Guild Wars 2

Hmm, not sure I could ever in good faith recommend a staff with D/P build for serious ranked play, but I could see this as being something fun for unranked or duels since it’s dropping most of your mobility and disengage for extra burst.

In PvE, there’s two viable ‘meta’ builds. One is Daredevil staff and the other is Trickery Dagger/Dagger. Personally, I think that staff does everything D/D does, but better, but some people argue that D/D is a bit better for dungeons. Either way, you can do well with either.

Overall, thief is pretty solid for PvE largely due to its strong personal DPS. In dungeons, your biggest utility is your stealth. In raids, your biggest utility is break bar CC and mobility.

Eles are the biggest competition for a raid spot in PvE since they will often do a bit more DPS and their ranged AoE makes them very strong for certain mechanics.

In PvP, thieves are also in a pretty good spot. I think S3 will be a really good time to be a thief, even if the class has just barely become viable for tournament-level teams.

If you were looking for a fast-paced class, you definitely found it, especially in PvP. D/P PvP is probably one of the fastest builds in the game and has a very small margin of error between you being a hero and you being a smudge on the ground. It’s also encourages a very different play style where you’ll want to rotate frequently and quickly to +1 small fights and decap undefended points. Learning how and when to disengage also makes a big difference.

R O C.6574:

What’s the likelihood of pulling this off in S3? I want to win a ranked match with this comp.

Thieves in general are in a much better place for S3, particularly with the removal of the merc amulet. However, stacking thieves is still, as it always has been, a bad idea for team comp.

In lower tiers of matchmaking, you can abuse their burst to score kills and few players will be prepared/skilled enough to comeback after a single spike like this, but in higher tiers, downing a player fast still won’t often win a team fight since players will know how to revive effectively and will win the overall fight on attrition with cleave.

It’s the same basic reason why you can’t win high level games with the sort of Ranger Spike type strategy that teams used in the GW1 days of olde. There’s too many cleave and invuln skills and even when you get a big spike, the rally mechanics make it possible to overcome that advantage.

Roul.3205:

Uhm i was talking about solo situation xD atleast I understood the op’s question like that.
i think that war is kinda superior over thief in solos as thief cant buff himself to 25 might, but I didn’t test it as I don’t play war

Ahh, you know, I didn’t factor in PS as buffing itself to 25 might, rofl. Yea, you’re definitely right then.

Yea, once you fight enough thieves, you tend to get a feel for when their stealth burst will land.

Don’t get in a hurry to attack from stealth and more importantly, don’t be consistent in how long you wait. For your first burst, you’ll probably want to jump out after waiting almost as long as possible (bait out a dodge or block if you can). If you’re using x/P for your other weapon set to use as the blind field, wait on that weapon after stealthing before swapping. If they do pop a long block, you may just want to refresh stealth before attacking.

reikken.4961:

fishball.7204:

What’s the reasons to take thief?

breakbar is the main one. ele is possibly the worst class for breakbars, while thief is one of the best. And if you need really heavy break bar damage, venomshare thief has the best burst breaks in the game while doing dps on par with engineer, and much more easily. easy to maintain even in the hardest situations, while also offering sustain that’s even stronger than wash the pain away.

^ This. However, I think the ideal situation is thief with ele, rather than just considering thief or ele in a vacuum.

Ele is awesome and definitely more valuable to an extent on a lot of fights. However, once you have all the eles you need for handling icy patches, orbs, etc., then it does become a bit more of a question of whether you want another ele or a thief.

In this situation, I think there are some fights that are just much better off with a thief than simply stacking more eles. Mathias is probably the best example. Thieves have a ton of mobility to handle mechanics efficiently and the break bar utility is particularly important. The practical DPS of this fight will also more likely favor the thief since it’s a small hit box boss that moves frequently. (example of this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmTvqO_-6vI&feature=youtu.be)

Of course, in all fairness, it’s worth noting that qT later did a 6 person Mathias without either ele or thief. =P (https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4cqjkf/qt_6_man_matthias_106_time_left/)

Roul.3205:

when only considering zerk gear (so no condi gear) it may be sth like

1. ele
2. war
3. thief
4. engi
5. revenant
6. (maybe) guard
   ranger and necro are both pretty bad (tho ranger atleast can give himself quickness dmg boost and buff to 25 might) and mesmer is by far the worst.
   however, in some dungeons war happens to be better than ele due to utility, and thief is pretty sick damage aswell in dungeons where you are able to reflect very much with your staff autoattack. Also you shouldn’t forget that ele, thief and engi all are very sick in breaking the bars of bosses, while war (afaik) has to sacrifice some dps when doing that.

