Guild Wars 2

That’s my tier. I’ve won games despite DC problems but also lost mostly due to DC problems as well. Keep in mind that metabattle builds are put up by pros and they don’t necessarily have the same psychological makeup, temperament, or styles we have so you might not want to blindly copy metabattle. Copying metabattle could be why lots of people are stuck in a tier. The builds are also from the context of syncing with other metabattle builds in a teamspeak proleague setting, and the builds speak to the particular players’ values.

So go with what you value. Cleric’s is a boring one trick pony amulet that doesn’t take advantage of ele’s resources fully like Mender’s kinda does. The class’s big skills are easily interrupted so build taking that into consideration. Opponents will relentlessly follow you and if things aren’t going well you’ll have trouble finding your team anyway. Mender’s will make no-go zone skills have actual teeth while still keeping a good amount of healing power. You won’t have condition damage for fire but d/f fire still has great power damage anyway and burning is strong enough without condition damage and can be applied to low HP thieves or engis as the damage will follow during disengage and reset attempts.

I see a lot of Legends in unranked. Even if you don’t win unranked can still be fun since pip progression isn’t at stake so instead of getting mad at obvious noobies following you and triple capping home at start while you cap and backcap you just laugh at it. So yeah the full spectrum is in unranked. I even managed to bypass a guardian’s downstate (part luck due to Impact Strike’s chain being modified by precision so you could overshot thinking you’re getting 1,700 damage from IS and uppercut but get 2,100 leading to downed state and you only have a few seconds when Finishing Blow is up) in a 1v1. Thief should never win that matchup since the traps, blinds, pulls, and blocks make bursting chances too risky and is the toughest matchup for thief.

Cecilia.5179:

Very impressive. Warrior is the hardest fight for most professions rn

I don’t really agree. For revenant it can be tough but 50/50 but with thief it’s 65/35 in warrior’s favor so a soft counter approaching hard counter. Warrior gives ele trouble though revenants are bigger trouble and mesmers report having a tough time with warriors too. Resistance shuts down a necro’s primary source of damage (for small windows) while I can’t really say much for warrior vs. guardian, though warrior has enough blocks and invulns to defense through traps. Warrior vs. engineer may be 50/50 whereas warrior vs. ranger probably favors the ranger.

Then again in my warrior video you’ll notice almost (I have all pieces) full heavy scale so that’s not exactly the look of someone unfamiliar with warrior anyway so the experience could color my perception of warrior (the condi mace berserker style was new to me and it showed though and you could tell I was in the interrupt and power mindset).

I really love how you can stack a shortbow 4 poison field with the warrior stolen skill. It’s not a combo you necessarily want to use on the warrior himself (wait for resistance and blocks though keeping track of the cooldowns is a skill itself) but if you can stack a way to reduce healing in or output that’d be a good way of locking them into their current HP range. I’d personally save the combo for scrappers since they’re notorious for their reset potential, but do have strong cleanses but I’m not really familiar with that class.

Nothing will “replace” it per se but rather be an option parallel to it.

With that said I think something that can work with holy magic and for an elite summon angels (non-NPCs) that do damage to enemies and heal allies. Warhorn would be the offhand weapon and can AoE cleanse and heal (maybe with some CC for enemies on top of that?) Focus already has shields so that’s already covered.

The warhorn would be because angels use trumpets so it has that holy niche too.

Tbf the guard main hands are in such a bad shape atm that an offhand would be a bummer as elite spec.

The only things left for two handed for guardian are shortbow and rifle while mainhand axe seems a bit iffy. Pistol would just be downright silly but some lore could be shoehorned in to justify it.

I unqueued. What’s going on here? Is Sapphire’s population so low it has reached former Diamond levels?

Maybe I was a bit of a jerk to the Mesmer traits but the real problem seems to be just one build. It’s obvious when they aren’t running the build and tend to be fair duels. Even the meta I can deal with unless I’m on druid or tempest.

Ele does need a buff in places it seems very good on paper but if there’s no one to peel for you it can feel like a dud while everything is telegraphed and charges. I managed to beat a meta ele in a duel on my thief the other day and yes I get that some classes were meant to be weaker in larger scale fights but strength grows the fewer combatants (thief is meant to be this: good 1v1, okay 2v2, weak above that) while ele is on the opposite end (the bigger the teamfight the better the ele becomes) but his attacks felt too weak whereas the poison on autoattack felt like it won it for me. I think I cheapened out with a warrior stolen skill and comboing that with shortbow 4 in that fight, and could have easily seen myself at the other end of the fight (but with Mender’s instead of Cleric’s…you can tell which they’re carrying usually), though I likely would have Lightning Flashed to the vantage point at mid and tried going home but since thief can catch ele consistently I likely wouldn’t have made it.

Ele feels fine while thief feels like people underestimate it. Ele might need the healing tweaked down by 5% if anything. The game has lots of powercreep and raising cooldowns and adjusting power values should bring it back in line over time.

Full zerker sounds like a waste of the class’s full potential. You can heal and add some nasty burning as a cherry on top so at least four ascended celestial armor pieces and an ascended celestial trinket should be sought with the rest being marauder or even ‘zerker (power damage goes farther on ele in general but Viper’s still has some good power damage as well as increases burning duration and damage).

Silverbolt.2301:

Trash!!

Thief is trash.

Ever since I picked up my revenant, I haven’t looked back…not even a glance. Which is pathetic considering I made 5 legendaries strictly for my thief.

