Fun idea for a build. I tried theorycrafting further on it and came up with this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlIq6Z3yy5F17IxIFc+zhUU47/5hcbLdB-TkAg0CvI2RtjbHzOyds7M+A
With power shoes speed is not issue (as you also mentioned as an option).
You loose a bit of burst/damage but get a bit more toughness to survive initial burst and increased survivability through protection and reset heal.
The loss of Enduring Damage (10% modifier) is somewhat offset by vulnerability on explosions. Finally you get another hard CC with healing turret. With refinement kit that is a total of 6 hard CC’s. This will in particular help in beating tanky condition specs who usually lack stability – except the occational ranger elite and of course condition ss/l warriors.
Another option is to drop healing turret and the cc trait and refinemet kit and go for med kit and perma vigor. Medkit gives speed for mobility between points and you have perma switness/vigor in battle (no need for speedy kits).
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUl0p6Z3yy5F1LJxoHcm0ZGUh6LqQ+/oQutF-TkAg0CnIKSVkrITRyisFNsA
I know this has been said before (and it applies to several professions) but exactly 33% of the minor traits of the elementalist really need to change as they are awfull in their current state. I have listed suggestions for changes. What do you think?
Flame Barrier: 1 in kittens will grant the attacker a whopping 1 second burning. Sadly, taking kittens usually means death and even so, the minor burning will accomplish nothing.
Suggestion for change: a simple power increase (or perhaps condition duration increase) is better when attuned to fire.
Zephyr’s Speed: a non-mobile elementalist usually means a dead elementalist. Not having 25-33% speed increase is a death sentence waiting to happen. A 10% increase does nothing in itself and is useless in practice because it is overwritten by the necessity of speed buffs.
Suggestion for change: If you really want it to relate to speed, let it apply swiftness for a few seconds on attunement swapping. Or even better, and since swiftness is easily applied otherwise, let it do something else, such as an 5-10% increase in crit change (or crit damage) while in Air.
Weak Spot: While better than the two minors above, it is still close to being useless. In a window of opportunity you may be able to achieve a whopping stack of 5-6 in combination with arcane utilities. Compare that to the typical 10% damage increase of several other professions (though somewhat offset by the fact that it is a debuff that also applies to other teammates). It could perhaps be useful as a cover condition but then again, why you want to go so high in a damage tree (and we all know that conditionalists are non-optimal).
Suggestion for change: Let it apply the debuff on all hits in air (no proc chance) or at least increase the duration to 8-10 seconds.
Lingering Elements: There are two major issues with this one: (i)to be fully effective you need to spec into all trait lines, (ii) half of the minors are useless, cf. above.
Suggestion for change: I don’t know but it will help changing the other bad minors.
Arcane precision: This has got to be the worst of them all, in particular when considering that it is placed so high in the tree. While the conditions it applies are fine in theory, the proc rate is insanely low. Even with a 100% crit chance only 1 of 10 hits will proc the trait. Try for a moment and compare to other profession proc traits, typical being either 33% or 66% for bleed procs.
Suggestion for change: increase the proc rate to at least 33% (though I would probably still hate the trait).
Make som noise!
I like the idea with runes of speed. Though about it myself for better roaming and also because failing to hit with Dark Path or Chillblains can make it difficult to stay on target with daggers (though Spectral Walk helps a bit), and having almost 30k HP is not bad:-)
Didn’t really consider the usefulness of mark of blood in relation to stealth. Good point! Though I think I would not be able to keep my cool and use it for that due to spending an important dodge + the internal cooldown. For me, EB in Curses is reliable (even after the nerf) and is usefull in exact that scenario you describe when being jumped by 1+ melee.
May I ask if you have any particular rotations or openings? I havent really figured any specific combos out yet but go at it depending on circumstances.
Though I first tought it would be a squishy build, It’s actually not. I like it! I wish it had more burst but I guess no viable power necro builds have burst.
I tried messing around with different variants and found Mark of Evasion to be less effective for my playstyle, since the regen is not applied when in DS and not that effective due to the high health pool. I went 10 points in Curses instead for the bleed on crit and few seconds of weakness which safed my life a few times when being bursted.
