Elite specs won’t destroy PvP as long as classes don’t significantly out perform others.
Elite specs WILL destroy PvP when players are split between HoT vs. non-HoT
Right now Reaper, Scrapper and Chronomancer are just more powerful elite specs for their classes. If you are a main engineer, necromancer and mesmer, you are going to be behind unless you buy the expansion.
Base necromancer builds stop Reapers just fine. Did it for 3 hours yesterday. Reapers are still good, they’re just different not better.
Base engineer can kite and bait the Scrapper’s key skills then burst them down quickly. Same thing, different and fun to play and I love it, but it’s not strictly better once you sit down and suss it out.
Can’t comment on the mesmer situation, not qualified.
No the players will not be locked out just the players Elite Speced characters. It’s very clear several (if not all) of the Elite specs are over powered in PvP.
It’s very clear several non Elite spec builds are over powered in PvP. Can we lock those out too?
Just pointing out the flaw in your thinking here.
Look at the current state of sPvP in GW2. It’s in a pretty good place. D/D Ele’s were really the last OP build and the mild nerf has balanced it. Just about every class has a solid sPvP meta which has made Pug matches fun a good part of the time.
There are any number of people who would debate that with you.
With the Elite Specs they are introducing classes that have builds substantially over powered. How much time have you spent observing hot join and studying the elite spec builds and their damage out, sustainability, etc… I’ve spent several hours doing this. I’m not going to get into the details because I’m not going to aid them but I’m right about the unbalance and I’m right about the damage it will do to the game. Not every Elite spec is over powered but there are a few that are. It makes sense that after launch there should be a cool down period where ArenaNet can observe where the balance needs to be placed on these new Elite Specs before they are allowed in Ranked matches. If they do not take that step, then they will make Ranked play a mockery.
1. I’ve spent the better part of this BWE on either the scrapper, in TS with other players beta testing the other elites, or on a normal character fighting these elite specs, including the horrors of the alacrity spamming chronomancer and the perma daze druid.
Are they nasty? Hell yes they are. But they die just fine.
But just as I see the forums crying over Scrapper, I’ve played it enough to realize once people settle down, they’ll see it’s entirely beatable. Reaper is a bit nasty at the moment yes, but I have figured out how to stop it cold on my own regular necro. Etc. Etc.
Do I have a perfect counter for everything yet? No, the perma daze Druid for example is still a problem. But one weekend, even all three, is not enough time to really say it’s broke. Is it broke or do we just not have enough time with it yet to figure out the counter?
Additionally, who is likely to play these elite specs during the beta? Reasonably accomplished players and people who have been playing a long time who have already pre ordered. 80% of my games are on an Engineer. I doodled in a notebook 5 pages of possible Scrapper builds over the last 2 weeks from memory. I’m not saying I’m a good Engineer or even a decent one, but if I know that much to be able to do that, it seems reasonable I’m going to come up with something good that other people aren’t going to know how to neutralize yet.
And surprise, surprise, once I got 2-3 bad games out of my system and figured it out better, I started to do very well on the Scrapper. Because it’s still an Engineer, and I had the advantage of being new and strange. But having done that, I now know there’s no particular reason to fear the Scrapper. Respect it yes, but don’t fear it.
When HoT actually releases, I predict the general effectiveness of these elite specs will seem to suddenly tank as the skill of the players generalizes and shifts away from people who at least have some clue how to use them. Right now you’re seeing at least somewhat experienced players who are chomping at the bit for something new and fresh playing them. They’re going to be a nasty lot.
Once people calm down and realize that none of the Elites are strictly better versions of the base class (except maybe Chronomancer to hear some tell it…), it’ll settle down. Right now it’s new and shiny and we’re all playing with our new toys.
2. It’d be daft to introduce new things to play and then bar them from such a prominent game mode. Why don’t we ban Reapers from WvW, they change the balance there. Why don’t we ban Druids from Dungeons. etc. etc.
