From a solo/groups up to 5 perspective. Only on power gear.
Needs a swiftness on dodge trait. Running 25% (etc.) runes hits build diversity very hard.
The mobility in combat is great but the spec doesn’t add much in the way of (power) damage. Like, giving up f5 multi shatters is pretty huge for dps. The Mirage line doesn’t really add much incentive for playing the burst style that the spec seems to encourage.
I understand why it’s not but the shadowstep skill would be great as a ground targeted skill.
The utility skills seem awkward outside of the shadowstep one.
Jaunt could use a range increase. If not a range increase maybe throw a blast finisher on there instead.
Overall, it’s a lot of fun in really small scale combat (>3) but anything beyond that it feels weak. Feels like a very selfish spec.
It’s a little ironic really, an mmo shouldn’t be ultra-casual friendly yet that is what this game strives to be. (I’m by no means a great player but) The competitive playerbase can see the joke that the general population of this game is and the moment they play anything with actual engaging pvp (see: ow, for honor, cs, lol, dota….) they are gone. This in-turn leads to less playerbase, worse matches, more people leave, repeat. The playerbase general skill-level in this game, for people that have literal 1000’s of hours in-game, is a joke.
That and HoT literally killed this game. PvP had so much hype pre-HoT then it drops and you have pro team players quitting games mid-match due to how bad the balance was. It turned GW’s PvP (in the general gaming community’s eyes) into a joke and just cemented this casual wars idea. And Anet followed up on that hard. The game today provides a whole load of builds that literally carry people.
It’ll be really interesting to see how they try to market the next expansion but I doubt there will be many people dropping another 50 bucks on this trash.
Just to counter some of the ‘most balanced state the game has ever been in’ comments.
If things are so balanced why is the population in PvP so poor? Clear example of this would be season 5 putting people over 2 leagues of MMR difference (out of 5 leagues!) together to make single games, also, WvW in general.
I understand the point people are making regarding ‘best spot’, and maybe it is, but shouldn’t a game thrive to increase population first and foremost? Minor balance tweaks taking 3 months (in Necros case far longer) just makes people, myself included, open the balance patch and continue not logging in/playing something else.
Change is good, like, hard change, draws people back in.
Ask yourself, why haven’t the pvp specific skill balance changes been applied to wvw?
Ask yourself, are pve raids creating a hard floor for the amount of damage a class can produce?
Ask yourself, on any single build, what is the actual damage output difference between dire and sinister?
The combat interaction in this gamemode is quickly moving beyond cheese.
I did my placements on power gs/sw+sd mesmer (mistake) and am literally stuck in (rn)gold.
Multiple times I have seen:
- people stomping mesmer clones
- people repeatably crossing guard traps
- people full bursting endure pains
- people solo pushing mid v 3 people
- people rerolling off ele in a zero ele team
etc.
If you’re saying that gold is meant to represent the top 10% of the playbase that is actually super depressing.
That this system has to match people a full 2 leagues of difference against eachother speaks, for me at least, volumes about the population of the gamemode.
How can the matches be anything but rng when the population is this low?
All that aside, this kitten is literally build wars at this stage, build wars you have to guess at the start of each match.
I understand that, and just to be clear, I’m very much in favour of this.
But, the first example I can think of, low-to-mid skilled necros, when they realise that they literally cannot beat most (any?) 1v1 builds of a similar skilled player. The tears man, the tears. There is no-way the developers of this game are going to open all that salt particularly when the average players skill currently is so so low + the continued influx of casuals.
I spend a good deal of my time in gw’s 1v1ing and would love to see some easy manner to do this implemented.
That said, we’d need Moses to cross the sea of tears about certain specs if this was actually implemented for the majority of the casual wars population.
Anet can easily address this by removing your death/reaper shroud, if thats what you want. Also remove the staff for good measure.
The reason necros are being focused have nothing to do with with balance against other classes. Its because you got so much AoE, boon removal and condi transfers you become an enemy liability. You cant stomp people with a necro around. You cant cleave a ressing necro as they will just sit safe in shroud. Necros will make you loose. Ergo, kill the necro.