I find revenant harder to handle than thief. Yes scrappers are far more beatable but that’s just about the only advantage. Reapers and sometimes Mesmers are an easier match on thief while ele tends to be equally weak to rev and thief (maybe less weak to rev due to headshot being a vital yet reflectable skill). On rev however thieves either get blown up or pose an uphill battle. Thief allows you to exploit your tactical vision better while revenant must sacrifice more to cap.

OriOri.8724:

Absurdo.8309:

I didn’t realize every patch had to have a pvp update.

People are more commenting on the absurdity of ANet being mum about the horrible matchmaking and still subpar balance (though its gotten much better) yet still releasing an update for PvP that addresses exactly none of the problems with the game mode. Its more of a “Why did we even get this?”

I always thought we could equip gathering tools in the lobby anyway. Didn’t really care to check. I just want to see a major update that addresses connection issues and I know I’m not the only one who has them there’s even a big merged thread on the topic.

In PvP I’ve occasionally gotten disconnects but now they’re more frequent than ever! My Ping varies very wildly and even results in a random disconnect. There are three times this season I was lucky enough to get back into the game in the nick of time to claim a win and even my most recent game had a DC issue. I was rubber banding and lagging hard at times.

Someone on the other team also had a DC. I can even upload a video of a time I disconnected though I don’t record all my games.

I know it isn’t on my end. I closed up Chrome and different programs, the lobby had no input delay whatsoever, and all of a sudden I queue ranked for the first time in days only to experience input lag and a DC (again). I’ve done everything I could but the rubber banding continues. Does anyone else have these experiences? It was fine in unranked earlier but in ranked I couldn’t reach home. I decided to log out since it was hopeless and it wouldn’t be fair to the team for them to lose pips due to “my” disconnect issues. I tested other games and they were fine.

I had to ALT-Tab and end process in Task Manager to shut down the client, restart, but the game was so hopeless (5-100) I decided it’d be best to eat the dishonor and go watch some videos or play a certain shooter as a cowboy or talking gorilla depending on what role needs filling, or whatever during the dishonor period.

Shaogin.2679:

Hi everyone, Engi here. Would love it if your constant “Nerf Scrapper” threads didn’t involve nerfing core Engi.

Also as mentioned, please be fair. If we can’t stomp with Elixix S, then nobody should be able to stomp while Invulnerable, which I am fine with. If Elixir S cause Reveal, then so should all other Invulnerabilities. If you are taking away Scrapper’s class mechanic, then either replace it or remove everyone else’s class mechanics. From the sound of it Daredevils won’t miss their 3rd dodge bar anyways. Finally, if you intend to gut Hammer damage, please be sure to split that between PvP and PvE, cause PvE players are tired of suffering from poor PvP balance changes.

I recommended an exo-suit mechanic which can be activated if the engi gathered enough energy to activate it (energy grows with damage but the same speed as CA form). It’d be engi’s reaper shroud. I agree with PvP and PvE cool down and damage split for all skills in the game. You don’t need a three second stun (speaking generally not pointing a finger at any one class) against a (relatively) squishy player whereas those elite mobs (who are very tanky compared to players) would require it for example. This means that stun would be 3 seconds in PvE but maybe 1.50 or 2 in PvP. Then you have stuff intended for hitting a million HP monster in an organized PvE environment, but take that same skill into PvP and it’d be way overpowered.

I thought it was a cool idea.

and mind you when i say “stupid” im not just cursing for no reason i actually mean it, with all the plot armor certain characters have there with all these “oh no an enemy makes an unexpected move but noooo waaay that’s just exactly what the protagonist predicted!” moments every single of these cartoons have

Western comics have lots of plot armor yet no one seems to notice. I’m not saying comics are poorly written but also remember lots of plot points go missing or outright changed during localization. The good translations are usually unofficial fan translations.

just so you know nearly all Japanese cartoons are made to cater for 12-16 years old children so the fact when a western adult is watching them 6 hours per day and claiming that its the pinnacle of art points toward some serious mental issues

What they deem appropriate for their children could be considered inappropriate by Western standards. They even legit swear in some cartoons aimed at that age group. But I agree 6 hours per day on any medium is too much even if it’s Street Fighter. Pinnacle of art is a bit of a stretch but in some animes the detail (especially with environment and backgrounds), characterization, and voice acting is amazing while others aren’t meant to be “prestige” animes but rather something to casually watch and laugh at.

oh and they almost never show in those cartoons anything about western world

I have seen myself subtitles with those criticisms and in Samurai Champloo they even made fun of Americans in their baseball episode. Yes it was very anachronistic but it wasn’t an episode meant to be taken seriously. That’s the problem with media in general, too much wants to be taken seriously as if it isn’t enough just to be cool and/or funny or whatever a show, comic, movie, etc., wants to be. How do you fit many funny scenarios in? Have the story go in a direction where those things happen.

People stopped queuing because unstoppable premades who know the optimal play are steamrolling people.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Yasha.5963:

I don’t agree that ele, revenant, and guard dps needs to be buffed.

Rev dos doesn’t need a buff bahahahahha

It kinda does though. A small one but still a buff. Maybe nerf in some areas but compensate in others. The class feels slow and clunky all you can really do is autoattack and block at the proper moments since each skill is a well telegraphed commitment. Staff 2 can only really be used against rezzers.

Guardian needs a buff, when I’m on rev most simply drop and I can even duel some on ele. Besides doesn’t them being out of meta tell us they need a buff somewhere?

Ele needs some buffs in scepter speed and damage as well as some warhorn skills being faster. Also given the HoT powercreep and how short some blocks are (rev staff 3, Bandit’s Defense) some of the ele shields need drastically lower cool downs, but I still can’t see them competing with Eye of the Storm and Lightning Flash. It may compete with Aftershock depending on the enemy comp (why reflect share against nearly all melee?)

