That’s wasn’t what I said.
I said that good damage on a range weapon promote a lonewolf gameplay while you need a party gameplay.
Longbow already do a lot of damage but it’s suboptimal in group content and it’s good as it is since Yes! a lot of ranger like to abuse of the knockback. On time I had a guy like you in a group, and we specifically asked him to not use the knockback and he even agreed. Yet he couldn’t refrain himself from doing so. There is way fewer ele that waste time casting their knockback than ranger that use knockback on cool down because it’s instant and do a bit of damage. Do you even know how annoying it is for an ele to use this 1 second cast time skill that do no damage and just have half the knockback distance of the ranger longbow? Most ele don’t use such a skill while most ranger in brainless mode use without a though their knockback. Nobody can correct the player base better than long a cast time on a skill.
Gust has a shorter cast time than Point Blank Shot, but I guess facts aren’t as important to you as rhetoric. My point, that much of the time it isn’t the ranger knocking the target back, still stands.
Oh, and your claim that there should not be good damage on a long range weapon just got undercut by Deadeye. If Thieves can have it, Rangers should as well.
I believe that the soulbeast have already the tools to be as competive at range than he will be at melee range.
However, when it come to the debate about range damage, the reality is not that the longbow is bad or anything but that in high end PvE it’s better to have everyone close together so that everyone benefit from all buff. Having a profession that do inately more damage at range than the others can only be a bad thing for this profession since it would promote a gameplay that put this profession far away from it’s group, losing large part of the teamplay.
This way it’s better to have a longbow that have the reputation to be an underperforming weapon since it promote a gameplay where the ranger is close from it’s teammate, sharing and receiving buff instead of the gameplay of a lone wolf that just cower away from the fight, without receiving any benefit from it’s teammate nor giving anything.
From the point of view of most non ranger, a ranger that like to camp or even use longbow in group content, is a ranger that is super anoying to have as teammate. That’s mainly due to their habit to use the knockback on cool down. No ranger will ever be able to remove this bad image of the longbow on other player view because there will always be rangers that will abuse this kitten skill ruining the game experience of other players.
It’s better that the longbow do not perform to well due to that.
“New players might get confused about what weapon to use” is a terrible excuse to keep a weapon underpowered, and half the time I see the ranger get blamed for a knockback when the real culprit is an elementalist or something.
I agree. I love my long bow and since we are Rangers, you would think that would be the main focus.
Ranger =/= ranged.
The term ranger doesn’t mean someone who focuses on the use of ranged weapons, so that’s not a valid enough reason to think the class should be focused around bows.
The official description, official art, and implementation of the profession in GW1 were all heavily focused on archery.
Lock soulbeast in beastmode when we take this elite speck and add petswap. Balance around this “petless” option instead of this double swap system it is now.
The double swapping system is actually quiet fun and it should be a double swap system. So you can swap in beast mode. It would give more fluidity and the biggest versatility a class could have in a game. I can understand why they let us keep the pets. It would gut the dmg of the ranger without our pets.
The request you responded to was “make petless Soulbeast equal to base ranger’s DPS”. We already know that rangers have better DPS with a pet than in beast form, that’s the problem!
We shouldn’t have to give up DPS just to play in a WvW zerg, nor should we have to do so in order to exercise some basic control over our skills.
But you do not need an eSpec to do that, we already have it, if they wanted to give us more ranged DPS, they can adjust the LB skills and power scaling.
The problem with just upping damage on the base spec is that there would be nothing to stop people from running it with a defensive Elite spec and having the best of both worlds. Having a separate Elite spec for ranged dps makes balancing things easier.
Yes there is: the fact that we don’t have a defensive elite spec. But, you know, details.
The problem I have is that base ranger (with a longbow) is fairly poor for DPS, and extremely poor for it when the pet doesn’t hit (such as quite a bit of sPvP, and basically all WvW zerging). I honestly don’t think that the stat boost from beast form is enough, and many of the skills suck. Plus, the GM major traits are painfully underwhelming.
I dont really thing a tengu as a playable race will be a great idea. The armor we have in game just seems like it wouldnt mesh well with tengu in any way what so ever. In fact most tengu wear almost nothing except pants and some harnesses.
It would bear about as much in common with human equivalent sets as, say, charr armor. I don’t see any compelling reason not to put them in, it would just be some work to make armor skins for them.
A bow provides mechanical advantage, sure, but it is not mechanical. When referring to mechanical, I mean wheels, gears, bearings, complex moving parts etc, not a simple spring like a bow. Metal casting is not complex, humans were doing it for thousands of years before the invention of gun powder. If technology is about exploiting nature, then that is more of a reason for Rangers to reject its use. You draw the border at a firing mechanism and gunpowder or complex moving parts.
Look, I didn’t make this stuff up, it’s not my opinion, it’s ANet’s stated design for Ranger.
