Guild Wars 2

shion.2084:

Ah the good mesmers I play never enter this point blank range you speak of Their clones seem to however

close the gap with superspeed and leaps, mesmers cant really keep you at range. And if the mes is using shield 4 before i close the gap, he doesnt block anything, gets only 1 illusion out of it and i still get to gyro blast him when i close the gap. Easiest matchup for me personally (well DH might be easier) – just play aggressively from the start, CC, disrupt illusion generation and you will be fine.

shion.2084:

I find the worst case 1 v 1 wise for a scrapper is a good mesmer. Ele’s are more effecitve on point I think because of their lighting strikes and stun spams and projectile denial. I’m always more worried in a group fight when I see they have a good ele helping then a scrapper. Scrappers just can’t bunker they need to run about and avoid being pinned.

i actually think mesmer is one of the easier matchups. At least in my experience playing marauder with gyros and EG.
Point blank range blast gyro when they block with shield really messes em up, lots of cleave for illusions, reflect dome when they swap to staff, enough stability to deal with their CC, hammer 4 if they manage to get a burst off and my condi clears always seem sufficient to deal with whatever they can throw at me. Power shatter seems even easier.

Dont think i lost to a mesmer 1v1 since the season started. Necros and warriors give me a lot more trouble

You dont want to always go early, puts too much pressure on your tank and healer, and there are only 2-3 fixed moments where bad green can spawn, this is when you move early.

this is almost guaranteed to work. tanked him like 100 times successfully on different classes, with good and bad teams. Im assuming you have decent CC, terrible CC will mess everything up, but as long as its pretty good this pattern will work.

- RED section. last phase starts, tank him on the edge, break bar and dodge blue (order is not always the same), next field about to expire (pretty much right after CC), move inside and pull him to the edge.

- GREEN section. safe. green circle spawns correctly, dodge blue, field about to expire, move to next section and position on the edge

- BLUE. now you are at a critical stage. this is where you can get the bad green. as soon as the green circle here explodes your tank moves to the next section (that is still lit). take only few steps into RED so that the VG is in the lit area but your team can DPS and CC from safe section (shout at your teammates to stay on the safe side). Make sure VG has fully crossed the line and create some distance before the bar is completly broken (otherwise he does that spin in circle motion sometimes and crosses back, spawning a bad green). Tank should have defensive CDs ready here as he is taking dmg from the lit section and the AOE from breakbar attack.

- RED. this is safe again, you move when the field is about to expire, you cant get a bad circle

- GREEN. this is risk again. do the same as previously – tank moves early.

BLUE. safe again and the boss should be dead by now.

RED – risky, same tactic.

if the boss is not dead yet you are doing somethig wrong but as far as i know it just alternates risky-safe

So in short – you have safe and risky. Safe means move when the field is expiring, risky means move early into lit section cause you can get a bad green. and the pattern is – safe, safe, risky, safe, risky, safe, risky etc.

tempest is by far the best one for this. you will win most of the matches where other team doesnt have one. it just contributes so much to a teamfight.

Alternatively (or if there is already a tempest in your team) go for the scrapper. Its the most OP class atm

Ithilwen.1529:

You can forgive the class imbalance? What about those who play the 3 classes that got kittened on? What about the fact that anet has consistently kittened on Mesmer for the past 4 years?

That’s an incredibly selfish stance. Unfortunately, the pro leaguers agree with you and net is letting them run the game.

Yeah i can, cause the meta in general is 10x better now. Ofc i would prefer better class balance and more diversity, i play the currently underpowered classes myself. But things are a bit different in regular play, for the most part you can overcome those imbalances and classes are not THAT unbalanced either. You can take a druid/thief/whatever and get to diamond/legendary, it wont be as easy as on scrapper but its certainly doable.

scrapper/ele/rev are OP but other classes for the most part are close enough to be competitive in regular play.

As i said hopefully the spring balance patch brings more diversity, but this patch was certainly a success.

the meta is lot better and much more fun to watch now. those where some great matches. it may not be ideally balanced, since ele/scrapper/rev are so much stronger then thief/guard/war/mesmer/ranger, that teams pretty much have to run the same composition (you could see just how big of a disadvantage was to waste a spot on something like a ranger. it was a clear handicap).

But at least its fun now, people can be killed, rezzing is not guaranteed, celestial bunkers and perma invul mesmers are gone, points are capped and decapped, matches end on 500 points.

Hopefully the next pvp patch in couple months brings more balance and competitive builds for rangers/guards/thieves/mesmers/wars, but the game is certainly moving in the right direction. The meta shift away from bunkers is HUUUGE, i can forgive the class imbalance, this was a massive step.

Luckly the class imbalance is not that big of a deal in regular play so the upcoming season will be fun to play even on “weak” classes.

