Guild Wars 2

I have no experience playing necro/reaper, but I have fought them a bunch.

That said, it seems to me, and speaking as a warrior main, that successful reapers have the tools to survive through the periods where I might have defenses rolling (like resistance, blocks, etc.) if they play smart. If they survive that initial onslaught, the chills and fear give them huge control to punish me with pretty substantial damage (condi and/or power), with my only hope of surviving being running away (if I can).

That isn’t to say I think it’s a cake walk, or that a reaper who doesn’t survive that is bad, but I’ve found that to be the deciding factor if a reaper is going to kill me in a 1v1 or if I’m going to kill them.

I suppose my concern regarding pumping up the sustain during that early period (and beyond) would make even average or poor reapers near impossible to kill (while still being extremely dangerous).

So is my perception off or biased, or is there someway to deal with your concerns without triggering mine?

Tricare.2946:

Don’t think warriors “damage at the end of your dodge” trait does 1k

The warrior trait fits more like 2-4k (+/- 1k depending on circumstances, and it’s aoe. You have to dodge into an opponent, and you have to already be in combat, for it to work though.

Most warriors don’t take it these days because the Strength line is typically dumped for the Berserker line.

I still don’t understand the argument here… it seems to boil down to some people thinking resistance is too strong in comparison to other boons rather than actual outcomes. Reference to actual outcomes, rather than other boons, is the only argument that should matter.

I don’t know, maybe something like this?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNAU8enMdAVhgdhAmkCElilrA7d0WaXtK5gWXNAJAkASdA-TFCEABtpbAgLAwWKBZa/R5X2HEAGeAAJq+zDHBgAAIA38mZz2MYoDdoDdoDtbezbezbezSBk5CA-w

Do know that I don’t play the build, and just whipped it together on spec. I didn’t spend any time optimizing, and there’s a variety of choices you could make to adopt to what you like. (For example, Sigil of Might instead of Outrage)

It should have decent survivability through decent armour (courtesy of Rousing Resilience) and fairly good condi management, but also has good burst due to full zerk gear, the intel sigil on the rifle, bloodlust, etc.

As a quick tip, if you get stunned in melee range, Headbutt->Berserk->Gunflame is your best bet. It’ll break the stun, heal you for just under 5k (HB breaks the first stun, and then Berserk breaks your self-stun from HB, for double Rousing), and then Gunflame for quickness-fueled carnage.

To your question, definitely Defense. Imo, it’s invaluable when roaming given you’re pretty front and center all the time, and a 1v1 can escalate to a 1vx pretty fast. You could forgo it for burst if you were mid-line fighting in a zerg, but I don’t recommend skipping it as a roamer.

Also, imo, gs/r is a better setup for roaming. I love the shield, but the gs has more utility than s+sh while roaming and does way more damage.

EDIT: I’ve never played this either, but maybe a hybrid version would be more fun since you’re using the sword anyway. More expensive, and it may not work, but I bet the element of surprise (few rifle warriors run condi) might score you some wins.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNAU8enMdAVhgdhAukCElilrADJAkASdK5gWXN4d0WabtA-TVSEQByb/hTqEEAXAgAq+zCeAAxT3gDOCARU5H2OIAbGEAmQEw//fTSSkCIzFAA-w

Then again, it might also suck.

Jacion.6302:

Your idea will only be utilized by WvWers and not PvE players, it will not drive people to WvW to actually play….

Wouldn’t they have to play to earn the required currency? If they chose to buy from the TP instead, it would increase the income for wvw players who sell their own.

I don’t have any sense of how much of a draw this would be, but I don’t see any harm in it either. Might even be a net improvement.

babazhook.6805:

The cripple off dancing dagger in a Condition build can be dodged too! This not unique to a power build. If I am a Condition build my chills can be dodged just as easily if I have some source.

All of that stuff that condition build throws your way can be dodged , most of it blocked. Just because his a condition build does not make it more difficult.

leave this talk about protection out of what you and I are debating. It has nothing to do with it . I stated clearly my issue with your post was the suggestion that those conditions mentioned are not available to a power build.

I can’t leave the talk of protection out of it because the proposal to increase protection to 100% was the reason for my comment about status effects. It’s not a separate point, it is the point.

