Guild Wars 2

Very good summary overall.

The only thing I would add is that the ws/nm variant is 100% ahead of the others in terms of efficiency, but in terms of queueing and carrying ranked, there may be better options that utilise longbow, depending on the situation

Hey guys, figured I’d put together a List of all the builds played during the finals.
(not shown) means that at least part of the build was not shown on stream and inferred from gameplay/guesswork. If you catch any mistakes, do let me know!

Heya chuckles,

I think alot of the advice thrown around here is pretty good, but they slightly miss the point. Essentially you are at a point where you just want to play a lot. Ideally focus on 1v1’s. Literally every successful pvp player in this game has done this a kittenton.

Playing other classes helps, but personally I would advise you not to spend too much time on this unless you play 8 hours a day and instead focus most of your time on your 1 profession first, because this game is not just about knowing whats being thrown at you, but also knowing how you can deal with it in a way that still gives you the advantage.

The way I handled getting better and understanding every class was when I lost to someone, I would try and repeat that fight over and over until I had it down, I would look for them during the rest of the pvp match and ask them to duel me more afterwards if the match wasn’t enough time.

Also an important thing is that gw2 pvp is not just about watching for animations, its kind of like counting cooldowns and playing mindgames. I’ve gotten to a point where I can feel what the enemy wants to do because I know their cooldowns(not because I played that class alot, though that can help, but because I played that matchup so often), so now all I have to do is look out for how they want to set it up and be ready to counter that.

So tl;dr just play alot and try to take soemthing away or learn something new every game you play.

Oh and also: consider that you will be climbing skill levels, the necros you fought before might be an easy kill for you, but once you get better and play better players you need to reevaluate your matchups every time. Remember that you fight the player just as much as you fight the class.

Good luck:D

Hey guys!

Frosty here with Blac! Considering our recent inhouse nights got a decent amount of attention and people actually seemed happy to play, we got together and figured with a little organisation this might be a fun thing to do until ranked starts back up again

Anyway, to get right into it, we thought about and came up with the following structure (please do give feedback)

When?

We figured doing inhouses daily would just burn out people too quickly, so they are scheduled to run every Sunday, Monday and Wednesday at 8pm CET (German time) until open end.

Who?

In order to make it easier for us to keep track of who plays/ make sure games are well balanced, only people who are in the guild BlaC are allowed to play. This guilds sole purpose is inhouses, so to those who are not currently part of it, get in touch with one of the people listed at the bottom and well be sure to get you in. (there is a small application process to those people whos ability we cannot determine by name, try not to take this too seriously though). We won’t kick or ban you if you are not from blac and playing (as long as you are good enough), but you may be made to make space for a blac member, since arena slots are reserved for guildmembers.

Where?

We will have a designated server ready to go! 20 slots on that server will be reserved for BlaC members, which just adds to the value of using a guild to manage the players efficiently (Servername: Black Suits Inhouse, Password will be shared in the Guildmessage)

Streaming

Anyone is welcome to stream these games, and i might eventually start streaming them myself. If you are interested in getting to see some inhouses but the spots are full, check out sindreners stream, he was streaming the last ones and may stream future ones

What is allowed to be played?

Players may only play on their main classes with the exception of player+class combinations that the admins know of and agree to. (admittedly a bit of a grey zone).

Similarly, for now only accepted meta builds should be played.

Voice communications?

No team communication will be required, however there is a discord server set up should people wish to use them.

Contact any of the following people if you wish to play inhouses or have any more questions!

Pvt Frosty.6973
ends come.3926
Galhaldir.1569
Tenebrae Anawolf.9467

See you sunday!

Frosty

Please for all that is holy in the gaming world, fix our unresponsive pets.

Most importantly: undo staff 3! Please please please!!! You made any beastmaster druid absolutely useless by removing the pet during the staff 3 channel! Not only do pets lose all their boons, you also mess with every pet swap trait that you so just changed to have cooldowns removed, artificially increasing them if you staff 3 while petswap is off cd!

Hey guys, Frosty here, I wanted to take a few minutes and offer some feedback on the community-tournament this past weekend and express some personal thoughts on the state, potential and entertainment value of gw2’s pvp.
First of all, mad props to Helseth and Sindrener and everyone else who helped make this tournament happen. Also thanks to all the teams who participated and congratulations to all the winners. It was an amazing initiative which I hope will be the start of a well-deserved recovery to the scene. There were a few thoughts that went through my mind when I was watching the VODs today that I felt might be a good basis for some productive discussion. Keep in mind that some of these suggestions may not be as easily achieveable, which i understand. I merely intend to discuss the right direction for the scene to grow in.