Lexander.4579:

plz don’t make thief into a weab class u already have edgy revenants with their blindfolds for that and a greatsword weapon with katana skin for all the gs classes

Just because it’s from Japan doesn’t make it “weeb”. Samurai have a long tradition of practicing discipline, honor, hard work, and extensively trained in many areas. Ninja were basically rogue samurai. The traditional “ninja” outfit was actually for stagehands but someone had the brilliant (not sarcastic) idea to actively incorporate them into their play thus that became their identity. Ninjas would traditionally wear what’s appropriate for their job. They were mercenaries, usually samurai who went rogue and also had amazing training that involved sprinting, jump-roping over thorny ropes, maximize survival in a burning building, and had some quite undignified jobs at times to say the least. An emperor even banned firearms because he understood that people needed a lower skill to kill with them (it should be noted that guns in those days could only carry one bullet and had to frequently be reloaded and weren’t too accurate) so it was therefore not an honorable weapon. Some martial arts still incorporated them however but were banned for a period.

Why must we put these labels (as if liking a Japanese cartoon somehow makes someone lesser) on people? It is simply someone sharing his idea and it has some merit. I think the idea might fit guardian better, but guardian already has a great sword and access to all two handed weapons except short bow. But it begs the question: why is Japanese culture so attractive to many in the West? Western cultures have and share certain roots with each other and Western media reflects that. You see Western cartoons confirming mainstream attitudes (usually, though the good ones mock them) and values being reminded that such media comes from a certain culture with certain roots. Japan however has a radically different culture that doesn’t take as much offense to certain issues or topics (but does so in different ways) and this attracts people looking for something else. You also get an outsiders’ window of your own culture in some episodes. Making fun of Americans for being overly sensitive, assuming guilt in people where there is none, and sue-happy? You can laugh in agreement with the cartoon. It isn’t making fun of you per se, but aspects of your own country and culture you don’t like or agree with. There are also personalities and attitudes in anime you won’t get in western cartoons.

Speaking of ninja why not a ninja elite spec that focuses on group support via stealth and some cleansing and healing? Ninjas were trained with the first aid of the day and were very literate when it came to medicine so they’d know how to patch up an ally if needed. They were well trained in poisons so it’d make sense if they knew how to work with the good plants too.

The PvP is still fun but it depends on your comp or your opponent’s comp. Assuming meta builds the order of difficulty for thief is as follows:

1.Other thieves (higher if thief is good)
2.Rangers (usually, some good ones can give trouble but you can typically disengage from them)
3.Necros
4.Revenant.
5.Ele
6.Mesmer (4,5,6 are 50/50 though ele can be placed much lower if they don’t manage their defenses well most just get blown up but some take too long to be worth it)
7.Warrior (soft counter, try waiting out berserker form in stealth. Duels are winnable but the invulns, stuns, and big damage make this matchup an uphill battle for thief. An equally skilled warrior should still win)
8.Engineer
9.Guardian. While not meta but the closest build is trouble even though engi is a hard counter you can still win by counting to three on the Elixir S proc (if you get even this far even on a rev or druid 1v1 then gratz, but you have to really time your next attack well to ensure a downed, preferably PB shot, rev staff 5, or steal and some auto as heartseeker may be too slow) and shadow shotting and saving a steal in case of dodge but it’s a very tough matchup whereas guardian wins are even rarer 1v1 since even testing their technique can be dangerous.

MiGFiD.1760:

I’m having the same problem just for sPvP. Any other game mode is fine. Is there a fix for this issue?

I know uploading videos causes ping increases but that’s expected. Even when I’m not uploading it can randomly spike to ludicrous amounts.

I’ll exit and run an ipconfig /FlushDNS in elevated command prompt but that’s usually just very temporary.

That elementalist will get gutted terribly.

That new games coming out around the same time will offer smoother, more responsive gameplay better optimized leading more people to leave it.

Unreasonable grind for cool stuff.

Legendaries being implied to be a sample of what’s to come but actually being the whole shebang.

Euthymias.7984:

So basically….if you cannot solo quenue well enough, find a strong player/group and make premades to smash randoms and other solo quenuers?
That’s nothing new.

She’ll be facing tougher opponents now. You don’t get better unless you have someone better to push you (maybe why some people rush far dying to the same person all the time?)

I feel like everyone who makes a posts suggesting balance change or comments on it should post up a video of their game play first.
Just so we can see their understanding of their game of course.

Here’s a thief montage I made and it isn’t just duels but what I think were cool capping and team fight plays too:

If retro gaming music isn’t your thing you can mute but Balrog’s theme manages to have a good, clean bassline and integrates with the mids and highs well.

I have some revenant and ele games uploaded too with some bad play which I’ll admit I’m not too proud of.

strong and brave.5718:

I had this idea that could fill the content gap between premade ranked queues and AG/ESL tournaments.

What if there was a daily gated automated tournament with no player limit that occured 3 times a day, so as to cover all time zones. You would have to enter it as a team, and you could only enter once a day.

You would get Qualifcation Points depending on how you place in it, which would be needed to enter the monthly automated tournament. This one would have a limit to the amount of teams that can enter.

You could also use ranked team mmr to determine seeding, so that is isn’t pointless to queue as a team.

I basically ripped this off GW1

Sue me

It would need seeding and divisions. For example if you’re Emerald you can enter the Emerald or above brackets but a Legendary would only qualify for Legendary tournaments. It should be MMR based since the old leaderboard system needs bringing back. It still won’t prevent sandbagging smurfs but it’s a good idea. We also need MMR locking at certain thresholds to avoid deliberate division dropping since it wouldn’t be fair for a top team to deliberately lose just to stomp a bunch of Diamonds. MMR locking would only apply after you have a settled rating so if you have the noob volatility you could drop (but not qualify for anything until the volatility goes away).