You chose gs warrior as the example to discuss, and I just pointed out that the one status effect attached to it is a 15s cd skill that moves so slowly you don’t even need to use a dodge to avoid it.

So, while the condi user (in this hypothetical matchup) isn’t using a dodge to avoid your only weapon status effect, he’s dumping many more status effects (and damage) on you than you have dodges to use. And his status effects won’t be nearly as telegraphed as bladetrail….

babazhook.6805:

Oh come on. The point of those conditions is not to have them last until your skill comes off cooldown again. They are to give you the opportunity to close the gap on an opponent that is running.

Again Chill can be cleansed and Chill will not last up until the next warrior weapon swap so why is it so many power builds in Meta put hyromancy on as a sigil?

You swap , Chill and hit with a burst in the window that the chill alows you. You do not chill the enemy expecting it to be there 9 seconds later.

I know how it works (I use it too). I’m saying it’s not comparable to the loadout of status impairment your average condi build runs.

I mean, let’s look at your gs warrior. Bladetrail can be dodged by strafing left or right… it’s slow moving so you don’t even need to dodge. The purpose of hydromancy is to (1) do a tonne of damage because it crits, and (2) to buy a little edge to land your burst following weapon swap to your high damage weapon (provided you’re within 240).

Now imagine a situation where you’re running that build against a condi class who also has this new and improved protection. They’ve waited out your Berserker Stance by using this protection, and now you’re both looking at each other.

He loads you down with chill, blind, cripple, fear, bleed, poison, and (maybe) burn. You’ve got bladetail. Maybe you’d be able to hit him with your hydromancy sigil and burst, but how are you going to get within 240 of him to do it? And you’d best hope he didn’t put weakness on you too.

Tricare.2946:

Only 1 other Boon has given 100% immunity to something, that was stabiltiy. It was changed.

If Resistance only gave 100% damage reduction but still allowed control effects, there wouldn’t be an argument/discussion about the Boon. But it give 100% immunity to both.

If it was -33% damage and -33% condition duration I think that would be good. Or at least, just damage reduction and alllow controlling effects to still work.

And that’s the thing, you’re focused on the wrong thing. Balance is about managing the outcomes, not the inputs. It doesn’t matter if resistance gives 100% and protection gives 33%, when the number of condi builds running around (and condi complaint threads out there) suggest condis are doing just fine regardless.

I run a power build with a tonne of resistance, plus some condi clear, which means I have more condi-specific defenses than power-specific defenses. Yet condi builds are still more of a threat to me than power builds, even power builds that have decent uptime of protection.

I’m not calling for the condis to be nerfed or anything (I could pile in more cleanses if I needed to), but it doesn’t seem like condis are in a bad spot right now despite where resistance is at.

Tricare.2946:

I’m not claiming anything, I’m pointing out how there is no counter play to the Boon other than waiting it out.

Corruption isn’t a valid option, otherwise ever class would need access to it.

Like I said, look at stability, it use to be 100% immunity. It’s not anymore because there was no counter to it, other than wait it out.

The specific example you gave was a condi necro fighting a chrono, and you claimed no counterplay. Necros have boon corruption… lots of it.

Based on your videos, I’ve seen that you run power reaper, condi reaper, and burn guard. Are you saying the amount of resistance out there is making it too hard for you to play these builds?

Tricare.2946:

The other day I saw a chronomancer put up 10 seconds of Resistance, have 10 stack of burning 12 bleed and other conditions. He was able to finish the necromancer off before Resistance was even gone because the necromancer had no way of controlling the fight.

Not only were the damage conditions being ignored but the control conditions as well.

Couldn’t fear him. Resistance. Couldn’t chill him. Resistance. Couldn’t cripple him. Resistance. Get my point? There’s no counter to it other than wait it out. But that much harder to do when you can’t slow down your opponent.

Are you claiming chrono is a hard counter to condi reaper? Also, boon corruption?

Tricare.2946:

Which you believe is the case with the Protection Boon. If it had 100% damage reduction it would be OP.

Now why can you not see how that is the case for Resistance Boon?

Because condi is still viable, and occasionally overtuned, despite resistance granting 100% immunity to condi damage and status effects.

