Guild Wars 2

Shout regen condition warrior
Decap engineer
Pistol whip thief

Honourable mention; Spirit ranger

I do believe the balancing team are aware of these builds, but I am not convinced they are aware of just how toxic they are. These builds are literally driving people away from matches. The amount of rage quitting in soloQ and even people who logout of a hotjoin match simply because too many of these builds are present is becoming astounding. I have to admit that while playing a hotjoin match to kill some minutes one morning it was enough to make me leave after a single match. I know it is only a game and as long as I am having fun it doesn’t matter if my team wins or loses, but I personally just couldn’t stomach facing these builds over and over again.The open map chat has become belittling to those who run them which also indicates what a toxic effect they are having.

I appreciate that a lot has been going on with this up and coming patch and the staff haven’t been sitting on their hands, but as a player, I believe I am voicing a real concern the community has about this trinity of builds. I am looking forward to checking out the new traits and double sigils etc, but there is little incentive for me to want to develop a new build when I already know of a trinity of builds that are near invincible already.

Think of this post as a friend telling another friend about something that has to change about them, because it is quite literally driving others away from them.

What more can truly be said when you literally see people logging out because a team features all three of these builds in there ranks?

In what way exactly is a Spirit ranger “toxic”? I’m not trying to defend, I just really don’t know. In what ways are the Spirits that different from a Guardian giving boons to his team or a warrior using Banners?

AlbertoUlkesh.4517:

In what way exactly is a Spirit ranger “toxic”? I’m not trying to defend, I just really don’t know. In what ways are the Spirits that different from a Guardian giving boons to his team or a warrior using Banners?

Constant uptime of spirit effects? Constant regeneration and easy resurrections and self-resurrections from Spirit of Nature? Screen and targeting clutter from spirits? Completely passive gameplay?

Sheer lack of skill required?

A guardian may share boons, but guardians can be taken down reasonably in a team fight, and the guardian player is having to actively manage skills. Spirit rangers… less so in both regards, while providing arguably stronger buffs not only to themselves but their team.

Did face 5 Spirit rangers once, we barely got over 100 points. We were 2xnecros, hambow, guard and thief. Im not saying I’m a great PVPer, but I don’t see losses like that even on 4 vs 5.

Nineaxis.1826:

AlbertoUlkesh.4517:

In what way exactly is a Spirit ranger “toxic”? I’m not trying to defend, I just really don’t know. In what ways are the Spirits that different from a Guardian giving boons to his team or a warrior using Banners?

Constant uptime of spirit effects? Constant regeneration and easy resurrections and self-resurrections from Spirit of Nature? Screen and targeting clutter from spirits? Completely passive gameplay?

Sheer lack of skill required?

A guardian may share boons, but guardians can be taken down reasonably in a team fight, and the guardian player is having to actively manage skills. Spirit rangers… less so in both regards, while providing arguably stronger buffs not only to themselves but their team.

If you think that spirit rangers give stronger buffs to their teammates than guardians, you not only have never played the spec, you are clueless.

What exactly is 3 seconds of burning to warriors already spewing massive perma-burn fields or guardians who automatically burn their targets or engineers with a 6 second burn and AoE condi spam out the kitten?

Many rangers don’t even opt to bring Stone Spirit anymore and instead bring Storm Spirit which just gives swiftness.

The Elite spirit on Ranger IS really strong, and it’s getting nerfed big time. It already can be killed very fast and in reality spends most of its healing on the smaller spirits.

In solo queue, Spirit Ranger can die to:

MM Necro
Any kind of warrior with cleansing Ire
Engineers who know how to properly utilize CC (bomb/nade can easily kill a spirit ranger who tries to stay on point), also cannot kill any AR engineer
A thief who knows how to abuse blast finishers in a stolen water field
Duelist Mesmers running GS

Spirit Ranger is actually not nearly as good for carrying in solo queue as Warrior or Necro or Engineer or Thief is.

It is a low mobility support build that excels at focusing squishies in team fights and whose support relies completely on spirits

MM necro is a reason to even stop playing the game, the most poor designed class in an mmo ever having 10 pets around him that are tanky and make damage i see them standing at capture points and almost no one approaches them, spirit ranger is ok in comparison with them.
and this might be personal or because im a guardian but i absolutely hate mesmers.

infantrydiv.1620:

Nineaxis.1826:

AlbertoUlkesh.4517:

In what way exactly is a Spirit ranger “toxic”? I’m not trying to defend, I just really don’t know. In what ways are the Spirits that different from a Guardian giving boons to his team or a warrior using Banners?

Constant uptime of spirit effects? Constant regeneration and easy resurrections and self-resurrections from Spirit of Nature? Screen and targeting clutter from spirits? Completely passive gameplay?

Sheer lack of skill required?