Casting

The tournament was a ton of fun to play in, there was a lot of action and clutch games. But what stood out the most to me was the fact that the games were infinitely more enjoyable to watch than usual. (Please note: I am not trying to take away from the effort and work that has been put into the casting by the casters these past years) I think this might be because there is a massive difference in entertainment value you get from watching these games when the casting adds to the information you see on the screen rather than mirror it. Offering insights where they can and creating discussion where they cannot. That said, Casters don’t need to be pro-players like they were this time, they just need to have the same insights into the game the pros have and have good synergy. These events would be super fun to watch then (in my opinion). Realising that the casting is at least as important as the teams and level of play for entertainment value is huge for any future event.

A Pick/Draft Phase

The balance between classes has been improving steadily since the HoT disaster. Now that the balance is reaching ever higher potential for build variety (which really needs to at the very least stay that way), I would really like for there to be some form of a draft phase where teams lock in classes and builds 1 by 1. This would accomplish many things at once: The casters get to talk about teamcomp and build choices of each player without everyone just waiting for them to be done. The need to try hide builds or know the enemies builds to countercomp them is gone. And it would simultaneously also add another layer of tactics to the game.

Automated Tournaments / Regular outlet for competition

A small and low-maintenance implementation for Arenanet to feed those hungry for more competition while also having a way for ranked to stay the way it is. If not Automated Tournaments, there should be some form of initiative to offer a regular outlet for teams to develop and grow.

Anyway, once again huge thanks to everyone, it was a blast to play yesterday. I think everyone really appreciate all the effort you guys went through. A super awesome end to the best pvp season we had so far. Let’s hope ArenaNet picks up the ropes!

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Pyriall.1683:

It’s another terrible attempt at updating skills. There wasn’t anything wrong with the skill as it was previously. This version is over the top.

Well, except the monstrous cooldown.

Transfusion has been doing something similar since June, even affecting more allies on a shorter cooldown, but nobody complains about that.

Thats because of the “pet ressing”. The necro transfusion trait is awesome, but still takes at least twice as long to res its target which gives alot more time for opponents to react.

Aite so I’ve had some time evaluating some aspects to the druid builds, having had scrims for most days since hte patch.

Warhorn/Dagger? – Dagger

While Warhorn is a nice offensive option – adding more pressure to the fights, offering an instant reveal to not lose cap progress from celestial avatar stealth etc. – the dodge from dagger you lose is HUGE in terms of surviving pressure. To top it off, most of the opponents I’ve faced, once wise to the tricks up the warhorns sleeve, would not fall for them anymore rendering the fights as long as with dagger. Which leads me to believe its more about not knowing what the warhorn even does rather than it being good.

Condi Druid – not worth it

With the buffs to the shortbow, traits and the wilderness survival line, i thohgt this might actually be decent. However, it is not. While it is strong in 1v1s, anything else it performs very poorly (rotation game/2v2+)

Evasive Purity/Vigorous Training/Windborne Notes – Evasive Purity
While the loss of vigor you lose is definitely difficult to get used to, evasive purity is just too good to pass up right now. To top it off, in almost every matchup, the vigor will get removed sooner or later, which can kill you quickly. the Good thing about evasive purity is that it helps in both power and condi matchups because of its versatility.

Sigils

So far, the sigils I feel are the strongest and almost mandatory to the build are:

Sigil of Energy – No real change to the old build here
Sigil of Battle – Battle now is just so good, 4 Might on you and 4 on your pet are just huge combined with all the other mightstacks you can get (swaps, elite, blasting pet fields, fireaura). Getting your pet to 25 might as much as possible is all the damage you will need.

Other sigils that have proven to be very strong are the on hit sigils. Mostly proving better than their counterparts. Sigils on swap (like annulment, removing 2 boons) can be dodged. Sigils on hit, cant, they’ll just apply on the next hit. So using Revocation is just alot better. However, not essential. Especially in the new druid/chrono matchup, sigil of Purging seems to be very necessary. Sigil of doom/revocation/courage good alternatives.

Generally, you want on hit sigils (purging, revocation, courage) on staff, because it has a much higher damage connection uptime. Which meant sword/dagger uses energy/battle most of the time.

All that said: I have not had the time to really put time into longbow variations, however, projectile hate is still way too readily available for longbow to ever really become a thing in my personal opinion.

Sup Guys!

Figured we would share our POV with you all, see what its like from the perspective of one of the other teams.