There will be some stupidly broken stuff. There’s stupidly broken stuff now. There will be more stupidly broken stuff in the future.
So I ran into some more p/p thieves, but I managed to not die this time. Elixir S toobelt skill is really useful for both escaping the shooting and turning around and surprising the thief. Which is good because I really didn’t want to have to run pistol/shield.
Now if I could just figure out how to beat those kitten necros. This forum needs a “how do I beat X while playing Y” thread instead o all these QQ threads.
That can be tough and it’s hard to give general advice because it depends on the exact engineer and necro builds.
If you’re a condi engi, it’s often just a “do not engage” or “+1 only” protocol. Use your escape/speeds to go elsewhere.
Elite Elixir is your best friend.
Most of my sustain heavy engineer builds can beat a necro, but not quickly is the issue.
Some engi builds will have lots of CC to rock the necro with. You may or may not be able to kill him, but if you can push him off the point and be on it more than he is, you win.
Similarly, rifle 2 and Tool Kit 5,2 will help keep them off the point. If you can keep that super tough necro off point, that’s good enough.
Daze, chill and if you have it stun are very useful. The thing about necro sustain is while they’re very tough, if they mess up one ability at the wrong time, they’re done.
If the necro is in DS, they don’t have access to their condition transfer active abilities. They may still have the passive so watch out, but not all necros will have that. If they don’t or it seems like they should have used it by now, a massive burning spike will eat their DS quickly.
Glass cannon FT,grenade and even mortar builds can be pretty brutal on a necro.
Uh, no? We have plenty of sources. More stability—especially more AoE stability—would actually be OP.
Yeah because screw anything that would actually create a viable alternative to GWEN, and screw anyone who realizes the pirate ship meta is worse than the hammer train. :p
Scrapper already gets stability when function gyro is used. 2 stacks in fact. Anything more and it would be overkill.
The problem with that is you have to have somebody to rez or stomp, and the function gyro doesn’t even work half the time anyway.
To be useful, you need on demand stab. You also need the ability to pile up way more than 2 stacks of it on demand (such as with Virtues), on a good push you can lose a half dozen stacks instantly.
We won’t see Guardian style stab on the Engineer I’m afraid (though playing both I wish we could just so there’d be one viable alternative to the Guardian). Arenanet had a chance here to have something besides GWEN, but it won’t happen, Scrapper stab is too selfish. Yes I’m aware they don’t care and the WvW meta is incidental.
If the intent is to push the Scrapper into the front line party, camping FT is simply not an option, it helps yes, but it’s just one stack it’ll be gone instantly, and the auto attack is going to kill you very quickly.
Thrown Elixir B might help some, the trouble is when you’re getting rocked and shifting, it’s really not going to be practical in a lot of situations to use that. It would be fine right before the push I suppose.
I only want to comment on druids position… you’re crazy.
Six Second Daze.
5 Second Cooldown.
GG.
No the players will not be locked out just the players Elite Speced characters. It’s very clear several (if not all) of the Elite specs are over powered in PvP.
It’s very clear several non Elite spec builds are over powered in PvP. Can we lock those out too?
Just pointing out the flaw in your thinking here.
Weird. Mine’s been so much better lately, my overall win percentage is actually starting to improve finally. Even when I get on a losing streak like I did the other day, they were all games that were within 35 points. The number of extreme blowouts has been way down lately (both in my favor and against).
is better how it is now. When you use it is because it’s supposed yuou’re in danger…and when you are in danger probably you have some CC condition on you..
so many times i was Chilled or Crippled in WWW hopeing to reach the door against many and the leap was too short as intended…
If you use it just to run fast (turning you’re self) is another story…
This guy gets it. Definitely much better now. I can use it on a point and know if I position myself correctly I won’t go (too far) off point now.
If you hit your drop bundle button just after using Acid Bomb you cancel the leap, but still do the acid pool and blast. You don’t move back at all.