These finals got me pumped up for pvp again, cant wait for the season to start. Bring on the pips :P

faced 2 teams after patch that play in the pro league, both ran bunker mesmers. dont cry just yet, lets see how it works out

Tier 1:
Scrapper – the only dominant build from the current bunker meta that suffered no real nerfs. Way too much sustain for a marauder build, ridiculous amounts of heals and crazy amounts of free dmg reduction. Cant spam as much stealth but doesnt really need to. Hopefully they get fixed before the season starts, otherwise i see 3 scrappers on every team being meta. They are still somewhat killable so at least the meta will be a bit faster but diversity-wise its gonna suck again with 50%+ of the playerbase using scrapper. By far my biggest fear for season 2.

Tier2:
Necro – mmmmm boons

Tier 3:
Druid, Thief, Rev, Ele, War, Rev, Mes – hard to judge these so im lumping them all together for now. Druid and ele are gonna miss cele, but druid still has a lot going for it same as ele. new thief/war need to be tested, revs will miss durability runes and got some nerfs. Mesmer will be fine imo, not as dominant as now but still strong.

Tier 4:
Guards could be in serious trouble, they where already pretty weak (too strong in low level play though) and i think they will end up bottom-tier. Unless there are more changes we dont know yet (which i doubt, previews where always 95% of all changes, except for a tooltip or something like that here and there), i dont see any viable guard builds. But then again without so many bunkers meditrapper could maybe still work.

it is most definitely a buff. Necro is probably the only class that can break through it with corrupts and even that will be hard, considering you are constantly pushing your damaging conditions to the top of the stack.

That means all ranger/engi/mesmer/guard etc. condi builds will be hard-countered and unplayable same as now.

You are not fighting a golem, sure you can overwhelm 1 condi per sec (on top of shouts/traits etc.) if the ele is afk, but the ele will dodge, CC you, force you to dodge, break LoS etc.

Though im not considering how much ele will suffer because of cele loss. Gotta wait and see, but if there is a viable ele build with one of the new amulets, it will certainly HARD-counter the vast majority of condi builds and be the same problem as current diamond skin.

thats how a good system MM system should work. its not “forcing” you into 50% winrate, it wont give you bad players on purpose to force losses. You started winning and as you where winning your MMR increased it moved you to higher tiers, putting you up against more skilled players and you started loosing more.

game would suck if it just matched up people randomly.

MMR system is not pushing you into 50% winrate, its not based on “how many wins/losses this player needs to hit 50%”. its trying to give you balanced matches and the consequence is ideally 50% winrate for majority of the players.

dont panic! lets just wait and see. i think ele can still work, the big buff to Diamond skin helps a lot too. there are new amulets and nobody can really predict the new meta with so many changes (lot of them havent been even announced yet). in any case, ele has been super dominant, meta defining, A++ pvp class for basicly the entire lifespan of the game, its not that big of a deal if its slightly underpowered for couple weeks.

the announced changes sound pretty good for raids. thief dps was already strong and its getting buffs to dagger/staff/sword. with regards to specific bosses i can see thief being top dps class on VG (easy to backstab) and gorse (staff is already massive dps here with all 3 attacks from #2 hitting consistently. especially if burnzerker is fixed). sabetha is a bit tricky since you stack a lot in front of her so no backstabs and no staff #2, but 30% buff on AA sword sounds nice.

COndi thief is lacking, its not far behind other options but it needs love.

Hopefully future wings introduce mechanics that favor something like quick movement + burst (run around platform killing unmovable adds or something like that) or stealth, or some blocks to utilize the new basilisk venom.

wow, those amulets are amazing. i always wanted those – 4 stat spreads with offense (primary)/defence(secondary) mix. truly game-changing imo – in a good way ofc

tempest – too much healing, too much protection (and too strong, perma 50% less dmg is crazy), diamond skin needs a rework. probably the most broken spec atm

scrapper – heals too much, adaptive armor is too strong and too easy to maintain, stealth gyro needs higher CD.

thief and war – need buffs. war i could see getting there with couple buffs/tweaks. But thief seems to be in a hopeless state, across all game-modes really. It no longer has a purpose whatsoever.

Those are some major points, but i would like a bunch of smaller tweaks that increase build diversity for individual classes.

gz druid bro! i got to diamond too soloQing with druid only (well 2 wins on necro in amber). very fun, strong and versatile build to play. and yeah, ruby was super fun to play, had excellent, evenly balanced, hard fought matches for the most part.

Play the same build but i run Sick em instead of stone signet. I know in the SoS is probably better but pet spikes are too much fun to pass up

i just got to diamond with soloQ mostly (some duo or trio here and there overall but ruby was almost all soloQ). Lost pips and even tiers a few times, but it was consistently upwards trend and didnt take too many matches. Didnt count matches but i took a break from pvp during the height of chrono meta so couldnt have been too many.
Got a bit lucky maybe in the last tier with a win streak. I felt matches where for the most part very fun and even, i think the MMR/leagues system settled in very nicely. Getting here was a lot of fun (for the matches played before the mass influx of chrono kitten and after the nerf). SUre it can use the some tweaks, but overal i find leagues are a excellent addition to the game.