Tricare.2946:

They do have access to higher level status effects, it’s called stun, knock down, daze, pull.

Protection Boon doesn’t protect against those because that would be too strong….. just like Resistance Boon. Which, protects against condition DAMAGE and CONTROL effects.

None of which have close to the ease of application as the chills from your necro, nor most condis. Also, a stunbreak breaks all control effects… are you proposing a condi clear wipes all condis too?

In any case, once the power user manages to survive the extended period of no damage (and, remember, people already complain when a warrior uses double EP), then he’s not going to be any sort of threat when he’s buried under all dem condis.

Seriously, where is the case based in actual gameplay that justifies protection being buffed to 100%?

babazhook.6805:

gil. Just to add I am not suggestion protection be given 100 percent uptime in any way shape or form. I am just disagreeing with ythe point you made on power builds not being to benefit from conditions inherent in their weaponsets.

Then you missed the point entirely. The point I made was that power builds would need access to these higher level status effects if protection got boosted to 100% mitigation.

And, let’s be real, the cripple on bladetrail is not even close to the same league as status effects on a condi heavy build. It’s a slow moving skill with a 15s cd that’s easily cleansed.

babazhook.6805:

In your OP on this topic you suggested power builds could not apply chill , or weakness or Cripple and the like which is categorically false.

Those CONDITIONS are integral to many power builds even if said build has fewer cover conditions. Without vuln stacking just as example the damage output of a power ranger would plummet. Without blind Power D/P thief would get wrecked. One reason d/p does power does so much better then s/d power , just as example, is access to poison off the AA so as to inhibit an enemy heal. (its how you deal with warriors with healing and adrenal. You keep poison up)

I stated quite clearly I was not talking about the conditions that did damage. Of course a person doing a condition build will garner more damage off those just as a person going power will garner more raw damage then a condition build of their own power attacks.

The fact remains that weapons considered power DO in fact deliver conditions from which they directly benefit .

My original post pointed to specific condition effects that greatly impede opponents beyond damage when resistance isn’t up; that both mitigate their threat level and make it far easier to “catch up” for the time lost when resistance was up.

Most power builds don’t have access to those sorts of conditions in any significant way (reaper excluded with chill (and fear), though duration is much less on a power build).

The examples you mentioned, like vulnerability and cripple on the warrior gs, don’t come close to replicating that. Thus, I still maintain the point: crank protection to 100% and you’ve effectively killed power builds.

OriOri.8724:

Resistance only seems balanced because condis have been buffed extensively, both in power and in application. But these buffs to condis didn’t come out until after resistance was in the game. Resistance is just not a healthy buff in the game. Never was, never will be in its current state.

Didn’t resistance get added after HoT and at the same time that condi stack limits were removed? What other major buffs got added after resistance?

zealex.9410:

In my eyes condi should be the slow steady killer from my experience with other mmos in general dot dmg takes a time to.build up and to get really dangerous which gives you time to react also such condi classes had kitten hp pools or w/e so they had the chance to dish out their dmg since it took time to build up.
From what iv seen tho in the last couple of days 1 can dish out so many condis that it looks more like burst rather than conistent building dmg.
I think there needs to be a distinctive factor between power and condi since power build rely more on burst and then some downtime until they are reasy to repeat but condi seems to flat out have high dmg at all times.
But then again not sure how the developers wanted conditions to work and exist in this game.

Condis used to be like that in gw2, but as you say, it’s not like that anymore. I’m actually ok with condis being able to burst (makes for more exciting combat), but boosting protection to 100% against direct damage (or cutting resistance to 33%) would so badly skew the balance between the two that you’d rarely see power builds out there.

Tricare.2946:

Power and condition builds both benefit from control conditions.

Protection Boon:

Protects against – 33% power damage, that’s it.

Does NOT protect against – critical hits, physical control effects like launch, knock down, kick, pull, push, stun, daze.

Resistance Boon:

Protects against- 100% condition damage Burn, torment, poison, bleed, confusion. ALL control effects from conditions such as cripple, chill, weakness, immobilize, slow, and fear.

Does not protect against- power attacks.

Fear is a condition that is not only stopped by Stabilty but also stopped by Resistance as well. That condition gets the kitten end of the stick.