General Balance:
-Ports no longer proc effects from traps and aoe cc (ring/line of warding, test of faith, static field, etc.)

Disagree, ports need counterplay.

-Boon access reduced (boons should be present but not permanent, there are too many out there right now and it skews balance too much when you have to take into account how many perma boons are possible to achieve)

Agreed. Boons can turn a tanky build into something that can have everything without giving anything up. A good defensive sustain build can hold off well playing defensively, but give that guy 20 stacks of might and now his attacks have bite even against fellow tanks.

-Stealth removed from all classes except thief to allow for a change in interaction and behavior (stealth stripped but revealed not applied when you hit a block, evades behave the way they do now. S/d 3 will cycle using this interaction as well)

I’d remove it completely but since it’s in the game we have to respect it. I’d give guardians some stealth (I’d remove trapper runes however) and superspeed still but somewhat nerf scrapper stealth. Mesmer stealth isn’t meta but a meta where it is can make them too dangerous.

-CC access reduced significantly
-Overall condi access reduced and duration increase stats no longer exist in pvp (for boon and condi both). condi is split between pvp and pve (pve stays the same, pvp takes the pre stacking change approach and most are limited to 1 stack with confusion no longer having ticking damage)

Agreed on both counts. Agree to such an extent we could safely remove resistance.

-All base damage and healing reduced and scaling increased (forces people to invest into what they want to do, no more tanks hitting like zerkers)

Agreed

-Thief, elementalist, and guardian health pools increased to match mesmer health pool

Don’t agree. The lower healthpool is because they have aspects that balance themselves out. But due to power creep however it might be plausible in ele and maybe guardian’s case.

-All passive counter-cc traits removed (players should be rewarded for timing and landing cc properly, idiots should be punished for eating it)

Agree, counts for rune procs too and retaliation too.

-All passive low hp procs removed (people shouldn’t get freebies when it comes to combat, if you take too much damage you die learn to survive if that’s a problem for you)

Agreed here. This is why I want to replace Function Gyro and Proc Elixir S with an Exo-Suit mechanic, so scrapper can stay competitive, have a final form profession mechanic (like reaper shroud or CA form), and due to the skills being active still maintain a decent skill cap.

-All passive procs on runes, sigils, and on hit traits removed (random procs have nothing to do with skill. Removing them is the best way to make the game more competitive and easier to understand.)

Yes!

-Krait rune 6th effect dodgeable/blockable
Elementalist:
-All scepter autos have increased attack speed/shorter cast times to allow synergy with on cast healing signet and damage increased by 15% across the board
-Phoenix speed increased by 20-30%

Yes on all counts

-Ether renewal cast time reduced to 2 seconds, conditions cleansed reduced to 6

Maybe. With drastic condi removal such a reduction seems reasonable.

-Glyph of elemental power trigger chance increased to 33%, cd reduced to 40 sec
-Glyph of storms cd reduced to 45 sec
-Arcane shield cd reduced to 60 sec

I’d reduce Arcane Shield to 20 seconds accounting for invulns and other ele defensive mechanics. Bandit’s Defense is on a 10 second cooldown.

Tempest (or things associated with it)
-Aura heals reduced by 30%

With reduced healing and damage maybe agree. Reducing is typically a nerf but we have to look at it in relative terms. If all damage has reduced 30% too nothing really changed whereas if it’s reduced by 40% it’s a net buff.

-Protection duration of elemental shielding reduced to 2 seconds

Agreed. Fighting other eles is annoying.

Thief
-Shadow shot damage reduced by 20%

Yes it needs it

-Auto attack damage reduced by 5% (dagger)

Agree.

-Backstab buffed by 20-25%

Disagree. A marauder thief can already hit 4,500 critical not counting other procs.

-Unload might removed, damage buffed by 7%

Agree on removing might, damage is still too much as it is. Reflects keep it in check however.

-Body shot now rolls back and evades (similar to staff 3)

Actually…agree.

-Vital shot when p/p is equipped changes to remove bleeding and buff auto damage by 30% (stays the way it is now when p/d is equipped)

Might be OP.

-Trickster recharge reduction removed and replaced with gain 1 stack of stability when you use a trick (5 sec)

One stack of stability for 5 seconds might be a bit much for thief.

-Withdraw returns to 15 sec cd

Might be OP

-Roll for initiative 45 sec cd

Agreed.

-Haste cd reduced to 50 sec

I still don’t see it being competitive.

-Scorpion wire reliability issue fixed

Agree. Maybe redesign traits so it adds some chill.

-Mug heal baseline

Disagree.

-trapper’s respite cd reduced to 15 seconds (allows it to be used with any heal)

Not familiar enough to comment :(

-deadly trapper gets a 5 sec internal cd (helps to stop extreme might stacking)

Agree.

-Improvisation changed to recharge one random skill on your skill bar (allows good thieves to time their steals with certain skill recharges to gain the benefit they want) cd given of 40 seconds (once every 2 steals if the skill was used off cd)

Way too OP but I understand the logic.

Daredevil (or things associated with it)

-Impacting disruption damage reduced by 50% internal CD of 5 seconds
-lotus training condi duration halved and impacts changed so that each enemy may only be hit by 1 impact

Warrior

-Defiant stance changed to behave like the glint heal
-Body blow only has an effect on interrupt
-Fast hands made baseline

Agree

Ranger
-Spike trap cd reduced to 30 seconds
-All base ranger pets become more reliable when it comes to hitting the target
-Pet base damage reduced by 7% (allows them to have similar damage to now because the pet will hit more often instead of missing the target)
-Pet stats now match that of the ranger rather than each pet having their own stats (will stop full bunker builds from being able to deal significant damage through their pets, but will make full glass builds very threatening as both the pet and the ranger will deal high damage but be very squishy)

Agree so much. On druid I’d rather the pets have more damage if I’m going Mender’s but sacrifice some toughness for it.