I also tried a might stacking variant with might stacking runes, might on swap and Blood is power. It worked well with Dhumfire and bleed on crit but decreased survivability quite a bit. Fun in hotjoin with heavy life blasts and more condition pressure but probably not viable in tpvp (though I wish it was).
Great job:-)
Would like to hear more on your experiences with the build.
Just out of curiosity, how effective is Unscathed Contender? Aegis is rarely applied in that build and, as far as I know, is removed even when you blind/block. I, myself, can’t really seem to use it effectively.
By frontloading all dps you mean a heavy burst build, right? If so, I would consider changing mace to scepter, which due to its immobilize will make your burst more reliable and easy to land, in particular if you want to use Unscathed Contender. Otherwise, you may find yourself being kited to hell and just one autoattack will nullify your 20% damage boost.
I am not sure how effective Unscathed Contender is – never really been able to effectively use it myself. Keep in mind that aegis is removed even when you block. Also, since you use Virtue of Courage for quick stomp, you won’t be receiving another aegis (and thus your 20% dmg boost) for 75 sec, which is a long time.
I know stability is close to a must have, but for a build as this I would consider dropping the virtues line completely (perhaps except Inspired Virtues) and take the point up to Radiant power in the Radiance line for another 10% dmg boost. With a bit of timing, you can still stomp by using Virtue of Justice (blind), which would then be renewed after the stomp, or Virtue of Courage (block).
By doing so you may loose the 20% dmg boost, but you would gain 10% from Radiant Power, another 5% (which is going to be boosted during today’s big patch to 10%) from Powerful Blades and Vulnerability from Blind Exposure (up to x15 with scepter), totally increasing your damage with up to 35%.
You don’t need to tie an effect to a button to make it active. How active an effect is depends on active it demands the player to be. Effect = Button is a simple, effective way to do it, but not the only one.
In the case of Diamond Skin, it’s true that there is no button associated with it. But it needs to be maintained, and it can be counter-played. Anyone can nullify its effect, and the elementalist must work to get its effect back. This creates some sort of dancing between gaining and losing the effect, which is determined by the skill of the two combatants. This make the trait highly interactive and playable.
In comparison, passive traits like Dhuumfire are the opposite. They proc at pretty much anything that hits. They can’t be countered. They don’t require special or unique playing to be activated. They don’t depend on the player skill. They’re mindless and unhealthy to the game.
I would go as far as argue that skills like Enduring Pain are more passive than traits like Diamond Skin. Why? 1) Because the active maintenance required to make use of the Diamond Skin’s effect is far more demanding than simply prssing a single button. 2) Because once Endure Pain is activated, the opponent can’t do anything but wait until the effect ends, while the opportunity to counter-play Diamond skin is always there.
Let’s put it in simpler means and with different words: Diamond Skin is only a passive trait if no one attacks the elementalist.
Please stop ruining this constructive thread sensotix created! you told your point, disagree’ers told their point, let it rest now (as your logic is already).
I actually think he is posting constructive critism but you guys, including Sensotix, is replying in quite a dismissive way. If you can’t accept other viewpoints, then whats the point of it all…
Rangers get a new grandmaster trait called “Sonic Strings” which heavily increases the sound volume of the shortbow autoattack and adds sonic damage.
Eles get a new ulitity skill called “Disintegrate ??” which randomly removes either 90% of health from the target or the ele himself.
Necros will get a Dhumfire II trait which introduces an uncleansable condition called “Deathfire” that transfers health from the target to the necro (which scales with condition damage and vitality).
In addition, they get a trait called “Free Actions”, which renders the necro immune to hard cc for 10 seconds when the target has a condition (intertal 30 sec cd).
Both traits are adept traits.
Finally, necroes will get a new signet called “Death Sentence” which re-applies all current conditions, including fear, on the target each second for a total of 7 seconds. The signet has a long cooldown though (50 sec).
So, apparently, to be a good thief, you attack people who are running away and you blind stomp.