Well there are some bow skins in the game that appear to be compound bows, so rangers can use weapons with moving parts, even if they usually don’t.
And both casting and forging (you don’t cast steel weapons, only bronze) are pretty complex, and gunpowder has been around for rather a long time in its own right. The main difficulty with gunpowder is that it requires more precise measurement than any kind of metalworking at the time.
I can see why they went the way they did, but rangers do lack any kind of long ranged AoE damage, and their bows do probably need buffing and updating (especially the shortbow) to remain competitive post-HoT, let alone post-PoF.
Well, there are also bow skins that are made out of clouds and lightning, or living creatures.
Actually, you can indeed cast steel into anything you want, it’s just not as good as forged steel, although, all steel begins life as a cast when it is cast into an ingot from the forge, then it is forged (wrought) into whatever you desire, or left as a cast part. You can cast steel arrowheads with nothing but a crucible, a charcoal fire and a knife to carve the arrowhead shape into wood, it’s not that complex.
Gunpowder (Black powder that is) measurement does not need to be particularly accurate, have you not seen a powder horn? You just tip in as much or as little as you like into the musket, the only measurement is the loader judging it by time and angle of the pour. The reason it needs to be so much more accurate (to 1/10th of a grain) in modern weapons is because it’s different power (smokeless powder/nitrocellulose) and the pressures developed are far higher. Black Powder was invented in the 11th century by the Chinese (song), at the time metallurgy was advanced enough to make steel.
Like I said before, this is the class design, I’m not making this stuff up, just explaining it and why gunpowder and rifles do not fit into the design as stated by ANet.
First of all, a wood mould would not work for steel casting, you would need to line it with sand or something. It can work for other metals, but iron’s melting point is simply too high. Which gets into my next point, that while steel can be cast, they didn’t do it in medieval times or before (again, the high melting point made that impractical, bordering on impossible given the technology available).
The measurement with black powder is in mixing it in proper proportions, not putting it into the gun. Powder horns don’t need to be precise because the powder in them is already mixed in the proper proportions.
I would have to agree. In GW1, half the male norn ran around shirtless, but I guess they’ve gotten more prudish in the past quarter century. Shame.
A bow provides mechanical advantage, sure, but it is not mechanical. When referring to mechanical, I mean wheels, gears, bearings, complex moving parts etc, not a simple spring like a bow. Metal casting is not complex, humans were doing it for thousands of years before the invention of gun powder. If technology is about exploiting nature, then that is more of a reason for Rangers to reject its use. You draw the border at a firing mechanism and gunpowder or complex moving parts.
Look, I didn’t make this stuff up, it’s not my opinion, it’s ANet’s stated design for Ranger.
Well there are some bow skins in the game that appear to be compound bows, so rangers can use weapons with moving parts, even if they usually don’t.
And both casting and forging (you don’t cast steel weapons, only bronze) are pretty complex, and gunpowder has been around for rather a long time in its own right. The main difficulty with gunpowder is that it requires more precise measurement than any kind of metalworking at the time.
I can see why they went the way they did, but rangers do lack any kind of long ranged AoE damage, and their bows do probably need buffing and updating (especially the shortbow) to remain competitive post-HoT, let alone post-PoF.
Frequency is not a issue. The issue is they are not understanding their PVP, they have no (PVP)dev play/test their PVP. Even in PVE, people all play condi now.
People certainly aren’t using just conditions in PvP, if Metabattle is remotely accurate. Of the builds there rated 90+, 10 are power, 2 condi, 4 hybrid (with 5 of the 6 meta builds being power-based)…hardly a “condi meta.” The raid builds there are slightly more weighted toward conditions, but there’s still a pretty even mix. What is your ideal for condition prevalence, no condi build ever seeing play?
Pfft. Of course it cancels Rampage. Why do you think it’s called Signet of Humility?
And bring back the removed amulets! We need more versatility, not less.
No. Just no.
I dont want to have celestial cancer again. The concept was one of the worst ideas the devs ever had. Almost as bad as the idea of the revenant itself.Celestial was never meta for some professions e.g. I haven’t found any optimal celestial build for thief nor guardian. Celestial has relatively high sustain, but lacks damage without significant might stacking.
Before the amulet removal we had only couple of celestial builds which could have rightfully argued to be overpowered, namely:
celestial auramancer ele
celestial reaper necro
celestial druid
celestial alacrity mesmerAlacrity mesmer is pretty much gone, thanks to alacrity nerfs. Celestial shoutbow warrior was already out meta a long time ago. Celestial engineer was already mostly superceded marauder scrapper. Now it is Paladin’s scrapper. Would celestial amulet make scrapper more overpowered, I seriously doubt so as hammer is a power weapon and by far the best weapon for engineer. Is the current paladin scrapper overpowered? Yes it is, but mainly because of hammer skills + certain traits, not because of the amulet.