Necromancer
-Boons are no longer corrupted by scepter auto

Agreed.

Guardian/DH
-I don’t have enough experience playing on this class to even take an informed guess at what needs to change. If some ideas are posted below I will add them to this

Incremental buffs, no nerfs. Increased damage on sword by 15%, Flashing Blade’s range increased to 750 or even 900, and sword auto no longer projectiling. Make stealth and superspeed part of the DH traitline instead of needing runes for it.

Engineer

-Grenade 5 made a poison field again

Disagree. Game still has so much poison.

Scrapper
-Hammer damage reduced across the board
-Rocket charge only gives 1 leap finisher
-Final Salvo stability duration reduced to 3 seconds (gets an internal cd of 5 seconds)
-Gyros get a cast time of 1 second
-Bulwark, purge, and medic gyros cd increased to 30 sec

Agreed.

Mesmer
-Greatsword 2 gets its extra bounce back
-Greatsword auto damage increased by 5%
-Sword auto damage increased by 7%
-Blurred Frenzy damage increased by 7%

Agreed with greatsword buffs, but what will Mesmer give up?

-Illusionary counter torment duration reduced to 5 seconds
-Confusing images confusion duration reduced to 6 seconds
-Main the disillusioned torment duration reduced to 4 seconds
-Mantra cast times reduced to 2 seconds

Sometimes those shatters coming at you one by one with their superspeed is just too much.

• Chronomancer (or things associated with it)

-Continuum split no longer affects elites (as a result moa CD reduced to 100 seconds and time warp CD reduced to 100 seconds)

I don’t think it needs to effect elites either, but keep current cooldowns.

Revenant/Herald
-Given more condition clears through traits
-Direct damage mitigation reduced (fewer evades on weapon skills like surge of the mists and unrelenting assault and a cd of 5 seconds of the shiro evade)

Disagree. Active defense is just about the only way rev can stay alive outnumbered since disengage is relatively poor.

PvP system changes:
-No class stacking in queues (premades will not be allowed to queue until all duplicate classes are changed)

Agreed.

-Profession based mmr introduced to make learning a new prof easier

I want to agree but in principal I don’t know if Anet’s servers have the FP64 compute for it.

-No swapping inside matches (both before and during will be locked)

Disagree, I think it should be made easier like Overwatch does. If comping and counter comps are part of the game then you shouldn’t be screwed over by having the bad luck of facing an equally skilled team that counter comps yours.

-No more forcing players to 50% wins (if a player is good enough to win 99% of their matches then let them, don’t try to rig the system as it frustrates the good players forced to carry noobs and it frustrates newer players who feel they can’t contribute due to all their opponents being beyond their skill level)

Agree totally. I was in a match where I announced home but two others capped so I had to bail and head mid, but we were outnumbered there so I also had to bail from there to cap far (I was a thief, and the far was in Forest.)

There was a point where I even capped far and then capped mid with no resistance. Some ele came and contested then had to bail when his ranger teammate came.

Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318:

Thiefs have some teamfight potential. It’s just that the skill-ceiling for thief is so incredibly high compared with all AOE’s and cc running around. That only the incredibly talented player can make it work. It’s also incredibly hard to win 1 v 1’s as your class is almost entirely a class dependent on active play. A thief that wins a 1 v 1 is almost entirely more skilled player then you if he wins.

I’ve watched much of this video and Vallun defeated a scrapper multiple times in 1v1:

https://www.twitch.tv/vallunv/v/72310535

He was likely at least Diamond too.

At 48:40 he fights the engi and then again a couple minutes later. It’s inspirational and I’m taking some notes.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Agemnon.4608:

Warrior:

• Endure Pain now 2.5 seconds

no.

The original duration would be fine, but warrior also has a passive proc for it.

For Rev maybe nerf the autoattack but to maintain parity increase the speed? I was looking through different classes’ utility Wikis and resetting powerful skills especially combined with the trivial ability to summon clones doesn’t look to have a trade off.

The exo-suit combined with the hammer and elixir gun and profession skills should bring the scrapper’s skills up to 20. It would essentially be a reaper shroud but with a scrapper flavor and have different skills.

Exo-suit skill 1: machine gun fire

Exo-suit skill 2: Overclock-grants superspeed at the expense of your suit’s energy.

Exo-suit skill 3: Boost Jump-Jumps to your target, like thief shortbow 5 (so verticality isn’t a problem with valid target paths) but 1,200 range, locks to target (but doesn’t need one), and has a cool down (25 seconds)

Exo-suit skill 4: Stim-self healing skill that cleanses 3 conditions (2 after condi access gets scaled back)

Exo-suit skill 5: Raining Hell-uses a rocket launcher to shoot rockets into the air creating an ele fire staff 5 effect with rockets. 70 second cool down (too much?) Alternative: Rocket Launch- shoots a rocket for big damage and a blast finisher. 35 second cool down.

The idea is to keep the engi with his skills but remove some of the more passive elements of the class. Rev can also use a rework here but that balances out since it slows energy regen. Other classes would be adjusted to help make it balanced and also have some of their passive play removed too.

I’ve actually done better switching from ele to thief and the occasional druid. I also get more out of Mender’s than Cleric’s since the damage goes farther and can actually be a factory while you still have more HP anyway.