Boon stacking is definitely where it gets weird.

If you consider individual DPS, then it’s worth considering other non-meta builds, such as something like below:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAClUUhatY1Vg1LWuLKxC6HyBwGMCDA6bP2zdA-TxRBABPcBAwTHwVK/oZ/BzUCSp6PA8AAAA-e

Not sure exactly what the other utility would be, but someone who cares a bit more about min/maxing for solo DPS could probably find out what works best.

Basically, a build like this gives might, quickness, and fury akin to what you’d normally have to rely on a full group to get, but does so at the expense of having you camp flamethrower more than you normally would (you still swap to hammer after tossing Elixir B to keep up stab/might, but otherwise camp FT).

Also, I’m skeptical of warrior being so high in the above list. Their personal DPS is generally very far below ele/thief in a group setting, so I don’t see what would suddenly put them above thief.

I’d also be surprised if thief didn’t end up higher since they don’t rely much on alacrity and with dodge as part of their normal damage rotation, they wouldn’t lose as much dps avoiding fight mechanics.

Apocaly.2786:

Hello friendly people out there,

You sure you’re in the right place?

=P

Until you can find a way to stop endurance from regenerating, everyone has infinite dodges, lol.

Seriously though, they have 3 consecutive dodges, but can refill 2 dodges with one of their heal skills or with sig of agility. However, if you think you saw infinite dodges, you likely saw a condi thief spamming dodge along with Death Blossom, which is a dagger skill that evades.

Your best bet to fighting this is to just time your CC really well to land between evades or just spam a fast attack skill while tanking the damage. I found that when running a warrior build, I could counter a condi evade thief by just autoattacking with axe and popping berserker stance and healing sig as needed to handle the condi damage.

Here ya go:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4ft01q/qt_dps_benchmarkstests_for_all_classes/

Invictorum.7643:

D/D nowadays means you’re going to be running a Condition setup. It falls behind D/P in Power setups.

Essentially, run for a lot of Condition damage, and spam the hell out of skill #3.

^ Note that this only applies to PvP.

In PvE, you can run with the build linked below:

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Thief_-_D/D_S/P_Shortbow

I’ve also heard of people still using D/D in WvW, but I don’t really mess around in WvW much anymore, so I can’t say if that’s really very worthwhile.

@ AChanceOfReign: The reason is because people are running a DA/Tr/DD condi build in PvP that revolves around spamming dodges and death blossom to constantly evade and condi bomb enemies. It’s a very easy to play build which is relatively effective in 1 v 1 scenarios, but I wouldn’t recommend it for higher tier gameplay.

Snowywonders.1378:

Lol @ unhindered combatant being some sort of godly trait. It’s best use is for map completion and wvw to escape blobs.

Ever heard of PvP? Cuz it’s kind of a big deal there. =P

Not much use still responding to a video that’s pretty much about one Mercenary amulet build dueling another.

Ravenmoon.5318:

Leeto.1570:

Dont understand the big deal he just says what all veteran players already knew only anouncing it to public. Everyone knew that if you want to go pro in gw2 then try to put the least amount of effort and dont sacrifice anything for it.
No other team put as much effort into gw2 as vermilion did and at the end of the day all that time is wasted because they got ddosed, the game is joke and anything can happen.
Every single tournaments outcome has been decided by something that players cant affect, be it lag on lan tournament or secret sigil nerfs or whatever else.
If the game would be about skill then a team that wins world championship wouldnt be one of worst teams next year with same players while competing against same players.

