Reading the forums, it seems that every profession has been named faceroll. Warrior, Mesmer, Engi, Necro, Ele, Ranger, and Thief. So…is there any viable team or 1v1 build that is not faceroll?
On a related note (assuming players of equal skill):
1. Which is the best 1v1 profession/build?
2. Which is the most wanted team profession/build?
3. Are either of the above “easy spam”? If yes, why does anyone ever run anything else?
4. What is the viability of builds that require huge amounts of skill?
5. Is there a profession where you can reach unlimited effectiveness merely by improving your skill?
I have my own opinions of course, but I’m curious to know what the rest of the community thinks. For what it’s worth, here are my own thoughts to the questions:
1. Phantasm Mesmer or MM Necro
2. Warrior Hammer/Bow
3. All three above have been called “spammy” (true or not). People play other builds because they disagree to the answers of question 1 and 2
4. It seems builds requiring lots of skill still fall short of so called “easier” ones
5. Doesn’t look like it.
Well, I have played d/p thief/engi/mesmer and pre-nerf d/d ele a lot, and of these the ones that felt less faceroll, and that would leave themselves the most vulnerable if spamming, is the mesmer and d/p thief. Now thief can get away with more spamming (hurr shortbow #3 for days) than before, but engi is still the king of spamming while a mesmer that doesn’t manage his stuff in this meta is a dead mesmer (talking shatter mesmer).
I think the meta is favoring spam builds because a build that can spam implies a tanky spec that can survive even with a lot of skills on cooldown, like warrior or spirit ranger.
Best 1v1 is warrior, and both warrior and bunk guardian are the classes defining the meta (guardian has always defined the meta anyway). Warrior is definitely spammy, while guardian still needs some timing with it’s key utilities.
I don’t believe there is any “huge skill required” builds out there. There are some that require some muscle memory like ele or engie, but after a few days and games you’re good to go. There are obviously builds that are completely the other way around: stupidly easy to pick up and play.
Not really sure what you mean with 5.
Well, I have played d/p thief/engi/mesmer and pre-nerf d/d ele a lot, and of these the ones that felt less faceroll, and that would leave themselves the most vulnerable if spamming, is the mesmer and d/p thief. Now thief can get away with more spamming (hurr shortbow #3 for days) than before, but engi is still the king of spamming while a mesmer that doesn’t manage his stuff in this meta is a dead mesmer (talking shatter mesmer).
I think the meta is favoring spam builds because a build that can spam implies a tanky spec that can survive even with a lot of skills on cooldown, like warrior or spirit ranger.
Best 1v1 is warrior, and both warrior and bunk guardian are the classes defining the meta (guardian has always defined the meta anyway). Warrior is definitely spammy, while guardian still needs some timing with it’s key utilities.
I don’t believe there is any “huge skill required” builds out there. There are some that require some muscle memory like ele or engie, but after a few days and games you’re good to go. There are obviously builds that are completely the other way around: stupidly easy to pick up and play.
Not really sure what you mean with 5.
What I mean with #5 is…is there any build (or set of builds) whose effectiveness eventually outshines all the other builds if you get more and more skilfull? For example (just for argument), if we had an infinitely skilful mesmer, he/she could rule just about any enemy out there by accurately interrupting key skills repeatedly and causing huge damage with a combination of interrupt traits.
Unfortunately without skill bars and with all the bam boom graphics, it’s not really feasible to keep an eye on a person’s animantions especially if they’re tiny so such a person would surely never exist.
Like that, are there any build which become exponentially better as your skill levels increase? Or do the effectiveness of all builds kind of “flatten out”. With “spammy” builds, the curve is almost exclusively flat when the difference between a highly skilled spammer and a low skill spammer is minimal.
I played since the beginning: pure condi necro, necro boon corrupter, engi grenadier, engi bunker with automated response and phantasm mesmer (s/f + gs). Most spammy was condi necro (now “terror” necro) and engi grenadier. Engi bunker, even with automated response, need some cooldown management. Phantasm mesmer with s/f and gs is not so spammy too. You’ve got less possible choises than shatter mesmer, and you can’t mindlessly spam everything, like condi mesmer. I played thief a little bit, and it doesn’t feel so spammy too.
As for your question about outshining with skill – watch for example Teldo. He’s build, back few months ago, wasn’t crazy good. But in his hands it was deadly. I’m sure there are more of this kind.
I played since the beginning: pure condi necro, necro boon corrupter, engi grenadier, engi bunker with automated response and phantasm mesmer (s/f + gs). Most spammy was condi necro (now “terror” necro) and engi grenadier. Engi bunker, even with automated response, need some cooldown management. Phantasm mesmer with s/f and gs is not so spammy too. You’ve got less possible choises than shatter mesmer, and you can’t mindlessly spam everything, like condi mesmer. I played thief a little bit, and it doesn’t feel so spammy too.