Bronze Knight.9231:

So first of all, No.

Second any company taking a definitive, publicly stated, stance on a politically charged issue is big no-no.

Third, topic like this is just going to bring more hate at you.

Many companies take definitive stances and we don’t have to eat at a certain chicken place knowing it.

What’s wrong with taking a definitive stand against injustice?

Ramoth.9064:

PopeUrban.2578:

Look, If I can deal with the obnoxious timer based cluster kitten that is Temple of the Silent Storm, you can deal with a couple NPCs.

Best map is obviously Foefire.

Ew, no. The large capture point in the middle ruins it. They should remodel it so that its a small capture point but with more obstructions around it for cover.

No way the big node and big map size overall is what makes it the best map. Someone laying traps or AoE otherwise isn’t going to get free decap progress. One change I’ll agree with for Legacy is replacing Lord with the new Skyhammer mechanic of decaps if you charge a fourth node and make Khylo’s mid bigger, taller, and have the decap node while turning it into a four cap map (caps replace trebs).

Wargameur.6950:

So what is your class target order, independent from comp and positioning ? It could help me making choices rotating.

Assuming all are at 100%

1.Rangers
2.Necros
3.Eles
4.Revenants
5.Other thieves
6.Mesmers
7.Warriors
8.Guardians
9.Engineers

This is assuming common builds on metabattle but the order varies from weaponset to weaponset. Some rangers can be tough, some thieves are very tough to deal with while others get blown up, but revenant and mesmer seem consistent on thief where the win depends on whose more skilled. Ele and necro you need to be patient with, but if you’re conservative with headshot you’ll have enough initiative and interrupts to burst down the ele. Warriors are a soft counter so you can still win 1v1 but you’re going in at a disadvantage while guardians and engis aren’t worth bothering except in the occasional teamfight or +1. The same scrappers you really mess up on revenant could make you disengage on your thief the counter seems hard enough.

If a good druid gets the first hit then just quickly disengage while you can because you’re at a disadvantage whereas even if you get first hit you aren’t quite safe yet. Just be careful of your blinds, stealths, and interrupts. Try LoS’ing after reading a bristleback’s tell. Most rangers get blown up but some are trouble and the list is from subjective experience instead of the actual strengths of the class relative to thief.

Kodama.6453:

Agemnon.4608:

Kodama.6453:

Agemnon.4608:

Engineer:

• Function Gyro has been deleted from the game (the player himself should commit to a stomp or rez if he wants one unless the class gives up something big for it)

LMAO, you want scrappers, who already have the most situational elite spec mechanic of all, to have NO elite mechanic at all? Are you serious? Not going to happen, I can tell you that. If you want to get rid of the function gyro, you have to replace it for another elite spec mechanic. Everything else would just be unfair.

Gyros in general are its mechanic. It’s automatic and doesn’t take up a utility slot while being on a 20 second cooldown on top of being passive whereas Impact Strike is 40 seconds, active, can be blinded, interrupted, etc. so they aren’t in line. For something that can rez or stomp passively on a 20 second cooldown on top of an Elixir S passive proc something needs to be balanced somewhere.

Classes like Mesmers and Engis have access to way more abilities and the ability to reset profession skills (especially with 5) is simply overpowered.

Gyros are not a class mechanic, they are an utility skill type. Each elite spec got a new weapon, a new set of utility skills AND a new class mechanic. If you say the gyros are its new mechanic, then we have to remove all new class mechanics since all classes got a new set of utility skills just like the scrapper which count as their “new mechanic”.

You just have bias against the engineer class, I get that people think scrapper needs some nerfs. But please be fair enough to give engineers the same treatment like all the other classes: which means give it a new class mechanic just like all the other elite specs.

Maybe just increase the gyro cooldown or nerf other abilities to bring it in line? A kinda, “It can passively proc these boons and effects, but…”

“Thief has strong burst, stealth, and mobility, but is very squishy.”

“Ranger has good range, healing, and pet mechanics, but can’t handle CC and conditions that well”

“Ele has great healing, zoning, and with proper utilities has decent mobility, but its big moves are easily seen and can be interrupted easily. Also lowest base health and armor.”

“Necro has crazy condition spam, but can’t really move and therefore weak to focus fire”

“Revenant has great attack, AoE CC, passive pulsing boons, and defensive actives, but needs to manage energy and has no reliable heals as stow weapon is a counter while popping it to walk over traps and mines is too situational”

So we know where certain classes lack and what they’re great at.

Maybe instead of function gyro scrappers can get an exo suit with DPS effects, some CC, and some healing and cleansing? It would be like CA form but with different skills and scrapper would need to build up a resource activating it. Sounds even more OP but could work with the proper balancing in areas.

Kodama.6453:

Agemnon.4608:

Engineer:

• Function Gyro has been deleted from the game (the player himself should commit to a stomp or rez if he wants one unless the class gives up something big for it)

LMAO, you want scrappers, who already have the most situational elite spec mechanic of all, to have NO elite mechanic at all? Are you serious? Not going to happen, I can tell you that. If you want to get rid of the function gyro, you have to replace it for another elite spec mechanic. Everything else would just be unfair.

Gyros in general are its mechanic. It’s automatic and doesn’t take up a utility slot while being on a 20 second cooldown on top of being passive whereas Impact Strike is 40 seconds, active, can be blinded, interrupted, etc. so they aren’t in line. For something that can rez or stomp passively on a 20 second cooldown on top of an Elixir S passive proc something needs to be balanced somewhere.

Classes like Mesmers and Engis have access to way more abilities and the ability to reset profession skills (especially with 5) is simply overpowered.

