Guild Wars 2

So the more I queue the more and more I see condition builds. Which is fine you should be able to run condition builds. But if you’re going to do as much DPS in just as much time as a class running Berzerker’s or Maurader’s you need to be able to die. In my opinion Mercenary amulet is making condi classes (Necro more than others because of how DS scales) a little too strong.

I’m not ESL material but I do consider myself semi-pro with over 5k games played and typically getting queued with and against semi-pro and ESL players and holding my own against them. So I like to think that I can offer some reasonable insight to the health of PvP.

Now I think a lot of the condi builds showing up would have more counter play from power builds if you removed Mercenary amulet. Hence bringing more variety to the game. If you want to run a condi build you should be able to, but the only counter play shouldn’t be “bring 20 condition removals and hope you can out sustain them”.

I’ve fought some pretty inexperienced players on my power builds who were running Mercenary amulet. I’ll be frank if you get hit by literally every single skill on a power class, and you yourself are playing a damage dealer. You should be dead. As it is currently that doesn’t happen, especially if you play Necro because of the vitality boost Mercenary amulet gives their Deathshroud.

Carrion and Rabid amulets are fine because they only give you that one defensive stat with condition damage and some other offensive stat, Mercenary is not because the Toughness and Vitality synergize so well with each other that you get a huge boost to your survivability while still getting near full condition damage and a pretty significant power damage boost. With all the fury flying around you are still going to crit things for like 1.2k which adds up super quick over the course of a fight on top of all your conditions ticking.

TLDR: If you remove Mercanary amulet I think more power builds would be viable to all the condi builds showing up. If you want burst condi you should have to run vipers/sinister. If you want sustain condi pressure you should have to run rabid/carrion. Mercenary is doing the best of both so everyone is using it.

i play engi but condition engi is not viable now .. power engi with hammer is much stronger . the only full condi class i found really strong to play is mesmer . How many other condition build really viable do you see in this meta ? mesmer is really strong in this meta but i find it also balanced . it has no stealth in this meta and it is killable . i don’ t see so many other condi build strong . Condi druid or revenant perhaps ?

if you remove mercenary you can also remove all condition skills and traits …. i don’t see all this condi spammer now … in the past it has been worst

This amulet is definitely strong.

We have all seen how cheesy dire amulet can be in WvW and this amulet is quite similar.

PierPiero.9142:

i play engi but condition engi is not viable now .. power engi with hammer is much stronger . the only full condi class i found really strong to play is mesmer . How many other condition build really viable do you see in this meta ? mesmer is really strong in this meta but i find it also balanced . it has no stealth in this meta and it is killable . i don’ t see so many other condi build strong . Condi druid or revenant perhaps ?

Condie revenant definitely strong since it has resistance which counters other condie specs.

Condie druid is so-so.

I played condie warrior these days and it is actually pretty decent. Kinda like an improved version of the old burn guardian. It can dish out high burst stacks consistently while providing more cover condies compared to the burn guardian.

Condie engi is actually pretty decent too. I have been roaming WvW with condie engi for a long time. It can certainly work in PvP as well.

I really think with the nerf to condie necro, many more condie specs will be viable now.

Let’s not keep killing play styles due to improper balance… Vipers do WAY more damage than Mercenaries (which aren’t that tanky, just a bit), the reason hardly anyone runs vipers is because there is so much removal and people get blown up by power damage without some toughness…

In reality there is a relatively healthy mix of build types, removing this Amulet serves no purpose other than trying to remove conditions from PvP because people can’t wrap their heads around them. Sorry, but this is just silly now…

Merc is a bit strong.

I get the idea of “lets add dire, but we’ll give power to justify toning it down the defense and let hybrid players use it! yay!”

but imo it does offer to much to the point where it’s toxic for the game type.

I use it cuz it’s meta, and I have very few other options. But if the meta will change for the better I’m willing to toss it out!

Have we not already had enough amulets removed? Stop with the Remove kitten. Options are a good thing and oh look certain builds use that ammy.

remove mercenary and paladin too. they’re basically the new celestial amulet and in my opinion very unhealthy for the game.

How about we just give everybody Viper and have that as the only amulet?

(jk)

Jekkt.6045:

remove mercenary and paladin too. they’re basically the new celestial amulet and in my opinion very unhealthy for the game.

They’re not even close. Difference is: Much less total stats, and can be killed.

They’re, in my opinion, sweet spot Amulets. If you want to be bursty and die in 2 hits, be my guest, but I see no reason to quite literally CATER to people who want to run full glass builds with no condition removal, and expect to have no resistance or counter measure to their carnage…

ronpierce.2760:

Let’s not keep killing play styles due to improper balance… Vipers do WAY more damage than Mercenaries (which aren’t that tanky, just a bit), the reason hardly anyone runs vipers is because there is so much removal and people get blown up by power damage without some toughness…

In reality there is a relatively healthy mix of build types, removing this Amulet serves no purpose other than trying to remove conditions from PvP because people can’t wrap their heads around them. Sorry, but this is just silly now…

Yes but vipers does only a small percent more damage than Mercenary so why is it fair that mercenary is so much tankier and does basically the same DPS? If you get blown away by a power build running a burst condi build, they outplayed you. Why shouldn’t a power build win against certain burst condi builds by outplaying them?