I mean, really, is this supposed to be impressive? It’s painfully generic. The video may as well be named “Guy uses sub-optimal weaponset, kills scrubs”. The person in the video is fighting such awesome opponents as a warrior with gs/sword sword. At pretty much no point did I not see the guy’s team behind on points if not outright dominating.
The thief is obviously skilled and uses his steal smartly, as well as avoiding damage and the like. I just think the video could have been done a lot better.
I never really understood why some people need to make these negative posts. To be frank, it comes out a little too arrogant.
Having said that, I agree that it’s a rather generic build but what isn’t nowadays, except for the occational engi or ele?? Whether it’s painful or not, on the other hand, I would say is quite subjective and likely not equivalent to the generel opinion.
I think the OP is doing a great job illustrating how to utilize the s/p weapon set. I would like to see recordings of harder fights against really good players. Me, personally, I find it hard to beat very good necros, some engis and L/h regen warriors with this build.
Next SotG after LS has boon stripping reduced: “We need to shave S/P. It has evasion, stun, and damage. All those together make it a little too powerful.”
Is this just your speculation? Or was this actually quoted from a dev? Honestly pistolwhip is a very very strong skill. It does a ton of damage, stuns, and evades, but I think that its a pretty balanced skill if you consider the fact that you have to be rooted for it to work. I have been running a build similar to the one on my guide, but recently ive been exploring a 10/0/0/30/30 s/p & s/p build with energy sigils and its been kinda interesting. It really really hard to kill 1v1, but im not sure its viable without the extra damage from critical strikes. I would hate to have to go back to d/p if they nerf s/p.
While I havn’t tried that setup you are describing I tried going 0-30-0-25-15 which also works ok, though I miss the extra steal daze when going s/p. On the other side, you get a bit more survivability with more dodges and the dmg is the same as OP build. Generally, I am not very fond of having 2x same weapon setup.
That sounds great. Looking forward to it ;-)
Tried the build and it was acutally quite fun. However, I would really like to see how this build performs in tpvp.
It’s nice to not have people raging about blind, stealth and evade spam when you kill them :-) Next thing we know is raging on the cc the build provides.
From a pvp perspective:
The main issue with Whirling Defense is that is that the ranger has no effective means of keeping the target stationary for the damage to hit, such as the warrior’s 4 sec mace stun or immobilize which is the only reason 100b works.
Entangle would do it for you but, alas, it’s an elite on a very long cooldown. It may be possible to combine Muddy Terrain with a pet immobilize and even haste but it’s very impractical and it would require you to build around it. Who would want to create an entire build around one mediocre skill.
Thus, in reality the skill’s only function becomes defense against ranged attacks all the while you do little damage trough retaliation while being an easy target unable to move.
One could also combo the skill with a fire field but that means speccing for condition damage and it would simply be ineffective to slot a power based offhand weapon.
Conclusion: the skill is not feasible in its current state, in particular not in the current meta. I agree with the above poster: the risk/reward ratio is out of place.
From a pvp perspective it is rarely used.
First of all, it doesn’t really fit in the current meta as you are almost forced to take Berserker Stance and stability. This leaves one open spot, which will usually go to either a signet or another stance as most spec into either one (for vigor or signet cd reduction).
Secondly, its on a rather long cooldown for what it does. Also, its not the best to use as an interrupt due to the 3/4 sec casting + animation time. It gets better if you spec for physical training, however that forces you to go into the Strength line which is rather bad (unless we are talking pve).
If Anet could somehow make this build alot harder to play with a better payoff for those who are good would be amazing so less people could play it to it’s full potential and people who truly like rangers can just get good from enough practice. And yea i know this is the problem with basically every class.
I agree.
The risk/reward ratio is somewhat skewed because the build lacks complexity. It’s "more or less “phew phew phew” a large portion of the time which makes the margin of error quite big.
Axe 5 has its benefits. It can build adrenaline quite fast using Furious. It’s also good for on crit sigils/traits. Finally, it allows for two weapons, such as the sword. If you want to use it, I would suggest going mace/shield and sword/axe. The combo would be: mace stun 4 sec, then swap and hit axe 4 followed by axe 5 (which can be done exactly within the 4 sec stun) . You should now have full adrenaline again (if decent precision and Furious trait) and you can follow up with sword 3 if the target is not dead already.