Got a lot of wins vs premades so i still dont get the constant complaints about solo vs. team. Never felt it was a issue really, the premades that stomped me would have stomped me soloQ-ing too. The other pugs on my team for the most part understood rotations/teamwork/etc and matches had teamwork/strategy similar to when playing with a team. Sure TS and team comp is a bonus but skill outweighs this by far.

I dont think i will be able to reach legendary soloQing though, queues are a bit longer, going up vs pro teams etc. but i will try, should be better with more players reaching it. diamond is about the level i judge my skills at anyway so im ok with getting stuck here

P.S. thanks to all fellow pugers who helped me get here, good games

apharma.3741:

Stilgar.6437:

calm down it was the worst build of all time. not only massively OP but so annoying to fight against, it simply made pvp not fun on any level of play. it ruined the pro league and the league system launch. props to devs for hotfixing it. The build is still OP in a way, but at least it has a major downside.

Mesmer is so strong in general due to alacrity, it will still have a place in the meta. But at least this bunker abomination is dead.

So very wrong.

DD ele after spec patch before they nerfed blinding ashes was the worst build of all time. They literally had to change the ESL rules to prevent people bringing 4 and a thief and dominating any team not bringing 4 eles.

Funny how people forget the way teams stacked 2-3 of guards, engies, eles and warriors at various times but suddenly lose their kitten if 2 of necro, ranger, mesmer and probably thief get stacked.

not a lot of people complained about d/d ele as much as i did. but the chrono kitten is/was way worse. at least you could hit the ele with attacks. and no meta ever was worse then this 0-0 evade everything, cap 1 point to win a match BS.

precog nerf, revenant tweak and a massive influx of alcoholic beverages to fuel the celebrations! good patch!

yup, thanks for the fix. pvp should be fun again.

calm down it was the worst build of all time. not only massively OP but so annoying to fight against, it simply made pvp not fun on any level of play. it ruined the pro league and the league system launch. props to devs for hotfixing it. The build is still OP in a way, but at least it has a major downside.

Mesmer is so strong in general due to alacrity, it will still have a place in the meta. But at least this bunker abomination is dead.

Xillllix.3485:

It’s only Engineers, Dragon Hunters and Mesmers. I think the other classes are ok in regards to ccs.

typical ranger has MoC powered glyph/AF3/hilt bash/daze on staff swap, knockback on glyph (sometimes), knockback on GS, knockdown on pet, lots of immobilize

necro has 2-3x fear, 2x stun, corrupting stability to fear, crazy amounts of chill.

Thief and war are not really played in pvp atm. So only ele and rev have reasonable amounts of CC imo.

Its just not fun being bounced around so much.

Started playing pvp again yesterday and its kinda crazy how much CC spam there is imo. Even 1v1 vs some classes it gets very very annoying and if its a 2+ teamfight im CCed all the freakin time. Im throwing out a lot myself with the druid/necro, but its getting seriously frustrating. im barely in control of my character, capture points are almost always covered with CC fields, stability/stunbreaks did not keep up with all the new stuns/pulls/kbs/kds etc.
This needs some fine-tuning imo but im not sure how, theres just so many cc skills and so little counters (well revenants have it easy with stability on dodge but otherwise stunbreaks/stability is really lacking). Maybe some kind of new mechanic that addresses this like some form of defiance/breakbar?

Or maybe im just not yet used to the new meta, other people have this issue with CCs?

Heya, looking for a team/guild that wants to seriously(-ish) do raids – teamspeak, top gear, proper builds, food, watch a video if needed etc. Im a very experienced player, 23k ach, done all possible content, lots of pvp experience.

prefered class would be revenant – have one with ascendeded gear. Can also play full ascended ranger/thief/war/guard/necro – preferably condi/power, dont really like tanking/healing. Have a kitten-ton of cash so can buy any gear/buffs that are needed. Nice, friendly, relaxed person, flexible timeframes (prefer evenings).

Whisp or pm ingame if you have any questions.

IDICERI.4268:

I got it yesterday. I spent around 325 hero points all at once though.

you probably mean the exotic version. The bo staff is the ascended version (better looking) you get from a collection. I doubt anyone in the game has the bo staff yet. You need a lot of masteries. You also need to complete a zone in HoT, but thats bugged, you get no rewards for it, which means thief cache cant be obtained yet.

The feather dropped the first day for me. The exotic HoT trinket items that you need for every specialisation (feather for DD) seem to drop fairly often, i already have 3 or 4 different ones. Hoping its the same for the exotic from core tyria pirates.

Im working on masteries now and hoping the map reward bug gets fixed soon. I really want this staff.