Reapers and d/f auramancers still reign supreme. Removal of amulets didn’t change this!
People who blame celestial for everything really have a tunnel vision. If celestial would be so much better than everything else, why it is not more popular in pve and WvWvW? PVT has been standard for WvWvW since Autumn 2012 and berserker and viper and sinister are top choices for pve raids.
I hope Arenanet would bring not just celestial back, but also the other removed amulets like soldier (= high sustain, low DPS). I am fine if celestial is shaved a bit for spvp purposes, but I hope people do understand if celestial has equal amount of points distributed for all stats, it would utterly suck and it wouldn’t be optimal for any build.
Removal of amulets didn’t bring us more varied or more healthy meta. Just more burst and more blowout matches.
…this meta is healthier than the bunker meta. Before, there were essentially 3 builds that you’d see, and in a 1v1 fight over a point, players would sooner die of boredom than from their opponent. Mid would be neutral and disputed the entire game, with the outcome of the match decided by which team got a player onto their home point slightly sooner. Some games would end with time running out, rather than one team reaching 500 points. It was boring, as well as limited in variety. This meta is less boring, and less limited in build variety. I would call that a success. There is still room for improvement, obviously, but s2 is worlds better than s1 was.
Mortar has 5 pretty good skills on short cool downs.
-2] Poison field is something people generally ignore because it doesn’t do damage, but the point isn’t to do damage, it’s to simply keep poison applied.
-3] Chill field is annoying as hell.
-4] Blind field is worth a few good dodges.
-5] Water field is great in combo with Orbital Strike and Hammer 3 for an extra heal.That said, Elixir X has the Moa which deadly against Necros and runners. Necros rely on their shroud as sort of a second and third health bar. So if you get a Necro low, they will quickly shroud up to buy time. Moa is a death sentence to them right there.
Sneak Gyro on the other hand is great for survivibility and running away, but is also capable of destroying thieves and mesmers who rely on their stealth for defense.
In general I find that Mortar is great against melee classes, while the other two options are just great in general.
All true, although it’s worth noting that the meta mesmer build does not use stealth. This and the prevalence of necros means that I favor Elixir X over gyro.
I wrote a large rant which I then decided not to post so this may seem like a non sequitur but it made sense in context.
Paying customers having fun in open world/story and the related achievments are more important then kittening esports.
Delete PvP from the game, start actually buiffing and reworking skills and builds that PvP whine has destroyed. Building upon what the Queens Gauntlet was should be the main focus of creating content going forward. Actually create some gameplay with complexity in this game.
As a PvP player: what is your problem? Your willingness to ruin other people’s fun is disgusting. Just because you don’t like what PvP balance has done to PvE doesn’t mean that it should be taken out of the game entirely. The ideal would be PvE/PvP skill splits (as in GW1), but I guess that’s too much work for them now. Either way, the answer isn’t to delete a sizeable chunk of the game in order to force everyone else to play your preferred game mode.
I definitely favor the mortar if: 1) I am not using a turret build; or 2) I have not gotten the scrapper skills and traits completed yet. Does anyone use the elite elixir?
i hate it tbh. (the elixir) Worst elite we have imo.
Actually, Elixir X is arguably our strongest elite in sPvP. Moa forces reapers out of shroud (and we have an absolute infestation of reapers right now), as well as temporarily preventing an opponent from stomping or rezzing, ending tempest overloads, etc. That isn’t even including how devastating rampage is in a team fight, or how tornado can give you free clock tower captures on Kyhlo.
I really, really hope they’re not going to 25/90 anything. They never give any compensation, and removing portal would hurt our sPvP usefulness pretty badly.
Dishonor should at least be reduced if you get back into the game quickly. If someone ragequits, they aren’t going to go back into the game right afterward.
Ah yes, build diversity. You can thank sights such as Meta Battle for that. Anyone can just go there load up the new “Meta” and play. I’m willing to Bet 95% of all players have no idea how to make a build. They just copy and paste.
This was not true before HOT, I mean some classes were still forced to play a certain build at ESL level like ranger and mesmer.
The best 5 man AG group i was in was a conjure ele (not on meta battle) that could beat d/d 1 vs 1, my staff cele which was on meta but not at d/d level, a s/d thief when everyone was using d/p, a pu mesmer(which was meta) and a bunker ranger.
Before HOT there was alot different build comps that could be successful. The most disappointing thing about the Pro league finals was literally every team had the exact same comp and builds basically.
1 team had a mesmer and 1 had a ranger and literally everyone else had the exact same build. This was a chance for teams to be different after the patch but all 4 teams foudn the exact same comp to be the best comps. Meta Battle had nothing to do with that.