Mistakes were made but I’d like to think we played pretty well overall.

my mic is set super loud in shadowplay for some reason. so turn down your volumes caus kittens getting loud.

Anyway, heres the playlist (2 videos still processing)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrGWKtjQJdfvsepXvyKJTj8yjE1CC1lgJ

0 25 30 0 15, sword/shield – longbow is a great build for roaming around. I wouldnt worry about contribution too much. In a group i suggest to use healing shouts. once you get the points, go 0 0 30 30 0. Most warriors I know go 0 0 30 30 10. Defence is a brilliant traitline with great traits to help you survive in the heat of huge battles. Warhorn (buffed through tactics trait) and hammer can provide awesome utility to your teammates too

Haha yea man, but then again he didnt adjust his build either (he used Berserker Stance most of the time), like duelling randomly in WvW. I personally prefer it that way

Yo I think you were in 2 of my games yesterday? You were on the other team and it was 2 back to back pretty close matches? What’s your char name?

Ralkuth.1456:

I quote Shadowfall: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Ranger-Questions-Ask-here

shadowpass.4236:

As for 1v1ing a condition mesmer, use the terrain to your advantage. Clones can’t jump so they have to path around obstacles you as a player can jump over. Stealth as often as possible because clones can’t track you in stealth and they will end up standing around doing nothing until you appear again. If you stealth and move when the mesmer shatters, the clones will explode at the position you were at the moment you entered stealth so use this to your advantage.

Chronomancers generally have a lot of evades/invulnerability/blocks/distortion so target a clone for easier stealths with longbow because they can’t dodge.

shadowpass.4236:

Mesmer – stealth off clones, dodge the shatters

Not exactly the best advice, considering you will already be losing by the time you should consider using terrain against shatters.

My advice:

1) learn how to dodge shatters (have a chrono friend generate clones and shatter so you understand how and when they shatter into your dodge)

2) deny as much clone and phantasm generation as possible (don’t trigger second shield block, dodge every clonegeneration you can or bait clone generation onto your pet then swap them). depending on the build, you can use caf 5 to destroy clones aswell.

Specific Game Mode:

WvW (would apply broadly too)

Proposal Overview:

Adjustments to skills

Goal of Proposal:

To allow the ranger better build diversity, give more synergy to the class and potentially allow viability in group content.

Proposal Functionality:

1. Rampage as One: Change skill type to ‘Survival’, lower duration of stability gained.
Potential: lower skill CD

2. Entangle: Potential: change skill type, e. g. To ‘Trap’.

3. Frost trap: add damage values to pulse. Reduce chill duration per pulse.

4. Muddy terrain: add damage values to pulses.
Potential: add combo field.

5. Guard!: Change functionality. Make it so that when cast to guard the area, the skill needs to be cast again for the pet to stop guarding that area. (no change to cool down, cool down starts on first activation) While guard is active, F1 will make the pet attack as normal but attempt to go back to target area after. F3 will make the pet sit in target area center and do nothing. Take away cast time.

6. Signet of the wild: take away cast time. Change skill to be a stunbreaker.
Potential: Affect both ranger and pet.

7. Signet of renewal: Change functionality to remove all conditions on you and your pet.
Potential: reduce cool down. Change the skill to not be a stunbreaker.

Associated Risks: 
May need to reevaluate damage, boon duration and skill duration values.
Potentially too strong in big group skirmishes.
Aside from that I see not much risk. But who knows, all the things I may not have taken into consideration.

Just my sloppy 2 cents

This post is mainly WvW focused

Reading the forums on guardians and being bothered by the dilemma of swiftness for guardians (or a lack thereof) for a while now I finally decided to post here.

The general arguments for guardians to be more mobile are “other classes can do that too” and the arguments against usually are “but we want to keep up class diversity”.

First of all, it is quite possible to sustain 100% swiftness uptime on a guardian. All you need is your staff and your two utility skills retreat and save yourself. (Other options include stacking huge amounts of boon duration in favor of damage or tankiness).

So far all is pretty well, I don’t mind being slow during a battle. I don’t even mind not being able to keep up with anyone who decides to disengage me and run away (pussies(; ). The problem I have is I feel very locked down when I just try to run places. Especially in WvW this gets very annoying. “Do I bust this 60 (48) second cd skill to keep up swiftness or am I going need it 10 seconds from now in a fight?” – I mean, seriously, every other class practically vomits swiftness and increased movement speed everywhere right?

So I was going through the traits and came across a fabulous little trait called “Unscathed contender”. This nifty little trait improves your damage by 20% whilst under the effect of aegis. This would make it a pretty decent trait if guardians had any way to actually kite anyone or hope to keep up aegis in a fight.

