Guild Wars 2

Hey guys. I’ve been rather inactive in the community for the last several months. I’ve been playing and observing much like most of the silent majority of the GW2 PvP scene. I’m going to address the balance trends that we’ve been seeing in the last quarter and dig in to where it’s going.

I think it’s time to address the attitude that many players have when they’re talking about the experience they expect when queuing up with their team/friends.

The #1 Assumption

I’m going to get 10 conditions on me, and die instantly to 2 Necromancers and 2 Spirit Rangers. How is this fun? The “condi-meta” is unstoppable.

Answer #1

It’s time to adapt. The game has been patched in significant enough ways (don’t under-estimate the changes made on September 3rd.) Control comps are the next big thing. And when the control comps which are so great right now are finally being utilized to the max, then professions like Elementalists and Mesmers who laugh in the face of control abilities will have a friendly environment too. We need more good players who can drive the masses into trying new things. Look at the magical effect that it had on the ‘expected’ experience of spvp mere hours after Car Crash showcased a known build that can 1v1 the pants off of Spirit Rangers. Now you can expect to see a Warrior in your sPvP experience.

The #2 Assumption

I should take a break from sPvP because Anet just needs to equip the NerfHammer™ and beat the stuffing out of Necromancers and Rangers until nobody will dare take 2+ of each profession to a match.

Answer #2

That’s the worst idea ever! Players that will try whatever it takes to find competitive advantages are huge drivers of change, arguably even more than the pre-determined ‘balance states’ that players perceive their profession to be capable of. In my recent tPvP experience, in which I participate on an active team, I can feel the gameplay changing already. There’s way more coordinated CC, way more plays to counter the Spirit of Nature. I feel like I’m actually being rewarded by the game (winning matches) for coordinating CC plays with my team as opposed to puking conditions on the field.

So what can we change, so the “Condi-Meta” falls on it’s face, now that it’s on the run?

I challenge anyone that enjoys PvP to start practicing what works on the popular Necromancer and Ranger builds. I’ll explain in good detail what you should do, for the greater good. It’s really us that drives the ‘meta’.

Currently, Spirit Rangers and 30/20/0/0/20 Necromancers are encountering serious problems when dealing with control comps.

• It’s time to bust out the berserker stance control Warriors. Mace&Shield/Greatsword. Mace&Shield/Hammer. Longbow/Hammer. Do it. And become proficient at doing it well! Your sPvP goal could be one of many things: to melt a Spirit Ranger at his home point, or to Earthshaker/Staggering Blow/Backbreaker all of the Spirit of Nature’s revives in a teamfight, (Yes, that is a thing now.), Skullcrack is very strong. Rangers have no answer for it, Necromancers are really scared of it.

• It’s time to learn how to teamfight and actually combo with that Engineer profession you stayed away from since launch. Work your Grenade throwing arm, your magnet snipes, subsequent knockdown chains, and for the love of GW2, don’t get cleaved by a Necromancer or Ranger Spirit on point. Learn to be slippery and go to a grenade throwing position when pressured. Don’t go down. Ain’t nobody gonna revive yo’ a*s. I’m releasing a viable Power Engineer guide sometime in the future that functions in teamfights, and 1v1’s.

There is so much un-tapped potential in the Engineer and Warrior professions, especially. Things that this game needs more of:

Engineer:

Magnet pull. Everytime I successfully pull someone to the wrong side of town in a teamfight, that’s usually lights out for a Necromancer/Engineer. The opponent’s guardian is too far away for a timely save, and revive utilities are easily countered. Often, your team outright depends on a good Magnet pull to stop the target from getting revived.

Slick Shoes. After a magnet, you’ve perfectly set up a quick trip on the victim, and have time to create a ring – inflicting 3-4 knockdowns while your team collapses. Make sure you wall off the escape back to the enemy’s side first.

I really just want to encourage everybody that is still reading these forums to invest some time in bringing these uncommon juggle builds more towards the front page, and I promise that the gameplay will be much more engaging, tactical, and coordinated because of it.

So guys, sPvP community, think we can do this? The gameplay can be fun again. I feel we have the tools in our hands now with Spirit’s new tweaks. Necros and Rangers will keep their spots in the game, but let’s make sure that control regains it’s place in the trinity.

