you wait for a +1 to actually kill the Mesmer or force it to peel. Mesmer is grossly over powered right now as indicated by every other post by the thousands of forum users who are reporting the bugs being exploited by current Mesmer skills. Mantras have actually been declared illegal in 1v1 & 2v2 competitive scenes until patching happens.
• D/D Eles are not the monsters people claim them to be. I do a lot of 1v1 practice against D/D Eles “while using various conquest builds on various classes” and I just don’t seem to have a problem with them. I don’t have problems with them in actual matches either. The only people I see who complain about D/D Ele are people who cannot fight in closed quarters, who don’t understand how to mitigate damage properly and who don’t understand the difference in play between primary engagers, point holders and peeler +1’ers. Sure D/D Ele is a better “jack of all trades” than any other class but it also doesn’t possess any extremes either. IE: still no where the DPS as a Power Necro, still no where near the peeling ability as a D/P Thief, ect.. ect.. I personally feel D/D Ele is in a good spot right now and rather than nerfing it, the arena-net team should be making class balances based on the D/D Ele’s performance as the jack of trades. Nothing has been declared illegal about D/D Eles in any competitive scene.
• Rampage is…. currently banned in 1v1 and 2v2 competitive tournament. The skill itself is indeed OP during small engagement but when considering 5v5 conquest situations, it becomes more balanced because of it’s cool down. it’s similar to Moa. Would you ever bet 500g on yourself in a 1v1 where you know a Mesmer is bringing Moa against you? Hell no, it’s too volatile and unpredictable, no way to cleanse it, ect.. You’re just dead in 1v1 engagement if the Mesmer knows how to spike. Rampage has similar effect when used by actual long time Warrior players. They won’t be stupid enough to use at times when you’ll easily roll around vertical axis and disengage them ect.. so the best thing you can do is keep an eye on the game timer and when Warriors are using Rampage. When you’re positive that it’s ready to pop, pay attention and get as far away from the mo’fluxa as you can while it’s duration burns. Sometimes if enough people are present, you can easily spike them down despite the Rampage form. One thing is certain though, you don’t try and point hold alone vs. a Rampaged Warrior unless he’s visibly an inexperienced player.
• I just don’t see any problems with burn right now. I don’t even play builds with much condi cleanse to be honest. You won’t see much condi bursting amongst higher tier competition anyway. It just doesn’t work out well in the long run. Condis are easier to mitigate/avoid than physical bursting actually. I think people complain about burn because it’s the one condi that shows visible DPS ticks on their bar, even with a single stack so they freak out and neglect how little damage that condi is dealing in contrast to something like a good old fashioned berserker shatter.