Salt? :o

Much. It’s just one of the many people who live and breath GW2, but love nothing more than complaining about how they’re terrible victims of the same company they devote so much of their life to.

If it was really that bad, they’d play another game, but honestly, there’s just a lot of miserable kittens here who just like playing the victim so they can direct their disgust somewhere other than themselves.

Yea, it hit you before the game start counter even completed. Definitely looks like a hack.

R O C.6574:

Dahkeus.8243:

R O C.6574:

Dahkeus.8243:

As happy as I am that thief is in a better place for S3, I’m not looking forward to queueing up for matches where 2-3 other teammates are also playing thief…

I anticipate queueing for games in S3 as thief, but then having to swap to an alt for most games due to getting paired with other thieves. =/

From what i can tell, multiple thieves on a team in S3 will be a benefit. Here’s a fun trick for team fights: stand in the middle of a point, cast Shadow Refuge and blast area blindness while your fellow thieves burst the kitten out of the other team.

Crap like that only works at low tiers.

Why? Whenever you put down SR, everyone comes over to try and cleave you while you’re in stealth, but now they’re all blinded. just spam short bow #2 while the rest of your team AA. When is the last time you had 5 thieves on a team in the “upper” tiers? it’s kittening amazing how fast a focused target goes down with 3 or 4 thieves bursting

Lol, yea, I can see it now. The Abjured Astral Authority will now be running this comp and winning tourneys with this gimmick, I’m sure. I mean, there’s no possible way that couldn’t work out and if you burst one person, surely, you just won the game.

StickerHappy.8052:

Gw2 is full of kids (raging hormones, questionable decisions, drama, etc)

Are you guys even surprised?

Not really, especially when you look around here:

Dave.6819:

loose respect?! lol. hell no. i luv him. he basically said what all veteran players are thinking of this game. REKT. i luved the part of being afk LOL. #esports #progw2pvp #rollmetapress1button=pro.

R O C.6574:

Dahkeus.8243:

As happy as I am that thief is in a better place for S3, I’m not looking forward to queueing up for matches where 2-3 other teammates are also playing thief…

I anticipate queueing for games in S3 as thief, but then having to swap to an alt for most games due to getting paired with other thieves. =/

From what i can tell, multiple thieves on a team in S3 will be a benefit. Here’s a fun trick for team fights: stand in the middle of a point, cast Shadow Refuge and blast area blindness while your fellow thieves burst the kitten out of the other team.

Crap like that only works at low tiers.

Thief has always been ‘locked’ to certain traits just because of its design.

DA and Trickery have been ‘must have’ trait lines for years. If you ran D/P, you went with SA. If you went S/D, you went with Acro.

Daredevil hasn’t really done anything differently.

As far as ‘spam’ playstyle goes, that’s an issue with the staff design more than anything. If you’re playing D/P and are spamming anything, you’re doing it very wrong.

And yes, the condi D/D build also has problems, but it’s more than just Daredevil causing that. This is basically the same as the ‘Unicorn’ build that was around for a while long ago. It plays the same by spamming death blossom and dodges, but just doesn’t hide in stealth the whole time. Daredevil along with the recent trickery change just allowed this strategy to do enough damage to be semi-viable again, but it didn’t encourage the ‘spam’ behavior anymore than it already was.

Thieves have always been locked into a trait because of how good it was. Just because Daredevil is an ‘Elite’ spec doesn’t mean that there’s really anything different going on here.

The issues you’re describing are tied more directly to the core mechanics of thieves than anything else.

As happy as I am that thief is in a better place for S3, I’m not looking forward to queueing up for matches where 2-3 other teammates are also playing thief…

I anticipate queueing for games in S3 as thief, but then having to swap to an alt for most games due to getting paired with other thieves. =/

Lalainnia.3598:

Ppl won’t know till some popular streamer or well know pvper tests it and slaps it on meta for the majority. Until then it’s just going to be a bunch of speculation people saying that the mesmer profession is dead and that the sky is falling.

Fixed that for you. =P

ellesee.8297:

The real counter to condi Mesmer is Scrapnado, as seen here.

https://www.twitch.tv/livskis/v/65786911

^ Now that is a counter to mesmer.