Discuss

warriors are everywhere in top 100 solo Q already. hardly uncommon.

People still play Spirit Rangers?

As for eles/mesmers, S/D thief is still too much of a dominating force unless something works its way into team dynamics to be able to remove it from pressuring team elementalists or mesmers, but that still won’t solve the problem of said classes get sniped by said thief.

As for my opinion on professions that seem to not have a spot – I do feel there are some balance issues. The game is never going to be perfect – I feel that Mesmers and Elementalists need some slightly increased sustain against covered burn & bleed stacks. It’s clear that to those that main the Elementalist and Mesmer, with very fixed options on their builds who also get hard countered by Rangers & Necros.

In my humble opinion, it’s really a big game of rock paper scissors.

Control Warrior & Engi > Condition Necro & Ranger > Power Elementalist & Mesmer

> Control > Condition > Power >

(Guardian & Thief just watch, because they’re always going to be useful for their unique roles which are mostly above the meta.)

My hope for the game is that variety happens for Mesmers and Elementalists in sPvP in the way of traits & roles, mostly. Where’s the viable condi & control builds? Attempts have been made, but it hasn’t proven rewarding enough.

Vena.8436:

People still play Spirit Rangers?

As for eles/mesmers, S/D thief is still too much of a dominating force unless something works its way into team dynamics to be able to remove it from pressuring team elementalists or mesmers, but that still won’t solve the problem of said classes get sniped by said thief.

It’s odd, I find S/D thieves to be a fairly uncommon sight in most high ranked tournaments. I think the counterplay to S/D thieves is a bit limited. You can only really hide in a teamfight to lose the thief. S/D Thieves really just thrive on out of position 1v1’s.

Spirit Rangers were not made to be unplayable at all. I still want one on my team, unless the population of sPvP Counter-comp Warriors gets too high.

Excalibur.9748:

warriors are everywhere in top 100 solo Q already. hardly uncommon.

This is a great thing.

Chaith.8256:

It’s odd, I find S/D thieves to be a fairly uncommon sight in most high ranked tournaments. I’m agreeing though.

Common or not, really, doesn’t matter. The moment an elementalist or mesmer appears on the enemy team, it would be foolish not to roll in a S/D thief.

I’d prefer it more if the build were tuned to be in line with how warrior currently operates against necros and spirit rangers -> punishes their utility greed. The hammer warrior simply demolishes spirits and leaves a spirit ranger with nothing on the back four of his ability slots, especially now and he’ll be dead in 25s. Likewise a necro slotted with greedy, offensive utilities find themselves getting stunlocked. Stunlock warrior, though, quickly falls apart against more balanced builds and professions that can managed his skull cracks, for example. (Healing signet is a bit too oppressive though.)

S/D as it stands is just a bit too good, no matter the enemy build, against those two classes.

Vena.8436:

Chaith.8256:

It’s odd, I find S/D thieves to be a fairly uncommon sight in most high ranked tournaments. I’m agreeing though.

Common or not, really, doesn’t matter. The moment an elementalist or mesmer appears on the enemy team, it would be foolish not to roll in a S/D thief.

I’d prefer it more if the build were tuned to be in line with how warrior currently operates against necros and spirit rangers -> punishes their utility greed. The hammer warrior simply demolishes spirits and leaves a spirit ranger with nothing on the back four of his ability slots, especially now and he’ll be dead in 25s. Likewise a necro slotted with greedy, offensive utilities find themselves getting stunlocked. Stunlock warrior, though, quickly falls apart against more balanced builds and professions that can managed his skull cracks, for example. (Healing signet is a bit too oppressive though.)

S/D as it stands is just a bit too good, no matter the enemy build, against those two classes.

I edited my post right after you quoted, fyi. Basically saying that the only true counterplay for S/D thieves right now is to take the engagement to a dangerous teamfight. That’s about the only way to ruin an S/D thief’s day, which in my opinion is not quite enough.

Chaith.8256:

As for my opinion on professions that seem to not have a spot – I do feel there are some balance issues. The game is never going to be perfect – I feel that Mesmers and Elementalists need some slightly increased sustain against covered burn & bleed stacks.