1. The protection reduction applies after the critical hit, so it reduces 33% of the extra damage there too. A 100% protection would completely negate critical damage.
2. Condis can do equivalent damage to power, plus have status effects that power builds typically lack (in both scope and scale).
3. Condi builds do full damage by investing in two attributes, leaving one attribute for extra defense (or extra direct damage), and this investment also boosts status effects. Power builds require investment of all attributes to achieve full damage.
4. Condi builds are as viable as power builds right now. In some contexts some are crazy OP, and in some other contexts they’re useless.
5. Direct damage application is typically concentrated in single, well-telegraphed, easily dodged hits. Condi damage is often delivered through iterative, poorly telegraphed hits, and often added on to regular hits through traits making mitigation except through cleanses much more difficult. Many condi builds can overwhelm the cleansing ability of most classes.
6. If you want to boost protection to 100%, you’ll have to boost power builds by quite a lot to compensate.
7. If you want to cut resistance by a lot, you should expect some nerfs to condi builds to compensate.

Whether or not condi is getting the kitten end of the stick is measured by end result, not the relative power of mitigating boons.

I see from your videos that you’re playing both power and condi reaper. Which one do you find to be more effective? Because I come across waaaaaay more condi reapers than power reapers.

babazhook.6805:

I think you should revisit each weapon and reconsider. The difference between the weapons considered power as opposed to condition is generally just the amount of DAMAGING conditions one can throw out.
….
You can go through all the other weapons on other classes and find the same, that being if you do not look at the damaging condtions, the other types of conditions are found just as much in power build sets.

Now you certainly are correct in that they do not have the durations that a condition build does BUT the claim is made Condition builds do not have to trait for durations which you implied in your ferocity/vitality suggestion.

Now you are also correct in that you would generally have less cover conditions in a Power build but that hardly means those cripples/vulns/blinds poisons and immobs are not usable by power builds….

It honestly doesn’t seem like you’re being straight here.

You know the load of status effects delivered by a power build doesn’t come close to the status effects delivered by condi builds. And you also know the limited condi diversity that comes from a few unbuffed minor conditions attached to power skills are easily cleared when compared to condi builds.

Condi builds don’t need to be traited for duration to deliver strong damage, and my vitality/ferocity trade off enables the power user to cover off one defensive stat (like rabid, carrion, etc). Compare the damage output of most condi builds running rabid vs most power builds running valkerie, then imagine the condi user has an equivalent amount of time with 100% damage negation through prot as the power user has resistance.

Who do you think would win that fight? Tbh, I don’t even think the condi user would need protection at all.

babazhook.6805:

Power builds are not restricted from using Chill, Cripple, Poison, weakness Immob blind taunt and the like. They are certainly not as effective at using the damaging conditions but many power builds are designed around using the the conditions outlined.

I do not understand your point.

That power builds/weapons don’t normally have those status effects, and certainly lack the damage output once the buff runs out if they do. Even if they have them a bit (cripple being the most likely), the lack of condi diversity means they’ll get stripped fairly easily when compared to the impairment caused by a full condi build. There’s also not much chance that a power build will have expertise or other condi duration extenders.

So, if you’re running full condi, your full damage and status effects kick in as soon as resistance is stripped or runs out. Those status effects (particularly chill) are especially useful for keeping your opponent to a minimal threat level. You also have epidemic as a very real threat despite (or because) an opponent has resistance up.

If you were running full power and someone used a new 100% protection buff, your damage would be completely negated if it landed at any point when the buff was up. You also wouldn’t have much in the way of status effects to reduce their ability avoid your hits outside of the buff, nor to reduce their threat level. You also wouldn’t have an equivalent to epidemic to somehow leverage.

So what do we have now with resistance giving total immunity and protection giving 33%? Are condi builds non-viable? I run into way too many condi builds to think they are. Are power builds non-viable? No, I see lots of those too.

There just doesn’t seem to be much of a justification for buffing protection to 100% or nerfing resistance to 33%. The damage types and status effects are just way too different. A 100% protection would kill power builds outright, but 100% resistance doesn’t kill condi builds.