Rangers were in ESL before HoT? That’s news to me; they certainly weren’t in WTS. Anyways, things have pretty much always been like this: swarms of copy/paste builds. GW1 was certainly like that, no matter how badly I want to deny it (nostalgia can be powerful). I tend not to play the meta builds, but I certainly seem to be the exception.
I’ve had some DC trouble on GW2. I don’t think that dishonor should be given when I rejoin the same game as quickly as I can, and the disconnect is on their end anyway. Especially not in unranked. It’s not my fault, and it’s wasting time on my consumables.
Mistform is useless in high level PvP since you lose the capture point. It’s also on a 75s cooldown, not like Mesmer’s block. Meta Tempest has very poor mobility compare to Mesmer/Rev. And what’s the perma Vigor for if you spend the majority of your time channeling kitten cast skills?
The only thing I agree with you is reflection, but most of the DPS comes in melee range anyway.
Mesmer evasion loses the point, and that still sees quite a bit of use. Signet of stone is on an 80 second cooldown, and doesn’t prevent condition application the way mistform does; are you going to argue that rangers have no damage mitigation? Also, everybody has skills with cast times (well, almost everybody). They still manage to use dodge rolling effectively.
Additionally, the stun aura which you denigrate as ineffective for damage mitigation will make you take far less damage from channeled, continuous damage skills (such as rapid fire). It can also give you a chance to react when an enemy targets you with a burst consisting of multiple consecutive high-damage abilities. Most bursts do consist of multiple skills used together, which makes shock aura effective at mitigating burst damage. Frost aura gives an additional 10% damage reduction, which doesn’t hurt. It also slows down enemy movement speed, aiding in kiting.
The major reason for flamed discussion is represented by the fact that people are trying to use DS as a ruse to nerf the core ele to the ground.
At the only mention of “removal of DS” you will be greeted by those who claim that the trait is OP, only in this case they will defend the trait claiming that the problem is ele and not the trait itself.And you’re right in saying that most info are left out from conversation…that’s more convenient for many
The discussion from DS has quickly switched to core ele, in a distorted and diluted way:
1) They say ele has dmg reduction while in earth; that’s incorrect, the earth trait line was originally the toughness line for ele, after the June patch anet has replaced the toughness=dmg reduction formula with a trait FOR ALL CLASSES NOt JUST ELE, therefore the earth GM minor is the equivalent of 250 toughness aka 10%, as it stands the trait doesn’t even add up to the full 300 toughness as it was nerfed quickly after the patch launched
Adaptive armor gives 300 armor maximum, and that’s considered pretty strong. Besides, the elementalist most definitely has protective skills and traits in the earth line, which are more important anyways.
2) Ele has no other forms of dmg mitigation outside protection, heals and dodge….funny how somebody mention 75s CD skills as viable dmg mitigation.
Just like I mention stone signet for damage mitigation on rangers. Also, again, take a look at necromancer. Do they get permanent 40% damage reduction? Hell no. Do they get any invulnerabilities? Nope. One quarter of the healing that elementalists have? No. Auras to reflect projectiles, give even more damage reduction, stun attackers? It isn’t just that tempests are unkillable, it’s that they make their teammates nearly unkillable as well. A tempest can do 700k healing to teammates over the course of a game, plus more than 300k damage, as well as being extremely difficult to bring down.
It has already been proved that meta auramancer dies to power/hybrid builds right?
That depends heavily on the power/hybrid build in question. Power reapers can’t because the tempest just kites them, and their reliance on conditions (specifically, fear and chill) to set up a burst is their downfall. Revenants can because their ridiculous defensive mechanics allow them to go full glass and survive, even in this meta. Even then, it’s rare to kill one in a 1v1. Usually, the fight goes on for a few minutes, then somebody rotates and the +1 is what decides it.
It has also been proved that once DS is off the ele falls down quickly despite all the super heal talk so again where’s the problem there?
Yeah, right. Unless you can remove boons and power spike them (in other words, unless you’re a Shiro/Mallyx Herald) they’ll just hit a few healing skills and get back to full health. Permanent 40% damage reduction and ridiculous amounts of healing are why diamond skin became such a problem in the first place.
(edited by Unholy Pillager.3791)
Diamond Skin isn’t OP, its completely useless against power builds but it walls off condition builds pretty well. The only reason we can even fight necromancers is because of Diamond Skin. Once its removed, load on the conditions and its game over.
FALSE. Reaper power builds are slow, melee range bruisers that are forced to rely on slowing down their enemies with chill or locking them down with fear in order to deal their damage. Druids also tend to be heavily reliant on immobilize. All of these are negated by diamond skin. Even if we accept the incredibly poor design decision of passive, complete condition immunity, it still counters some power builds pretty well. And yes, especially if (as you pointed out) the tempest also has permanent 40% damage reduction, high reflect uptime, and auras that chill or stun attackers.