As for your question about outshining with skill – watch for example Teldo. He’s build, back few months ago, wasn’t crazy good. But in his hands it was deadly. I’m sure there are more of this kind.
Wow – that’s kitten good play . Is his build still viable now?
I played since the beginning: pure condi necro, necro boon corrupter, engi grenadier, engi bunker with automated response and phantasm mesmer (s/f + gs). Most spammy was condi necro (now “terror” necro) and engi grenadier. Engi bunker, even with automated response, need some cooldown management. Phantasm mesmer with s/f and gs is not so spammy too. You’ve got less possible choises than shatter mesmer, and you can’t mindlessly spam everything, like condi mesmer. I played thief a little bit, and it doesn’t feel so spammy too.
I think youre confusing high APM builds with spammy builds. Spammy is when people repeat the same action over and over (1 spam) and/or …. brainlessly use every single abbilitie on CD with next to to no timing or skillshots required.
To claim nade engineer (mind not bomb nade) is spammy is just absurd. Since outside of landing nades on a group fighting over a point its all about skillshots with grenades. Landing the proper grenades means the difference between succes and failure in most cases.
Add to that that engineers auto attacks do next to no dmg, so they cant get away with spamming 1 like a lot of classes can. So its all about CD managment. Which is the direct opposite of spammy.
Wait what? you claim that bunker engi is less spammy and needs more CD management than nade engi? Mind = blown. I think ive read it all right now.
What I mean with #5 is…is there any build (or set of builds) whose effectiveness eventually outshines all the other builds if you get more and more skilfull?
I would say D/P trickery thief will always outshine any other thief build simply because it can deal with opposing burst specs so well (which is one of your roles to watch for as a roamer – other people trying to gank your teammates). For example, a D/P thief should always always beat any other thief weapon-set if they have the skill. The major drawback of D/P is the lack of any real sustain, which other weapon-sets can provide more of, so other sets can stand toe-to-toe easier on a far node (with defender) for example – which is why we see S/P and S/D. Of course, as a D/P thief, you should be looking to create more 2v1’s, getting free decaps, or preventing ganks (being more of a benefit to your team) than actually assaulting a far node all game – not to mean other weapon specs only assault far node.
I find it laughable that anyone can say that engineers are spammy even if you claim that grenades are spammy. If you’re spamming anything on engi then you’re doing it wrong. I’m constantly switching around using different skills and utilities that you’d hardly see me using the same skills in a 10 second time frame.
i love engi above all other profs in this game, but ill tell in which way it is spammy: engi doesnt have this single huge cd or skill, which is make or break for him, like backstab for thief. so it isnt building to one challenging cast. instead he has number of smaller guns and because of multiple kits, can rotate through them frequently. like bomb #2 and #3, nades #2 and #5. these are far from skillless, they are some of the hardest casts to land, no easier then thief backstab or ele fire grub. eg phantasm swordsmen and pistol phantasm are far skillless. to say nothing of #1 ranger auto-heroes.
so… you decide how you call it and whether you like it.
Reading the forums, it seems that every profession has been named faceroll. Warrior, Mesmer, Engi, Necro, Ele, Ranger, and Thief. So…is there any viable team or 1v1 build that is not faceroll?
On a related note (assuming players of equal skill):
1. Which is the best 1v1 profession/build?
2. Which is the most wanted team profession/build?
3. Are either of the above “easy spam”? If yes, why does anyone ever run anything else?
4. What is the viability of builds that require huge amounts of skill?
5. Is there a profession where you can reach unlimited effectiveness merely by improving your skill?
I have my own opinions of course, but I’m curious to know what the rest of the community thinks. For what it’s worth, here are my own thoughts to the questions:
1. Phantasm Mesmer or MM Necro
2. Warrior Hammer/Bow
3. All three above have been called “spammy” (true or not). People play other builds because they disagree to the answers of question 1 and 2
4. It seems builds requiring lots of skill still fall short of so called “easier” ones
5. Doesn’t look like it.
You didn’t mention anything about Guardian, so there’s your answer right there.
I’ve never understood why people talk about spammy like it’s a bad thing. They seem to just be meaning it requires pressing buttons at all times. What else are you going to be doing? Put a movie on and watch it while you autoattack?
5. Thief. The key factor to success or failure is reaction time, which is based upon instinct and experience. The better you are, the more damage you can avoid and the more you deal.
This is less true in PvP, where you are limited to a single spot over which to fight and around which are unavoidable AoEs, but regardless a good thief is aware of the map positions/situations, and with his mobility can make great use of that. This again depends upon instinct and experience.
This is why bad thieves are absolute nonentities, and good ones are tangible forces.
edit:
-not unlimited, but pretty high.
-not true for all builds, but a decent proportion.