A guardian may share boons, but guardians can be taken down reasonably in a team fight, and the guardian player is having to actively manage skills. Spirit rangers… less so in both regards, while providing arguably stronger buffs not only to themselves but their team.

If you think that spirit rangers give stronger buffs to their teammates than guardians, you not only have never played the spec, you are clueless.

What exactly is 3 seconds of burning to warriors already spewing massive perma-burn fields or guardians who automatically burn their targets or engineers with a 6 second burn and AoE condi spam out the kitten?

Many rangers don’t even opt to bring Stone Spirit anymore and instead bring Storm Spirit which just gives swiftness.

The Elite spirit on Ranger IS really strong, and it’s getting nerfed big time. It already can be killed very fast and in reality spends most of its healing on the smaller spirits.

In solo queue, Spirit Ranger can die to:

MM Necro
Any kind of warrior with cleansing Ire
Engineers who know how to properly utilize CC (bomb/nade can easily kill a spirit ranger who tries to stay on point), also cannot kill any AR engineer
A thief who knows how to abuse blast finishers in a stolen water field
Duelist Mesmers running GS

Spirit Ranger is actually not nearly as good for carrying in solo queue as Warrior or Necro or Engineer or Thief is.

It is a low mobility support build that excels at focusing squishies in team fights and whose support relies completely on spirits

Honestly if you know how to spirit res (not hard to) you can carry way better than any other class at least in team fight scenario. Spirit Rangers carry team fights and are safety nets for teams (why every team runs them). The sheer amount of passive benefits with little effort is insane. You can win fights against bunker comps and then a spirit ranger can run in and spirit res everyone. It is way to forgiving in a team environment. Interrupting spirit is also very hard because if the ranger is smart they can cast the res from los position.

apt.9184:

infantrydiv.1620:

Nineaxis.1826:

AlbertoUlkesh.4517:

In what way exactly is a Spirit ranger “toxic”? I’m not trying to defend, I just really don’t know. In what ways are the Spirits that different from a Guardian giving boons to his team or a warrior using Banners?

Constant uptime of spirit effects? Constant regeneration and easy resurrections and self-resurrections from Spirit of Nature? Screen and targeting clutter from spirits? Completely passive gameplay?

Sheer lack of skill required?

A guardian may share boons, but guardians can be taken down reasonably in a team fight, and the guardian player is having to actively manage skills. Spirit rangers… less so in both regards, while providing arguably stronger buffs not only to themselves but their team.

If you think that spirit rangers give stronger buffs to their teammates than guardians, you not only have never played the spec, you are clueless.

What exactly is 3 seconds of burning to warriors already spewing massive perma-burn fields or guardians who automatically burn their targets or engineers with a 6 second burn and AoE condi spam out the kitten?

Many rangers don’t even opt to bring Stone Spirit anymore and instead bring Storm Spirit which just gives swiftness.

The Elite spirit on Ranger IS really strong, and it’s getting nerfed big time. It already can be killed very fast and in reality spends most of its healing on the smaller spirits.

In solo queue, Spirit Ranger can die to:

MM Necro
Any kind of warrior with cleansing Ire
Engineers who know how to properly utilize CC (bomb/nade can easily kill a spirit ranger who tries to stay on point), also cannot kill any AR engineer
A thief who knows how to abuse blast finishers in a stolen water field
Duelist Mesmers running GS

Spirit Ranger is actually not nearly as good for carrying in solo queue as Warrior or Necro or Engineer or Thief is.

It is a low mobility support build that excels at focusing squishies in team fights and whose support relies completely on spirits

Honestly if you know how to spirit res (not hard to) you can carry way better than any other class at least in team fight scenario. Spirit Rangers carry team fights and are safety nets for teams (why every team runs them). The sheer amount of passive benefits with little effort is insane. You can win fights against bunker comps and then a spirit ranger can run in and spirit res everyone. It is way to forgiving in a team environment. Interrupting spirit is also very hard because if the ranger is smart they can cast the res from los position.

Well, for some reason after reading “Decap engi” I thought this thread was about solo queue.

Spirit Ranger imo is best used in team queue, since in solo queue you have no idea what your team or the other team is going to have, and if the other team has 3 warriors and two AR engies, you aren’t going to be killing anyone.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Shout regen condition warrior

Hint: no stability. Knock him down, wipe him out. An engineer can 1v1 beat it. If no engineers are present, it will require the spike damage from at least 2 people, though.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Decap engineer

There is no counter to decap engi. The only counter is to wait another 6 months for ArenaNet’s next balance patch.

@OP: Shouts are not a problem on warrior. Most hambow seem to run stances anyway.