We all know in a general way what’s wrong where: power creep, too much condi, passives, and AoE CC but I will attempt to think of solutions in more details.

Elementalist:

• Phoenix now cures 2 conditions (baseline) and on a 13 second cooldown. Phoenix travels 50 units farther and is 30% faster.

• Water trident damage and healing buffed.

• Heat Sync now converts conditions into boons for you and all nearby allies, 20 second cooldown.

• Lightning Orb 25% faster

• Lightning Flash is now a 20 second cool down, max range now 1,200. Cleanses two conditions.

Thief:

• Unload damage nerfed by 15%, no longer gives might.

• Vault damage nerfed 15% too.

• Haste cool down reduced to 40, down from 60. Grants superspeed now (too much?)

Guardian:

• Sword damage increased by 15%, no longer projectile effect.

• Flashing blade distance increased to 750 up from 600.

• Dragon’s Maw cool down reduced to 50 seconds.

• Hunter’s Ward cool down now 35 seconds.

Ranger:

• Search and Rescue is now 900 feet, rezzing speed of pet reduced 20%.

• Healing seed now cures 2 conditions per pulse.

• Signet of Stone now lasts 4 seconds, cooldown reduced to 60 seconds.

Necro:

• No longer corrupts boon on autoattack.

• Necro has tons of chill access between corrupt, Chilled to the Bone, friendly chill from teammates, etc., so to take this into account Chill Brain’s cooldown is up to 28, up from 16.

Mesmer:

• Illusions can no longer follow the player. This enables counterplay in the form of LoS’ing. In other words they can only rush to where the player is, not follow where he is going to be.

• Confusion access reduced 15%

• Signet of Illusions deleted from the game, cooldowns on profession skills remains intact.

• Phase Retreat now a 15 second cooldown.

• Ether clone reworked to not generate clones (potentially overpowered)

Warrior:

• Endure Pain now 2.5 seconds

Revenant:

• Phase Traversal now 25 energy

• Autoattacks on sword are 15% faster

• Staff 2 20% faster

• The revenant now stands as the source of heals while the tablet can still be summoned to serve as a nexus for the abilities. In its summoned form it goes from point A to B 50% faster than now.

• Purifying Essence now 20 energy

• Protective Solace now consumes 5 energy per second.

Engineer:

Oh boy, I’m going to have a field day here.

• Proc Elixir S no longer allows a stomp.

• Proc Elixir S causes a 6 second reveal.

• Function Gyro has been deleted from the game (the player himself should commit to a stomp or rez if he wants one unless the class gives up something big for it)

• Hammer damage nerfed 20% across the board. Scrapper has so much might access they don’t really sacrifice anything by going Paladin’s.

General:

• Nightmare Runes have been deleted.

• Runes of the Eagle give 12% more damage under 50% health. Now 6% sounds great in PvE with mega ultra monster HP pools but in PvP 6% doesn’t seem like that much even against a Barbarian Amulet warrior.

• Resistance is now an effect.

Now it doesn’t totally get rid of condi but care has to be taken not to outright break condi into uselessness. It has utility effect but its usage should be smart and actually care about cleanses instead of thinking, “No big, I’ll just reapply again.”

egzius.9031:

something profane and offensive so that ANet removes that feature.

Rating agencies always have to ruin everything but I’m sure they’d take them into account. When first trying to make a name in a game with online the system will get you mad by saying, “Inappropriate name, try again” or whatever since in singleplayer it’s totally fine.

The restrictions I think would of course be inappropriate names, but also to keep you from sham titles. Like if you never made Legend last season you won’t be allowed to create an Exalted Legend title or maybe even Exorted Legend just to be safe.

With HoT came lots of new condi access, and Mesmers can apply more torment and confusion than ever before and boon corruption is now a thing. To take all this new condi spam into account cleanses need to be on shorter cooldowns and clear far more. Earth focus 4 should cleanse 5 or maybe even 6 condis (2 for nearby allies) for example to account for the new condition access.

This is unacceptable I never have these kinds of spikes in other games whereas my ping is normally around 30-70.

Dr.Feelgood- Get over 10 billion healing total (all unranked and ranked matches count) during your total PvP career.

Champion of GW2- The number 1 ranked player on the (now hidden) PvP leaderboard.

Cynz.9437:

Players are already boycotting MM by playing other games (cough OW cough) or other game modes. Have you checked queue times lol?

Even unranked is up to 4 and a half minutes -_-

Shiyo.3578:

Thief is currently the best class in the game. Is it overpowered? No. Is it easy to play? Not at all. Is it currently capable of solo winning games and team fights if you’re good at it? Yeah(assuming your team is moderately competent – aka almost never in ranked matchmaking).

The class is incredibly strong and back to it’s vanilla glory days again. It also can beat most classes 1v1, when it couldn’t do that during vanilla celestial meta.

Thief is very very powerful and I’m not sure why people are slow at realizing this. Maybe because thief is the only class remaining that takes skill to be good and useful at.

It might be fun to play and be extremely useful in the proper hands, but to say best class in the game is a bit of a stretch. Ele has more abilities as well as group cleanse, healing, and can create big no-go zones for a time and has an invuln.

Maybe runes of the eagle to get more precision and a wee bit more under 50% health damage and sword/sword instead of sword/shield. It still mostly uses the metabattle build so it’s not completely original however.

I think cleansing order should be set by the player himself and tune it from character to character and can set before a match. Like you could see a group with mesmers but no necroes and prioritize for confusion first then torment then poison (since it reduces healing) or maybe slow or chilled.

