Guild Wars 2

SeranusGaming.7362:

Exciton.8942:

Solo roam is hard in WvW.

You need to have confidence to take on 1v2 against average players and the ability to escape larger groups.

It is much easier for you to play with a group first either roaming or zerging.

I used to be able to 2v1 back on my old D/D Ele after beta was released but on my Necro, it’s so much trickier.

Yeah, some profession can do it relatively easier.

Current equivalence to old DD ele is druid.

Supreme.3164:

Without any bias after maining : ranger-ele-guardian-warrior-engineer

For easiest time in soloq at different skill levels of the teams you get, from easiest to hardest…after a certain period of practice

1) Dragon Hunter : no major weaknesses , got an answer to everything in a single build ( sword/focus + mace/shield ), can be outplayed only..no direct counter present in game…they even removed the projectile status from sword etc

2) Thief : only a thief can catch another thief determined to flee, remove condis on dodge, easy stunbreaker, absurd mobility as a thief can cross whole map in less than 30s (measured ), spammable CC with headshot+pulmonary impact, can choose his fights so..no direct counters as long as you play smart…and more than anything : highest single target dmg in game

3) Mesmer : Condi chronomancers with Iwin elites such as well of gravity and moa that can be double casted, can shatter without any care in the world regarding the enemy position because..your clones have auto-aim with speed ( Ikr?!); you can easily stack confusion/torment quickly turning fights in your favour…also mesmers have portal that easily turn the tides of the game in your team favour. Generally you suffer against a well played dh and thief ( lol yeah the two better easy carry option Ikr ?! ) ..otherwise you lose only if outplayed

4) Scrapper : “The Super tank” as the name implies..this spec can tank the kitten out of everything and can stall virtually any class…save a well played reaper ( Ikr? such joke xd) , CC spam + aoe reflect for the team, aoe stealth with elixir + 2x invulnerability, super speed, protection.etc tc etc etc…yah typical “all in one package” offer for anet new customers

5) Druid : Most obnoxious build in GW2 with their staff healer build, their dmg depends entirely on pets and be easily negated, easy class to dispacth with power burst at right time or even condi burst while they’re in cele form. Overall you won’t carry bad players with it but you will be a great addiction to semi-skilled team..otherwise you’re a free kill…just not as much as the ones much below in this list

6) Warrior : A generally speaking “tough customer” , it shines under heavy support where it becomes impossible to down thx to 2x endure pain, perma stability, absurd sustain burst and ridiculous dmg, they have mobility, perma resistance…and their condi spike is the second highest in the game ( second to chrono condi burst ). They bring less utility than engineer, only reason they’re not used in esl but overall this class/spec is even a better “all in one package” offer from anet for new customers

7) Revenant : Here you really test your skills, there is plenty of counterplay to this class, extremely weak to condis…really extreme weakness, predictable burst, no stealth and heavily relies on team support…I do not recommend this class….

8) Ele-Necro : ……………lol………they both share the same spot, team based professions, if your team is any decent ( aka they won’t try face tank dmg 24/7, they will peel for you..the sort of things you see once in a blue moon)..then I suggest both professions, but as decent teams in soloq are as rare as flying pigs…I would recommend against any usage of these 2 classes

If you OP are planning to reach the highest positions during season 5..I suggest you to master 1 to 3, then spend some time with 4-5 for the wild card moment….don’t bother with the rest, there will be always the tryhards who need to prove to the world how kitten there are..by playing against all odds, claiming the goddess of luck is in their favour( sometimes out of pity..she will actually answer to them)

P.S ( I’d keep a warrior around for the “you never know” moments, ofc just play condi build that is easy af to learn)

I agree with mesmer and thief being strong carry if played well.

Revenant is on top as well but not sure about after patch.

DH is not as strong. They happen to be strong against mesmer and thief but not at all against other professions. Also suffer from slow mobility.

I do not agree on ele and necro being bad. They are so strong in team fight that a well-played ele and necro can make sure their team win every teamfight. Also, ele has really strong self survivability on top of that.

In the end, all professions can carry. I don’t find any of them particularly bad. But high mobility class usually has a bit more when coming down to solo queue.

Solo roam is hard in WvW.

You need to have confidence to take on 1v2 against average players and the ability to escape larger groups.

It is much easier for you to play with a group first either roaming or zerging.

Joxer.6024:

kdaddy.5431:

So i just like to give a update,

I did a full wing 1 today VG/GOR?SAB and the comps went as.