God (or posibbly even higher) – chronomancer. Its OP beyond everything. alacrity and f5 are broken. Skills are balanced around cooldowns, alacrity destroys that balance completely. Every single skill, heal, utility, elite all 5 shatters had their CDs reduced by 33%. Imagine a patch that did that to every skill on one class, even the crappy builds would be overpowered with such a buff. The new skills (wells) are balanced without alacrity in mind, 90s is already way to low for gravity. As a result the mesmer can spam clones/illusion/damage/cc along with invul/evade spam, heal spam, condi cleanse spam, utility spam, stealth spam. Its so easy to maintain alacrity – shatters which are on super low CD with it, wells with super-low CDs, shield. They can spam alacrity out of combat so they reset all skills in between fights. Oh and chrono also shares some of the alacrity with teammates. On top of it all continuum – do whatever the f you want then reset the encounter for yourself. double the burst of what already was probably the best burst class, why would that be a bad idea i wonder

SS tier – scrapper. ridiculous amounts of sustain/heals, borderline immortal while still doing major dmg and CCing

Unranked – everything else. Those 2 are so much stronger then the rest that you cant even judge the other classes.

You cant even discuss balance before chrono (in particular) and scrapper get fixed.

im loving it. DA/CS/DD, full zerk, staff and p/p (sb might be better but p/p is fun in pve). i destroy everything in the jungle, bit squishy at first but 3 dodges, evade on vault, evade on 3, when you get used to it its no problem staying alive. Impact strike is awesome vs. defiance bars. The new heal is great. Dash is the best dodge imo, the dmg from bound is nice but dash is better, so much mobility and you dont give a kitten about soft ccs. Ill take bounding to dungeons/fractals but in general dash wins.

DA doesnt seem that mandatory now though. mug and the modifiers are nice but DD has quite a few too, i will try out acro/trickery.

The extra dodge is a lot better then i thought, you do notice it.

Definitely the best elite spec imo all things considered.

PvP is kitten atm with all the OP chronos running around so i stay away from it in general. Cant judge dd there yet.

One thing that annoys me is that the Bo staff is so hard to get (mastery gated). It fits the DD so much but it will take a while to get it. And i want it now

well bugs are bugs, they need to be fixed. DB is actually a nice buff.

agreed. staff feels amazing to me. waiting for verdant to finish downloading so just running around killing random stuff. i didnt play betas, was a bit worried about the “feel” of the staff. It is very smooth, responsive, looks great. AA change was brilliant. damage is sweet. my new favorite weapon in the game. Bit annoyed i cant get the bo staff right away, bifrost will have to do for now.

SlayerSixx.5763:

Stilgar.6437:

-snip-.

Idk what you guys do wrong, but the mesmers I know nearly insta kill anyone with under 20k HP who isn’t ready. Like, its not even a fight. If the target survives thanks to a passive proc, they stealth and either wait until they can burst again or swap to their alt set and go to town.

And as for mesmers, the ranger is one of the best classes for countering the shatter-burst. All utilities are excelent against it. SoS is obvious, LR stunbreaks, clears immob, clears vuln, creates distance from clones/mirror-blade, QZ breaks stuns, clears condis and provides instant counter preassure – even gs auto hurts the mesmer under quickness and so does super-speed pet.
Entangle forces a memser cd to get rid of, roots illusions and clears condis (vuln). Bark skin takes the first hit passivly, shared anguish takes the first CC. Rangers burst is strong, low setup time, lots of CC and mesmer lacks stability, taunt can counter stealth, RF can track in stealth, barrage clears illusions, pet stays on mesmer all the time if you call it, it doesnt get distracted by smart blinks or stealth, helps with quick retargetting, pet is faster then the mesmer which helps land hits, LB keeps the preassure at range.

This is not theory, these things work (well worked until chrono) in practice against good mesmers as long as ranger knows how to use them. If he just stands still and pew-pews a random target, ofc he will die.

SlayerSixx.5763:

Stilgar.6437:

-snip-.

You speak about decent level. What level is this? I know our definitions of decent differ greatly since there’s a reason why ranger hasnt been meta for over a year now.

I suppose I should’ve specified builds for my previous response, but oh well.

Anywhere from average to elite. I have pretty high MMR and am constantly matched against quality players including the very top – orange, asdf, tcg etc. I have a fair shot and consistently win my share of fights against any of them. I play LB/GS marauder, i take skirmishing (i just prefer it more for doubling skills i need at that moment, much prefer that to MM bonuses and it makes for a stronger 1v1 but a bit weaker dps when pew-pewing or “+1”). I never go into a fight feeling hard-countered. Some are easier, some are a bit harder but I have enough tools to beat any of them, it comes down to who outplays whom, some i win some i loose, but i never feel like its was the build that decided.

Burn or power guard is absolutley a fair fight, so is almost everyone else.