So what you’re looking for is already possible, no need to nerf Acid Bomb’s range.
What if I don’t want to drop bundle? What if I still want to leap? If I’m going to use that combination, I’m probably going to immediately follow it with EG 3, then possibly 2 and/or even a couple of auto attacks depending on the situation.
Granted there are also times I wouldn’t, but I prefer to have the choice.
is better how it is now. When you use it is because it’s supposed yuou’re in danger…and when you are in danger probably you have some CC condition on you..
so many times i was Chilled or Crippled in WWW hopeing to reach the door against many and the leap was too short as intended…
If you use it just to run fast (turning you’re self) is another story…
This guy gets it. Definitely much better now. I can use it on a point and know if I position myself correctly I won’t go (too far) off point now.
Druid is OP. Dat 6 second daze.
In one month or less after the xpac hits, there will be video guides on Youtube telling everyone exactly how to beat them all with minimal practice and thought, and Metabattle will have easy to duplicate build templates.
Outwitting the other players is still a form of PvP.
I don’t disagree at all and I think my new system would statistically express the value of this better than our current implementation.
And for what it’s worth I do like your idea of damage taken = points. Gives incentive to hold the objectives.
I don’t feel like I can really produce a truly accurate list this soon after a balance patch, but there’s no way Necro is in a better spot than Ellie or Mesmer even after that patch.
Yes the necro has some very strong meta builds, but they still suck at condi pressure (their intended role), they still lack escapes, mobility, etc., they are easily negated with simple juking to make them waste key abilities, hard CC owns them all day long, moa them and burst them and they’re done, etc.
A lot of their abilities are very, very strong, however if they miss the timing they get rekt.
I agree they’re hard to kill at the moment, but a necro should be hard to kill because they can’t quit the fight.
p/p thief?
like…really?
lol
The OP has less than 100 games played. If he doesn’t have a lot of experience going against this particular setup (and it’s not common at all, I very rarely see P/P except as a troll build), it’s entirely understandable he should have problems with it because of a lack of practice.
It’s pretty lousy to mock somebody for having the intelligence to realize “wow I really have a problem with this” and trying to figure out how to deal with it.
In it’s current state, conquest is won by score, not necessarily PvP.
Outwitting the other players is still a form of PvP.
There’s two layers going on in SPVP, there’s the “twitch skill” aspect of physically killing each other, and there’s the “strategic” aspect of map awareness, knowing where to rotate, being in position to content with map mechanics, etc.
Being well past my prime in terms of “twitch skill”, the latter aspect of the game counting for so much helps me a great deal personally so I’m biased XD
I actually don’t disagree we could use a better, more holistic system that rewards certain behaviors better, but the problem of perverse incentives is a tricky one to manage.
Personally I’ve always thought that WvW should use the PvP gearing/spec system with the amulets and no food and whatnot myself.
I don’t think I’d mind Death Match as a nice change of pace sometimes. The problem is I don’t like it being in the same queue as the rest.
It’s kind of tragic really, if it could be deliberately played on demand, it might grow up and mature with its own meta, etc.
I also disagree you’d be waiting. Nearly every time it comes up there’s votes for it. SOMEONE clearly wants to play it.
The trick to fighting a thief, as an engineer, is you have to realize strictly speaking, they’re mechanically superior. They can put you in situations where you are going to lose and lose badly. However that superiority is fully contingent upon the thief’s player executing those mechanics correctly.
It takes a while to develop it, but eventually you will pick up on certain cues that the thief is about to make a big play. In other words, you have to outwit the other player.
If you know they’re about to come out of stealth and rock you, you do something like:
Drop your Big Old Bomb to interrupt their burst.
Pop Elixir S right before (that’s key) they open up on you, then immediately hit them with say Rifle 4 or your moa elixir immediately after coming out of it. You want them to waste those first 2-3 attacks.
Pop Flamethrower 5 at the last possible second.