What is point of this tread? That rangers need new nerffhammer? Fine, weve seen it all. Tbh id be happy if we get nerffed couse last days there are tons of new rangers everywhere, and 99% of them only give free tokens in.
The point was to share my thoughts and start a discussion about the build. I have not mentioned anything about nerfs and it was not my intention.
Thank you for the otherwise constructive comments of yours.
The primary reason I see shortbow being better in teamplay (tpvp) is due to the daze/stun to interrupt res. Otherwise, I would think that the difference in range is somewhat negligible. On the other hand the torch provides good point pressure with it’s fire aoe.
Care to elaborate?
I usually roll warrior in spvp but after having met some decent spirit rangers after the latest BP I thought I would make one myself to figures out their weaknesses so I could up my odds against them.
I did fool around with rangers some time ago (when the BM ranger was strong) and have some experience with the profession but I never touched spirits so my knowledge of this particular playstyle was limited. Anyways, yesterday I came up with a quick build and did approx. 50 pvp matches. The build was something like this:
I am amazed! I destroyed people with ease, with the exception of the occasionally well played terror necro. Quite frankly, I was glad that warriors got some buffs recently but after having rolled a spirit ranger I can’t help to think how hard I have to work on my warrior in order to be successful.
With almost perma protection and high toughness, power/burst classes had a very hard time against me, while I would melt them with close to perma burn, bleeds and even some burst from Storm spirit (could hit up to 5k dmg on squishy targets). If things got rough I would switch to sword/dagger and do evasive tricks for a while (nothing new in that).
I felt very deadly and tanky at the same time. Though lacking in stability and active stun breaker, it overall felt like a powerful build. However, I also felt a bit ashamed, maybe because I am coming from a warrior. With the passive benefits and buffs it felt automated and, quite frankly, rather easy to do well. Also, the group support felt great. I sincerely felt like I could carry bad teams to victory, although let me remind you it was only 5v5 hot join matches.
Maybe I just had a lucky streak of matches and got the wrong impression but I rate spirit builds to be top tier.
That’s my two cents…
The primary reason warriors are not better bunkers than guardians is the lack of protection. Warriors have none.
While a warrior may be able to get high amount of regen and have a higher health pool, they are weaker against burst builds than guardians. In addition a regen warrior has no burst healing.
A guardian can withstand burst better due to a very high uptime on protection and has burst healing. Furthermore, a regen warrior provides less support to the group that a shout guardian.
I suggest going full Arms rather than Strength. Pick Rending Strikes, Crack Shot and Furious. You will be doing more damage due to vul stacks, kill shot pierces (so you don’t get annoying clones or pets in the way) and your adrenaline gain will be much faster due to the high crit chance.
It seems like a fun build. To take it more serious I would also focus on getting more defence. I would also drop stronger bowstrings for something else. While you may be getting a bit more burn the range is negligible (from a spvp perspective). Maybe Leg Specialist combined with Opportunist for perma fury, so you could drop FGJ for… lets say stability or if you are afraid being blocked take the power signet.
My two cents…
I would love to see a vid of this :-)
The issue with shouts are:
1) You have to go full Tactics and live with the awful minor traits (guess that goes for banners as well)
2) You are forced to equip all shouts as utilities and will lack stability unless you also trait Last Stand on a 90 sec cooldown.
3) You feel forced to equip solider runes which destroys diversity (and damage). If not you need Cleansing ire and that practically makes you only a mediocre bunker as you need to go full Defense as well.
4) Traited Warhorn would be great with shouts (counts as a shout I was told) but alas, then you wont be able to take reduced cd on shouts.
All in all you get a build which primarily fits a bunker profile (but lacking protection) but with only mediocre support except for team condition removal.
Aside from going a glass cannon type of build utilizing Berserker’s Power, there is currently no reason to invest anything into Strength aside maybe playing around with a troll Distracting Strikes build.