Eh, just another “esport” player who acts like a brat when everything doesn’t go the way they want it to. It’s really not far off from a kid throwing a tantrum.

Very few “pro” players seem to be able to handle their own emotions.

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Salamander.2504:

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Dahkeus.8243:

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Dahkeus.8243:

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Zelulose.8695:

Zodryn.4216:

Zelulose.8695:

Snowywonders.1378:

Build is not that strong though, DH’s or decent Scrappers with retal can easily beat you on point.

This falls closely in line with how strong I see the build. Kind of an easy rank up build.

Zelulose.8695:

Please Nerf it.

Umm…what?

Umm that is why I said closely inline. I was vague for a reason. You really must like your thief to directly attack me out of context like this. A change to perma evade or bandits defense shouldn’t bother thief too much anyway assuming they use mechanical skill.

You pretty much said it is only good for ranking up easily, implying it is only good at lower level play. Then you want it nerfed. That is why you make 0 sense. You want something that is only viable vs bads nerfed because you happen to not like it.

Believe it or not, but builds don’t only need to be nerfed if they’re powerful at top levels of PvP. If there’s a build that steamrolls new/inexperienced players without requiring any effort, that’s also bad for the game. It’s the same reason turret engis needed to be nerfed. Even if it can be countered at high levels of play, you discourage players from even trying to PvP when they see other players getting rewarded for faceroll behavior.

This build is nowhere near as effective as Turret Engi was.

It doesn’t have to be, but it was effective enough for people to hit legendary with it last season. =P

So? Reaching Legendary is hardly even an achievement.

According to the people who frequent these forums, there are no achievements possible by playing GW2.

Just saying, I have seen people who never PvP reach Legendary. Took me 2 weeks to reach Legendary in S2.

Lookout. We got a kitten over here.

I’m actually really surprised that we haven’t seen any group-wide DPS tests with the new golem test area. I’d think that this would be the perfect way to evaluate different raid comps and to determine whether it’s better to run something like 1 PS war or 2.

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Dahkeus.8243:

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Zelulose.8695:

Zodryn.4216:

Zelulose.8695:

Snowywonders.1378:

Build is not that strong though, DH’s or decent Scrappers with retal can easily beat you on point.

This falls closely in line with how strong I see the build. Kind of an easy rank up build.

Zelulose.8695:

Please Nerf it.

Umm…what?

Umm that is why I said closely inline. I was vague for a reason. You really must like your thief to directly attack me out of context like this. A change to perma evade or bandits defense shouldn’t bother thief too much anyway assuming they use mechanical skill.

You pretty much said it is only good for ranking up easily, implying it is only good at lower level play. Then you want it nerfed. That is why you make 0 sense. You want something that is only viable vs bads nerfed because you happen to not like it.

Believe it or not, but builds don’t only need to be nerfed if they’re powerful at top levels of PvP. If there’s a build that steamrolls new/inexperienced players without requiring any effort, that’s also bad for the game. It’s the same reason turret engis needed to be nerfed. Even if it can be countered at high levels of play, you discourage players from even trying to PvP when they see other players getting rewarded for faceroll behavior.

This build is nowhere near as effective as Turret Engi was.

It doesn’t have to be, but it was effective enough for people to hit legendary with it last season. =P

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Gaile Gray.6029:

A message from the PvP Team:

Hi all,

PvP League Season 3 is just around the corner, and with that we’d like to let you know about a few upcoming PvP amulet changes.

The following changes will take effect on May 17:

• Mercenary Amulet will no longer be available for use.
• The cost for Viper’s Amulet will be eliminated. Anyone who had purchased this amulet prior to May 17 will be refunded the full purchase price via in-game mail.

On a related note, the balance team has been keeping an eye on how things have settled after the April 19 release, and you can expect some adjustments to some outlier skills with the launch of PvP League Season 3. More news on that front next week.

i demand a replacement amulet for the short demise of mercenary amulet.

no, making viper free will not cut it.

And I demand a free pizza!