You also missed mm necro from your list. That belongs in the top 5.

jihm.2315:

MM necro is a reason to even stop playing the game, the most poor designed class in an mmo ever having 10 pets around him that are tanky and make damage i see them standing at capture points and almost no one approaches them, spirit ranger is ok in comparison with them.
and this might be personal or because im a guardian but i absolutely hate mesmers.

Yay more MM honorable mentions! <3

am i the only one who likes mm necros? i’d prefer it if every necro ran mm so my poor engi could stand a chance.

ellesee.8297:

am i the only one who likes mm necros? i’d prefer it if every necro ran mm so my poor engi could stand a chance.

I’m a HUGE fan of MM necro. Some people just don’t know how to nut up or shut up.

ronpierce.2760:

ellesee.8297:

am i the only one who likes mm necros? i’d prefer it if every necro ran mm so my poor engi could stand a chance.

I’m a HUGE fan of MM necro. Some people just don’t know how to nut up or shut up.

People like mm necro and spirit ranger for the same reason they like decap engi… it takes minimal skill to play and yet does quite well.

Son, you cray cray. When I was top 10 tPVP (#2 team NA) for a while before I quit, I basically never saw another MM in the top 25. In fact, (this was mid December) Engineers were rampid at the time but not many of them were decap. I saw Five Gauge and a couple others, but they weren’t playing Decap, at least at the time. Spirit rangers, yeah they were still pretty common.

The biggest issues were 2x Hambow, Bunker guardians and a thief, literally like every top 25 team had a majority of this make up…

Our team was even pretty much this… We had MM/Thief/Spirit ranger/Hambow/Gaurdian.

Point stands, MM in that tier wasn’t easy because by then everyone knew how to play to my disadvantages (lack of resistance to CC, low mobility, terrain) and I still did it, so you can keep your QQs to yourself mister!

ellesee.8297:

am i the only one who likes mm necros? i’d prefer it if every necro ran mm so my poor engi could stand a chance.

Nooo! Vee Wee! My frend! MM necro can OOXX your engi, you have a chance because most bad necros use MM!

OT:

most toxic, let’s say, cleric ptv hammer war, any kind, pure bs, gotta nerf
three stance s/s war, pure bs, gotta nerf
any thing hammer paired with berserker stance and cleric ptv, pure bs, gotta nerf
MM necro, obviously
nature of spirit, obviously
condition necro obviously.
staff bunker ele obviously.

just remove healing signet from this game already, also AR, diamond skin, and shave berserker stance to 4

AlbertoUlkesh.4517:

In what way exactly is a Spirit ranger “toxic”? I’m not trying to defend, I just really don’t know. In what ways are the Spirits that different from a Guardian giving boons to his team or a warrior using Banners?

Why is spirit ranger get a Honorable mention? Let me bring you up to speed. Since release 50% of the spirits used over perform more than they were intended to. The healing spirit over heals and used to have a near unlimited range on it revive capability. It allowed the ranger to place the spirit near center and then head off to the other side of the map. If a fellow team member became downed, despite the range, the ranger could activate the revive. The burning spirit applies burning for 50% longer than it should. Both of these non intended duration’s and uses have been documented, commented on, recorded and displayed. It has been no big secret that they were being exploited for these purposes. The spirits unto themselves also created a build that could reliably simply use auto attack to effectively down other professions throughout different patches. It is a known broken build that currently is still unresolved, but featured in the PaX tournament show case. In short, on the first big outing for PvP since release top tier teams were using, and therefore exploiting a broken build. If this does not highlight a toxic situation were your game is being showcased via broken builds, that require a low skill ceiling and are still capably getting through to finals in a tournament, well I don’t know what is toxic then. As a result of this the term petting zoo became the unofficial name for spirit rangers, which only highlights the low regard many felt about them and who desired more counter play options that required skill and timing.

zone.1073:

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Shout regen condition warrior

Hint: no stability. Knock him down, wipe him out. An engineer can 1v1 beat it. If no engineers are present, it will require the spike damage from at least 2 people, though.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Decap engineer

There is no counter to decap engi. The only counter is to wait another 6 months for ArenaNet’s next balance patch.

I am glad you have found your method of dealing with the hyper regen warriors. However I still see people leaving matches when 1 or more of this build appears. I will admit their damage is much lower than what warrior can achieve, but it is the sheer healing volume that eventually leads to 2 or more players having to be present to adequately deal with them. This current build is the response to healing signet about to get lowered. People are already designing always to over compensate and rely purely on condition ticks via attrition to down opponents. If worse comes to worse and you can’t down them, you cab certainly hold the node for a near indefinite time in stale mate encounters. I won’t speak for everyone, but I do feel stalemate situations are things nobody enjoys.

style.6173:

@OP: Shouts are not a problem on warrior. Most hambow seem to run stances anyway.

You also missed mm necro from your list. That belongs in the top 5.