Restorative Strength is the only Adept trait I would consider getting for 10 points into strength, but I would not invest 10 points into strength just to get that.
Going 20 into strength is really kind of meh as well. You get the 10% Greatsword damage buff and burst skills restoring endurance. However, you could go 10 into tactics for 20% more damage at 50% health, go a full 30 into discipline, get 25 into arms, we have plenty of damage modifiers which effect ALL weapons.
So it will be either all or nothing when investing in strength. Berserker’s Might is also never used.
I completely agree.
On a side note, I did try and make a troll hot join Distracting trait build. It is ok fun but plays rather weird. I could actually hold up against most classes 1v1. Tourney-wise it’s probably not very good. See link here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/The-Distractor-Build/first#post2526692
It has already been said in this post. To sum up, the build is not overpowered for the following reasons (from a spvp perspective):
1) it’s countered by stability;
2) it’s countered by blind;
3) it’s countered by dodging as it has quite obvious animations;
4) it’s purely melee based;
5) it’s got no burst heal (if you use healing signet); and
6) Condition handling is not great outside of Berserker Stance (only 13% uptime).
Of course some of the weaknesses of the build also apply to other professions but nothing wrong in that.
I thought retaliation only stacked in duration. 1.470 damage per hit on you seems quite ridiculous.
Nice build. In hot join, fun is the important part.
Edit: you mean along with confusion I guess.
That’s still a bit exaggerated, because keeping up 8 stacks will not be easy. Even if you’re a great interrupter, which is very hard to do consistently in gw2, cleansing will nullify that damage completely.
Edit 2: May I suggest swapping out sigil of force on sword for sigil of corruption? If you manage to stack to 25 stacks (5 kills) you increase your base condi damage by 25%. Even 1 enemy kill grants you a base 5% condi damage increase.
I mean along with confusion. You have 4 interrupts (between 10-25 sec cd) and each confusion stack lasts close to 10.5 sec. It is doable, though you are right on the cleansing part. The confusion also acts as cover for the bleeds. Anyways, since its a hybrid build, you also do some damage with your normal attacks. It all adds up.
Sigil of corruption might be a good idea, since I rarely die ;-)
I absolutely agree that the minor traits in the Tactics line are completely and utterly useless. I would love to see them changed!
Specifically for the warrior, I would like to see all minor traits in the Tactics line completely changed. There is a reason why none of the great builds goes into Tactics, except for the occasional Leg Specialist. Seriously, They ALL focus on trivial and boring revival features which are near useless for a warrior.
In my experience, it works optimal in a sustain build with high toughness that can withstand burst. Otherwise, I suggest using a burst heal, such as Healing Surge.
No comments from anyone?
While most of you probably know about the current builds floating around (thank you Defektive), I wanted to create an alternative build incorporating the trait Distracting Strikes. I have tested it heavily in hot join and in many 1v1 scenarios and it works for me.
I would really like to receive constructive comments from the community and your take on the Distracting Strikes trait? Just to let you guys know, I am a hot join hero and glory pursuer (rank 43), I admit it, and I only do solo tourneys on a casual basis.
The build is by no means a burst build. It relies on sustain and punishes your foe for attacking you. It’s a hybrid power/condition build that uses Distracting Strikes and Beskerker’s Might. Yes, that’s right. As it does not focus on crit, Beserker’s Might actually works great for adrenaline gain. The reason this build works better as a hybrid build is that the maze is not a condition weapon. However, it has the most optimal options for interrupting your foe and thus stacking confusion.
Weapons: Mace/shield, Sword/sword.
Amulet: Carrion/rabid
Runes: Melandru
Sigils: Doom
Heal: Healing Surge
Utilities: Berzerker Stance (can be swapped out depending on team composition), Kick (as it works great as an interrupt on a rather low cd), and balanced stance.
Elite: Signet of Rage, primarily for Swiftness.
You have to be very efficient in timing your CC mainly for the purpose of interrupting in order to stack confusion. Doing it right you will be able to keep 8 stacks of confusion on your foe most of the time, thus penalizing each action with 1,133 condition damage. In addition, you have an 33% uptime on retaliation, granting a total damage of 1,470 per hit on you. You have the most blocks a warrior can have, which fits the theme well. It also makes Missile Deflection a nice trait which punishes ranged attacker and allows you to move in on your foe and do damage while being kited (total of 6.45 seconds reflect).