VG= 2 necros, 2 mesmers, 2 ps warriors, 1 DH, 1 druid, 1 vanilla ranger, 1 ele

For gors we made some switches, Mostly same group 2 left

Gors= 1 dh, 1 rev, 2 ps warriors, 2 druids, 3 eles, 1 vanilla ranger

Sab= 1 dh, 1 rev, 2 ps warriors, 2 druids, 3 eles, 1 vanilla ranger

Not an Engi in sight…..I cry and die inside.

Yeah, engi is probably the least desired class currently in raid.

The meta condition build has good dps but simply has nothing special to bring on the table. All other classes have some special tricks of their own.

If every build is equal in 1v1, then the build with the best mobility will dominate.

Stronger 1v1 builds need to have drawbacks in either teamfight or mobility. While teamfighters and mobile builds need to give up some 1v1 potential. This is the only way to balance.

You can take confounding suggestions which turn your daze into stun make the duration longer.

This will make your sword 4 and F3 do more breakbar damage.

A roaming squad?
Sounds like another cancer playstyle.

Really?
All I am seeing are 3 or 4 man premade tongiht.

Maybe it is because I was solo queueing so they filled me to those gaps in between the premades.

OriOri.8724:

Exciton.8942:

Daishi.6027:

The bit of sustain current condi chrono has is still nothing in comparison to builds that don’t have to worry about on point pressure.

This also harms power shatter’s builds even more, while thief gets buffs.

Sounds fair….

Nerfing the sustain is fine as our job is not to sustain on point for ever. We rely on portal to find the weakness of enemy team’s rotation and strike there.

What will truly hurt us is what some other ppl suggesting there —- nerfing our damage. Without enough damage, the build will be utterly useless.

Nerfing our sustain hurts both power and condi builds, when only condi builds were overperforming in PvP. Therefore nerfing sustain was not in any conceivable sense the right thing to do. Since condi build was overperforming, condi needed to be nerfed, not both condi and power builds.

And truthfully we had/still have too much condi pressure for how easy condi chrono is to play. Lots of things need changing, yes, but nerfing condi damage would have been a better change than nerfing our sustain further.

And furthermore our “role” is not set in stone, its fluid and can/does change as skills and traits are modified. Players arbitrarily decided what mesmers “role” is in PvP, and ANet may disagree with that. If they change the class to fit more with what they want it to be its in their right, and doesn’t automatically make it bad changes.

To be honest, I enjoy playing the meta condition chronomancer build. And I think it is still balanced in current meta. Reaper, druid, scrapper or tempest are still more mandatory than mesmer. But we do have the best carry potential together with pre-nerf revenant.

Compared to pre-HoT, this mesmer build is so much more versatile while pre HoT power mesmer relies much more on a competent thief teammate which is super rare.

The build also has a relatively high skill ceiling. Your ability to 1v1 enemy condition mesmers matters so much. If you are better, you will win 99 out of 100 times. This is unlike some other sustain bruisers.

Daishi.6027:

The bit of sustain current condi chrono has is still nothing in comparison to builds that don’t have to worry about on point pressure.

This also harms power shatter’s builds even more, while thief gets buffs.

Sounds fair….

Nerfing the sustain is fine as our job is not to sustain on point for ever. We rely on portal to find the weakness of enemy team’s rotation and strike there.

What will truly hurt us is what some other ppl suggesting there —- nerfing our damage. Without enough damage, the build will be utterly useless.

Archon.6480:

Some other classes might be able to focus more on damage with nerf to Rev. Coming from a Druid main, I always put extra defense on when I see a rev or two on other team. It’s that or be a rally bot.

When there is no rev I can safely drop signet of stone and replace it with something more damage oriented. I can also swap out offhand dagger. So, yeah, you might see some of the bunkers changing to deal more damage…

Dropping SoS won’t make you a damage dealer. At most, you can have a bit more utility.

Unless you are willing to drop nature magic and go marksmanship, there is no way you do enough damage to threat a bunker.

Emdrix.6124:

Exciton.8942:

Emdrix.6124:

I would have a kitten aswell because 3 thieves= loss 99% off the time.

That is the mindset where problems come from.

You can quit as you like in a casual environment.

But when we talk about competitive PvP, players should always try their best even if odds work against them. That is the basic morality of competition. In sports, a lot of games have a clear weaker side but is it fine for them to just give up? No it isn’t.