In this particular example, shield 4 would be your best weapon. You’d probably have to hit your stun break and then shield 4 immediately to get any use out of it against most thieves but them’s the breaks.
Stealth yourself right before he hits, so he comes out of stealth while you’re still stealthed.
A more general tactic against nearly any kind of thief is realizing that engineers can fight opponents without having to “stand and deliver”. Ironically, the untraited bomb kit is actually one of the greatest anti thief weapons, though it wouldn’t be as good against a P/P thief, it would still work. The reason it’s good is there’s a delay between placing the bomb and having it explode, and since it covers an area, you don’t have to be completely precise, but basically use your Vigor and Adrenal implant etc. to keep dodging around and dropping bombs that will attack him indirectly.
Confusion stacking works great, fwiw.
Finally, Lock On is your friend.
A good thief player who has learned to be unpredictable is just a real terror. However if you play and play and play you’ll eventually learn to spot typical behaviors, and you’ll start to anticipate these things. Once you get that sixth sense of when you’re about to get rekt, thieves… don’t become easy, but it becomes much more even is a good way to put it.
It’s really more about the situational awareness of the player than anything. Engineers are challenging to play because you have to mash a lot of buttons in very particular sequences. You’re so busy playing the interface, it’s hard to have good situational awareness. Once you get used to it somewhat though, your ability to pay attention to other things will improve. It’ll develop, but it’s going to suck for a while.
Also realize that if the thief sets you up right and executes his setup perfectly, well usually he probably deserves to win. There’s just going to be times the thief is going to eat your lunch. Engineer vs. thief really is often a matter of who catches who first. I’ve had matches where a thief and I just obliterated each other brutally, depending entirely on who saw who first.
I’d be seriously annoyed if you don’t allow badges during matches. Back then we had visible pvp ranks and you removed those for no reason, now we have no way of distinguishing new from experienced players. I don’t care about someone getting offended for being a lower rank than someone else, it’s a competition – deal with it. Data on your teammates is always helpful, if you see someone new you’re more likely to keep an eye on him in case he makes a mistake so you can make up for it quicker etc. On the other hand if you notice a highly skilled player you can use some more bold plays in certain situations. It’s not about bragging rights so stop with that crap nonargument. This way we’ll also have a visible data on how that matchmaking is working and give more feedback. There are 0 downsides and decent benefits.
In the PvE part of the game, if you don’t ping at least full ascended zerker gear and run the exact meta spec, you are persona non grata. You will get kicked.
In WvW, it’s not as rigid but if you are not GWEN or a utility mesmer and running the one allowed spec for it, you can be asked to switch or leave the map ignored for grouping not rezzed etc. Granted most WvW players aren’t this intolerant but that culture is still there to some degree because we understand that is just how the game works at the moment.
The end result is these game modes suffer from stagnation.
The last thing SPVP needs is map chat spamming “Legendary Rank Only.” Or every player with the highest quality badge logging out every time he gets a match with any team member or members who don’t have same. The constant 5 v 4 is bad enough already.
As long as the commander can set it to let the sub units set their own members this will only be helpful.
I played some SPVP tonight. FWIW, it seems to be working at least somewhat. Out of 7 games I got to play, 2 were really close and 2 were still competitive even if they weren’t super close. Buried the other side on one and got blown out on the last two, but this is much better than before. Sample size too small to confirm but for whatever it’s worth even the blowouts were much less frustrating than the usual blowouts.
Here’s the thing. It’s fine if something is the best. Something always has to be the best.
The issue is, D/D Ellie is/was the best by such a wide margin, it literally made everything else completely pointless in all possible situations outside of extreme niches.
It will probably take another balance patch to get it quite right, but a little nudge down like this is appropriate and welcome. D/D Ellie is still going to be tough nut to crack but it’s at least closer to reasonable than it was.
As much as I hate DD ellies I don’t want ANet to knee jerk and just destroy it completely like they did with turret engineers. That’d be stupid. Rework it, make it different, tone it down, but keep it viable.