Torment punishes your foe from moving for 15 seconds (+ 30% condition duration). As it is continuously reapplied during that time it also works great as a cover for your bleeds and confusion. When (and if) it reaches 5 stacks it does 700 damage each second if the target is moving. The build does not use longbow and thus no burning damage. However, that is somewhat outweighed by confusion and torment. Add in poison on weapon swap and you are able to apply 4 different damaging conditions on your foe.
All in all, I find this alternative build to be rather fun. Please share your thoughts!
True enough, you got beserker stance. The issue with stances is they only give you a “free pass” for a limited period of time and with an attrition build you need… time.
If they were to move Distracting strikes to an adapt tier, maybe it would allow for more optimal builds around that trait, but I think the purpose of the trait is supplementary damage in a power build. Otherwise, one could try and build around physical interrupt skills, like kick etc., and drop the mace. However, by doing so you loose practically all your survivability. Something like this, using the bow as well:
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-so-FF;0VKVM0U4oK-60;9;4T9T;01672;018B;4T-V6C;1TsW6TsW61Vc
In addition to confusion you have retaliation which seems to go well with the theme. It got one stun breaker but no stability and low adren gen. Decent condition removal with cleansing ire and mending (which now removes 3 cons). Just something I threw together real quick and will likely not work :-)
I tried to make a similar build after this patch with almost the same traits as you, though I went with mace offhand instead of shield.
I would really like distracting strikes to be viable but, alas, its hard to work with. First of all, though the mace seems to fit the trait nicely with the daze and stun, the mace is not a condition weapon. This almost forces you into going hybrid power/condition. Secondly, in order for confusion to tick you need some sustain which forces you to spec rather defensively and the challenge is that the stat allocations do not really allow for such a build, in my opinion.
Third, you miss out on burn from the bow. Granted, the new torment helps as a cover and having poison on weapon swap helps too. Maybe going with Runes of Guardian may help but its only 1 sec burn per block (I would not go with Mighty defences though as it is only 7 sec might). In any case, a warrior condition build like this will have a very hard time in the current meta.
Fourth, your build has very limited condition removal, except cleansing ire, which is hard to use optimally with a melee build (in particular with all the blinds around).
As a final note, I was not really able to get more than 8 stacks of confusion on a target. I am not sure but there may be an internal cooldown (wiki does not give any info)?
I would love to hear more about the progress of your build and your experiences with it.
I also run a stunlock CC build, thought quite different from the above:
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-sBxs;1RK-Q0d4NL-60;9;59T-T;13;0089;152AWoF2;2CoF2CoF25kH
I have not done that many tourneys with it yet but it seems to do ok so far (for a warrior, that is). With full health and shield you got around 1560 toughness which is quite decent for a berserker amulet. Though Cleansing ire may have its faults you got decent condition removal/reduction, better than the above builds at least.
I sometimes switch out endure pain with berserker stance, depending on circumstances.
I noticed you have two para sigils on maze/shield. I didn’t think para sigils would add up? I thought having one rounds up with a second, thus having a 4 sec stun on maze. Am I wrong here?
(edited by Superkav.5012)
I can’t even combo the shield stun into Final Trust, which has a 3/4 cast time – and the stun is one sec (unless you run sigil).
Yes please. Time to celebrate that the most cheesy phantasm spec is finally brought in line with the rest.
I am fond of bomb kit and the rifle so I tried your build in hotjoin. It was fun for about 2 minutes until I wakitten by a heartseeker for 7,800 k damage. Then it was not fun anymore.
This build is typically a hard counter to thieves in my experience: it’s all about baiting them into your AoEs. Most thieves invariably close into melee range at some point which is where you’re strongest. Glue Bomb, Smoke Bomb and Flame Turret’s overcharge make safe zones in which you can smack thieves across the face while they swing their daggers harmlessly.