I have a) NEVER seen ANYONE use this trait and b) never seen a guardian with aegis up for longer than maybe 2 or 3 hits, and that is PUSHING it. Who wants to be a range-kiting guardian anyways?

So why not change this trait to give 5/10/15% movespeed whilst under the effects of aegis (however much anet feels appropriate). This would allow for some rather awesome micromanagement on both guardians and their enemies sides. What do you guys think? I would love for once not having to equip a staff and still feeling like I’m running places and not crawling.

Still playing mostly the same. Though not going to touch magis in queues. This season the only golden rule that needs following is kill and don’t be killed. Considering that sustain got nerfed quite substantially, I try to take as much damage as possible without straying from the core of the build /affecting 1v1 matchups too negatively.

Currently top 20 (or was yesterday), queues are frustrating simply because most of the time, the game is decided out of your hands

He said tooltip error. I. E. The text changes the numbers wrong, but the actual damage you do increases by 5%

That’s because at the moment, damage reigns supreme, and Warhorn just gives you alot more of that. However, I am always considering the 5v5 premade scenario. So the question isn’t, do you do better with Warhorn or Dagger, it’s whether you can survive coordinated focus well enough. That’s the reason Dagger is played, the dodge on 4 is just too good to avoid +1 bursts. However, it might be enough to force your opponent on the defensive which would give yourself more breathing room. But you can’t judge these questions so quickly because others need time to adapt to your changes all the same. Not just in terms of their builds but also in terms of gameplay (what to dodge etc)

Guys please relax and understand Jebros position here. Either decision (letting them play or not) will have caused an outrage with some people.

Understand tho that this is temporary, “until all accusations have been cleared”, which to me is very reasonable.

That’s the thing in GW2 unfortunately, everyone plays against everyone, there is not a single way to safely play with people your skill Level.

Feelings of Grandeur arise in situations they wouldn’t in other games^^

Pretty nice to have a longer video though for once ^^

Judging from first scrims in the new meta I can tell you this much:
It is FAR too early to tell what will be meta.
So far tho, this much I can say with certainty: nothing beats druids 1v1 anymore.

The deciding factor will be if druid can be played tanky enough to survive outnumbered pressure whoile still keeping their 1v1 prowess.

stick.7258:

if you would like to give some detail about that in the mesmer match up. for instance i always have my pet passive so it attacks the real mesmer but im not sure if thats a smart thing to do.
Also i’d like to know if there is a way i can prevent the f2 from totally missing target.
thanks in advance

Just have your pet on agressive to ensure a high dps uptime, make sure you time your Smokescale burst when the chrono is isolated (no clones / very little clones up) so that the smoke-assault hits only the chrono and make sure to deny as many clones as possible.

If you can, stop attacking when he uses shield 4 the first time, to deny the second proc (dont forget to call back your pet) and dodge the phantasm spawn.

as for hitting lightning wyverns f2, the best way so far seems to be if you hit Wing Buffet and then use headbutt (which combined is pretty strong cc)

beatthedown.2651:

Pvt Frosty.6973:

Very good summary overall. […]

I wonder if that WS/NM could work as condi bunker since I think the HP from Mender is still overkill.

[….]

It won’t. You lack the movespeed as well as the necessary condi application pressure and frequency to make any sort of investment into condi damage useless. The HP from mender’s is never overkill because there is no decreasing rate of return on scaling, and your healing values in caf scale very well with healing power

Kerivek.5740:

Pvt Frosty.6973:

Very good summary overall. […]

I’m curious Frosty…what would you consider a good carry build for solo ranked queue? I have been playing my ranger more in sPvP and I am a little bit torn on what role I should be filling as a ranger to carry in solo queue. I can do pretty well with an offensive LB build sniping out priority targets in teamfights and bursting in a +1 but I wonder if I could carry better by playing a more bunker/support type build.

It really depends on the people you play with. Personally I often queue with dps (rev/thief) which means that someone who can hold 1v1s is the most complimentary, so i go for something like this most of the time: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATWjEqQJL2vCOsAXLWmEsmAwjbCA/TLqPVnKXFIzVylSD-TpxHQByrMw3eAAnZ/B/dBAS4hAAAHBAA

When I’m solo, I just base it off of the comps/the people I know from each specific game.

kappa.2036:

I think right now ranger is just subpar to engi.