Frankly it should be completely invisible.
Players will quickly ostracize censure and harass anyone who doesn’t have the highest grade of badge that’s possible to have.
I meant to come back and say thanks to a lot of the constructive feedback here, sorry I didn’t get to it sooner but work’s been crazy.
Yes I am mostly solo Q-ing. I mainly WvW, and I don’t get to SPVP every day though I try to play at least one game every day if I can help it.
It’s really weird going between the two modes sometimes. In WvW, mesmers just melt my face, in SPVP, I can actually win over them sometimes. In SPVP, two people can instakill me in 3 seconds, in WvW, I can tank the damage from a 40 man blob for at least 10 seconds before dying. Really messes with your head!
I’m starting to do a leeeeeeetle bit better at the moment. I found it helps to “moonlight” on other professions sometimes just to have a different set of expectations. I’ve been doing a little tiny bit of necro here and there and am surprised by how I didn’t completely suck, so that kind of made me realize I have learned some fundamentals at least that translate well.
Also it seems here lately I’m doing better on getting matches that aren’t just stupid. I’d say probably 40% of them “feel wrong” at the moment, which is a lot better than a couple weeks ago when I was really frustrated. And I’m not going to lie, it helps that about 1 in 3 of my “lopsided” matches, I’m on the side that buries the other. That isn’t good either, but human nature being what it is, it’s easier mentally/emotionally to be on the side that kills it.
I think that MMR thing is more evident to me when I’m on a team that buries the other team. It seems every time that happens, there’s one guy on the opposition that’s just ridiculously hard to kill, but it doesn’t matter because if you just keep him busy you’ll win by coverage.
RE: 48-49 percent win rate is sad. Most people who SPVP and try at all seem to have 60 even 70 percent rates :p I would be happy just to do about 55-60%.
I accept I’m not going to be in the top 10 or even 25 percent of players, kudos to people who are, it’s just I realize I just don’t put the effort into being that good.
I’m hoping the new MMR fix will help, if it works like they seem to think it will, matches against closer ability levels to my own would be nice.
And it helps to realize I’m not the only one who feels a little flustered sometimes. I think what keeps me going is that every fifth or sixth match, it feels like everyone’s about the same ability level, and the score often comes down to the wire. That’s the best. Why can’t it be like that all the time? XD
Wow, this sounds amazing.
Okay I’m excited now. I feel like this could go a long way toward giving better matches that make a lot more sense to be in. Crossing fingers!
Warriors have same problem as 6 other professions: they’re not elementalists.
We haven’t even played all of them. They haven’t even all had a BWE or tweaks yet. There will probably be significant adjustments to all of them in the first balance patch post xpac.
How can you even answer this question?
The problem with the whole lockout idea is that we’re stuck on a tier which is slowly dying of attrition. Instead of creating several populated tiers as intended all the lockout has done is ensure yet another dead tier. It will take a long time for that to happen because of so many WvW centric players like myself not seeing a better option than to keep going, but I can already tell our coverage is slipping.
Very seldom in any situation does sabotaging what is already good actually improve situations that aren’t so good.
So I’m probably going to get mocked for this but I’m kind of against a wall here. I’m just going to vent and hope maybe someone with more experience can explain to me the problem I’m having, but if you don’t like people complaining skip this one.
Admittedly, sPvP isn’t my “main” game mode, I play it when I have time. I discovered it late in my GW2 experience and started to mess around with it. So I try to bear in mind that even though I have 450ish games played, that’s really not very many compared to the vast majority of my opponents. In short, other people have failed more times than I’ve even tried.
It would be like if I discovered later in life that I really like to play basketball, but the only teams to play against were in the NBA.
The truth is, I’m much, much better than when I started trying this thing. In most games I play I go through a cycle:
1. Terribad
2. Just plain average bad player
3. Baddie who makes a really good play once in a while
4. Gud
There’s a fifth tier, actually being so gud people know who you are and you can just Youtube/stream/win tournaments for a living, but I never intend to get there. I thought I was at #3 working toward 4, but suddenly I’m back at #2.