…and maybe a Pepsi to go with it.

lighter.2708:

ok guys, imo the removal of this amulet is not to balance classes, but this amulet is the amulet that kept other amulets from being used, no matter how you balance a game, condition builds will always take mercenary over every other amulets, it simply has the advantage over others and it is simply too good of an amulet. if it makes any sense.

^ Best reply in the thread.

I think this was a solid change. Mercenary’s was too good compared to other condi alternatives and this also helps tone down mesmer a bit.

Now if we could get maybe another small shave to revs and buffs to guard, I think we’d have one of the most balanced metas in quite a long time.

Dristig.9678:

Spartacus.3192:

Yes but Merc amulet was great for my double melee Sword/Torch Mace/Shield Condi War.

Now it will have to be LB Mace/Shield to keep some distance when needed.

But i will probably test out Power War with Demolisher amulet and GS Axe/Shield especially now Mesmers and Necros will not have Merc Amulet anymore they will have to give up DPS or be squishier.

This change makes me so sad. I was playing my warrior again for the first time in months. I loved that double melee build seemed risky but balanced.

Play around with a demolisher axe build. It’s really not that far off from condi.

Thiefz.3695:

So this will take mesmers out of meta.

Funny. That’s what people said when quickness rezzing/stomping and alacrity got nerfed.

But then magically, mesmers were still top tier the next season.

Good mesmers will still do fine.

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Zelulose.8695:

Zodryn.4216:

Zelulose.8695:

Snowywonders.1378:

Build is not that strong though, DH’s or decent Scrappers with retal can easily beat you on point.

This falls closely in line with how strong I see the build. Kind of an easy rank up build.

Zelulose.8695:

Please Nerf it.

Umm…what?

Umm that is why I said closely inline. I was vague for a reason. You really must like your thief to directly attack me out of context like this. A change to perma evade or bandits defense shouldn’t bother thief too much anyway assuming they use mechanical skill.

You pretty much said it is only good for ranking up easily, implying it is only good at lower level play. Then you want it nerfed. That is why you make 0 sense. You want something that is only viable vs bads nerfed because you happen to not like it.

Believe it or not, but builds don’t only need to be nerfed if they’re powerful at top levels of PvP. If there’s a build that steamrolls new/inexperienced players without requiring any effort, that’s also bad for the game. It’s the same reason turret engis needed to be nerfed. Even if it can be countered at high levels of play, you discourage players from even trying to PvP when they see other players getting rewarded for faceroll behavior.

Shinjiko.1352:

This, 1000x this. I saved up gold to finally get the finisher I wanted. Due to my playstyle I use the finishing blow more than an actual stomp. It would be nice to see my finisher appear for it. The engie function gyro has this so please, please make it happen.

This also makes me wonder, does the DD elite count as a stomp for bloodlust in wvw? Since it doesn’t use the players finisher.

What finisher did you spend gold on? A conversion of gold to gems for something in the store?

Lygon.4896:

Valik Shin.9027:

ps war, rev, crono and druid are in 99% of comps for every raid boss (usally only 1 of each). Ele or thief are in most comps. Other than gorsaval, ele and thief are almost dead even in dps but thief gets the edge in VG for its far greater survivability. necro and engi both fill the condi role well it just depends on which utility you need. necro has the edge as they are easier to play and more useful in more fights. DH is ok but situational. their dps trails off in movment fight and most of what they bring can be got from other classes. that being said they are still a solid option for most comps

who wins out in Gorsaval between ele and thief?

Thanks for the reply

Ele. They do massive dps against big hit boxes and are great for clearing orbs.

Yea, I think Sindrener has shown off the value of thief with a lot of the plays he’s pulled off lately, even if he’s still on a team that’s not doing so hot right now.

@ OP: Yea, Burnzerkers were nerfed hard, but keep the gear set since you never know if it will get buffed again. There is a condi PS war build, but it’s far from ideal and is really a niche build for a group that either A) desperately needs condi or already has a good amount of might and is looking to squeeze a bit more DPS from the war.

Realistically, a standard PS war is better in most cases since it generates more might, which is pretty much the point of that role.

Glass ele is also very much in demand, so if you have he gear, that may be your best bet.