Well..good thing eles have something to punish people that attack him..maybe one day we’ll have something that prevent us from being hit in the first place
Reflect, mistform, high mobility and near-permanent vigor aren’t enough? That’s a hell of a lot more then necromancers get.
Diamond Skin isn’t OP, its completely useless against power builds but it walls off condition builds pretty well. The only reason we can even fight necromancers is because of Diamond Skin. Once its removed, load on the conditions and its game over.
FALSE. Reaper power builds are slow, melee range bruisers that are forced to rely on slowing down their enemies with chill or locking them down with fear in order to deal their damage. Druids also tend to be heavily reliant on immobilize. All of these are negated by diamond skin. Even if we accept the incredibly poor design decision of passive, complete condition immunity, it still counters some power builds pretty well. And yes, especially if (as you pointed out) the tempest also has permanent 40% damage reduction, high reflect uptime, and auras that chill or stun attackers.
You have pro teams rage-quitting live during tournaments (mid-game no less) because of the lack of balance.
zomg, I want to be there with vials to catch the tears!
You’re right, though. Given the state of some classes, I’d be ticked if I had to wait several more months to get some necessary fixes. Monthly is unreasonable for design/production, but semi-annually is far too long. Quarterly is likely the best we can get for quality and timely changes.
Certain other games (you probably know or can guess which) do balance updates every two weeks. I really don’t think that an update every 30-60 days (even a small one to correct the most broken aspects) is too much to ask, especially if they want this taken seriously as an e-sport. The current state of PvP is ludicrously bad, and their failure to plan for a follow-up balance patch to correct the imbalances in elite specializations was a huge oversight. As has been said before, new content like that isn’t a balance update, it’s a reason to plan for a balance update.
I still play pew pew ranger. I did not ask for a bloody tank or healer. I wanted an archer so I am and will be playing one.
Yes new elites are powerful and anet assured us that they wouldnt be op, just new flavors. They failed miserably. You can still take down elites with some old specs if your opponents are less skilled than you.
btw I did or will not buy hot. There are no new specs that I would like to try. For me they ruined most of my fav professions power balance
I play marauder druid, with considerable success when I’m able to keep to 1v1s and 2v2s. Ancient seeds is an extremely powerful trait when used properly, smokescales are awesome, and natural stride offers very nice mobility.
I honestly think core DPS rampage warrior is better than berserker (power or condi). In PvP, STR/DEF/DISC offers too much for me to swap to berserker….Rest of the professions I agree with the exception of condi rev.
Even the condi rev still uses herald (and the shield). They just don’t use Glint.
- Reduce the enormous cooldown for swapping a downed pet. 60 seconds is a ridiculous amount of time to be without a class mechanic. Another solution could be to make healing skills (any of them) rally the pet at low health, so that you can use the heal skill and immediately swap pets to avoid the cooldown increase.
- More ways to remove conditions from pets, change every ‘transfer conditions to pet’ into a straight removal instead. Also, make it easier to see what conditions our pets have.
- Give traps more utility (offensive and defensive) so that they’re at least somewhat comparable to dragonhunter traps.
- Make the shortbow an actual condition weapon: unconditional bleed on auto attack, some torment somewhere, and maybe one or two more additions. Rangers don’t have a true condition weapon at the moment, and that hurts.
- Fix the sword auto attack. Every other weapon skill in the game that animation locks you also gives evade frames, and there is a reason for that.
Hold on a minute guys, we’re still waiting to see how this meta is going to pan out.
~Anet.Well lets see, the first thing people jumped on after HoT launched was druids. Then a few weeks later everyone was complaining about Dragonhunters, and then a few weeks later it was reapers, and then a few weeks later it’s revenants, and a while after that it was chronobunker, and nowadays it’s tempests.
That’s wrong. Druids weren’t the first thing people hated on because the spec was gutted just before launch, with AF taking 60 seconds or more to build up and draining completely within 2 seconds of leaving combat. It was chrono, reaper, herald, scrapper, and dragonhunter when HoT hit, then druid after they fixed that. Then the bunker meta hit, and it’s been chronomancer (which is still extremely strong post nerf), tempest, scrapper, herald and druid. Reaper is strong against most things, but gets shut down hard by diamond skin.
OK, besides the frustration at having to grind to get 10,000 festive drinks, I have encountered another problem with the Winter’s Presence Collection Achievment.
I purchased the blueprint a few days ago, and the items I had already earned from completed Wintersday achievements immediately unlocked in the collection panel for Winter’s Presence. However, when I completed 2 more achievements today (the JP for the Snowglobe and the Toypocalypse one for the Toy), I received both items, but they did NOT unlock in the Winter’s Presence Collection Achievement panel!! I am afraid to “use” these for the karma reward, since there is no way for me to get these again, so I am not sure what to do.