I do think I’ve at least permanently moved out of “Terribad”. I occasionally go against people who are still in that strata and I wreck them. I take no pride in this, these people are just learning like I learned and anyone who applies himself and takes his learning lumps will eventually move out of this phase. It just is what it is.
So my first 100 games or so, I was just losing. Badly. I figure I lost about 65-70 percent of the time. Then as I started to suck less, I turned that trend around. I think about the time I got to 250 games, I was about 50/50 win/loss (as I got to be just the average bad player I started to roll terribads and thus got on some win streaks).
But now that I’m closing in on around 500 games, I’m actually getting worse. I’m only winning between 48 and 49 percent of the time.
I just don’t understand it. I occasionally make some really great plays, like winning a 2 v 1, or contesting a point against 3 players for an extended period of time, and sometimes I can even beat a better team by out rotating them. The other day, I won a 4 v 5 (as the 4). I’ve never done that before, I thought all right, I have finally turned a corner, I’m starting to figure this game out.
Nope. Next match got stomped so hard. How the hell does the same player do so good one match and so bad the next, it makes no sense.
It seems lately, I just can’t stop an elementalist. Or a mesmer. I used to have even fights against most others. Now it’s like 50% of them I fight against evenly, the other half the time I might as well have been afk for all the good I did. What’s weird is I can have both of these experiences against the same opponent.
I realize that’s part of the problem, I’m playing a very easy to counter profession. The mechanics of the engineer are good but the counterplay is far too obvious, there’s no reason you should ever lose a fight with an engineer 1 on 1. It’s very easy to understand and counter, it’s not like the other professions where you have no idea what traits they even have most of the time. So I cut myself a little slack and keep trying, realizing the meta inevitably shifts.
I do this weird thing where I have like 3-5 games where I’m just awful and can’t manage to do anything, then suddenly I get a game and I just suddenly become competent again. Then I’ll be bolstered, play a couple of games and barely win those, then it’s back to loser city again.
I don’t mind losing a close match where I can tell it just came down to they made more good plays than we did, that’s cool. I learn something from the experience at least.
But the blowouts where you lose by more than 150 points just don’t teach me anything at all. It’s incredibly frustrating to see all the Phoenix and Dragon banners when I’m barely Tiger and wonder why the hell am I in the same match as these people. It’s cool that other people are much better than I am, but it doesn’t help me or them to pit us against one another. I don’t learn anything and they don’t get a good game.
Anyway I don’t know what to say other than it’s sometimes a frustrating experience here lately and I don’t understand how I can get better, just to suddenly get worse. It would be like learning to do some basic algebra, then you suddenly realize you can’t do addition any more. Trying to suck less has never been so frustrating and I’m just venting.
I had a hilarious match yesterday where I got FOUR members of the opposing team down on our home point at once. And we lost 500 to 330 somehow.
….
My reaction….
Wow, I can’t believe they actually fixed it sooner than later. You get a cookie Arenanet.
They don’t care. It’ll probably get fixed eventually but it could be in a month or in a year and a half.
Understand what you’re up against is not malice just complete indifference. This isn’t costing them any revenue and it’s not going to put the engineer in a worse Spvp position to fix it, so it’s super low priority.
You probably want to edit the name out of that image, I believe that’s against forum rules.
Other than that… you got a hate tell. Congratulations. I don’t understand it either, but I’ve gotten them before and honestly… I’m really not that good compared to a lot of people, but if you own people with personal issues they seem to want to do this for some reason.
I wish I could impress on people like this that the game’s nothing without opponents, and unless you’re paid to play this game or should be getting paid to play it, there’s probably quite a few people who are better than you. They should be glad there’s someone better or there’d be no more challenge.