Hornet.6357:

Alot of questions… There is no “team meta” as encounters have different optimal teams. Burnzerkers were nerfed HARD, I think their DPS is lower then most other condi classes. There is a Might stacking Burnzerker build, but dunno how optimal it is.

Generally speaking

Tempests are always in demand, since DPS matters. Rev ,Thief, and Engineer seem to be shunned currently. Rev can be made irrelevant with 100% boon duration chrono builds, Why take a thief when an ele does more damage and has better utility? Engineer’s slick shoes nerf basically made it lose raid viability… Having a 2nd condi necros to bounce condi’s with epidemic is far better. DH is situationally taken, but isn’t a must have.

Glass ele is meta, if you can’t handle the heat get out of the pan. If your lucky you’ll find videos from DEKeyz2Chaos about a raid encounter (ele main). https://www.youtube.com/user/DEKeyz2Chaos/videos?sort=dd&view=0&shelf_id=1

Disagreed with regards to thief. The theoretical DPS is very slightly behind ele and in involved fights, it’s easier to keep up an optimal rotation on a thief, so it’s likely you won’t see a difference in actual DPS much at all between the two specs for many fights (except, of course, big hit box bosses).

As for utility, you get a lot more break bar contribution from thief and it survives damage a lot easier.

Considering that even top tier guilds still wipe on boss attempts, it’s not really realistic to look at building out raid comps with the same mentality of building out a dungeon speed run group. You do want to maximize DPS, but that’s not the only consideration.

As a thief main, I do agree that this condi build is pretty kitten cheesy.

Part of me is happy to see a viable condi thief build finally in GW2, but I’d rather see it nerfed out of usefulness than to have it continue in the current state.

Death Blosssom really needs to have a higher ini cost and then to be offset with either cleave damage or a better evade frame to make it worth using, but not worth spamming.

Also, venoms still overall need a good bit of balancing to address the following issues:

• No stun breaks on venoms
• Venom damage is still balanced around 5 target venomous aura. Reduce the number of targets for this trait and up the damage.
• Venoms need to be able to cleave to some degree (except for Basilisk and Skelk, of course)
• Skelk Venom’s cast time needs to be reduced.

If you’re not pitching in to keep the game running and new content funded, why should we care about what is ‘fair’ for you?

I’ve dabbled in enough free MMOs to understand why HoT came with a price tag and compared to the competition, I still think this game is a bargain.

The weaponset is just too 1-dimensional for PvP. This is why it’s always either been a cheesy overpowered set or useless.

The reason it’s currently in the latter of those two options was because the initiative cost of pistol whip was increased along with the HoT power creep that it hasn’t been able to keep up with.

The movement lock does make this skill a bit clunky, but it’s a skill that packs in so many high reward aspects (evade + stun + burst + cleave), it needs to have drawbacks like this to keep it in check.

And fixing this weapon is a nightmare of cans of worms that you open any time you change anything. It’s so hard to change any dual wielding set without breaking another.

Great vid. I’ll probably start linking this over the Coloxus vid from 2013 I’ve been using to show newer players useful thief combos.

However, if you’re open to some friendly criticism, here’s what I would suggest, should you ever choose to do other similar videos:

• Consider making a separate video for sPvP video if you want to keep a short video duration while maximizing usefulness. Some of the combos here are great, but are not really useful in sPvP (at least with the current meta).

• A lot of stomp/revive combos were missing here, but considering the number of those, this could make it’s own video. I would say that Shadowstep stomping, however, is important enough to include even in a video such as this.

Anyways, great job and thanks for sharing this.

S/D used to be strong in a previous meta from a year or so ago (don’t remember exactly when) because it could allow a thief to evade enough to act as a brawler, so they were basically a hyper-mobile team fighter.

If it takes you 3 minutes to win a 1 v 1 a mesmer, you’re not a counter in any meaningful way for high level conquest.

If you run into a decent warrior, don’t blow all your traps at once. Stagger them until you see the war pop resistance, then hold off on using them until that boon is gone.