What the actual fook are you talking about?
Necros are focused first because they have no invuns, no proper escapes, very little stab, no blinks, long cast times on their important skills…. I get your point about pressure but that’s not why necros are focused, necros are focused because they are a joke.
Necros are the whipping boy of every single havok group to the point where most (even semi-skilled) small group players won’t run a necro; necro is quite literally the worst solo class in the game for wvw and arguably the worse class in a small group setup in wvw.
Why can’t there be a solo/duo que and a team que for ranked?
Who is being paid to come up with these ideas! Like, I get it, the population is low, sure. But, by removing team and solo que combined leagues for solo/duo only you will surely lose a % of the population.
Like, this is your job. We can play another game really easy but getting a new job can be difficult.
Small scale is arguably the worst it has ever been.
That said, the small scalers left see the decay all around them and are much friendlier to each other and more willing to have some fun having fights.
Still, there are a lot of broken things around that really wreck enjoyment and it can be a struggle to play when you meet broken stuff after broken stuff. Maybe some context, some of the top havok guilds are running on condi mains now. Kinda says it all really.
If you’ve broken the addiction to this pretty mediocre game I would recommend not getting back into it.
Druids in WvW are just another symptom of broken skills, gear and balance in WvW.
And ya, druids are silly op in 1v1’s but so are a good deal of other builds.
Guild Wars has a fantastic combat system but atm (when talking about a good deal of op builds) a very toxic combat interaction. For me personally it just stinks of short-term player investment: no average player should be able to play a build for a few hours and roll others on (decent) builds that they have been playing for a few 100 hours. It’s toxic in so many regards but ultimately rewards short-term over long-term investment.
It’s an MMO, not a Telltale game, people should be rewarded for investment not for getting their Helen Keller on and rolling on the keyboard. If the actual result difference of a build that requires low mechanical/combat understanding compared to a high mechanic/combat understanding is minimal then what’s the point for the casual population to learn the higher skill builds? And this is in the context of casual wars 2.
So ya Druid is definitely an issue but it’s only a part of a much larger issue.
I don’t quite understand how a guy who has repeatedly stated ’you’d have to literally pay me to play GW’s’ is trying to now encourage a healthy PvP scene? For me personally it kind of feels like an attempt to keep the dev money pouring into the pockets of what is really only a handful of people in the pro scene. But, I’m a cynic no offense or shots intended.
That aside, it’s a good discussion but as someone mentioned earlier, a lot of the playerbase get annoyed due to PvP being the area that gets balanced around. Having builds gutted or dealing with broken stuff when PvE stats are applied to PvP builds is a great way to build resentment towards PvP. It’s no wonder Reddit just downvotes stuff on PvP when you look from that perspective.
Which kind of ties into: Casual Wars 2 is in full-effect at the moment throughout the game, how can a game aimed almost directly at a casual/part-time audience ever hope to gain traction with ‘elite’ gamers? The PvP pro games are so far over the ‘regular’ players heads that they cannot even begin to care (just personal opinion ofc). Is there even a way to shift that perspective with the current overarching direction the game continues to take? I get it that the casting discussion would help a great deal but without a player base that cares about high-end PvP does it even matter?
The current iteration of condi/condi-power mesmer in WvW is pretty broken for roaming. There are pretty much no hard counters to it save some niche builds, yet the mesmer build(s) counter pretty much all 1v1 specs.
This is working as intended? If yes, then why?
Aren’t you the guy that was complaining about the signet of humility skill and portals ? Also clones, phantasms, alacrity, zerker damage, condi damage, bunker builds and heal/sustain builds ?
Also, why would any of the dinky crap like 1v1 s matter in a mass battle game mode ?
Do you have some personal vandetta against some mesmer somewhere ? Possibly a guild leader that showed you how bad you are on yours or just beat you down right silly one time too many ?
I’m a mesmer main.