Did anyone else have this happen to them? Please help!!
-Velvet
Using them for the karma reward is what unlocked them for me.
The thing is, if it’s something you don’t actually need, is it wrong to require a lot for it?
People don’t have to sell their precursors for it.
They could just keep them, or sell them and buy several items from the gemstore, instead.
So, why are they doing it?
Because they all have a particular liking for snowflakes?
Or because they regard it as some kind of status symbol?
The former I would have a lot more sympathy for, but the latter just seems kind of shallow.
I do think the game needs more accessible things in-game, but it’s a non-sub game and this is how non-sub games work, unfortunately.
My problem is that I just looked at about half the requirements and decided that I wanted to do it, because they seemed reasonable (and because I hate most shoulder piece skins, and because I do like snow…). The problem is that, ~70% of the way through, I saw this requirement. This requirement is insane compared to every other requirement for it. It’s so ridiculously out of proportion. A few gold spent and an hour or two, and it’s telling me that I’m 90% of the way there. Now all I have to do is farm 700 gold for no readily apparent reason. The winter armor skin should not be more expensive than a kitten precursor.
“Denny Crane..”
Everybody with druid is ok?! You lost your minds? Or you didn’t played against ruby or diamond druids?! They are so over powered with healing that u want to cry, they even kill a full health Reaper with full life force… not to mention they easily kill DH. You lost your minds, talking kitten?!
Or you are druids and don’t want nerf?
First of all, I’ve never seen a druid beat a reaper easily. Even if they don’t die to it, they simply don’t have that much damage. But, aside from that, you need to look at the dates of posts before you reply. I assume that you’re referring to mine, since I was the only one to mention druids, and that post was made soon after they changed AF so that it drains within a few seconds of leaving combat, and before the bunker meta. At that point, it was literally impossible to use CAF during a typical fight; on my druid, I would only get to use CAF twice per game at best. Obviously they’ve changed it since then, but it still isn’t nearly as bad as condi reapers and bunker tempests.
I made a thread about this problem in the bugs forum recently, but I haven’t gotten any red responses yet. I was really hoping that they’d have it fixed by now, this really is game breaking given how powerful DH traps and walls are even when you can see them.
As of right now, only condi Reapers really struggle vs a DS ele. A chance around this would be making fear an effect rather than a condition. This would keep the strength of the trait vs condis while still making it able for Reapers to chain-cc a tempest in order to break the threshold.
I do however think that this may cause issues elsewhere in the game.Only condi Reapers struggle because Reapers are the only condition builds that are even being played. Even Mallyx Revenants are still hybrid builds leaning toward Power (due to Sword’s incredible damage). Heck, only half a Revenant’s skills can ever be condition-related right now due to only having one weapon and one legend for it.
So, if the only condition build that is seeing play is Reaper, and “only condition Reapers are complaining about Diamond Skin” (hint: they’re not, as this thread proves even a number of Ele players hate the trait as-is), it says nothing at all about how other condition builds fare against it. None of them can scratch it either.
Meanwhile, strong hybrid builds like Revenant or Power builds hardly notice the trait. It’s just too binary. You either win because you picked the trait (not because you out-played), or you wasted your Grandmaster.
Even power necros have some difficulty with it, because necromancers’ only readily available form of hard cc is fear, and the greatsword skills are slow enough that you often need hard cc to ensure that they connect.
I was told that Effects LOD option in settings could be to blame. For now I’d say give it a shot and uncheck it. I don’t know if it really does, but some people swore to others it did.
It does not help.
Not really surprised, just figured was worth a try and hoped it would help. Something changed with how GW2 loads things though. It seems really aggressive now at unloading some objects and slow as molasses to load them. Which I’d rather it be the reverse being on the 64-bit client. It makes it rather funny at times, wondering why you can’t walk forward only to have a pillar eventually load in (mostly frustrating) Might be related also might not be. Regardless, this probably is completely up to Anet to address :/ I think there have been times I haven’t seen it load, but I haven’t really fought a dragonhunter, but I’ve heard how frustrating it can be to not see it.
It might help some (I can actually see the walls occasionally now), but it is still a major problem most of the time. It takes a couple of seconds (and knockdowns) to realize that it’s a DH wall and I have to wait it out, guessing when it should end. That’s 6 seconds during which I can’t move or dodge roll, which is brutal in PvP.
I was told that Effects LOD option in settings could be to blame. For now I’d say give it a shot and uncheck it. I don’t know if it really does, but some people swore to others it did.
It does not help.
Yeah and there’s also heals for direct damage. Lmao.
There also heals for condi damage, unless conditions disable your healing abilities completely? But then why i even bother when youre spoiled by your immunity ez trait? I wouldnt want it to be taken from me either.