Your right, IF you are able to get those of before the fight begins in a controlled environment. Maybe its a matter of practice which I obviously don’t have with your build. In the above scenario I was “ambushed” at 50% health. The thief teleported with steal and one HS and it was game over…
The thing is, with this build you are just as glassy as a thief but you are not able to burst.
Edited for gramma
I am fond of bomb kit and the rifle so I tried your build in hotjoin. It was fun for about 2 minutes until I wakitten by a heartseeker for 7,800 k damage. Then it was not fun anymore.
Chopss: I could’nt agree more.
Firebreath: You are right that there are certain annoying situations where that apply. However, if I had the point, I would try and stand in between the walls so I couldnt be hit. The point would not be taken unless the foe jumps down or there are one foe on each ledge to hit, which is very situational.
True but the point was to make a melee build. I actually do not find it difficult to have no range. GS has a low cooldown gap closer – which can also be used to flee is things turn nasty. Combine that with sword 2/2 and you can be quite mobile.
One could also use sword skill 2, de-select target (when autotarget is turned of) turn the other way and press second part of the skill to jump away even further…
I wanted to have a melee ranger and have tested a few builds, starting out with the bunker beastmaster build. I have tweeked a little here and there and now come up with a build that retains some of the survivability of the bunker but provides a bit more offensive selfsustain power in addition to the beefed pet.
Disclaimer: only tested for hot join pvp.
The build has permafury with red moa and warhorn and some decent crit modifiers to supplement self damage, while still maintaining good healing power. The major downside of the build is conditions, but one could swap in SoR for more cleansing. Anyways, the regeneration provided by the build does make conditions less of a burden.
It is basicually, a BM semi-bunker build.
What do you guys think?
…Why didn’t you just switch to another class for awhile?
They all suffer from a similar problem. The current metagame limits everyone.
This^
The mesmer is limited to shatter burst
The Ele is limited to bunker s/d or d/d
The ranger is limited to trap build
Guardian is limited to bunker
Thief is limited to backstab d/d
And the list goes on…
Does anyone know if arcane shield function with elemental surge? Does it work on the blocks, the explosion, both or not at all??
It seems many agree that the capping system is fault. Could one imagine that bunkers would become obsolete if there were no capping system?
I am wondering what the community feels about the current status of burst and bunker builds. Should either one or both be reduced or kept as is?
Some thoughts:
- Will it make balanced/support builds more rewarding and give more build flexibility ?
- Will it reduce “instagib” builds and make battles more dynamic?
- Will it reduce near unkillable builds?- Will it affect the current meta negatively?
- Will it impact balance negatively from a tpvp perspective?
- Could reduction in burst could result in a lower standard for bunker builds?
- Will it result in unnecessary prolonged fights?What do you think?
Your problem is logic, you don’t understand cause and effect.
If they nerfed the insane burst one class can deal out insta killing just about everyone in the game, you would watch 95% of the bunker builds disappear in the blink of an eye.
The truth is a bunker isn’t built that way to survive 3-4 players lol no they could easily do that without specing so deep into defensive traits. They build that way to survive 1 thief+ whatever else remove the thief you remove the need for what seems like unkillable bunkers to everyone else but thief.
What a constructive way to comment my post. I think your logic is quite one-dimensional. First, I believe your logic would only apply to hotjoin pvp due to the capping system. Second, I am not only talking about reducing bunkers. I was ASKING the community on their thoughts on reducing one OR both. By your logic, as I read your post, reducing burst (which you identify as thief) will remove the issues with bunkers. Excactly that was part of my question.
How would you change the capping system then?
I am wondering what the community feels about the current status of burst and bunker builds. Should either one or both be reduced or kept as is?
Some thoughts:
- Will it make balanced/support builds more rewarding and give more build flexibility ?
- Will it reduce “instagib” builds and make battles more dynamic?
- Will it reduce near unkillable builds?
- Will it affect the current meta negatively?
- Will it impact balance negatively from a tpvp perspective?
- Could reduction in burst could result in a lower standard for bunker builds?
- Will it result in unnecessary prolonged fights?
What do you think?