1v1 matters to people that 1v1 in WvW.
I have this build for just facerolling when I want a break from having to use mechanics. It is arguably far too strong, hence this thread.
10/10 shots at someone on the internet tho. Would you like to add something to the discussion?
I don’t understand condi/condi power? Is it a condi mesmer or a power mesmer lol.
Look at the meta battle PvP chrono build, that’s the power and condi version, from what I’ve seen in WvW typically some kinda of Sinister/Viper/Dire mix. Condi is usually Dire/Trailblazers.
I’m not complaining, just throwing a statement out there to see what duelers/roamers in general think about this build and it’s place in the dueling/roaming ecosystem.
Thanks for contributing
I see… Well, most people won’t even bother dueling one. I even see some dude run power food to bait people into fighting them.
I run a Viper’s variant myself (the original build is carrion for spvp or dire/trailblazer on wvw) and it’s a pretty strong combo aswell, but it lacks the passive defense from the full condi version. I think the big deal isn’t the build itself, but how it work along with the defensive stats. Honestly, any condi bunker is terrible to fight against in a 1v1 situation.
Agreed on the bunker statement. But you add the escape potential in as well and it (imo) comes out on top. It’s pretty toxic for roaming in general atm.
I’m not complaining, just throwing a statement out there to see what duelers/roamers in general think about this build and it’s place in the dueling/roaming ecosystem.
The current iteration of condi/condi-power mesmer in WvW is pretty broken for roaming. There are pretty much no hard counters to it save some niche builds, yet the mesmer build(s) counter pretty much all 1v1 specs.
Chaith, not to be rude, but I presume a good deal of your income depends on the health of the Guild Wars 2 PvP gamemode. Toning down the condescension maybe in that context might bring more emphasis to the points you are trying to make. No shots fired just saying it as it seems.
That aside, it would be interesting to see a poll where people chose every class being represented vs relatively balanced specs, in terms of ‘what of is balance’.
I remember the reason I stopped playing this game. I might do another break. Knowing anet they’ll buff condis, buff sustain, and nerf power. If this balance patch looks like that, I’m done.
Really, does anyone else feel the same about these rampant condi bunkers?
I’m with you brother. If the patch hits Tuesday and there aren’t significant nerfs to condi I’m out again and I’m only back 5 days.
That said, and let’s be real here, this is casual wars 2 and not every class has a viable faceroll condi build. If anything I think there will be more buffs to cond which is pretty depressing.
Solo kills account for twice the ppk (ie a fight where both parties skills only hit one person counts as a solo kill). Would encourage solo roaming again, an area that is sorely lacking in recently WvW.
It would be nice if WvW was viewed as: fights; neural; ppt.
Try to balance additions around that because most fight people really really dislike this random extra siege updates.
“Most fight people” are still only a very vocal minority. Snip
Minority or not they are still entitled to have their voice heard in the form of these updates.
What sort of logic are you using to come to that odd conclusion? Certainly, the minority is entitled to have their voices heard in these and other forums, but when there are now polls that are deciding what the majority wants, how do you figure that minorities should be entitled to a voice heard in updates?
I am just curious as to how you arrived at that conclusion?
To be clear, I’m not claiming ‘fight players’ are a minority, I’m saying that regardless of a playstyles all of them should be considered before implementing these polls: having a vote after an idea has already been decided is different to having input into what the idea might be. These recent polls have mostly been neutral or ppt/siege orientated, which does account of a lot of the WvW playerbase playstyles but does not encompass all of them. A wider spectrum prior to picking what areas to ‘update’ is an important factor to keep in mind.
Have some respect for other peoples playstyles. It’s usually 1 person, just let them do their thing. Ofc you can kill 1 dude with 50 people but why not be classy instead? They are quite literally having zero impact on a zerk or havok group.
And besides all of that, duelers are usually pretty good players, it’s better they are sitting outside SM than killing your stranglers ^^
Cele reaper was a thing for a while in pvp, if you’re comfy with the class you could definitely make it work for roaming. Off the top of my head link. Otherwise power necro is probably pretty standard atm in zergs.