Resistance buys time because today’s condi builds (especially in groups) totally overwhelm most classes’ ability to dump condis. This is especially true when big hitters can be buried under a pile of garbage condis, when builds have lots of iterative application, and when status effects last so long (e.g. compare the longest taunt to the longest chill application).

Right, but condi builds still viable despite resistance offering total immunity. This wouldn’t be true for power builds with a 100% protection buff.

I’m not saying they’re isn’t justification for different approaches to resistance, but it’s not a straight comparison with protection.

zealex.9410:

iirc you are also immune to the effects like soft cc etc no?

Yes, resistance does. But the proposal is that protection provides the same negation as resistance. If that occurs, then power damage needs some modification for the periods when someone wouldn’t be under the effect of this new and improved protection.

Otherwise, RIP power builds.

It makes more sense in wvw. It’s situational they’re too, but can be pretty strong.

Sure, but only if my big power hits can also break your bones so your movement and skills are cut by 66%, puncture your lung so that your healing is reduced by 33%, and cause brain swelling so you take massive damage when you try to use skills.

Oh, and I need to be able to take vitality as a gear stat instead of ferocity with no loss of crit damage.

Sound fair?

Tiawal.2351:

3. skill level of those players (ability, ranking, but not the current wxp k-train based rank, but something new, likely similar to what PvP has)
4. hours spent efficiently, as in Contribution Rating (a new metrics, again similar to what PvP has, inactivity or lower quality performance will make the player go down in ranking)

I think you’re dead wrong on #3. Wvw is a competition, and it’s on the players to improve skill, not Anet to balance it. Trying to balance for skill defeats the whole purpose of a contest.

The rank gain metric is what they’re using to estimate your #4. Imo, it should only be used to estimate anomalies like large afk time and make slight corrections to whatever the player hours suggest, but that’s just me.

@SkyShroud
It seems to me that issues related to active hours being clumped during certain periods is the only potential problem.

But we have no idea whether or not this is a problem on any server (remember, it has to be greater clumping in comparison to opposing servers in their matchup), nor if Anet is also factoring this into their decisions. Moreover, opening currently closed servers doesn’t necessarily fix that problem and may even make it worse.

Score is a completely separate thing. I believe the purpose of the algorithm being discussed is to roughly balance server player hours. Skill and strategy thus becomes more important than they have been, which is great.

@Liston
You need to stop looking at the tiers as some sort of ranking with “the best” being at the top. We now have four matchups made up of combinations of servers that give roughly even player hours to each side in a given matchup.

YB doesn’t have a link because its player hours are roughly equal to the other two sides in its matchup. At least, that’s the idea.

I don’t understand the concern. The only thing that matters here is total hours spent in wvw, whereby a population of 2000 people playing 10 hours per week is the same as 500 people playing 40 hours a week.

I presume they added the rank gain metric to pick up anomalies, like large populations of afk players.

If a server’s players are especially active, then how “full” they are rightly gets upgraded. If they go more dormant, then they get downgraded.

That should more or less manage total server resources (in terms of hours played) and help guide pairings and matchups. The rest comes down to relative skill and is sorted out in the match score, no?

Frost.5017:

TLDR: Jokes are funnier if you include a couple of paragraphs of explanation.

Yes, that makes sense. I read something about that during my research into what humans call “humor”. (Thanks for the clarification) :P

Busty Bombsalot.4570:

So from what I am reading here, Anet is penalizing Yaks for not only play long hours to get to t-1 but then also penalizing us for playing good as well.
Let’s add another 4 to 6 servers for us to fight against instead of the 4 now. I’m sure I can kill at least one 50 man blob all by myself so why not send more so other people have something to kill.
Gee I wonder how we dropped to t-4 from t-1 after only 4 or 5 months of no match ups .

How in the hell have you been penalized?

I see a lot of jumping to conclusions here.

For example, this new algorithm shouldn’t lead you to conclude “no more scouting” unless you have loads of people doing nothing but reporting enemy activities. If that’s all your scouts do, and you have so many that it can tip the balance and get your server locked, then you need scout training more than transfers because you’re sitting on a pile of under utilized resources.

Same goes with the notion that turtling up in structures is the way to go (to drive down ranks gained). The boredome factor alone is bound to drive down participation rates, and you’ll need the transfers in to compensate for the players you’ll be hemorrhaging.