Darknicrofia.2604:

a new dark lord in sapphire tier 3 rises (at least that’s where I assume you’re in)

He cannot be the new dark lord of Sapphire tier 3, for I am the true dark lord of Sapphire tier 3.

Thanks again all. I am looking at the minimap much more but still not enough. I noticed the downed and had to put decapping far off hold to get at him keeping him in the game and avoiding giving the team 5 points.

You also spend a lot of time doing absolutely nothing in fights. Not sure why.

Thief is a very squishy class and headshot neutralizes some nasty skills and heals if the proper invulnerabilities aren’t up. Sometimes I get low myself and have to play around that. Then sometimes latency keeps me from using a skill.

*
Ep. 2 of my reviews hope I can still be helpful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_JjC4fVOPk&feature=youtu.be*

You were. For the sound I like going into Audacity and highlight louder portions, go to amplify, then reduce louder parts to ensure an even sound throughout a video especially with clips from different videos. First I’d convert from a video to an audio file to ensure Audacity recognizes it.

dragonkain.3984:

Sigh So many casuals swarmed the topic already…

What I said is that thief is un-viable in competitive play, it’s simply the weakest class in the game at the moment, every team captain knows it.
Rly, why would u pick thief in your team if u can get a revenant that does same thing as thief (making offnode fights 1v2 with easy kills) and does it even better than thief thanks to revealed skill YET revenant has crazy teamfight presense and rocks 1v1 against many classes (except necroses/mesmers condi meta users)

For people who don’t see a picture from both thief and non-thief perspective plz don’t respond to this. Because u don’t get how useless he actually is and you notice them only when they finish you off thanks to you letting yourself get below 50% hp without paying attention to enemy rotations.

So far thief is:
Can’t 1v1
Can’t teamfight
Can’t hold

Can run around waiting for enemy to get low but revenant can do the same yet rev can do all what thief can’t

Can decap

That decap thing is easily solved by putting solo engies/rangers/eles/mesmers on node where they will simply chill and watch and laugh at thief running around while he’s being useless.

Oh and another way to make thief viable in teamfights… Give Unload skill an unblockable and piercing tags. Pet/reflect spam just makes it beyond worthless, even after recent buffs, which didn’t change anything pretty much.

/endofthiefclassreview

Unload really shouldn’t be unblockable since the point of blocks is to mitigate bursts. Maybe make it unblockable under certain conditions like Haste making attacks unblockable for a couple of seconds.

Ubik.8315:

You could try not running balls to the wall zerker if you want more HP?

Squash minigame incoming?

Agreed though I don’t like ‘zerker even in PvE. I’m celestial there with some marauder trinkets so I can make the most of the class.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Tomiyou.3790:

Healer ele is bad for climbing, people don’t know how to utilize heal when just soloq-uing. Play something that can kill other players easily and you will be able to climb.

what professions can do that in season 3 ?

Thief (against certain classes in certain situations only), druid (Mender’s for a great balance between damage and healing), and though it’s meta it’s still a bit slow: the macebow berserker.

It’s a tough map but you should really learn to cope with unpleasant maps. Besides it’s not too bad, sure far is risky due to how close it is to respawn but it just slightly favors some classes over others.

I think you meant Legacy however, it’s an honest mistake. Legacy is simply the best map in the game. Some of my favorite moments are on that map, such as Impact Striking Lord just as he went down (first two phases were hit when he was standing and timed Finishing Blow to come after the downed temporary invulnerability) or harassing gate to keep certain opponents near it leading to outnumbered situations in our favor on nodes.

The mid point also neutralizes some AoE classes’ advantages. As a node holding game the smaller the node the further such wells, overloads, or traps would go, so you can contest the node being relatively safe. It also emphasizes the weakness of low mobility more than other maps being a bigger map.

Reaper Alim.4176:

lol I didn’t think ANet banned players for going afk in a match that ANet has set up to lose. It’s like saying not only are you going to pay us your money for this lose but we are going to force you to waste your time and energy as well or we’ll just ban your account.

If this is true, then bans like these can trigger lawsuits, and ANet could lose more money then they would gain by banning players account who refuse to play a sure to lose match.

PS# I’ve akitten in plenty of matches where team mates yolo’d to far just to insta die over and over again to one enemy player.

I remember having a guardian blame our thief for the loss when the guardian kept feeding mid 1v3. The thief beat the druid 1v1 to cap far, he ganked the scrapper at mid and insta finished him with finishing blow after the invuln proc, recapped home, sides were better so most of the team agreed to stick to that, guardian keeps dying to mid, loss is somehow the thief’s fault.

I’ve cut back on the poisoning but still do so for tactically reducing heals.

Here’s a Forest where I decap far at important moments and switched to Bandit’s Defense, which really helped during a Gravity Well in the opening. The opening went poorly but we eventually recovered (we had an Exalted Legend warrior).

Using that stolen warrior skill near the end when they were clustered was cool, downed the druid but had to disengage since it’s way too easy for a thief to get low health. I’m still not sure if stealth rezzing the teammate was the right call (yes it worked out, but maybe only due to suboptimal play from the opponent?) since both of us may have gone down but I had to make a fast decision. I didn’t even want to fight there I just wanted to decap then head mid. Near the end we were 2v3, a ranger and I vs. a warrior and ranger and eventually a second ranger. At best me decapping drew the majority of their team’s attention to home so the team was able to handle the 3v2 elsewhere.

I’ve had some rough periods in the fight though. Normally I’d steal beast but I just didn’t see my opening, probably should have helped the druid with the thief at the start.

paShadoWn.5723:

Nope i do not consume chemicals. I am just not a muggle/masquerader like you.

Also, what exactly did you did? I didnt quite noticed anything.

I play ele too.