Condi cheese is more about the balance of risk/reward or difficultly to play/reward.
Guild Wars 2 is a game aimed at attracting a casual population, that the pvp mode allows players who are new to pvp to jump in and feel accomplished on these relatively simple builds is not really a surprise if you give it some thought.
Condi’s won’t be going anywhere, if anything the rest of the classes need a meta condi build.
All that said, these ‘balance patches’ are a bit of a joke and tend to have little to no regard for longterm class ‘feel’ so who know’s what they’ll do with the condi balance.
I quit a few months ago, I’m just here for a cup of tea to see how to community is.
Really good discussion in this thread btw, great to see some a healthy talk if not somewhat depressing
I think it’s been touched on but just to add, GW’s is a game aimed at casuals. For me that’s the core issue with PvP and I think it will be the issue that eventually kills PvP off completely (altho you could argue that maybe it’s at that stage already). With casuals that want to PvE, PvE will be the skill balance focus. Combined with that raids have now introduced a level of creep that sets the floor-level of power-creep in PvP. Without major chances to those the PvP bar won’t be moving.
Also, I saw a number of people mentioned going to WvW as it ‘looks like it’s improving’. It’s not, WvW is dying, not as quickly as PvP maybe but it is heavily impacted by the mickey mouse changes to class balance as well.
Anyway, goodluck with the conversation and the hours of frustration!
Can we now stop pretending gw2 is a esport? i mean random kids are getting twitch subscription partnership with only 1 week old twitch accounts with 200 followers and no real motivation to be a streamer.
Yet ESL or Arena net is getting these fake people partnered, something real content creators took years to get.
Even docgotgame (Arena Nets biggest streamer and promoter on twitch) agrees that random people who have no business being partnered with twitch, is wrong and bs.
How far is this fake Esport agenda going to go? I mean hardly anyone even plays Structured pvp ranked due to how improperly implemented leagues are.
What the hell does a pretend eSports agenda and who get content creator affiliate links by ArenaNet have to do with each other? The ESL doesn’t have any influence on the content creator program.
Mind if I ask, why bother with GW’s?
Why not a different, wider appealing, more competitive game?
Because my friends and I are good at GW2 after years of dedication, and it’s by far the best opportunity. Overwatch doesn’t even have comparable prizes.
Thanks for your frankness.
I’m sure you’re aware that it won’t be long before it’s ded tho, still, essentially, free money for you, I’m jelly :P
Can we now stop pretending gw2 is a esport? i mean random kids are getting twitch subscription partnership with only 1 week old twitch accounts with 200 followers and no real motivation to be a streamer.
Yet ESL or Arena net is getting these fake people partnered, something real content creators took years to get.
Even docgotgame (Arena Nets biggest streamer and promoter on twitch) agrees that random people who have no business being partnered with twitch, is wrong and bs.
How far is this fake Esport agenda going to go? I mean hardly anyone even plays Structured pvp ranked due to how improperly implemented leagues are.
What the hell does a pretend eSports agenda and who get content creator affiliate links by ArenaNet have to do with each other? The ESL doesn’t have any influence on the content creator program.
Mind if I ask, why bother with GW’s?
Why not a different, wider appealing, more competitive game?
It’s a 4 year old mmo that has consistently made the wrong choices in design. There are a myriad of other games out there to play, overwatch being the most comparable to core gw’s pvp ideals.
Just do it, send a message for gws 3
To back it up:
Link to gw twitch (willing to bet top stream has less than 100 viewers, perhaps even less than 75): Here
Link to reddit, willing to bet 0-1 posts about pvp: Here
inb4:
reaper chill damage nerfed into the ground
moa cast time increased and moa actual duration reduced to 7s
scrapper sustain hit pretty hard
search and rescue c/d increased 25-30%
general thief staff buffs
general warr condi buffs (will remain unviable or become disgustingly overpowered)
ele heals buffed