Finally, expecting Anet to balance for things like skill seems a bridge too far too far to me. That’s “everyone should get a participation ribbon” thinking, as far as in concerned.

If you’ve got enough players to get locked and they’re under performing, work on commander and player skill development.

GrahamW.5397:

Total hours played and wvw levels aren’t a good indicator of actual coverage or strength of a server. If you played wvw you would see what is wrong with this. They are unlocking servers who shouldn’t be(BG,MAG) and locking servers who have no business being locked (TC recently, SBI,YB).

I’ve been playing wvw pretty much exclusively since year two of the game.

As I mentioned earlier, the purpose is to even out population, not strength (which factors in other things beyond activity levels).

Why don’t you demonstrate why hours and levels aren’t good metrics of activity, and how it is that the combination unfairly penalizes YB, SBI, and TC while benefiting BG and Mag?

GrahamW.5397:

Because ktraining gets you wvw levels, which is what the dev said they were using as a metric to determine what worlds to lock?

They use levels and hours. And ktraining gives levels because it grants wvw score…. So what’s the problem?

So what if they ktrain? Why would that matter to whether or not a server should be locked?

Looks to me like Anet is taking the best approach. Hours logged and ranks gained shows participation rates. If BG reduces participation rates, it can’t have more than a short term impact and Anet may even be able to see the anomoly in the data.

Anet basing decisions on participation rates is the best way to smooth population disparity, which leaves skill/cohesiveness of servers/pairings as the primary determinates of success.

Great job, Anet wvw team.

Hitman.5829:

I understand that you beating noobs that remain stationary gives you the impression that the warrior is in a good standing (I do too, when I beat the stationary noobs that don’t move) but please try fighting the kiters and you will realize that the warrior is the second rank from bottom’s up in speed and leaps (the least being necro).

The warrior should be rank 1 in leaps due to its nature of being a melee class.

I’d be happy to duel you to see whether or not I’m just killing scrubs. At the end, I’ll let you know how you stack up against the others I’ve been fighting.

You up for that? We can even record it and post the results here.

I respectfully disagree. There’s room for buffs and shaves for sure, but the class is hardly garbage. Certainly not relative to where the class had been in the past.

And I roam, duel, and run small group wvw all the time. It’s not just scrubs I’m beating, and I run vanilla, so I’m not even using OP builds.

Why? If you still think of wvw rankings as some sort of leaderboard with the best at the top, then you haven’t been paying attention to the game for a long time.

It’s not a great zerg weapon, imo. At least, not power bow (I imagine condi is bad in a zerg due to all of the clears).

It can work on a smaller scale though, both condi and power. But it’s value isn’t atvrange but close to medium range. Coupled with a greatsword you can put out 20-25k aoe in just a few seconds by dropping combustive shot→arcing arrow→arc divider→whirlwind attack.

The auto is just a way to maintain some damage pressure at range, but it’s not strong damage. It does give you double the chance to proc on-hit sigils though, which can be valuable depending on what you’re running.

I’ve had reasonable success using it for roaming and small group stuff.

It’s a different game. Honestly, “stance” is just another name for a utility skill. The name is just carried over.

Arewn.2368:

Choppy, I think you miss-read his post.
He’s asking why Regeneration provided by banners apparently does not scale with healing power.

Lol, you’re right. D- for reading comprehension on my part.

I think so. Iirc, it was the unique buff per banner that they expanded to 10 allies. I assume that means the core effects (e.g. buff to power and precision, or red) rather than the regeneration from trait.

You know, in light of the changes today, shouty hambow could make a comeback and knights might be a good choice for it.

With CI (instead of RR), the sustain would be really high, Armored Attack would keep damage up, and party support would be decent.

It’s not the way I play, but I could see a role for it.

Zenith.7301:

Those swiftness changes affected every movement skill that wasn’t a teleport, not just warrior. Guardian GS3 leap was no lesser a casualty of these changes, for example.

Oh, I know. It’s just that all of the warrior’s former Nike power was wrapped up in run skills while maintaining (near) perma-swiftness. Thus, it took the biggest hit from the change.