Warrior- faceroll (I literally tried to faceroll my keyboard in sPvP once. Didn’t work to well since I ended up hitting all of the buttons that weren’t on the left side of my keyboard, which are my hotkeys, but smashing my hand against that side of the keyboard worked very well)
Necromancer- faceroll
Engineer- a very slightly more sophisticated face roll
Ranger- faceroll or just 1 spam
Elementalist- faceroll
Mesmer- depends on build, not too faceroll-ish though
Thief- not so much a faceroll as a spam (since half our weapon skills suck), but a slightly more sophisticated spam
Guardian- depends on build, probably somewhere between engineer and mesmer
The less spamming in my opinion are the ones that actually require timing on using the skills, like mesmer, elementalist and thief, if they miss a beat they will taste the salt without a doubt (well s/d thief can recover I mean 18 dodges in like 30 secs….)
Balanced thief with d/d or even d/p is no spam build at all. Ok you go in stealth as many times as you can (if you’re not you’re dead) but these builds are all about kiting the damage and waiting for opposing players to make a mistake ( for example spamming all their cooldowns in the air) and timing that precious Backstab (and in case of d/d Cnd) at just the right time.
Of course there are thief builds that require spamming (pistolwhip spam, s/d, or condition p/d) because these are mostly very glassy specs and it basically boils down to kill fast or get killed. Overall i have found thief to be the class with least skill spam and highest skill cap rewarding players with a lot of skill.
I find it laughable that anyone can say that engineers are spammy even if you claim that grenades are spammy. If you’re spamming anything on engi then you’re doing it wrong. I’m constantly switching around using different skills and utilities that you’d hardly see me using the same skills in a 10 second time frame.
Lol spamming necessarily doesn’t mean the same skill, that is stupid since you can only do that with autoattack (and thief but that is just suicide). What is meant by spamming is constantly pressing skills and not even bothering about precise targetting, and this is where engi excels. They have so many skills (on relatively short cool downs) that they can just keep blowing cool downs in an area around them (most skills: bombs and grenades are ground target) making it almost impossible to go near or to chase down. You tell me that as an engineer you are not constantly pressing skills back to back? I call kitten
Lol at Spam 5! if you spam 5 with d/d you are in an infinte reveal loop and die, If you spam 5 on /p you will be out of ini very fast and die (btw if you get owned by standing in a tiny black powder field, go play candy crush saga in stead).
Spam 2, yes some thiefs tend to spam HS but thiefs that do it for the damage are mostly not very good. If i use HS its mostly to only score a kill after my cnd, backstab rotations. Off course if you are running, dont blame me for spamming my gap closer, thats like saying let me run away i wanna live, and yeah.. i dont feel like doing that for obvious reasons.
didn`t read anything above except the first post. not willing to debate about it, just telling what i think.
1. Which is the best 1v1 profession/build?
There are very good Eles of which you can think they would kill everyone, anyway in tpvp ham/bow is suggested as the strongest 1vs1 class on a point.
2. Which is the most wanted team profession/build?
Actually every team needs a guard. Spiritranger also is a “must-have”.
3. Are either of the above “easy spam”? If yes, why does anyone ever run anything else?
Calling ham/bow out, it is not hard to play, but it offers a lot of chain cc. Spiritranger is very easy to play and it offers huge groupsupport!
4. What is the viability of builds that require huge amounts of skill?
Ele is playable, but it is hard! (how everyone will hate me now . )
5. Is there a profession where you can reach unlimited effectiveness merely by improving your skill?
Guardian.
I think with the lack of available skills compared to other mmos, this game is spammy.
That said, there are classes that you need to manage more then others, sure.
Team Deathmatch for PvP – Raise the AoE cap for WvW – More unique events for PvE
I find it laughable that anyone can say that engineers are spammy even if you claim that grenades are spammy. If you’re spamming anything on engi then you’re doing it wrong. I’m constantly switching around using different skills and utilities that you’d hardly see me using the same skills in a 10 second time frame.
Lol spamming necessarily doesn’t mean the same skill, that is stupid since you can only do that with autoattack (and thief but that is just suicide). What is meant by spamming is constantly pressing skills and not even bothering about precise targetting, and this is where engi excels. They have so many skills (on relatively short cool downs) that they can just keep blowing cool downs in an area around them (most skills: bombs and grenades are ground target) making it almost impossible to go near or to chase down. You tell me that as an engineer you are not constantly pressing skills back to back? I call kitten
Constantly pressing skills and not bothering with precise targeting? What does that even mean in a game where you’re not using cross hairs to target. Funny enough, grenades are the one weapon kit that requires you to manually target and that’s called spammy.
Or maybe you’re saying that all you have to do as an engineer is to blow all cooldowns without regard to timing. No wonder people say engineer is bad if they’re playing like you do. No you use your skills according to how the fight goes. A well placed knockback, block or blind goes a long way.
So, sorry, not everyone spams skills mindlessly the way you do, Mr Kitten.
EDIT: And by the way, you don’t target with bombs. Shows how much you know.
. Is his build still viable now?