Ok the d/d ele god has quite a bit of heals and strong kiting potential, but he cant kill me quickly either, worst case i can stall enough to get support, i have superior CC (quick decap if the point is his, if he is assaulting my point at start i get a full cap almost always), i can disrupt his might rotations and with timed bursts i even down a fair share.

Yes the ranger is weak for high level team comps, but not because its hard-countered by more common meta-builds. They just bring more to the table, big-picture wise.

But again this is pointless, in couple hours ranger will fall out of play completely, it cant compete with chronos, scrappers or revs in any aspect of pvp. You will be right then, ranger will be hard-countered by almost everything in the new meta, because it got no improvements (it got a whole new separate thing, which is great in general but no place for healers in pvp)

So i just prepared my thief (soon to be daredevil) for launch. And a major worry randomly entered my mind. What if all i steal in the jungle are those kitten mordrem branches. You know the self-rooting, long cast useless knockback. I would go insane, i hate those things and its all i steal since mordrem fight started. Enough is enough. Its immersion breaking – now matter how greedy of a thief i am, at some point after 10000+ useless branches i would admit defeat and stop trying to rob trees. Its kitten annoying. If it has to be branches for lore reasons, give me different branches. Give me a branch that grants 250 ferocity, as in “OMG i have a branch now, im unstoppable!”, or a branch i can light on fire and burn a sylvari with it. But ideally it would be non-branch things.

If this is something you didnt think of, delay the launch. I dont want to play in such world and by extension nobody else should either.

at its core its how the ranger/hunter/druid arch-type works, from D&D to gw2. theres always a stigma, theres always inferiority to it, its never as good as a mage or a warrior, its always the class that gets blamed/ridiculed. deep down we actually want it. we wouldnt know what to do if we where ever real top tier in any setting, if we didnt have a reason to complain, if there werent such challenges to overcome. You are a wierdo anti-social adventurer running around with animals, talking to trees, shooting bows, you dont fit into society.

Learn to deal with the hate, learn to embrace it. Ranger is strong enough (ofc it needs improvement) and there are plenty of (meta speed run) groups that take rangers, because ranger fits in the meta. Dont let the bad experiences get to you. You gotta just ignore that kitten, why get upset over what some random person you never met says to you, just troll them in return when you feel like it and ignore when you dont. In my experience those kind of people hate it when you dont take them seriously. If you try to argue with them or show that you are upset about it, they thrive. But dont take them seriously and talk random kitten and they get really mad. It can be so much fun to troll those people with comical nonsense

against trash you mainly do barrage then cleave with sword (sword cleave is much more reliable then piercing). Trash also dies very quickly to meta comps, minor increases in dps are unnoticable. Most dungeon/fractal bosses are single target, piercing is useless. Dmg modifiers are awesome, pet get it too and condition is easily met – sword AA and barrage from ranger alone. Some other builds will help too. In general PO will do more dmg against single target bosses. But its easy to swap out if you plan to range the boss more or encounters with 2 or more boss targets or boss+veteran trash or boss+structures. Its 2-clicks, no reason not to make use of it.

good solution would be to up the immob to 1,25s but make it 4 pulses only. It keeps the same max duration, actively getting out of it via cleanse or cleave stays the same, slightly less bleeding in optimal scenario but retains usefulness against generic condi-reduction. Perfect solution (ok adding poison on top would be perfect :P).

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Stilgar.6437:

…Builds that ignore entangle – almost all wars, every chronomancer (basicly every mesmer), thieves, reapers, engis taking inventions, all might stackers running holbreak runes, druids with stride. That leaves only guards who have instant clears and are already strong vs entangle, revenant (havent played them yet so not sure about them), eles (kittens condi clears, AOE dmg and has teleport) and non-druid rangers (already good vs. entantgle)…

This paragraph is just absurd. Have you even looked at the mechanics of what needs to be used to do what you suggest? It is a lot of investment. You are looking at your runes, one or more traits and your food for WvW, so its 40% less effective in PvP.

These things are called counters.

A lot of what you say here is simply not true.

What is incorrect there? You dont seem to understand my point. Entangle works by pulsing 1s immob every 1s, if you have anything that reduces the immob duration you are only affected by the first pulse and ignore the roots, you just walk out as if nothing was there. And as Umbra pointed out – all those traits are often part of the meta build and so are hoelbreak/melandru runes (pre and post vampirism dominance). In practice those roots end up doing nothing in most cases – without the opponents actively countering it, it requires no action or specific investment on their part (you dont take movment enhancing traits for countering entangle, you take them cause they are awesome all-around traits or minors in awesome traitlines like chrono).

Those roots are outdated, im mearly asking for entangle to have its intended effect in the new meta. Im ok with entangle/as being countered by cleanses or evade/invul CDs but not by being inherently 100% countered passivley by majority of classes and multiple common runes/food.