No.
This is what killed sPvP in the first place. Constantly trying to “buff” weaker classes. That is what has caused this insane amount of general damage, spammable conditions and overflow of boons.

Hi Chaith.8256 <3

Glad to have you back in the meta; now I actually have to worry about engineers..
Mesmer is actually in a pretty good spot in high ranked soloque even against s/d thieves imho..

Warriors were definitely meta even before Pax… like REALLY meta.. in fact they need to be tweaked slightly.. too many buffs too fast..

S/d thieves too I guess? maybe… I think J.sharp said they’ll tone em down..

Darnis.4056:

Warriors were definitely meta even before Pax… like REALLY meta.. in fact they need to be tweaked slightly.. too many buffs too fast..

Its the signet, specifically, if I were to blame anything really.

The combination of Zerkers (no poison) and Signet makes it hard to shut them down. If only just poison were able to ignore Zerkers, it’d probably be much more manageable than it is now.

KrisHQ.4719:

Chaith.8256:

As for my opinion on professions that seem to not have a spot – I do feel there are some balance issues. The game is never going to be perfect – I feel that Mesmers and Elementalists need some slightly increased sustain against covered burn & bleed stacks.

No.
This is what killed sPvP in the first place. Constantly trying to “buff” weaker classes. That is what has caused this insane amount of general damage, spammable conditions and overflow of boons.

It’s only natural you’d associate the pain inflicted on the game from the Necromancer god patch with buffing classes in general. That was a pretty big deal.

There have been lots of awesome things that have been achieved by ‘buffing’ the little guy. I just leafed through the release notes from the last year, and I’d say not to be afraid, even if the game balance got burned once. I blame Powerr. Haha, jokes.

If they handle this patch right, then all 8 classes can have a place on a team. That would be a major first in this game, competitively.

Teams would then be deciding who to bring based on synergy rather than whether or not the entire class is viable.

Viability in this game has been whether or not it is overpowered for so long. If there is an even playing field then I think that will make GW2 PvP much, much better than it has been.

Chaith.8256:

…So guys, sPvP community, think we can do this? The gameplay can be fun again. I feel we have the tools in our hands now with Spirit’s new tweaks. Necros and Rangers will keep their spots in the game, but let’s make sure that control regains it’s place in the trinity.

Discuss

Love the spirit of the post. It can be tough without a dedicated team to really thoroughly vet an experimental comp, but I’d love to see some variety in matches.

The Warrior/Engineer combo meal is a nice start. I think a 2 Guardian tandem might work well with this too (one DPS, one Bunker). Comps with multiple Necros and/or Rangers are very susceptible to lock down in Ring of Warding and exta AoE stability and/or condi cleanse certainly won’t be harmful to the engi and warrior.

You will never obtain satifactory balance in any game – and that’s a fact!

Every time a class creates a build to destory another build, it will eventually be countered without nerfs. Every class has the tools to counter the existing meta – it’s just that people are lazy and don’t like change.

In all honesty, I had problems with certain classes when I was new to pvp. I thought there was no way to counter them and hoped they would be nerfed. After I gained more experience, I realized that every class has a counter and devs changing the balance only makes things worse for everyone. That has been true with EVERY other mmo I have played. Eventually it has driven me away from every other game.

I don’t know if I am playing a different game than other people here, but I have never had a problem with necros or spirit rangers. Of course, I have had to adjust my build many times, but that is just part of the fun. It’s a lot easier to adjust my build to counter another build than it is to adjust my entire play style to counter blanket nerfs and buffs from the dev’s who really don’t seem to have a clue what they want or what they are doing.

Please just leave the game alone and let us play!

Wombat.3510:

Please just leave the game alone and let us play!

That sounds like a gripe, but it can’t be… seeing as Arenanet takes the ‘let it be’ attitude and the cautiousness around changing classes to the extreme, save for one harsh balance patch. You are basically saying you freaking love Arenanet. That’s nice

Unfortunately, the only thing people have been citing as feedback lately when leaving PvP is that they hate the condition-dominated gameplay. Many people claim they will return with their team and continue to play, if the ‘condi-meta’ dies.