Also, avoid burst skills as much as possible. Save your dodges for these. Landing burst skills gives warriors a big stacking heal over time.

phokus.8934:

Dahkeus.8243:

phokus.8934:

You can get to legendary on any build for any class. It only reinforces that the pip and matchmaking system is so inherently flawed.

That reply is so full of holes, I don’t even know where to start, lol. If you can show some inkling of having some basis in reason beyond this crudely stitching of convenient correlations, then maybe there’s a reason to take you serious, but until then…lol.

I take it you never frequent the pvp subforum then. And the same could be said about what you wrote in relation to him getting to legendary.

Grinding out pips is nothing more than a grind. It literally takes zero skill to get to legendary if you play enough games.

Let that sink in, wrap your head around that, and come to the realization that the pvp leveling/ranking system is more flawed than your response.

You didn’t even watch the vid, did you?

phokus.8934:

You can get to legendary on any build for any class. It only reinforces that the pip and matchmaking system is so inherently flawed.

That reply is so full of holes, I don’t even know where to start, lol. If you can show some inkling of having some basis in reason beyond this crudely stitching of convenient correlations, then maybe there’s a reason to take you serious, but until then…lol.

Because they were doing something else? They were getting farmed, weren’t paying attention, or were trying to defend and failed maybe. Maybe your teammates sucked or maybe they were decent, but weren’t playing builds/roles that were as strong as what the enemy was running.

It’s all baseless speculation without actually seeing the game, so don’t expect to get any solid answers here.

phokus.8934:

He’s a pver so who really cares what he says about SoH?

To put this into context
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPDxFxrlbEs

He’s definitely not a hardcore PvPer, but it doesn’t really make sense to lump him in as a “PvEr” either.

And what he does lack in PvP experience only really reinforces how relevant his opinion is on why this needed to be nerfed since he easily hit legendary last season solo Qing as a chrono. Feel free to check out his vid from mid-April where he talked about how OP the build he used was and how easy it made hitting legendary:

Posting an update:

I actually ended up going with Insp/Illu/Chrono after reading the guide linked below. I’m also going to be swapping out my sigil of concentration for exotic trinkets with platinum doubloons for reasons explained in this guide.

Big thanks to Nilkemorya for this guide and congrats to their 5-person VG kill with 1+ min left on timer.

http://etherealguardians.com/forum/m/32210430/viewthread/26544814-chronomancer-in-salvation-pass

If you have Daredevil, then you can easily just use the meta staff DPS build and swap Bound for Dash. That will give you 100% swiftness and short bow will also bump up your mobility. Pop in Shadow Step for even more mobility if you like.

Meanwhile, you’ll get plenty of burst and dps from using staff skills.

For map completion, you don’t really need to be too picky with your build as most everything will steamroll open world content anyways. HoT gets a little messier, but bringing a stun break or two is all you need. However, adding mobility will allow you to clear everything better and traiting Dash and bringing short bow will cover most of that for you.

I think more than anything, we just need a straight answer from the devs on whether they still intend elite specs to be a viable alternative to core builds rather than a straight upgrade.

Before HoT was released, we were told that elite specs wouldn’t be totally superior, but everything since release has shown this to be the case, aside from a very small number of exceptions (Condi engi in PvE and D/D thief in PvE since the last patch).

As it is now, we’re getting really mixed signals. Some of the balance changes from the Spring Update cited buffs to core trait lines to make non-elite builds more viable, but changes like this seem to be aimed at balancing around the elite spec, even at the cost of the core profession.

If elites are supposed to just be better than core builds, just say it. Tell us that you need to make HoT an upgrade to sell copies and stay profitable. If this isn’t the case and the devs still don’t want HoT to be a necessity for competitive PvP, then we need to see some major actions to back up those words.

Because right now, this lack of direction is causing nothing but trouble in the community.

Agreed. I think ANet is getting better at making frequent changes that move the needle in the right direction without swinging it back and forth every patch.

The only downside is that there will always be…certain individuals…who think their class is being picked on because they count the number of nerfs instead of the degree to which they’ve been nerfed and with the shaving approach, you’re more likely to see a class nerfed several times slightly until the right power dynamic is reached.