I wonder why you would say that? I’m not saying either isn’t viable, but to quote Thijsken (one of the best engis in EU next to Zan) word for word: “What the kitten is the point of taking any sort of engi, when you can just take druid instead”

I’ll join you in that dream. What kinda sedative you using?

Gaile Gray.6029:

A

• Radiant Revival: This trait’s functionality has been altered to provide Infused Light for the revenant, instead of the downed target. This trait now grants the revenant 10% bonus revival speed.

Why not just give Infused Light to the downed AFTER the successful res? I feel that would be much more in line with other rez traits. and still be pretty strong.

Either way, I like the hotfix and I like that not too much was changed. Be interesting to see how this changes other classes viability.

Also, obviously, with the patch theres like 90% thief/ necro/ druid players out there. so not wonder they get stacked still ^^

Thats especially the case for thief players, i see them everywhere, its like they’ve all come out of hibernation, sniffing the sweet spring air and wondering,

HeadCrowned.6834:

Pvt Frosty.6973:

Currently legend 1,

Running different menders variants. Druid and ele are the hardest classes to play currently in ranked (solo or duo).

One thing you all should try to do though, is to move away from escape/cleansing Sigils. Druid does not mesh well with them because their cool down gets procced by celestial avatar use(which already removes all conditions). Especially 18second cooldown sigils will suffer hard from this

Why do you think druid and ele are currently the hardest to play?

Because the meta right now favors momentum. And eles and druids main purpose is to stall momentum, which got nerfed even more with the recent patch.

Assume you are the best player on both teams. All it takes is for an enemy druid/engi /ele to fight you 1v1. To be able to kill, they need to be REALLY bad. And suddenly you are in a situation where the match is decided without you. On top of that druid is the worst classes to plus for a thief/rev/chrono, because it’s mostly defensive loadout. Longbow and ancient seeds got nerfed with the patch too, which makes the menders longbow build rather frustrating to play

You asked for some feedback:

• Put some effort into your videos if you want people to enjoy watching them
  Like what is going on with the camera in your “Scrim” video?
  Similarly, just putting white boxes into your screen to block what people should not see just looks bad. Also, in your video called “RI comp” you block out your actual comp AND the thiefs skillbar. This video literally has nothing worth watching. Because I cannot see half of what is going on.

• Understand what you need to do BEFORE getting better at the game
  As many people have said, klicking skills is just bad and not competitive. Heres a few things that we should really not have had to tell you, should have been figured out yourself.
  Action Camera and similarly, camera settings (FOV, Camera Position etc)
  Clicking skills and setting all the other important keybinds (About Face, Look Behind, Utility)

• Once you have done that, you can start working on your actual playstyle.
  Mechanics, Tactics and Rotation is lacking severely in all the members that are shown on your youtube channel.

So that’s what I feel like you should be working on. Take from it what you will. If you understand you have a long way ahead of you, which btw is nothing bad or to be ashamed of, then thats all gucci. I’d be interested to see how you guys imrpove.

uh well, I guess kudos to you for being this brave.

I’ll try give you some Feedback. I play Ranger(Druid) too, currently Diamond.

I’ll Focus on your build choice/playstyle.

I can only guess at your build from the footage
– This is my guess: Build here
– I will not discuss your trait choices at length with you in this post.

1. Work on your build. and THINK about the role you want to be playing. It seems you’re looking to Play a power druid who does not contest nodes, but aids fights with high damage pressure (do note: this build is extremely suboptimal, the better your opponents, the worse you will find yourself doing. If you want to know why this is, I will post a Video about it next week.). So why did you take the skills you did? Let’s take a look:
   Survival Skills:
   Good choice for personal survival, Heal/Lightning Reflexes/Entangle are all good
   Glyph of the Tides:
   Why did you choose this? What use is this glyph to you (untraited) in your role? A knockback? To peel? There are far better skills to either cc your enemy or peel them off of you. I would suggest you Switch this to either signet of Stone or Quickening Zephyr.
   Sick Em!:
   Again, may I ask why? Sick em increases your pets dmg and movespeed for a short Duration. It is untraited and you do not Play beastmastery, so why increase damage from pets whose damage is already rather low in the first place? Or did you want it for the reveal? I the current meta, barely anyone uses stealth, and rev/engi are way better at revealing enemies anyway. I suggest swapping this to either signet of Stone or Quickening Zephyr (whichever one you didnt choose above).
   Quickening Zephyr and Signet of Stone
   Now you may ask, why these 2? Because you need a second stunbreak which coincidentally benefits from being a survival skill (traited) and you also need more survivability (signet of Stone)
   Traits
   Personally I would suggest to swap lead the wind for Remorseless. Autoattacking happens rather rarely in PvP, even less so at max range. And because its only a 5 on 5, the piercing has comparably Little Impact.
   I would also swap Natural Stride for Celestial Shadow, which is an insanely strong skill to peel with (removing the need for the knockback from glyph of the tides).
   Weapons
   Get a second weapon. I would recommend staff.
2. Awareness. Knowledge about the mechanics of the other classes (you do not necessarily have to Play other classes, to know what they do). Know who you fight, and know what you can expect from your enemies. That way you know what to dodge or what to look for to interrupt, when an enemy is vulnerable and when you should play defensively. You were lucky that your Team had a pretty good handle on your Opponent.
3. If you are familiar at all with Starcraft (I am not lol), there is a term called APM, Actions per Minute i believe. This applies here too. Ranger and druid are a VERY versatile class. your pets and your celestial avatar were barely used in the Video. LEARN to use them and learn WHEN to use them, they are very strong.
4. Last but not least, but hopefully this comes with experience, know the maps you play on, being quicker on nodes.