You’re right about everything, of course. However, I can’t shake the feeling that it can’t happen for solo queue below rank 200. Sure, at the top of the team-queue meta, slick shoes could define a teamfight and thus the match. But in solo queue, you’re talking about one 60-second CD burst setup that takes the place of, say, bomb kit, or your only condition removal outside of healing turret/drop antidote. In the top 200 or so solo queue ranks, that might be enough to give your skilled teammates an edge. Below that, I think “carry” builds are going to continue to be the best possible option. I’m not even sure that bothers me—one of GW2’s best features is the “hero” feeling, that skilled players with the right builds can do everything.

I’m not sure what to say about warriors. I’m glad that they’re viable and that they counter some builds that desperately needed a hard counter. There’s even a bit of variety in their builds. I think they currently have the potential to change the meta in a negative way, however: in a cc comp vs. another cc comp, whichever team lands the first cc will win. That sounds about as exciting to me as spirit ranger vs. spirit ranger.

I’d say adapting is a good thing. I mean, the “condi-meta” doesn’t seem to be going away, but it’s certainly not as dangerous as it once as. People are definitely adapting to it. I’d like to see more balance, sure, but it’s not going to stop me from playing what is inherently a good game, just lacking a few small things.

All I can say is that my team is working things out, trying new things, and I still think at least most of us are having fun, and isn’t that what truly matters?

NevirSayDie.6235:

But in solo queue, you’re talking about one 60-second CD burst setup that takes the place of, say, bomb kit, or your only stunbreaker, or your only condition removal outside of healing turret/drop antidote.

Just try it, bb. It is in fact a stunbreaker, and a good one at that – I can disengage most things with a Super Speed & Jump shot.

You’d be surprised how effective and easy a proper Magnet, Pry Bar, Overcharged Shot, Throw Wrench, Net Shot, Slick Shoes circle, Shrapnel Grenade, Chill Grenade, Poison Grenade, Jump Shot, Blunderbus combo can do. EZ, all day. There is a bit of learning curve attached, but once you master it, every minute you can simultaneously:

• Move someone up to 1650 distance from where they thought they were nice and safe.
• Make them unable to move, or use any skills for 6 seconds in that place of your choice.
• Destroy any rush-able profession, like an Engineer’s life bar, or a Necro’s life bar (pick one).

It’s really worth spending the time on, if you’re looking for a new challenge in GW2.

You can be effective in a soloq, regardless of what you feel you require of your team-mates. If your team needs to be reminded on Teamspeak to hop on the Necro/Engi you plopped at their feet, in the fetal position, then so be it.

Ranko.2678:

All I can say is that my team is working things out, trying new things, and I still think at least most of us are having fun, and isn’t that what truly matters?

Same here! I’m always trying out new things and am usually having a blast.

It might just be that Engineer is the best designed profession (in different ways more than others), but having 10 top tier build combinations definitely makes my relationship with GW2 pvp a lot more refreshing.

I <3 you five gauge!
He is right. I am personally playing a few other necro builds that are viable and not crazy condi heavy. Enjoy the game and adapt. Changes will come over time.

Chaith.8256:

You are basically saying you freaking love Arenanet. That’s nice

I really do enjoy playing this game – but I have enjoyed a lot of other mmo games until the point where the attempting balancing just becomes too much. Every time Anet puts out a balance patch, they try to balance 100 different things, but fail the fix the fundamental gameplay problems with each class. Each and every balance patch succeeds in only one thing; making balance worse and causing more people to leave.

All I am saying is please stop balancing this game into the ground based on the qq of the vocal minority.

Game is fixed, go to play seriously!!
esport in 2 weeks.

Chaith.8256:

NevirSayDie.6235:

But in solo queue, you’re talking about one 60-second CD burst setup that takes the place of, say, bomb kit, or your only stunbreaker, or your only condition removal outside of healing turret/drop antidote.

Just try it, bb. It is in fact a stunbreaker, and a good one at that – I can disengage most things with a Super Speed & Jump shot.

Right, I edited my post as soon as I posted it and realized that stunbreaker is not one of the things you’d have to give up to slot slick shoes. D’oh.