SlayerSixx.5763:

All it takes is one guardian, thief, mesmer, or warrior to completely shut that ranger down.

disagree. ranger can hold its own against any of those classes. Warrior has a tough time sticking on the ranger, mesmer is the only class that hates ranger pets as much as rangers do (instant you leave the stealth the pet picks you out and it has a speed advantage so it can actually hit every once in a while), ranger is very good at counter-pressuring a mesmer. ranger can go through guard blocks with rapidfire and pet attacks and has quick and solid burn cleanses. thief is thief – one rapid fire/maul/bird slash – he has to disengage, you can counter stealth with CC, rapidfire.

Ranger has solid invul with SoS, frequent stealth for repositioning, stealth and taunt for detargeting, protection, evades, swoop to create destance, tons of CC, its bursts are quick and frequent. Its NOT an easy target to shut down.

Ranger doesnt excel at anything, thats its real problem, but its a good jack-of-all kinda build for soloQ, no glaring weakness, always a fighting chance. thats why you are never inherently at a disadvantage when rolling few of them in a pug team. if skilled enough, can do everything from 1v1 skirmishing to +1ing, decaping and teamfights . Its not the best at any of those roles but is good enough.

This all changes in couple hours though. Chronos and scrappers will wipe the floor with it every time and good luck ever hitting a revenant with a projectile attack, plus its hammer is like 30% improved version of longbow. So this discussion is pointless, completely new meta is coming. imo ranger got nothing to keep up with the power creep (unless more changes where made to druids offensive potential) and will need a balance pass asap. We will see soon enough

P.S. Im talking about decent level of skill here. Yeah if its one of those rangers whos entire gameplan is pew-pew from 1500 high ground the entire match, most things counter that. If the ranger actually uses all the tools it has, its a tough matchup for anyone.

Holland.9351:

Kitty.1502:

Holland.9351:

It’ll be strong against some classes and some builds and worthless to others.

For example it’ll be as good as worthless against an Engineer with Juggernaut because of the near-infinite stability.

I think it’s something you should treat more like a sigil or rune. The effect may or may not happen. But it can be deadly when it does happen.

It’s not reliable because of the requirements for it to trigger. CCing something isn’t enough, you also have to hit them for a second time while they are still under the effect of the CC. That’s a pretty rare event.

If it was more reliable and easier to land, it would need a longer cooldown… which I might be ok with, because that would essentially make it stronger.

Stability does not stop immobilization. It only works against knockdown, pushes, pulls, launches, stuns, dazes, floats, sunks, fears and taunts.

Stability stops CC and therefore the trait can’t trigger and therefore it prevents immobilize. So stability is definitely a counter to Ancient Seeds, in fact, stability is probably its worst enemy.

its not. condi reduction is. You will get far more out of AS against FT engi (you can chain your CC to break stability, its 1 stack every 3s and the engi doesnt camp FT all the time), then against shatter mesmer, reaper, zerk war, might stacking hoelbrek classes, melandru bunkers, druids etc. On other classes for the most part stability has low uptime and is not that big of a counter. There is no counterplay to 25% immob reduction, nothing you do helps and the trait/elite is borderline useless (1 stack of bleed and 3/4sec or less immobilize).

LF generation on random kitten on khylo should be fixed (trebs, gates and other such destructible objects should still generate LF however, probably even the crates on sidepoints). But necro should definitely start a match with some lifeforce. I would make it 20-25%, see how that works. Asking for 100% is crazy.

Druid is different. im ok with starting the match at 100%, it doesnt matter really since you can build it up at start of the match anyway.

Kitty.1502:

Holland.9351:

It’ll be strong against some classes and some builds and worthless to others.

For example it’ll be as good as worthless against an Engineer with Juggernaut because of the near-infinite stability.

I think it’s something you should treat more like a sigil or rune. The effect may or may not happen. But it can be deadly when it does happen.

It’s not reliable because of the requirements for it to trigger. CCing something isn’t enough, you also have to hit them for a second time while they are still under the effect of the CC. That’s a pretty rare event.

If it was more reliable and easier to land, it would need a longer cooldown… which I might be ok with, because that would essentially make it stronger.

Stability does not stop immobilization. It only works against knockdown, pushes, pulls, launches, stuns, dazes, floats, sunks, fears and taunts.

he probably means the trait Ancient Seeds not the roots themselves. The trait trigger is ok imo (even FT engi will get CCed), the effect is not because too many traits/runes completely negate it and the negation is passive (it requires no activation or any action except for pressing any of the 4 movement keys).

dannyteo.5864:

I find with this dilemma timing is everything. I know there is quite a few classes that entangle is useless on such as eles, thieves engis and warriors, however with classes like necro, guardians, rangers and mesmers i find entangle to be really strong but i guess that is subject to change come expansion. Making it stronger could be a good idea however im not really sure how they could do it

yeah but the point is with HoT, 3 of the classes you say are affected are getting basicly immunity from the roots – mesmers (minor trait), necros (strong adept, will often get picked), druids will often run natural stride, that only leaves guard and his condi clears are instant (shout, medi,virtue) which makes it much easier to clear and walk out.