That should be enough to think about for now.

suffish.4150:

As someone who has over 2,000 games on druid, many of which against pro players:

Your role as a Druid is to mainly take 1v1 fights and 2v2s on side points. It is the strongest 1v1 class in the game and the only class that can really beat you if you play well is warrior so you should take advantage of that by taking as many 1v1s as you can on neutral points/your points. I would not recommend taking a 1v1 on an enemy point unless you are running longbow because you can’t kill very quickly or even decap before someone could come in to +1 the fight and force you away.

If smaller fights are not possible to take, then you should go into the big teamfight. Don’t stand in the middle of the fight unless you have stability because you are extremely vulnerable to cc. In addition, almost all your support (and damage if you run longbow) is ranged so there is no real reason to take unnecessary damage unless you need to revive, which I would only do with stability up (and preferably signet of stone too) It is all about responding quickly to focus and providing support and dps when in big fights.

It is important to realise that Druid is not a pure support/bunker like ele was. It also has great single target dps and huge 1v1 potential so you shouldn’t just be looking for people to support if there is a decap/1v1 you can go for.

As for how to use each skill, you must remember to only use your signets if you are 100% sure you will die if you don’t. Their job is to save you from otherwise fatal situations, not just take a bit of damage away from you. I run the daze glyph over protect me because it is great for interrupting stomps and revives and has no cast time so you can use it when you are stomping/reviving. In addition, it is good for additional condi removal when in celestial form. Use your elite not for the might it gives but rather in a defensive way to make sure you don’t get your heals interrupted when low on health. If your are in a fight you are winning you can use it to finish off kills and for safe stomps though. Swap pets as much as you can to make sure they land their burst as much as possible and to give as much quickness to yourself as you can.

Hope this helped

You make alot of good point, but you also offer alot of bad advice.

The role of a druid is not a 1v1 fighter, especially not a sidenode holder. You might not lose alot of 1v1s as druid, but you put yourself at a disadvantage especially due to the potential of being locked away in a 1v1 that you cannot win. Yea you only really have a losing matchup vs warriors, but the only truly winning matchups are mes and powerguard (maybe rev). As a menders druid without any knockback, you will never kill other menders classes (druids/guards/eles/engis) and worse yet, you will lose the cap eventually if you defend it due to stealth management eventually biting you in the kitten . A menders guard is a much better side node 1v1 class than a druid imo. On top of that, even the winning matchups take quite a long time to finish as a druid.

So in actuality, I would suggest to focus on placing yourself in 2v2s and teamfights as much as possible and pick those 1v1s where you know you have an advantage.

Since this is based on soloq, the “classes you beat and dont beat” should be reevaluated for every game due to individual and unknown skill. 1 game you might beat the druid, another you might lose to the mes. so pick your fights accordingly.

Now if you do bring a knockback (most ideally in form of a bow), then this changes the capgame quite drastically. But be careful that you know what you give up.

terrorshard.3854:

mistsim.2748:

terrorshard.3854:

I really can’t justify subbing in WS for BM…I feel like you are giving up so much just to get a tiny bit more condition removal.

you get a ton more condi removal. TU interacts really nicely with Soften the Fall, so you never have to slot MT. Lesser MT just allows you to bunker a lot better. you get more prot, and more vigor. QZ increases our burst quite a bit.

BM does next to nothing for our damage output.

QZ seems pointless, what burst? Sword auto attack? Staff Autoattack?

Might as well run LR at that point.

Good questions terrorshard. jcbroe has answered alot of them already so ill just touch on a few more points.