One other serious question: how do you deal with magnet’s performance issues on inclined terrain? I have a terrible time getting people all the way to me at, say, the side points of Niflhel.

FYI I am already playing rifle control build atm so I agree with you that adaption and trying new things is good. I’m not trying to disagree with you: what you’re suggesting is good. But it’s also much easier for people to just play “whatever’s good right now,” so I’m trying to work out some of the details.

Wombat.3510:

Each and every balance patch succeeds in only one thing; making balance worse and causing more people to leave.

I don’t consider that to be true at all. In my personal opinion, which is all I can speak for, every balance patch has been positive if you have an unselfish perspective. I consider the Necromancer God Patch (NGP) to be an exception to the rule.

What is causing people to be disappointed, and leave, if that is the reaction those people would like to take, is the fact that very little monetary resources are being allocated into new sPvP development.

You make it sound like the losses to the pvp community are totally attributed to bad decisions on the part of the Developers. That couldn’t be farther from the truth, in my view.

Vena.8436:

I’d prefer it more if the build were tuned to be in line with how warrior currently operates against necros and spirit rangers -> punishes their utility greed. The hammer warrior simply demolishes spirits and leaves a spirit ranger with nothing on the back four of his ability slots, especially now and he’ll be dead in 25s. Likewise a necro slotted with greedy, offensive utilities find themselves getting stunlocked. Stunlock warrior, though, quickly falls apart against more balanced builds and professions that can managed his skull cracks, for example. (Healing signet is a bit too oppressive though.)

Not in this game, not in skirmishy conquest.
If the game was more team based, sure, having specific specs hard counter others, that could be a somewhat common thing… but not in this game.
It in GW2, in a small skirmishy game… it just leaves an unavoidable situation where you will get kitten on, best player NA or not…

No one wants that.
GW2 did so many things wrong, their terribly created class/utilities, ones that might have had a shot at working in a team based game… it could have made a decently popular game if it was just 5v5 team v team.

But not in this conquest.
A game without depth through teamwork and map awareness (most notably comparable to MOBAs) needs to make up for it, in combat… specs NEED to be a few dozen times more dynamic than they are atm (as dynamic if not more so than most moba specs) to bring in a working skill base, to avoid the extremely hard spec-countering-spec and ‘most specs are just kitten’ situation GW2 currently is drowning in…

A good/fun balance is one with options. That’s all what balance pretty much is. The more options, the more balanced a game is.

In relation to that, you need to make the space between skill floor and skill ceiling a lot bigger than it is now. In addition to that, you need to reward skill floor and skill ceiling proportionally. A low skill floor (build) needs a lower reward than a high skill ceiling (build).

The next step is allowing one and the same build to be played on different levels and be rewarding accordingly. While a skilled spirit ranger (pre-patch) would be better than a low skilled spirit ranger, the difference in reward would be far too small (because it relies waaaay to much on passives/ai).

Once you have this kind of possibilites/balance, the game will become far more fun. As it would allow individual build skill. This is always the case in any game but it’s just way to subtle in GW2. I.e. Teldo managed to play at the skill ceiling of his engi build and you would see the reward. If we could have every build/class/etc. like that, the game would become much more fun. But that should be just the beginning, as I think you could make skill even more prevalent.

As I said before, it might sound silly, but being able to ‘carry’ in a game is a big part of the fun. This is already limited by GW2 conquest but that should be the only limit. Some maps reward killing more, which is a good thing.
If you have the feeling that there’s room for improvement, things become more fun.

We always talk about rewards, which are obviously important. Many times, you get countered on this argument, because people say “Isn’t the fun the reward in itself”. Well yes, this is true. But think about CS and LoL and pretty much every other skill-based game. One less obvious reward in those games, is the sense of personal (skill) progression. In those games you see/feel the possibilities to become better. That’s why you can keep playing, you feel you’re getting better time and time again and not once you feel like you’ve reached the top of the ceiling.

NevirSayDie.6235:

One other serious question: how do you deal with magnet’s performance issues on inclined terrain? I have a terrible time getting people all the way to me at, say, the side points of Niflhel.

