Guild Wars 2

Not trying to start a fight but are you finding some of the Elites to be too strong or have a skill or two that hit too hard?

So far this is what I have noticed:

The Rev’s long range Coalescence of Ruin attack clocking for well over 8k on a crit in some instances. I think sometimes it is stacking the impact damage because the wiki numbers are very wrong on its damage output potential.

Scrappers in general are proving nearly impossible to kill when played well. Stealth, speed, healing, tanky, good utility and solid damage output. There seems to be no significant downside to the build other than being a bit clunky to play.

Gun Flame is evil. Hits like a truck, dazes, sets a player on fire, very long range, relatively fast cast speed and is somewhat spammable. It is pretty niche but every time I have run into one I have gotten lit up… literally and figuratively.

How about you?

I would like to see the Scrapper build you are talking about

Maybe you can tell us what class you are playing?

Straegen.2938:

The Rev’s long range Coalescence of Ruin attack clocking for well over 8k on a crit in some instances. I think sometimes it is stacking the impact damage because the wiki numbers are very wrong on its damage output potential.

On frontlines maybe. It’ll easily hit >15k on another glass build. This skill has literally made players quit the game..

The wiki is correct that Coalescence has a 2.0 damage modifier at max range. The damage you see comes from a combination of ridiculous buffing (2+ revs in the same party), very good general damage modifiers on Rev, and the trait Cruel Repercussion (+50%).

And yes, I do agree that certain skills are massively overtuned (e.g. Coalescence, True Shot, dragonhunter traps, Gravedigger..).

Big thing with the Scrapper running Sneak Gyro is you have to kill that gyro. It’s basically like how old Turret Engi was, very powerful so you had to kill the turrets. While some may not think the Sneak Gyro’s stealth is good because you can still see where the engineer is moving to, it is good in the fact that, sure you can see what direction they’re going, but you can’t target the engineer so you cannot hit them with any powerful single target hits, unless its a dumb fire one you get lucky with.

Other than that I think the Scrapper spec is fine as it is, though Gyro’s could still use an improvement with mobility. They are pretty tanky because that’s how they were built to be, and it can be countered by the right timing and locking down at those moments.

Also in general with the latest hard hitting skills, like CoR and True Shot for example, the power creep with damage since the specializations patch is very high, which I am kind of sad about. But I don’t think that will be fixed unless they update toughness scaling. I don’t want to see them tone down the damage because IMO the damage is fine, playing tankier isn’t necessary but it should help more than it does right now.

I still wonder who thought it made sense to give an elite that can maintain permanent uptime on fury, a trait that doubles the effect of fury. Just seems like a really really odd choice.

Coming next warriors that can double the effect of might, and elementalist that can double the effect of protection.

But really all of them seem better then thier base class. And much harder to kill if that know what they are doing.

engineer is also the hardest class to play and the least represented
you sound like a dragonhunter which is never happy about buffs
until you can farm bags with you’re eyes closed

Wryscher.1432:

I still wonder who thought it made sense to give an elite that can maintain permanent uptime on fury, a trait that doubles the effect of fury. Just seems like a really really odd choice.

Coming next warriors that can double the effect of might, and elementalist that can double the effect of protection.

But really all of them seem better then thier base class. And much harder to kill if that know what they are doing.

It’s a business decision. Anet is trying to make money by selling HOT expansion, not trying to please the players that join the game using core GW2. Of course they have make things better that are exclusive to HOT.

Elementalist tornado and rebound needs to be brought in line. I suggest we merge the two, so when you die from damage while swinging your arms about screaming: “WEEEEE! I’m a TORNADO!!!!” You get healed for 2k, and die right away after.

Oh please, buff tornado. But, sure nerf some outliers too.

Extreme.8350:

engineer is also the hardest class to play and the least represented you sound like a dragonhunter which is never happy about buffs
until you can farm bags with you’re eyes closed

Engi to me is not the hardest class to play… it is just clunky. Scrappers are an entirely different beast though. I will be far more familiar with it in about 10 more WvW levels.