Why would anyone play at a disadvantage. Its like saying try your best in a 4v5 its pointless. Nobody should be forced to play with 3 thieves. Id pick 3 Dhs on my team anyday though

Because it is competition. The moment you enter the competition, you should try your best. This is not only respecting your teammates but also respecting yourself as a player who tries to compete.

You can do whatever you like in non-competitive environment.

Emdrix.6124:

I would have a kitten aswell because 3 thieves= loss 99% off the time.

That is the mindset where problems come from.

You can quit as you like in a casual environment.

But when we talk about competitive PvP, players should always try their best even if odds work against them. That is the basic morality of competition. In sports, a lot of games have a clear weaker side but is it fine for them to just give up? No it isn’t.

With new competitive system coming into play, there needs to be some support on fighting against game throwing players.

I feel ultimately they will nerf illusionary reversion or chronophantasm.
This is the only way to bring down our condition build to be on par with our power build.

But I hope that happens together with heavy nerfs to other classes. Or chronomaner will simply be unviable anymore.

Thank you for the calculation.
I was wrong as I was thinking sage has 1050 healing power back in my mind. It actually only has 560.

Pomdepin.7068:

I only have one (major) problem with conditions : they are spike damage.

Which shouldn’t be. If they really want them to be spike damage, make them need 3 stats to be viable like power. But really, they should be dots or “tactical” (confusion damage on skill use, torment on movement).

Very few condition loading skills are doing spike damage to you.

The only spike is from either high stacks of burning or high stacks of confusion on skill usage.

10 stacks of bleeding will only do like 2-3k damage in 2-3 seconds. That is far from a spike damage. Torment is similar as long as you keep your movement to minimal.

I think sage amulet can make it even or slightly better healing compared to before nerf.

Hirasaki.6208:

Just read the Rev changes. As a Hammer Rev (don’t care about Staff) I welcome the changes. Mallyx Pain absorption now has a stun break is great! Will it make it worth switching over Shiro, we shall see.

As for all the staff rev’s, all I gotta say, join the Hammer Train.

Sadly, hammer revenant is not worth it at all. You are better off with a longbow dragonhunter.

Oneira.7691:

How depressing. I just returned to the game and just finished leveling a Revenant to 80 and now they get nerfed. Guess I should have been reading the forums.

Any suggestions on a alternative class for doing PvE, Fractals, and WvW in that order of priority?

The nerfs were all PvP related.

You are still as strong everywhere else. Definitely strong in fractals and WvW.

It is currently not optimal meta in PvE raid but it is still a worthy member to take because it brings in a variety of utility to the group. Strong CC, boon duration, easy access to fury, protection and swiftness, competitive dps.

sephiroth.4217:

Is Rev the only class that’s supposed to be able to kill bunkers is it?

I did not know this.

Revenant is currently the best bunker killer with its burst damage and mobility.
Necro is the second best.

Normally team takes both revenant and necro because no one is able to sustain damage from these two classes.

With revenant damage being massively nerfed. There needs someone to fill in the power damage role which is a bit hard to find. Staff thief might be a decent choice.

Without a legit power damage spec, you opposition can easily build for max condition removal and sustain forever.

For open world, ranger/druid is the easiest.
It has a variety of weapons at your disposal. Very good mobility and a pet that helps you do damage and soak up damage.

Kastiel.1947:

Surge of the mists has been nerfed 3 times !!! And each time it’s by an atrocious number .. man you guys know how to ruin the mood

0.85*0.85*0.5 = 0.36125.

Rev staff 5 will only do 36% of the damage it could when expansion first came out.

With this massive nerf to power revenant, I think it is good time to learn to play warrior again.

First of all, you can run your PvP build in open world PvE or low-level dungeons. But please don’t expect it to work in high-level fractals or raids.

In PvE raid, there is a dedicated condition mesmer build(http://qtfy.enjin.com/mesmer). It works well on certain bosses.

For PvP, condition mesmer is part of the meta and strong in both coordinated team play and solo play(http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Chronomancer_-_Chronophantasma_Shatter) . Portal and moa are really unique and powerful skills in PvP. They make mesmers stand out.

Good changes in general.

Not sure if the nerfs to revenant is a bit too harsh. Without revenant’s firepower, it gets really hard to kill all those nasty bunkers in the game.

Still wishing for some more buffs to the large amount of unused skills/traits.