FYI I am already playing rifle control build atm so I agree with you that adaption and trying new things is good. I’m not trying to disagree with you: what you’re suggesting is good. But it’s also much easier for people to just play “whatever’s good right now,” so I’m trying to work out some of the details.

It seems to work on on inclines. Illusionary leap has an abnormally bad time dealing with inclines.

Magnet works on inclines pretty fine, but I’d say there is just a blanket 30% chance for Magnet to do one of the ‘buggy’ effects that it’s pretty famous for:

• Magnet pulls your enemy halfway.
• Magnet interrupts your enemy during an animation and nothing else happens.
• The target of your magnet moves 3 times instead of 1. (THE MOST COMMON, AND INFURIATING). I’ll edit in a link to a video of this later.
• Magnet does nothing, and your enemy appears where he was supposed to be 1-2 seconds later, already leaving.
• Magnet pulls an enemy off a ledge and then he ports back up.

etc… I’ve used it a lot. Rofl

butch.8136:

Once you have this kind of possibilites/balance, the game will become far more fun. As it would allow individual build skill. This is always the case in any game but it’s just way to subtle in GW2. I.e. Teldo managed to play at the skill ceiling of his engi build and you would see the reward. If we could have every build/class/etc. like that, the game would become much more fun. But that should be just the beginning, as I think you could make skill even more prevalent.

As I said before, it might sound silly, but being able to ‘carry’ in a game is a big part of the fun. This is already limited by GW2 conquest but that should be the only limit. Some maps reward killing more, which is a good thing.
If you have the feeling that there’s room for improvement, things become more fun.

Like I mentioned before, Engineer is one of the most rewarding professions! Every Engineer is typically significantly different, with an exception of certain builds that gain popularity.

garethh.3518:

It in GW2, in a small skirmishy game… it just leaves an unavoidable situation where you will get kitten on, best player NA or not…

It leaves them but good teams will shift around that.

The CC/SYNC match-up was pretty much showcasing this. They (CC) built a team comp that simply hard countered SYNC. Wherever those spirit rangers showed up, there was a warrior to greet them.

Conquest certainly limits this variety by forcing scrimmages, I agree.

Chaith.8256:

I don’t consider that to be true at all. In my personal opinion, which is all I can speak for, every balance patch has been positive if you have an unselfish perspective.

You make it sound like the losses to the pvp community are totally attributed to bad decisions on the part of the Developers. That couldn’t be farther from the truth, in my view.

Bad decisions on the part of the devs are what has caused most other games to fail. I simply don’t think that every single one of the thousands of past balance nerfs/buffs was needed. Every time they nerf or buff a class, they don’t gain players, they lose them. That is the reason why nerfs/buffs should be kept to minimum and used only in game breaking situations.

I can think of very few nerfs/buffs that would have caused the game mechanics to fail if they weren’t implemented. Surely, the latest spirit ranger situation was not game breaking.

Complete balance is the holy grail of any mmo. It is also something that will never happen because someone will always feel that they are at a disadvantage. The job of the devs isn’t to create unattainable balance, it is to keep their customers happy. People don’t remain happy for very long when they are forced to keep re-learning their class and their chosen play style.

Vena.8436:

It leaves them but good teams will shift around that.

The point is that a lack of depth and versatility in classes, to the point where certain ones typically outright hardcounter others…
It kills casual AND high-level play.

In a team based game, having AN enemy who’s spec hardcounters yours can be played around through teamwork and positioning… but in a 1v1 or 2v2 skirmish… there is very little room to play around with…
Pugs hate feeling useless.
Pros need tons of depth in gameplay.
Hard counters in conquest supply neither.

Chaith.8256:

It seems to work on on inclines. Illusionary leap has an abnormally bad time dealing with inclines.