As for what I play… I have all characters to 80, fully ascended and have unlocked 5 of the 9 elites solely through WvW play. I typically main a Dare Devil since I love the mobility and the challenge of playing it but I routinely play other classes/builds for experience in fighting them. Being old(er) my reflexes are a bit shot but I can still hold my own with most players in a variety of classes/builds.

Challenge of Daredevil? Oh, no no no. I quit my thief because the spec is an insult to the “harder to play for bigger rewards” aspect of the thief that kept me so addicted to it. Dodge rolling for 7-10k damage is absurd on all fronts and just insults pretty much every past attempt to play a more skillful build oriented on damage and/or proper evasion use. I won’t even get started on Vault.

Ruin needs a nerf, though. Gun flame is iffy, though maybe needs an extra 1/4 second on the cast time or something similarly small, but Ruin’s pretty massive AOE and huge damage are overdone for its short cooldown and ease-to-use with the relatively risk-free feel of 1200 range on the already-durable rev.

scrapper if anything needs a little buff with some skills and as for the elite just spend a few hits and kill the gyro since its an easy kill

guys please don’t start sounding like those spvp noobs, every class has its place in wvw. they dont need nerfs when all you need is a zerg to kill them so it evens it all out. I hope if classes gets nerfs they separate to from spvp and wvw/pve. Cause those spvp guys don’t have the skill wvw people have

Ruin is hit like a truck, but other skills are not that good. 2 skills root you in place and VERY slow and 1 dont do or reflect damage and the auto attack dont follow the terrain and slow. I think rev hammer needs a rebalance, not a nerf. As a gua i can feel as i dominate the battlefield, as a revenant i dont have this feeling. Nearly every second skills control your movement. Little like rangers sword aa

DeceiverX.8361:

Challenge of Daredevil? Oh, no no no. I quit my thief because the spec is an insult to the “harder to play for bigger rewards” aspect of the thief that kept me so addicted to it. Dodge rolling for 7-10k damage is absurd on all fronts and just insults pretty much every past attempt to play a more skillful build oriented on damage and/or proper evasion use. I won’t even get started on Vault.

The dodge roll does 1400 non-crit against a medium armor opponent and the player has to give up Dash which is what makes the class fun to play. Vault does about 3800 non-crit in the same scenario. I just tested it in WvW with a friend that had 2300 armor on my build that is all Valkyrie/Zerk (2700 power, 220% Ferocity). Vault also has a ridiculously easy to dodge wind up and old skills like Pistol Whip are superior IMO.

DareDevil is also the only Elite that basically got shafted on the special class ability. One extra dodge and a new weapon. That is it. The LOL part is the extra dodge used to be a standard trait in Acrobatics for years before they removed it. If it wasn’t for Dash, there would be no point in the Dare Devil as Crit Strikes dishes out more damage again IMO.

Warrior’s state is no better than a thief’s. Gunflame is the only skill which is worth the money and the rest of the whole class (not just the spec) is becoming useless by each passing day. Warriors need to stay in melee range and be not blinded so that they are effective, but nowadays with blind spams, evade spams, pirate ship meta they are almost irrelevant. IMO play a couple of unranked matches in PvP as a warrior/berserker and you’ll understand what I am saying.

What ? No one complaining about Reaper grave digger one-shotting people for 25K ?

For shame !!

Elite specs are fine. L2P issue is all.

Hexalot.8194:

What ? No one complaining about Reaper grave digger one-shotting people for 25K ?

Reapers hit hard no doubt but I haven’t found them to have a skill that levels me before I knew what hit me. I may not have run into the right build though.

NiloyBardhan.9170:

Warrior’s state is no better than a thief’s. Gunflame is the only skill which is worth the money and the rest of the whole class (not just the spec) is becoming useless by each passing day.

I am not passing judgement on the Zerk build as a whole just that Gun Flame is disproportionately too powerful. IMO it should be toned down and some of the other portions improved.