Meanwhile, some other classes made some gains to movement, thereby leveling the playing field somewhat.

I’m not complaining about it, rather more pointing out that warrior isn’t the speedy class that it once was. I run one of the speedier warrior builds and I’ve had druids, chronos, and dragonhunters keep pace with me. I can’t tell you their builds, but if I escaped it came down to me knowing the map better.

The way I’ll most likely escape is by being able to string all of my movement skills together, good positioning, and being the one deciding to break combat. At least one of those skills is on a 30s CD, and another on 15s. Both (and the rest) are used as combat skills as well, so having those ready to go when it’s time to break isn’t always assured.

Most druids and mesmers can easily break combat from me and escape, if they’re so inclined. Thieves/DDs, well… they obviously have the best escape and pursuit potential.

I don’t see revs as much as I used to, but some of them seemed to have as good or better mobility than warrior when they came out. Not sure if that’s still true. In any case, the warrior seems to have retained a reputation that hasn’t really been true for a couple of years. Middle of the pack now, speedwise.

Zenith.7301:

I mean, they nerfed ride the lightning to a 40 sec cd disengage and currently warrior and thief are covering similar distances with far lesser penalties, it’s a joke.

Warrior had all of its movement skills cut by 33% from where they used to be, once they stopped being affected by swiftness.

Warrior’s pretty middle of the pack now in terms of movement, to a large extent because it can’t take advantage of porting up to ledges, etc. Even if you build for speed (running sword instead of axe, mace, etc., running Bull’s Charge), several classes can keep pace depending on build.

Well, scrapper are great runes and all, but even there you’re looking at tradeoffs either way. For example, look at what you give up taking scrapper runes instead of scholar.

The only point I was making was the “best” choice will be determined partly by skill, partly by build, and partly by the circumstances you find yourself fighting in.

Like I said, I prefer full zerk for the most part, and it works for me. But I can’t deny there have been times when additional toughness would have mitigated thousands of damage at the expense of hundreds of damage from the thousands I was doing myself. In some cases, that could have been the difference between winning and losing a 1vx.

One thing I’ll say against the “zerk armour for pros” line is that it depends entirely on the situation you most often come across.

While 1v1 in particular it’s probably the way to go, if you’re more in small group skirmishes, the amount of damage mitigated by some additional toughness will exceed the outgoing damage you’re traded for it to a point.

In fact, the best warrior I’ve fought in wvw so far has a couple of knight’s trinkets, and he’s got positioning and weapon stowing down like a boss. Hits like a truck too.

That said, I generally prefer zerk because, being a roamer, I normally need to put someone down fast, kill, and run before a large group shows up.

Sure, provided people make more in both of the other game modes for the same amount of time, but just to keep pace with inflation.

Otherwise, I’d rather the focus be more about increasing fun than loot.

Stand The Wall.6987:

lol
summon grub mount
nufsed

Oh man, I’m in. I’ve got over 1000 points just sitting there ready to go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj7R_2WWdKs

I’ve been wrong before about out-of-the-box builds that I haven’t actually tried, but this looks underpowered to me.

2k power, a 32% crit chance (excluding limited Fury) and 197% crit damage… it just seems like a lot of sacrifice just to have a tonne of quickness. In the very least, I think the quickness sigils aren’t worth it.

Could be wrong, of course. But if it’s fun, who cares?

Mal.1670:

That said, duels should really be kept in low-traffic areas, because you can’t expect every zergling to stop fighting someone who might look like a roamer getting attacked by another roamer. People used to duel around SMC, and sometimes “duelers” would let teammates get stomped because they thought a duel was going on when it wasn’t.

Yeah, I agree with that. I think most people who duel understand that interruptions are to be expected depending on the circumstances. High traffic areas make them more likely, and spectators make them less likely.

Honestly, I think both duelers and non-duelers are content to let people play the game how they want. The few salty “red is dead” types usually get rekt when they try to force their ideas on others. At least, that’s been my experience.

Zenith.7301:

No, what’s immaterial is you shamelessly bringing in another broken kitten class like warrior to make a point when warrior and thief needs nerfs, they don’t justify each other.

Correction: Berserkers and Daredevils are a bit broken. Warriors are ok, and thieves are probably underpowered.