So you are in a situation where your elite and only offensive GM are almost useless against 6-7 classes and average against 1. not sure about rev and engis will often be dropping inventions for scrapper so it could be a bit better against them.

Increase the base immob by 25% – counter the generic reduction that every class has nowadays, while specialized forms (like reaper in shroud or dogged march) still work – thats sort of reapers theme in RS, wouldnt mess with that. THe whole roots concept was made and balanced without so many reductions in play (most of those traits have been introduced later afaik). There are plenty active ways to counter the roots, they should not be countered passivley by almost any spec.

www is still the same, your +40% on food is countered by -40% on food and the 10% from utility is not enough to offset -25%.

P.S. forgot melandru runes, another 100% counter.

I think the current version of the entangle effect is way too weak. Problem is a lot of classes (and more with HoT launch) have traits that reduce immob duration (or any form of general condi reduction). It flat-out does nothing against such builds, they simply walk out of it – the 1s immob is reduced to 3/4 or 2/3 and the 2nd never ticks then. Not to mention that any teleport renders it useless and in lot of cases a simple condi clear is enough to move out of the roots and good cleave will destroy them quickly.

Even now i mostly just get condi clear and fury out of entangle, exception being necros who do end up stuck in it often (slow and counterable condi cleanse, slow to kill the root unless on dagger, no teleports), but reapers get -33% trait so those days are gone.

Builds that ignore entangle – almost all wars, every chronomancer (basicly every mesmer), thieves, reapers, engis taking inventions, all might stackers running holbreak runes, druids with stride. That leaves only guards who have instant clears and are already strong vs entangle, revenant (havent played them yet so not sure about them), eles (kittens condi clears, AOE dmg and has teleport) and non-druid rangers (already good vs. entantgle).

Entangle is an elite skill, Ancient seed is a GM trait (and the only offensive one). But like 80% of the time it will do absolutely nothing (ok it will do a single bleed stack), 10% you get 2 ticks of it and 10% you get 2+ ticks.

Change it to something like 2×2s of immob and 2 bleed stacks, or up the duration to 1 1/2s, so that it actually works as intended – you have to kill the roots, use condi cleanse which the ranger at least has a chance of counter-playing or a teleport.
Or get rid of the roots mechanic just make it flat Xs immob X stack of bleeds. Or work in a trait for ranger that extends immob by 25%.

Something needs to be done, i see lots of people excited about Ancient seeds, but it works only in theory. in practice you wont get anything out of that trait.

its a good soloQ build/class. Usually its power rangers, in a way its a strong build, does a bit of everything and it doesnt have any major flaws. Contrary to outdated beliefs its actually a strong on-point fighter – pretty tanky for marauder, good condi removal, tons of CC (especially knockbacks), i can get a decap against any other build in a very short time. It has good damage (both burst and sustained), it has good mobility, its good at “+1” Stone signet/stealth/evades/2x stunbreak make for a decent defence against focusing in teamfights. QZ+wolf+SA makes them at least decent at stomping/rezing. THey have some stealth counterplay (taunt+fear).

Nothing hard-counters rangers, it can put up a fair fight against all commonly used builds (not saying it wins all 1v1s or that its the best 1v1 build, but nothing beats ranger by default).

Thats why its no problem getting multiple rangers (if they are good players ofc), good all-around spec, decent at most roles. It sucks to stack specialized classes – 2 hard bunkers and you lack dmg, 2x thieves or mesmer and you lack point presence etc.

Different condi ranger builds are similar but somewhat weaker.

you are already running 2 survival skills (but i would go for LR insted of QZ for stunbreak). Troll is the best heal, take troll and take wilderness knowledge. In the current meta quick condi clears are a must (burning), EB is way too unreliable. This way you get good condi clears + better heal + lower cd on your stunbreak + dps from fury + lower cd on entangle. You can also run birds since you arent running EB. Drop the bear in any case, bears are terrible. Run a bird (eagle or owl) and wolf. Take Oakheart salve in wildernes adept instead of expertise – much better choice, especially with settlers.

style.6173:

Stilgar.6437:

1. Balance
2. Fix queue popup blocking everything
3. Balance
4. Balance
5. Balance
6. Balance
7. Balance
8. Its all about the balance, stupid

Everything else is secondary. End the ele meta, fix the upcoming chrono/scrapper OPness. HoT will be a test to see where we stand. Theres obviously going to be some unbalanced stuff at launch, cant really avoid that (well alacrity and the crazy uptime on it is kinda obvious but nvm), it was a very tight schedule. If the fixes are done in a reasonable timeframe, we are on the right track. If it takes months, there is no hope left any more

P.S. im against soloQ and i solo-join 90% of my games. better not to split the playerbase too much – its not only solo or 5-team, people queue with 2/3/4. Maybe adjust MM system, slightly increase the weight of team size and it should be fine.
We had soloq and it made pvp worse overall, removing it was a good decision.