Straegen.2938:

Hexalot.8194:

What ? No one complaining about Reaper grave digger one-shotting people for 25K ?

Reapers hit hard no doubt but I haven’t found them to have a skill that levels me before I knew what hit me. I may not have run into the right build though.

None of the other skills you mentioned in your opening post should level you before you know what’s happening either, unless you’re running pure glass (and mostly not even then). Many of the elite specs are indeed a damage upgrade over the base class but many have counter plays too. For example, Herald C.o.R typically only hits if the ground you are standing on is exactly the same level as them. Slightly higher or lower elevation and the attack misses 70% of the time.

Hexalot.8194:

None of the other skills you mentioned in your opening post should level you before you know what’s happening either, unless you’re running pure glass (and mostly not even then). Many of the elite specs are indeed a damage upgrade over the base class but many have counter plays too. For example, Herald C.o.R typically only hits if the ground you are standing on is exactly the same level as them. Slightly higher or lower elevation and the attack misses 70% of the time.

I have been popped by a Gun Flame attack from several warriors with 8.5k crits. Any attack that dazes, AoEs, burns and launches from 1500 should not be spamable. It also has very little animation and fires quickly. Miss a dodge against it (which can be very hard to see) and half a players health or more is gone. My guess is that warriors can easily hit 100% crit chance in zerk mode making this damager evil in my book. Most big hits like this are channeled or have long windups.

Just last night on multiple occasions got hit by CoR doing well over 8k and it shouldn’t even be in that ballpark of damage. Backstab doesn’t even hit that hard against me and that requires stealth, position and single target. Most of the time it has consistently moderate damage but occasionally this thing spikes for a crazy amount. There are several reports of players seeing all the damage from each zone pile up rather than one on this attack which is what I think happens.

Wryscher.1432:

I still wonder who thought it made sense to give an elite that can maintain permanent uptime on fury, a trait that doubles the effect of fury. Just seems like a really really odd choice.

Coming next warriors that can double the effect of might, and elementalist that can double the effect of protection.

But really all of them seem better then thier base class. And much harder to kill if that know what they are doing.

Necromancers that double the effects of conditions!

Straegen.2938:

Hexalot.8194:

None of the other skills you mentioned in your opening post should level you before you know what’s happening either, unless you’re running pure glass (and mostly not even then). Many of the elite specs are indeed a damage upgrade over the base class but many have counter plays too. For example, Herald C.o.R typically only hits if the ground you are standing on is exactly the same level as them. Slightly higher or lower elevation and the attack misses 70% of the time.

I have been popped by a Gun Flame attack from several warriors with 8.5k crits. Any attack that dazes, AoEs, burns and launches from 1500 should not be spamable. It also has very little animation and fires quickly. Miss a dodge against it (which can be very hard to see) and half a players health or more is gone. My guess is that warriors can easily hit 100% crit chance in zerk mode making this damager evil in my book. Most big hits like this are channeled or have long windups.

Just last night on multiple occasions got hit by CoR doing well over 8k and it shouldn’t even be in that ballpark of damage. Backstab doesn’t even hit that hard against me and that requires stealth, position and single target. Most of the time it has consistently moderate damage but occasionally this thing spikes for a crazy amount. There are several reports of players seeing all the damage from each zone pile up rather than one on this attack which is what I think happens.

Well I can’t speak for Gunflame as I don’t have my Warrior elite unlocked as yet but why shouldn’t Rev Hammer 2 skill not be able to crit for 8K ?

That’s moderate damage compared to what Rapid fire could do and in league with Dragon Hunter true shot as well. As mentioned, Reaper Grave Digger can easily do twice that (drawback being it’s hard to land), and even on my old Mesmer, 8K damage was nothing with mind rack or the iBerserker phantasm.

And as for thieves, I don’t know about you but I’ve been hit for 13K back stabs on my Necro.

Every weapon which is specifically created for damage should at the least be able to do 5-8K crits on it’s hardest hitting skill, and even higher than that if you factor in things like might stacking, vulnerability and so on.