Why not? This game isnt based on 1v1s. It’s a 5v5. Contesting a point in a matchup unfavourable to you? Get a team mate to rotate over.
This game is not even balanced around 5v5. All i see is class stacking while everything else (mostly) feels useless. Put 2 eles on point and call it a day.
Yeah and you’re spoiled by your condi ez spam and since diamond skin is the only trait that forces you to l2p, you want it taken away. I can sympathise. Anyone who has played condi builds know how easy they are to play. I wouldn’t want to make things difficult for myself either.
Your anti-ele bias is so blatant i’m not even gonna bother trying to make you see sense. I’ll bet 50 if diamond skin is nerfed you’ll be back complaining about cleansing water because we kitten out more cleanse than you apply condis lmao.
Brother, the biggest issue we all have with DS is… it doesn’t promote L2P. What other trait in the game forces another person to “work as a team”? It is a single passive trait that completely counters a built type. No other trait has the same effect. The whole conversation is about mechanical design here, not viability.
I understand your hatred towards incredibly easy, passive, condition playstyles. I too wish there was more skill involved with these condi builds.. but biasness aside, Diamond Skin is simply a poor trait design.
Give Ele extra condi cleanses per swap… more resistance on Earth activation.. anything. Just don’t completely single out a built type by a passive trait that has no counter play.
Elementalists don’t need more condition cleanse. They have plenty, they just don’t bother with it when they can get the same effect from one trait. Condition cleanse on aura, on regeneration, pulsed cleanse on the heal…that’s much more than average, on top of above average healing and permanent 40% damage reduction. D/D cele was overpowered before the nerf, but at least that didn’t promote this horrendously slow, stagnant gameplay.
I should add that it doesn’t appear to be dependent on graphics settings; it happens on both low and high settings, on multiple different computers. I’m not sure whether it occurs more often when traps are stacked, or other effects are present. I have noticed that the dragon’s head animation also is sometimes invisible.
So why is it when ele is running water/earth/attunement and using bunkering runes and amulets it can still win fights?
Because apparently you guys never played ele so you have no clue how to fight one. When I play on my Reaper I just destroy eles, it’s so easy to lock them out of skill usage. Diamond Skin or not…
They can nerf Diamond Skin for all we care it’s not really good. You’ll just be back here complaining about Stone Heart.
I, personally, will not. Stone heart doesn’t stop me from fearing, blinding, weakening, crippling, or immobilizing them.
All other classes look cool, and known among many fantasy books and games under a similar name. In the world of magic, engi feels absurd in the beginning for some fantasy lovers like me. I have my ele and want to play him all the time. Can I? No. Because of this stupid class called engineer.
I hate mechanization. I do not like technology in fantasy games. I really dislike steampunk. No visual on engi attracts me. The class lore is empty and there is literally no logical explanation why one would bring a flamethrower to a sword fight. All and all many of my friends think like this. But I love this silly class. I have not been able to play anything else for some time. Engineer is complex, needs you to act without thinking. No memorized rotation can save you. And you can literally do everything. Needs some time to get used to it. And like someone said, engineer needs a special mind set and a playstyle. It is batman in jla, it is a wizard in dnd, it is the guy silently saves the day but never really cared about it in the movies.
This was an interesting post, but the bolded part really seems wrong…crude flamethrowers have been used for a very long time and would be pretty effective against a sword-armed opponent if used properly. I should note that if you’re going after a dragon, sword and shield will get you nowhere but killed. Siege weapons are the way to go, and nobody does those better.
Sigh. Jackums, I 100% sympathise with your point about Mesmers, Rangers and Necros being weak for a long time in PvP. SO many people have made the exact same point already, and it’s true, it sucks and I understand that frustration. But just because every meta some classes aren’t really represented (like Thieves and Wars aren’t right now) doesn’t mean it’s therefore ok that those classes continue to be grossly underpowered for the duration of that meta.
“Oh yeah, they’ve been meta for a long time before so it’s ok we can ignore them for a while”
That seems to be the mindset people have. And I hate it.
I think you forget that, metas aside, when classes are so weak that they actually hinder a team more so than help them and aren’t at all viable in sPvP, people are being forced away from the classes they enjoy playing. I don’t personally care if my main, Thief, is “meta” or not, nor do I care if Mesmer or Rev are meta. What I do care about is that I’ve sorta been forced to shelve both my Thief AND my War in favour of playing Rev or Reaper in PvP, because it’s THAT hard to play the former right now (particularly Warrior).
That’s not okay.
I agree with this, I do support making warriors and thieves better able to handle this meta…but I must say that the bolded pretty well describes the state that rangers were in (with perhaps a month exception) from the launch of the game until Heart of Thorns.
DS keep it’s immunity to damage causing conditions/damage from conditions and allow us to apply movement impairing conditions as well as blind, vulnerability, and weakness.