Ironically, a lot of people said scapper was top tier after the last beta weekend. Since then, ANET has just buffed it more. We will soon see if ANET is super smart at balancing, or super clueless.

With scrapper its just 1-2 traits being far too strong. Overall its in a good place and the buffs they got where needed (gyros, hammer leap fixes). But something like Adaptive armor GM, that kitten is crazy, 20% condi reduction and basicly perma 500 toughness on a already very bunky profession – compared to other stacking buffs its MUCH easier to maintain full stacks and the effect is stronger. Every other stacking trait is ~5 seconds max with usually a harder requirement (dodge etc), AA is 10s, procs on any hit and only 1 stack needed for max condi effectivness. Something like currently very strong meta soldier engi can just switch to marauder, double its dmg and suffer no loss to defence.

But thats besides the point, its all about how fast and how good they react to balance problems post launch. Good balance, good class/build variety, everything else is secondary.

1. Balance
2. Fix queue popup blocking everything
3. Balance
4. Balance
5. Balance
6. Balance
7. Balance
8. Its all about the balance, stupid

Everything else is secondary. End the ele meta, fix the upcoming chrono/scrapper OPness. HoT will be a test to see where we stand. Theres obviously going to be some unbalanced stuff at launch, cant really avoid that (well alacrity and the crazy uptime on it is kinda obvious but nvm), it was a very tight schedule. If the fixes are done in a reasonable timeframe, we are on the right track. If it takes months, there is no hope left any more

P.S. im against soloQ and i solo-join 90% of my games. better not to split the playerbase too much – its not only solo or 5-team, people queue with 2/3/4. Maybe adjust MM system, slightly increase the weight of team size and it should be fine.
We had soloq and it made pvp worse overall, removing it was a good decision.

Photinous.4628:

I don’t actually agree. Companions might is awful in PvP, the might duration is only 6s and our attack speed in bad for any weapon set. In PvE, resounding timbre is pretty awful. I think they are fine as is. Also I find natural healing to be really good for keeping pets alive in PvP. It’s around a 400hps sustain.

you are severely underestimating that trait. rapid fire (+sigil procs), barrage, shortbow, axe, they can all generate decent amounts of might from companions. add that to any might generation you already have and might from teammates. plus you are always copying 10s per stack. It would be quite nice.

In pve, you are using companion in the meta build and nothing useful in major really. with the whao change, resounding timbre is very nice for your pet dps (since you are almost always copying 20+ stacks).

And natural healing is terrible in pvp, if you are taking moa to pvp or using that bad NM gm trait, you are doing something wrong. 125hps is not worth a major, you are much better of using weakness on f2. you are traiting BM, you get all the pet bonuses, health regen is not neccessery since your pet is tougher and pet swap cd is reduced. Outside of fighting burn guards sometimes, even my squishy birds almost never die in pvp. And natural healing wont outheal 12 burn stacks anyway.

Sigmoid.7082:

Stilgar.6437:

im really hoping the sinister is coming as 4-stat amulet (vitality as minor). 3x offensive stat amulets are pretty much worthless, just too squishy. I never see anyone use assassin, rampager or berserker.

Why would it be more than 3 stats when sinister itself is 3 stats? As long as its named sinister it will have 3 stats regardless of whatever else people want because that’s what sinister is. They changed zerk and valk to the same stats in PvP as pve this won’t be any different.

he said its only 1 example of upcoming amulets, so im hoping they are introducing a more balanced variants of sinister too. Just like when they changed berserker they introduced a balanced variant – marauder.

if it comes out as 4-stat (with vit or maybe toughness) it will be a good amulet. If its like pve sinister (cd/pow/pre) its going to be useless.

I think it would be great for build diversity to have a strong condition/power hybrid amulet so im hoping its a 4-stat version.

im really hoping the sinister is coming as 4-stat amulet (vitality as minor). 3x offensive stat amulets are pretty much worthless, just too squishy. I never see anyone use assassin, rampager or berserker.

WHaO is getting a change, might is no longer capped in stacks (duration is always 10s). THis is quite a nice change, mainly for pve where pet misses out on all might the party generates so you can just heal to buff it to 20+.

What bothers me is that it has great synergy with BM minor companions might (when you crit, pet gets might), but the problem is resounding timbre (shout trait) is on the same tier. Untraited whao cant really compete with troll. It would be great if you could pick both these traits especially in pvp.

So the suggestion is to move resounding or companion to master tier and drop natural healing to adept. Natural healing is a pretty bad trait since pets have absolutely no use for HP (even if you take moa, the only pet that has a skill that heals, the trait is not worth it).

THen you have a good choice – troll for fury, condi cleanse and better AF generation or WHaO for reliable might generation and some party support.