Hexalot.8194:

That’s moderate damage compared to what Rapid fire could do and in league with Dragon Hunter true shot as well. As mentioned, Reaper Grave Digger can easily do twice that (drawback being it’s hard to land), and even on my old Mesmer, 8K damage was nothing with mind rack or the iBerserker phantasm.

Its a 1200 Range AoE that can be somewhat spammed. It is almost as good in base damage as HeartSeeker which isn’t an AoE and has a much shorter range. When it spikes its damage it is significantly more damage. Rapid Fire is a single target skill unless a trait is used with a longer cooldown and it is a channeled skill meaning no other damage is going out for nearly 3s.

As for True Shot the DH is probably headed to some nerfs with the longbow. Don’t think many people would call it under-powered or even average in the current meta. Longbow DH is arguably the best longbow class.

Grave Digger for some probably belongs on this list. I haven’t felt it particularly OP because it has to be in your grill to execute its damage. Necros are also generally slow and this thing has a pretty big windup. I blind and dodge a lot. Oddly from the Reaper line the new chill abilities have been far more of a handful but Reapers melt to ranged pressure so again I haven’t felt it but I am not the arbitrator of what is OP and not.

Hexalot.8194:

And as for thieves, I don’t know about you but I’ve been hit for 13K back stabs on my Necro.

I haven’t been hit by a big BS since before the trait line and guard stack changes. Backstab is actually not as powerful as several other skills including Pistol Whip which against 2300 armor deals out about 8k with crits. The days of the legendary one-shot Backstab are gone at least against average players with exotic or better gear. Worth noting is that Backstab is a single target, touch based melee attack that requires setup by another skill, being in the right position and run full glass to even be remotely effective. As you pointed out with Grave Digger, it is significantly higher spike than Backstab.

Hexalot.8194:

Every weapon which is specifically created for damage should at the least be able to do 5-8K crits on it’s hardest hitting skill, and even higher than that if you factor in things like might stacking, vulnerability and so on.

Some weapon sets that are AoE based should have far less base damage because they hit multiple targets. Their DPS is high but their single target shouldn’t be. Other weapons such as the warrior hammer are control based. Long range non-melee attacks should not have the same lethality as close range melee weapons. Basically weapons in general should NOT be able to 2-3 shot most players without obvious wind-ups, setups or downsides otherwise we all might as well go play Battlefront.

Straegen.2938:

Hexalot.8194:

That’s moderate damage compared to what Rapid fire could do and in league with Dragon Hunter true shot as well. As mentioned, Reaper Grave Digger can easily do twice that (drawback being it’s hard to land), and even on my old Mesmer, 8K damage was nothing with mind rack or the iBerserker phantasm.

Its a 1200 Range AoE that can be somewhat spammed. It is almost as good in base damage as HeartSeeker which isn’t an AoE and has a much shorter range. When it spikes its damage it is significantly more damage. Rapid Fire is a single target skill unless a trait is used with a longer cooldown and it is a channeled skill meaning no other damage is going out for nearly 3s.

As for True Shot the DH is probably headed to some nerfs with the longbow. Don’t think many people would call it under-powered or even average in the current meta. Longbow DH is arguably the best longbow class.

Grave Digger for some probably belongs on this list. I haven’t felt it particularly OP because it has to be in your grill to execute its damage. Necros are also generally slow and this thing has a pretty big windup. I blind and dodge a lot. Oddly from the Reaper line the new chill abilities have been far more of a handful but Reapers melt to ranged pressure so again I haven’t felt it but I am not the arbitrator of what is OP and not.

Hexalot.8194:

And as for thieves, I don’t know about you but I’ve been hit for 13K back stabs on my Necro.

I haven’t been hit by a big BS since before the trait line and guard stack changes. Backstab is actually not as powerful as several other skills including Pistol Whip which against 2300 armor deals out about 8k with crits. The days of the legendary one-shot Backstab are gone at least against average players with exotic or better gear. Worth noting is that Backstab is a single target, touch based melee attack that requires setup by another skill, being in the right position and run full glass to even be remotely effective. As you pointed out with Grave Digger, it is significantly higher spike than Backstab.