I have beaten a bunker guard on any number of engineer builds. I mean I don’t always win but it’s never struck me as a particularly difficult build to fight. It’s balanced.
Down by 350 points? Assume that’s a typo and you mean 150.
Moot point as your story doesn’t make sense. You can’t hold a triple cap the entire match and be down 150. I mean seriously how can that physically happen? Maybe if you triple cap and then all the fighting is off point but at some point that would mean a majority of your team would be down to lose that many fights, and they’d cap.
I only bring it up because you can’t completely dominate the point coverage the whole time and then lose to a Lord kill. You can do better than the other team on the points, yes certainly, but if it’s a true blowout them killing the Lord won’t affect who wins.
I am sorry I just don’t understand how this is unfair, you can’t get outplayed on all three points the whole match and then kill the Lord and win.
Condition duration food either + duration or – duration is OP. Yes there are builds like power necros that should be using something else, but for many many builds nothing can touch Condi duration incoming reduction or outgoing duration.
I have had to go experiment in hotjoins to find something that works. It is not just you Engineers are just not at the top or even the middle of the meta right now.
I used to do Celestial bomb/tool/eg kit and that might actually work again if they fixed the trait for bombs.
The Marauder flamethrower HGH build works for me, though. It does take some getting used to however, but I do like it.
I am here lately doing soldier HGH Mortar kit bunker (rifle healing turret elixir gun elixir c elixir s runes of Lyssa) with explosives alchemy and tools. Sigil of Doom and Intelligence. If I take Lock on, I can actually hold my ground against a mesmer, and if the mesmer is a cheesy bandwagoner I can beat him. It took practice but this setup can eat the cheeseball burst and keep pressure on an area for a good while, and if you cleave the real mesmer out of stealth you hop on rifle and end him with sigil of intelligence.
It is not 100 percent but I got hate whispers for it.
[FANG] is recruiting players. New or experienced players are welcome.
Come play with us. If you like it, join!
Drop Ice Field on point. Spam Mortar 1. Profit.
I am pretty much a dedicated engineer at this point. I am often the only one in 3 out of 4 matches.
I typically am not running with a group that’s 50-60 deep (more like 25-30 deep), but I LOVE to fight 50-60 deep. I will grant you when the skill lag kicks in, it completely kills the fun, but otherwise there is something tremendously fun about whittling down a massive opposition a few at a time until they break and you overrun them.
Imagine if, for lack of a better analogy, you grew up on or near a beach. The tidal waves would never pulse the exact same way twice, but after a while, you could probably look at the tide and, ignoring all other details, know what time of day it was, what the weather was doing , etc. Eventually, you kind of understand the blob has a kind of life all its own, and you can exploit its behavior to destroy it.
Also, being serious here, dial down your settings a bit, it helps.
1. Chill condition. Or just outsustain them (not easy or viable on all builds you might run of course). Moa them and then hit them with burst. Yeah, I’ll give you this one, this is a tough opponent, no apparent weaknesses, but I’ve beaten D/D ellies, and they’ve beaten me, so while it’s hard fight it’s not an impossible one.
Granted when they win, they tend to mop me up in less than 20 seconds, and I fought a D/D on a point for a minute and a half once before finally winning. That doesn’t seem to be right, the fight should last about the same either way. So it probably does need to be tweaked.
2. It’s flavor of the month, nothing you can do about it. At least if they don’t open up on you with that burst you can fight them like always. I run Lock On personally, it helps. Play against the meta.
3. Moa them. Disengage from pointless fight. Try to cap points and then fight the warrior off point so they waste it in a skirmish.
4. Cleave up and pressure the area. It’s fairly predictable what the thief will do, unless they use a lot of stealth to approach you unseen.
5. See 3.
Granted, that’s not a LOT of counterplay against some of these, but it does exist.
Also, 3 and 5 both depend on Elites. The Elite shouldn’t be quite an I win button, but it’s a powerful limited use resource meant to drastically affect the outcome of a fight. It’s not so bad to lose a fight when the other player had to use an elite to cinch it.