As jcbroe says, with rugged growth WS got buffed so hard, that now it isn’t a question of whether to take WS or BM its a question of whether to take NM or BM alongside it, and in that regard NM wins by a longshot.

You might not think it possible, but the build actually has more pressure than the old NM/BM druid did. This is because of permanent poison uptime as well as the ability to facetank alot of damage by camping sword in any 1v1 without ever needing CAF or dropping below 50% hp. On top of that, WS/NM beats NM/BM by a long shot in a 1v1 (not by killing, but by making it a free +1). To cement my point, in our scrims yesterday I played against xomi who played the old build for a while (xomi is according to the power ranking supposed to be better than me), so I can tell you first hand that the WS/NM version is better.

As for QZ, you are right, the burst isn’t insane. But quickness helps in other ways by ensuring it is harder to get interrupted and the super speed is nice too. However, you dont have to play it. I personally would rather take the Daze Glyph or protect me over lightning reflexes since LR puts you off point. They are all valid substitutes though.

beatthedown.2651:

jcbroe.4329:

blips

Will definetely try this one out.
A few questions regarding one choice.

Why no Shared Anguish? That random scumbag safestomp seems way more valuable for carrying the average random pug than the poison trait. Usually I end up as the “stomper” when playing with randoms in platinum queue since I can sustain heavy cleave. Of course thats not ideal (also lots of RNG) but my usual teammate does not stomp or cleave. This trait is also extremely helpful against heavy opening strikes in the first midfight since you win a bit of time.

A few reasons: shared anguish interrupts pet actions, which may be crucial at times, especially with the wyvern itll put its skills on full cooldown. you could argue that by not going bm interrupting your pet is less impactful since its less of a dps loss. which is true, but the increased cooldowns is a thing too.

on top of that tho, no 1v1 really has a chance, you almost guarantee poison every heal skill, even engi and chrono. the new build is packed with aids condis, poison, cripple, slow, immob, vuln and weakness. ALOT of them. without the permanent poison, you lose alot of the pressure.

On a more unrelated note, I have tried out healing spring during scrims yesterday. It is certainly very awesome, definitely stronger vs condi comps and weaker vs power comps (if you will be 1v1 vs power and likely ganked by power too, take TU still for sure!)

tl;dr at the bottom ^^

I think you guys are kind of exaggerating both sides.

+ Yes the cc Output of beastly warden is strong, stronger in fact than most other cc skills because it ignores alot of defenses (block, invuln. etc.)
+ Yes it enables your character to do something else all the while executing the cc.
+ Yes it is instant
+ There is currently rather little stability being used in pvp

- The radius is still small, so the effect may be wasted
+ On conquest this may not matter as fights are centered around node Points.

- There is no cooldown visible to us (and I think this is where most of the critique comes from)
+ however most pet variations don’t optimize the icd anyway (double dog f2 on average is once every 13.3 seconds)
- It’s still bound to the pet being alive and in the right place at the right time.

I do get where the Hype Comes from. We finally have a unique ability!!! Yay, now everyone will want us, right?
But I do understand when Chokolata thinks this is getting overestimated. And I kinda agree a bit. While it has coordination potential, and it CAN be disruptive by wasting blocks or invulns, it still is not quite as high Impact as a banner rez or a rampage or a Portal or a teleport.

I think I may have writte a Little much at this Point.

tl;dr yes beastly warden is very strong, but it can and is definitely being overestimated and thus not an absolute MUST in every rangers pvp build, certainly not in solo Queue.
It definitely is however a step in the right direction.

Quick Heads up, I wrote a super long reply, but gw2.com kittened up and told me “something went wrong” so I lost it all. This is more of a summary.

Well, looks like you’re on EU, which would be important to mention.

Other than that, how do you think you did in that game? What did you do well, where could you have done better?

Theres always 3 aspects to consider (not in order of importance): the build you are playing (and whether it fulfills the requirements of the role you intend to take in your team), your in-game decision-making and your mechanical skills.

Your build

I cannot really comment, you definitely get plus points for working out your own variation of a build, that synergizes well within itself. Though I have a few personal issues, like I would be pretty uncomfortable with only 1 stunbreak on a 30s cooldown and only 1/4 uptime of stability. So I would prefer at least one of the following changes, if not both:
slickshoes over bulwark and perfectly weighted over adaptive armor, and I would then probably switch to paladins amulet to retain the bruiser-ish playstyle. Then again, it might work without so I’d be willing to give it the benefit of the doubt to see if it keeps up with the requirements for the role you intend to take, which I cannot really seem to make out anyway because of the following second point.