Hexalot.8194:

Every weapon which is specifically created for damage should at the least be able to do 5-8K crits on it’s hardest hitting skill, and even higher than that if you factor in things like might stacking, vulnerability and so on.

Some weapon sets that are AoE based should have far less base damage because they hit multiple targets. Their DPS is high but their single target shouldn’t be. Other weapons such as the warrior hammer are control based. Long range non-melee attacks should not have the same lethality as close range melee weapons. Basically weapons in general should NOT be able to 2-3 shot most players without obvious wind-ups, setups or downsides otherwise we all might as well go play Battlefront.

Well that “aoe based dps having lower damage” business must have skipped passed Elementalists and to a certain extent Mesmers (their mind rack is technically an aoe) too then. :-)

I know that Eles for sure have insane spike damage on their staff fire skills and even staff ranged AA.

Also… thieves back stab got a boost in damage along with all damage skills in general for every class after the core June update patch (there was some major power creep with that update). Thieves back stabs in general do hit harder now than before.

Hexalot.8194:

Well that “aoe based dps having lower damage” business must have skipped passed Elementalists and to a certain extent Mesmers (their mind rack is technically an aoe) too then. :-)

Staff eles trade long range high DPS for survivability. That said I am not a big fan of their long range DPS ability.

Mesmers… No doubt one of if not the best dueling class in the game. I wouldn’t call them OP but some “adjustments” have been long overdue. The PU nerf helped but still a hard fight.

Hexalot.8194:

Also… thieves back stab got a boost in damage along with all damage skills in general for every class after the core June update patch (there was some major power creep with that update). Thieves back stabs in general do hit harder now than before.

It is not even close to what it was before the trait-line changes. Playing a D/D thief now is now done so out of preference rather than effectiveness. There are attacks on the thief that do more damage and do not have backstabs very specific requirements such as Weakening Charge, Vault or Pistol Whip. All of these do as much or more damage and have little setup requirement. Now we have entire classes that have attacks that hit just as hard (or harder) than backstab and do not have to trade off all defense to get that damage. Try chewing through a Reapers or Dragon Hunters health bar with Backstab especially when getting in melee distance is near suicide for a thief.

Straegen.2938:

Hexalot.8194:

Well that “aoe based dps having lower damage” business must have skipped passed Elementalists and to a certain extent Mesmers (their mind rack is technically an aoe) too then. :-)

Staff eles trade long range high DPS for survivability. That said I am not a big fan of their long range DPS ability.

Mesmers… No doubt one of if not the best dueling class in the game. I wouldn’t call them OP but some “adjustments” have been long overdue. The PU nerf helped but still a hard fight.

Hexalot.8194:

Also… thieves back stab got a boost in damage along with all damage skills in general for every class after the core June update patch (there was some major power creep with that update). Thieves back stabs in general do hit harder now than before.

It is not even close to what it was before the trait-line changes. Playing a D/D thief now is now done so out of preference rather than effectiveness. There are attacks on the thief that do more damage and do not have backstabs very specific requirements such as Weakening Charge, Vault or Pistol Whip. All of these do as much or more damage and have little setup requirement. Now we have entire classes that have attacks that hit just as hard (or harder) than backstab and do not have to trade off all defense to get that damage. Try chewing through a Reapers or Dragon Hunters health bar with Backstab especially when getting in melee distance is near suicide for a thief.

Oh… there is no doubt that thief needs some serious work in terms of its overall effectiveness against the new breed. But the skill itself (back stab) got a boost as well as every other skill after the June patch. How effective it is vs the elite specs is a discussion in itself since every other class’s damage went up too while thieves stayed just as squishy as before.

Straegen.2938:

I have been popped by a Gun Flame attack from several warriors with 8.5k crits.

The bug where it hits twice also either wasn’t fixed, or wasn’t completely fixed.