Thing is, there’s always going to be a “best”. You’ve just got to deal with it.
So to sum up.
-1, 3 and 5 you need to counter them with an “i win button” of some description.
-2 is unlikelly to be countered if they play it right.
-4 throw aoe blindly and you might have a chance, unless they abuse stealth which is what thiefs are meant to do any way.I will concede thou that litch is the most fair of the bunch, they hit like a truck, but unlike rampage their access to stability is limited which makes counter play possible.
To sum up again:
1,3 and 5 – Point One: I play as an Engineer. I look at the tools the Engineer has. For other professions, substitute whatever works. If I can think of a counter with a class that’s considered “weak” right now I’m sure anyone else can think of something.
Point two: you’re ignoring everything else I suggested and reducing my response to something less than it was, creating a strawman fallacy.
2. Yet I manage it. Granted I have to take a Trait to do it, but there is counterplay. The fact the counterplay is weak is a different issue besides it not existing.
Look, if the Mesmer is a bandwagoner, I can win because he’s not really a good mesmer player. If it’s a mesmer who’s always been playing mesmer, then yeah, I’m kind of screwed.
4. I do not have AoE blind beyond Flamethrower 5, yet my tactics work. Thieves are predictable. Dodge at the right moment just as the burst comes in, you can practically count it down. Burst incoming in 3, 2, 1…
Write down the bullkitten builds you hate to loose against which have no counterplay.
1- DD ele.
2- Insta invi burst down mesmer.
3- double endure pain rampage warrior.
4- invi burst down thief.
5- 5k crit litch necro.
1. Chill condition. Or just outsustain them (not easy or viable on all builds you might run of course). Moa them and then hit them with burst. Yeah, I’ll give you this one, this is a tough opponent, no apparent weaknesses, but I’ve beaten D/D ellies, and they’ve beaten me, so while it’s hard fight it’s not an impossible one.
Granted when they win, they tend to mop me up in less than 20 seconds, and I fought a D/D on a point for a minute and a half once before finally winning. That doesn’t seem to be right, the fight should last about the same either way. So it probably does need to be tweaked.
2. It’s flavor of the month, nothing you can do about it. At least if they don’t open up on you with that burst you can fight them like always. I run Lock On personally, it helps. Play against the meta.
3. Moa them. Disengage from pointless fight. Try to cap points and then fight the warrior off point so they waste it in a skirmish.
4. Cleave up and pressure the area. It’s fairly predictable what the thief will do, unless they use a lot of stealth to approach you unseen.
5. See 3.
Granted, that’s not a LOT of counterplay against some of these, but it does exist.
Also, 3 and 5 both depend on Elites. The Elite shouldn’t be quite an I win button, but it’s a powerful limited use resource meant to drastically affect the outcome of a fight. It’s not so bad to lose a fight when the other player had to use an elite to cinch it.
Thing is, there’s always going to be a “best”. You’ve just got to deal with it.
A Net may have failed to axe this mistake but the players managed to come through. I have had two days of decent, even good, WvW thanks to a gentlemen’s agreement to just not use the kitten things.
Once Wednesday rolled around everyone was sick of golems and we finally had some normal WvW in my time slot.
Sometimes I love the internet. Especially when there are wizards involved.
It’s been attempted but not seriously because none of the T1 servers were really interested in dropping to T2. (no one wants to be the next SoR)
You only need to get within 100 points of each other, YB needs to break 2k and someone in T1 needs to drop to 2100.
A concerted 6 week 2 on 1 push isn’t serious?
If you have stealth/invuln/stability for your stomp, then you can take down one bad player and then the other.
Name a class that doesn’t have at least one of those.
Name a way to work at least one of those into every build with no opportunity cost.
Not trying to be a smart kitten , just pointing out that just because something is an option for a profession doesn’t mean their access to it is adequate for the purpose.