Your in-game decision making

Right at the start you go far, arrive late, and proceed to die pretty quickly 1v2 on the node. This was, in my eyes a pretty You won’t decap the point 1v2 ever, so you should instead have either, retreated and taken the fight mid, or, which I would have done, kite the 1v2 around the point to keep them busy as long as possible. For this you need to know all the unlikely jump spots (mine is especially good for this since you have range and both of them dont). When you respawn,, your team has 2 points, yet you go far again and stay there for the rest of the game. The only reason this really payed off is because your team won both other node-fights at the time, and the enemy team was pretty bad at properly rotating away. This meta is a lot more snowbally, and extending the fight to 3 nodes when you already have 2, especially on a non-stealth-gyro marauder engi is just asking to get snowballed on. Luckily your team did good, but I would have instead watched the respawn and caught them going mid or close.

Your mechanics

I cannot say too much about your mechanics. Every fight you fought was outnumbered in your favor (safe for the first 1v2, which honestly didnt last very long). There is no show of tactical mechanics, it was more of a dps and cc spamfest attributable to the fact you were outnumbering which does not really tell me about your mechanical ability. What I can say, is you never dodged the glint elite, which would be pretty crucial to watch out for since you only have 1 stunbreak and little access to stability.

So overall, difficult to tell, the match was not hard for you, your team did most of the work for you. That happens to everyone, but its a difficult game to judge ability from, because it was not a game in which your ability was really tested. Further to note is that your opponents also arent very good, especially the warrior. The only name I recognize is Goku, who is an okay-ish pvp-player.

Anyways, I could go into way more depth, but I need to study. If you have any other footage, where you actually “carried” your team by good mechanical plays or good in-game decisionmaking, I’d be very happy to take a look and alter some of the conclusions I arrived at.

I guess if you or anyone disagree with what I said, be sure to point it out, I’m not perfect either

Yes exactly enderz. The consideration of magis comes about because in our games (scrims and the like) I have to endure chrono +thief 1v2 eventually. Just because it’s a thief. And once that situation arises, I have to survive. Menders does not survive that as easily as magis

It’s a bit difficult to explain without writing a full dissertation, but basically because druid relies on the pet for most of its damage, the switch to magis means druid does not lose as much of its damage output as other classes would while it gains all of the defensive benefits(especially strong Vs condi heavy comps) . It’s 1v1 and 2v2 matchups are unchanged compared to menders (and one could argue is a little stronger in teamfights). It is used as a side node defender rather than aggressor (since neither menders nor magis really kills anything) and especially versus thief comps it could be used to soak up alot of the thief time without dying which frees up the rest of the team to pressure the map.

Arguably back then we used it almost exclusively to deal with obindos warrior, who I was able to stalemate on magis and stay healthy enough to survive the thief gank. The new meta is rather different and favors momentum differently now which is why I’ve switched back to Mender’s.

Thees a ton of other small things, but in favor of not writing so long just discuss stuff in game with me, ^^

Really?! I LOVE skyhammer. yes it could use some polishing here and there, but the concept is brilliant.

In my eyes, anyone who hates on Skyhammer as a tPvP map simply has no imagination.

“In this update, you’ll see some changes aimed at normalizing how certain types of skills work. Skills that tether players together now apply Revealed to provide a stronger window of opportunity to players who can successfully land them.”

Thats actually a nice notion. I’m wondering why Glyph of Unity was forgotten tho?

Kind Regards,

Frosty

beatthedown.2651:

Pvt Frosty.6973:

Staff 2 is really strong in pvp ^^

Can you explain how? Hitting multiple targets in the first midfight with staff one seems way more efficient. You may start off with 2, but it’s still a very very forgettable skill. Reflects suck too.

Staff 2 is strong for its astral force generation potential, especially in side node skirmishes (which is what a druid should focus on).

Of course it falls off in team fights because your options for af regen multiply. But druid as a whole false off in team fights.

Now I understand that most druids in pvp, not really knowing any better, run build variants that overinvest on astral force regeneration. These builds are great because they generaly have a lower skill floor. In these builds, yes, staff 2 is rather useless. For an example of a build that relies on staff 2 alot more, look at the the build I played vs r55 in the last ugo finals (you can even hear misha complimenting it on Sindreners vods).

Don’t get me wrong, I am not against a small buff (reveal /including burning/transferring conditions from allies it touches to the target are all good suggestions). I just wanted to point out that the skill itself is massively undervalued by the greater share of the druid population ^^