Nighthawk.4687:

ronpierce.2760:

Let’s not keep killing play styles due to improper balance… Vipers do WAY more damage than Mercenaries (which aren’t that tanky, just a bit), the reason hardly anyone runs vipers is because there is so much removal and people get blown up by power damage without some toughness…

In reality there is a relatively healthy mix of build types, removing this Amulet serves no purpose other than trying to remove conditions from PvP because people can’t wrap their heads around them. Sorry, but this is just silly now…

Yes but vipers does only a small percent more damage than Mercenary so why is it fair that mercenary so much tankier and does basically the same DPS? If you get blown away by a power build running a burst condi build, they outplayed you. Why should a power build win against certain burst condi builds by outplaying them?

No precision. That makes a whole lot of difference. Some builds or classes do not have access to perma fury.

StickerHappy.8052:

Nighthawk.4687:

ronpierce.2760:

Let’s not keep killing play styles due to improper balance… Vipers do WAY more damage than Mercenaries (which aren’t that tanky, just a bit), the reason hardly anyone runs vipers is because there is so much removal and people get blown up by power damage without some toughness…

In reality there is a relatively healthy mix of build types, removing this Amulet serves no purpose other than trying to remove conditions from PvP because people can’t wrap their heads around them. Sorry, but this is just silly now…

Yes but vipers does only a small percent more damage than Mercenary so why is it fair that mercenary so much tankier and does basically the same DPS? If you get blown away by a power build running a burst condi build, they outplayed you. Why should a power build win against certain burst condi builds by outplaying them?

No precision. That makes a whole lot of difference. Some builds or classes do not have access to perma fury.

But most power builds have perma fury?

Or a rev on your team is just giving your perma fury?
Or you are using combo fields to give yourself fury?
Or any other class on your team is using combo fields to give you fury?

Nighthawk.4687:

Or a rev on your team is just giving your perma fury?
Or you are using combo fields to give yourself fury?
Or any other class on your team is using combo fields to give you fury?

Fury alone is 20%, 24% base crit. 1050 Power, 1050 condi dmg and 24% crit with a 150% crit damage absolutely does not deal similar damage to Viper’s which has higher crit (in ADDITION to Fury) and a direct damage increase from condition duration.

The reason Viper’s isn’t necessarily a go-to has very little to do with the similarity in raw DPS between Viper’s and Mercenary’s. It’s the nature of Condition removals which makes condition duration less valuable of a stat in general.

Take that and couple it with the fact that without a little toughness most condition builds get completely melted unless they are Mesmers, and you have your answer…

Mercenary isn’t over powered, it’s just the most practical way to play condition builds right now, and even then, they’re arguably not the strongest builds in the meta, so what’s the problem?

It’s not that its practical, it’s that certain classes are benefiting way to hard from it i.e Necro and Condi Mesmer. For as much dps as those two classes put out they should not be near invincible. Both of them can legit face tank an entire burst from a Power Class and have enough survivability to outsustain or keep equal with a Druid. Why should you get the best of both worlds? If you ask me this makes for very un-fun gameplay that doesn’t reward skilled play at all. If I’m on a power class and I dodge the necro’s marks and evade/kite all of this reaper shroud while landing every single one of my damage skills. Shouldn’t I win that matchup right then an there?

I legit have to land like 4 dps rotations in a row on them running a Maurader’s class Where either of those classes have to land approx 1.5 to down me. Is this fun/fair game design?

This is exactly like last meta where a Maurader Scrapper could 1v3 and do the same dps as a power class. Only it’s now conditions

All Reaper has is HP. No stealth, no blocks, no evades… little heals. It needs lots of hp to survive when it has nothing else.

Stop asking for things to be removed and start asking for things to be balanced.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

Stop asking for things to be removed and start asking for things to be balanced.

This +1000

Nighthawk.4687:

It’s not that its practical, it’s that certain classes are benefiting way to hard from it i.e Necro and Condi Mesmer.

Then how about nerfing those two professions in sustain rather than removing an amulet that I need for my condi ranger and condi ele builds?

Taking out entire amulets hurts EVERYONE that uses them. Including the builds that are fun and can’t function without that specific stat layout.

^u can use rabid for your ranger, it’s quite good. but honestly i think it would be far better to just fix the mesmer.

Dunno how it is with necro but for sure mercenery amu is a must have for mesmers, not because it is condi amu but because it is hybrid amulet. Yes meta mesmer is a hybrid build, and it is only condi class that don’t have any passive critical hit condi aplication.