This, and/or a cooldown so that they can’t just reapply it 5 seconds after you get them below 90% health. It isn’t like elementalists are hurting for condi cleanse outside of DS anyway.
The funny part is Diamond Skin was never considered before, Diamond Skin isn’t OP by itself, the exaggerated condi meta made it strong.
Even back then, it was a poorly designed trait. The reason that it’s so oppressive now is because tempests have permanent or near-permanent 40% damage reduction, powerful auras (just try to burst them down when they have shock, frost, or magnetic aura up) and even more insane healing. Getting them below 90% health is difficult without controlling conditions to set up a burst and when they have 40% damage reduction, but it’s nearly impossible to keep them that way for long enough to do much of anything.
No Diamond Skin – No Ele in competetive play……
Yeah, right. Elementalists have plenty of condition removal, they just choose not to take it these days because it’s more convenient to take DS and their usual ridiculous healing/protection combination. Even if you don’t disagree with the hard counter concept, it puts many power builds (necromancers, mostly) at a huge disadvantage because cc is often necessary to set up enough of a burst to overcome the absurd healing that auramancers have. At the very least, DS should not grant immunity to fear, cripple, immobilize, blind, or weakness. Immunity to damaging conditions is more than powerful enough.
The dragonhunter’s walls from Hunter’s Ward and Dragon’s Maw almost never are rendered for the people affected by them. This is extremely frustrating, as I have to guess what it was that knocked me down, where the walls are and how long they last. This has been happening consistently since HoT was released.
How would u nerf it anyway? make it to 99% health bar? plz it’s a GRANDMASTER trait … ele has enough useless grandmaster. (even if it’s bad design) need a rework … not a nerf.
Give it a cooldown, so that they can’t just overload water and immediately regain immunity. Also, make it ineffective against control conditions, like cripple, blindness and fear.
It’s just frustrating how toxic the PvP meta is right now. I’ve seen 2v2 fights at mid that lasted five minutes straight with no fatalities and no successful capture. This is a step in the right direction, but only a very small step, and tempests are still out of control.
100% pure passive immunity is a bad mechanic.
A less hateful version of the exact same trait was removed from Engineer due to it being terrible design.
Change the trait to something much more clever like reduced condi damage per condition on the Elementalist.
Pure immunity traits have no place in a competitive game.
This trait is the only significant concern with balance at the minute, as it is the only thing which completely hardcounters half of all potential builds.
You’re saying this one trait which isn’t new is the only issue that needs to addressed in PvP….
In case you didn’t know, rangers, warriors, mesmers, guardians just to name half, have immunity skills or abilities but good luck on your witch hunt.
They have to give up a utility skill for an immunity that isn’t up for but a tiny fraction of the fight. A bunker tempest with DS can be completely immune to all conditions while holding a point against 2 opposing players. I have seen skilled reapers with marauder do 2-3 rotations against a tempest and not get them below the 90% threshold but for a couple seconds. I’m sorry if you disagree, but DS is oppressive and toxic when combined with the best healing in the game, permanent 40% damage reduction, and ridiculous stability uptime.
I really do not see why they should have to cater to people who probably still click their skills with the mouse.
DH is easily countered if you have at least 4 brain cells. (2 to dodge, 2 to use your attack skills).
You see him plop down the traps. There is an actual animation they do. Dodge away from that place, and that’s it. More then half his damage is gone.
Don’t go “oh they have more traps then I have dodges”. You have other defensive skills. Use them. If you don’t know how, that is a l2p issue, not a DH problem.
There is a reason high rated matches don’t have DH in every game. People who actually know how to play the game counter it easily.
You don’t balance a game around someone who just started playing, you balance it around those who know how to play.
A trapper ranger has no active defences, no stunbreaks, no condition cleanse utilities, no stability and does less damage than a DH. A DH can do more damage (easily 100-0 many builds) and has active defences, immunity, condition cleanses, pulls, stunbreaks, aoe dazes and more.
This huge gulf between almost mirror builds is almost insulting. Why are the new specs and classes so OP? DH isn’t even close to the strongest of the new specs and yet it just totally kittens all over pre-hot trap/bow builds.
That’s true, but it’s more of a ranger problem than a dragonhunter problem. They need to give ranger traps utility and make the shortbow an actual condition weapon (unconditional bleed and some torment). The only real, serious issue with the dragonhunter right now is that the graphics often don’t render, leaving you to guess where the walls are and when they dissipate.
Druid is fine; they just made it pretty much useless. Again. Hell, it wasn’t even that bad before the nerf. The problem with reaper, more than the damage, is that it’s permanent chill. There’s a reason why, before HoT, chill was limited to a few seconds at a time. The increased cooldowns alone are enough to decide the outcome of the fight.