I left MM out because i have not currently seen people leave specifically because of their presence. I have seen people drop out of matches because of the above stated FoTM builds. However, from your experience if you have personally seen multiple people drop out of a match on what appears to be ‘disgust’ reasons, then by all means let’s make it clear that even though debuffs and nerfs were applied to this build, it is still literally pushing people away from the Pvp scene.

Man pistol wip is balanced right now stop cry and learn to play, sword now is the most set nerfed thief in this game , i suggest really make moore practice, im boring right now to listen noobs in this forum cry about thief, we have low healthpool, low armour, what do you want ? whe should run in a map with a target on our head with written kill me ?! I think reading on forum that this is what the most player want for thief class so i think if anet will listen this should only delete thief class from this game and stop joke with comunity thief because there will be always players that cry about it, pls …. really learn how counter sword pistol, good players know how counter that build!

jihm.2315:

MM necro is a reason to even stop playing the game, the most poor designed class in an mmo ever having 10 pets around him that are tanky and make damage i see them standing at capture points and almost no one approaches them, spirit ranger is ok in comparison with them.
and this might be personal or because im a guardian but i absolutely hate mesmers.

Two Words: Moa Morph.

Literally, their entire spec can be shut down for enough time to be easily handled.

Spirit rangers are not strong at all. Spirit is getting a big nerf and will be pretty much useless. Long cooldown, way weaker heal and revive that will never, ever work against any decent team (too easy to interrupt), not to mention eles just having to sneeze on spirits to make the ranger completely useless.

Shout warrior is fine compared to hambow.

Decap engi is only strong because of AR trait. Something should be done about it.

Pistol whip will be a bit weaker since OP lyssa runes are getting nerfed.

MM necro is fine.

jihm.2315:

MM necro is a reason to even stop playing the game, the most poor designed class in an mmo ever having 10 pets around him that are tanky and make damage i see them standing at capture points and almost no one approaches them, spirit ranger is ok in comparison with them.
and this might be personal or because im a guardian but i absolutely hate mesmers.

Interrupt Moa mesmer shuts that down. But it is stupid when you have to fight cheesy specs with even cheesier specs.

Lyssa wil not nerfed and are not OP ….. why this forum is so full of crying kids ?! OH MY GOD!

jportell.2197:

jihm.2315:

MM necro is a reason to even stop playing the game, the most poor designed class in an mmo ever having 10 pets around him that are tanky and make damage i see them standing at capture points and almost no one approaches them, spirit ranger is ok in comparison with them.
and this might be personal or because im a guardian but i absolutely hate mesmers.

Interrupt Moa mesmer shuts that down. But it is stupid when you have to fight cheesy specs with even cheesier specs.

well at the end of the day pvp means business , i started playing cheesy build my self sometimes but then i get bored and switch to something more balanced lol

simonerd.8672:

Lyssa wil not nerfed and are not OP ….. why this forum is so full of crying kids ?! OH MY GOD!

Lyssa runes are getting nerfed.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

I am glad you have found your method of dealing with the hyper regen warriors.

You have it backwards. The shouts build you are referring to is arguably one of the most balanced builds there is, by warrior standards.

No hard CC, which allows the opponent plenty of room for counter game play. No stability, which opens up a variety of situational weaknesses. Low but consistent damage output. No burst. It’s a huge trade off.

Compare this to Hambow: extremely short cool down stuns/hard CC , paired with very high burst damage (high CC should never be coupled with high damage, in any game…), invulnerability to damage and conditions through stances, the longest duration personal stability skills in the game, all in one build.

The shouts build is so balanced in comparison that it makes people suspicious that it’s OP too. There’s nothing broken about full shouts builds. It’s everything a balanced warrior is supposed to be: sturdy body, ok damage but not too much, decent team support.

Tl;dr If hambow warriors = Lamborghinis, then shouts warriors = the plain but dependable Hyundai.

Personally, I find bunker Guard as one of the best builds to carry in sPvP since you have a lot of stability, knockbacks second only to decap engis, tons of condi cleanse, and some of the best ability to rez downed teammates.

but for some reason people don’t find bunker guards OP. ~shrug~

After reading the ready up notes, I am happy to see these three specific builds are being addressed. As stated above, when you see these builds actually making others just want to leave a match it under pins they were not just a tad O.P, but ‘Toxic.’

Even though I am a avid warrior player, I am happy to see these changes.

Dahkeus.8243:

Personally, I find bunker Guard as one of the best builds to carry in sPvP since you have a lot of stability, knockbacks second only to decap engis, tons of condi cleanse, and some of the best ability to rez downed teammates.

but for some reason people don’t find bunker guards OP. ~shrug~

b/c if you have more than one in a team you suffer greatly from lack of damage. It’s also a role that can be covered by other builds in casual gameplay by other builds or just by playing close-far.