Also mercenary is only amulet that give U thougness and vitality with big buff to condi.

And no this amu need to stay, it bring some more diversity. Now they need to give us some good amu for power based builds because there a lack of it in game.

Replace with Trailblazer please

Amulet is not the problem here. If mercenary was OP then every class would use it.
If you want to continue deleting amulets then we might as well delete them all cus they are all op going by this logic. Tone down the classes that overperforms using this amulet as they are broken at core (hi mes cough cough)

Exciton.8942:

PierPiero.9142:

i play engi but condition engi is not viable now .. power engi with hammer is much stronger . the only full condi class i found really strong to play is mesmer . How many other condition build really viable do you see in this meta ? mesmer is really strong in this meta but i find it also balanced . it has no stealth in this meta and it is killable . i don’ t see so many other condi build strong . Condi druid or revenant perhaps ?

Condie revenant definitely strong since it has resistance which counters other condie specs.

Condie druid is so-so.

I played condie warrior these days and it is actually pretty decent. Kinda like an improved version of the old burn guardian. It can dish out high burst stacks consistently while providing more cover condies compared to the burn guardian.

Condie engi is actually pretty decent too. I have been roaming WvW with condie engi for a long time. It can certainly work in PvP as well.

I really think with the nerf to condie necro, many more condie specs will be viable now.

Condi engi is not that great. the problem is that pistols are based on projectils and now there is a lot of reflecion and block of them . Hammer is much better , and i am not happy of that becouse i played engi for pistol pistol setup . hammer has also a block really strong , pistols alone have only blind so you need at least toolkit . the real problem is that nades and bombs now are not usable

pico.6402:

Dunno how it is with necro but for sure mercenery amu is a must have for mesmers, not because it is condi amu but because it is hybrid amulet. Yes meta mesmer is a hybrid build, and it is only condi class that don’t have any passive critical hit condi aplication.

Also mercenary is only amulet that give U thougness and vitality with big buff to condi.

And no this amu need to stay, it bring some more diversity. Now they need to give us some good amu for power based builds because there a lack of it in game.

But if everyone is using it…there is no diversity. Power builds either run Paladins for a more sustained approach or Mauraders for a burst approach, or Berserkers for a super burst approach and super high risk

pico.6402:

Dunno how it is with necro but for sure mercenery amu is a must have for mesmers, not because it is condi amu but because it is hybrid amulet. Yes meta mesmer is a hybrid build, and it is only condi class that don’t have any passive critical hit condi aplication.

Also mercenary is only amulet that give U thougness and vitality with big buff to condi.

And no this amu need to stay, it bring some more diversity. Now they need to give us some good amu for power based builds because there a lack of it in game.

is it not the same as paladin in direct damage ?

Burtnik.5218:

Amulet is not the problem here. If mercenary was OP then every class would use it.
If you want to continue deleting amulets then we might as well delete them all cus they are all op going by this logic. Tone down the classes that overperforms using this amulet as they are broken at core (hi mes cough cough)

But I don’t think they are broken, I think necro is fine the way it is right now and all Mesmer needs is a moa fix, sure condi mes is super good in a 1v1 but its really bad in teamfights. I think mercenary just makes them both too tanky so a bad player profits more than they should from them, it doesn’t teach a bad player that they have to dodge/kite/etc when running a damage build. They can afford to just get hit by everything. And this is the only amulet I see condition classes running now.

PierPiero.9142:

pico.6402:

Dunno how it is with necro but for sure mercenery amu is a must have for mesmers, not because it is condi amu but because it is hybrid amulet. Yes meta mesmer is a hybrid build, and it is only condi class that don’t have any passive critical hit condi aplication.

Also mercenary is only amulet that give U thougness and vitality with big buff to condi.

And no this amu need to stay, it bring some more diversity. Now they need to give us some good amu for power based builds because there a lack of it in game.

is it not the same as paladin in direct damage ?

it is, but you’re getting that direct damage on top of your huge condi damage. If you’re playing paladin’s you hit like a wet noodle. Druid only seems really strong using it because the pet’s do 70% of the dps to your target, but if you avoid the two pet bursts you can basically just stand there and not take damage from the druid.

mistsim.2748:

^u can use rabid for your ranger, it’s quite good. but honestly i think it would be far better to just fix the mesmer.

Might work for my ranger, but my elementalist? I can surive with minimal defense on my ranger if I really have to, but the elementalist’s base stats are just too low to work with any amulet not sporting a good amount of vitality and toughness. And because of how elementalists work they really can’t go full condi because it’d make half their attunements unable to do damage, so it has to be a hybrid amulet.

This constant removal of all the defensive hybrid amulets is killing my elementalist builds. This time my ele isn’t even the target of the change and will still get it’s build trashed.