Magnet works on inclines pretty fine, but I’d say there is just a blanket 30% chance for Magnet to do one of the ‘buggy’ effects that it’s pretty famous for:

• Magnet pulls your enemy halfway.
• Magnet interrupts your enemy during an animation and nothing else happens.
• The target of your magnet moves 3 times instead of 1. (THE MOST COMMON, AND INFURIATING). I’ll edit in a link to a video of this later.
• Magnet does nothing, and your enemy appears where he was supposed to be 1-2 seconds later, already leaving.
• Magnet pulls an enemy off a ledge and then he ports back up.

etc… I’ve used it a lot. Rofl

Thanks, that’s helpful. I feel like I get the “halfway” and “interrupt” effects more often when pulling uphill, but maybe it’s just a blanket chance to fail. It’s good to know I don’t need to worry about the terrain before using the skill, just pop it off and follow up with all that close-range cc that we need to get those pesky kiters into close range for!

garethh.3518:

In a team based game, having AN enemy who’s spec hardcounters yours can be played around through teamwork and positioning… but in a 1v1 or 2v2 skirmish… there is very little room to play around with…
Pugs hate feeling useless.
Pros need tons of depth in gameplay.
Hard counters in conquest supply neither.

Hard counters exist in all game types, and the more lopsided or cheese a spec (spirit rangers, greedy necros) the more blatant and potent the hard counter to them ends up being. A team comp comprised of two identical cheese builds was met with all of one single build that shut them down. There’s no team play around that because you’re over invested, this sort of rock-paper-scissors roster dynamics will always exist.

SYNC played well in team fights despite said hard-countering but they were losing in management and skirmishes; this to me would imply depth in a game. When you over-invest in a powerful but cheesy spec (especially one to which you know there is a hard counter), you face the risk of being countered and countered hard. No game, or amount of depth, can save you from that.

The 1v1, 2v2 hard countering exists in all games because games are rarely if ever balanced around 1v1 or 2v2. This is taken into account when building a team and assigning roles (usually), or if you believe you can outplay a player. This is also why most builds don’t just slap four spirits on to their bar and call it a day spamming 111111. They have utilities to face various issues.

Im curious chaith about what u mean you say guardians and thiefs have unique roles that are ‘above the meta’. IM not sure what you mean by above the meta?

The best I can think is that thiefs will always be roamers and guardians seem to nearly always be bunkers.

SoloQ is still unplayable

daydream.2938:

Im curious chaith about what u mean you say guardians and thiefs have unique roles that are ‘above the meta’. IM not sure what you mean by above the meta?

The best I can think is that thiefs will always be roamers and guardians seem to nearly always be bunkers.

I was more joking than anything, haha. Thieves and Guardians just didn’t fit well into what I was saying.

Although, nothing in particular counters S/D or D/P thieves except S/D and D/P thieves. Nothing can stop a support Guardian from being an optimal or at least very good choice, either. All the other professions seem to have hard counters that makes it tough when people are currently stacking counterclasses.

Chaith.8256:

Vena.8436:

People still play Spirit Rangers?

As for eles/mesmers, S/D thief is still too much of a dominating force unless something works its way into team dynamics to be able to remove it from pressuring team elementalists or mesmers, but that still won’t solve the problem of said classes get sniped by said thief.

It’s odd, I find S/D thieves to be a fairly uncommon sight in most high ranked tournaments. I think the counterplay to S/D thieves is a bit limited. You can only really hide in a teamfight to lose the thief. S/D Thieves really just thrive on out of position 1v1’s.

Spirit Rangers were not made to be unplayable at all. I still want one on my team, unless the population of sPvP Counter-comp Warriors gets too high.

And if the counter comp warriors get too high, tell that ranger to switch his spirit traits for “+33% Regen Duration/5s Protection if taking more then 10% HP in one hit (epic against thiefs), Dodge removes blind and poison, Shouts grants regen and swiftness”.

And invest 30 into WS (-20% survival CD, Oakheart Salve/Offhand Mastery, Bark Skin) and 20 into BM (-20% Shout CD, Dogs apply cripple on F2).
Suddenly you can get a heavy control, permaregen ranger.

Equip Krytan Warhound and Fern Hound/Wolf. Even in full apoth (shamans), that gear will be strong.

Ranger with Krytan + Muddy Terrain and 50%~ish Condition duration = 6s Immobilize + an equal amount of cripple, + poison spam from SB or S/D.

Ranger builds are niche. Will always be. But spending some time with the class makes it easy to understand how to make even the least loved profession into a monster.

Also, Pet selection means EVERYTHING