Tuturyy.1238:

’evening

Thanks for all your answers,
So, taking everything you said into account, I’m going to focus on boon duration, and try to have good DPS. Afterwards, I may think about toughness ^^
I’ve checked, I can go up to 1036 toughness with a full zerk stuff, which enables me to tank, as long as wars do not rez. I might choose some knight jewels -not all of them though-, but I will decide when I’m gearing my mesmer.

Again, thank you so much, and bye !

Before you go, keep mind there is meta mesmer build out there you can at least use as reference.
http://qtfy.enjin.com/mesmer

Remember there is a gear type called commander that gives you power precision toughness and boon duration. This is probably the gear type you will like.

Yannir.4132:

Exciton.8942:

fluidmonolith.3584:

If I recall, Crusader amulet used to be in the game but was removed.

Yes, the amulet was removed a few patches ago.
They don’t want amulet with high defensive stat+healing power.

What patch was that? Summer balance? I want to check this since I don’t remember ever having this amulet.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Crusader_Amulet

On wiki, it was stated as removed in Feb this year. I think it was right before season 2 started when they mass removed bunker amulets. This was in the second wave and it was removed together with vigilant amulet, i think.

I played a remorseless ranger with this amulet for a long time.

I would say the willingness to change your build or class is part of your skill.

If you want to win and are not confident in winning with your main in certain team composition, then it is time to switch up.

Also, don’t forget you always have the option to duo queue. You can queue with one dps and one support class and with that you should be able to reach the rank where your skill level belongs to.

Stop finding excuses before season even started and focus on improving yourself if you want a high rank.

The game mode can be fun but it is too complicated for the general audience.

Communication and cooperation is a must on this map. Everyone needs to understand the plan and work together. On conquest, individual can have way more impact through pure personal skill with minimal communication.

Lobstertail.1075:

Exciton.8942:

You can always play with a team in unranked.

The sacrifice you make here is that you can’t COMPETE as a team. Unfortunately the game currently doesn’t have enough teams to have a competitive team queue. So to help the better future of the game, you have to make sacrifice here. If we can have a successful solo/duo competitive game mode, I am sure there will be more chance to create a team queue in the future.

Says who? You? What is enough? What is the problem? I keep hearing this over and over again but noone will tell me how many is needed. And it’s just based on speculation. A full premade only queue has never been tried has it? How do you know noone would do it? It’s pure speculation.

I think they stated several times that majority plays solo/duo and the old team queue was removed because of lack of players.

You need to understand that there has be priority for development power. Ideally, they should develop another queue and ranking board for team. But the structure will definitely be different and separate from the solo queue. It takes time to build that. Many players don’t want to wait for another couple of months for a team queue.

fluidmonolith.3584:

If I recall, Crusader amulet used to be in the game but was removed.

Yes, the amulet was removed a few patches ago.
They don’t want amulet with high defensive stat+healing power.

You can always play with a team in unranked.

The sacrifice you make here is that you can’t COMPETE as a team. Unfortunately the game currently doesn’t have enough teams to have a competitive team queue. So to help the better future of the game, you have to make sacrifice here. If we can have a successful solo/duo competitive game mode, I am sure there will be more chance to create a team queue in the future.

If you want to raid, the No.1 goal is to get close to 100% boon duration. Other things don’t really matter.

And for PvE, being ‘invincible’ is all about knowing the encounters and having good group synergy. You don’t need super high toughness. If you make bad mistakes, no toughness can save you or your group.

Lexander.4579:

i see some people have already started to work on excuses why they wont get the rank they think they deserve

Haha, it is always like this in any competitive PvP games.

I think it is clear enough.

Matchmaking makes you play with and against players of the most similar MMR. If you win, you gain MMR. If you lose, you lose MMR.

Your league placement and ranking is completely dependent on your MMR.

This is basically how things work in pretty much any competitive PvP game out there.

fishball.7204:

Any plans to address alts hoarding the top 250 preventing other people getting in?

For example, remember season 1 was team PZ dominating the guild leaderboards, what’s to stop them doing the same for the top 250 spots now?

I know there’s a decay system but for real PvP players it’s not a big deal, just 1 game / account per day is pretty easy.

Hopefully these guys have a better sense being one of the leading NA competitive PvP community. They have the responsibility of not gaming the system if they want to folster the scene to grow.

There is really no need for them to alt anymore with the new system.

sephiroth.4217:

You can farm for ages for a Guild Hall, my small man guild is still at level 9 after a year although people got sick of farming PvE to do PvP things and left the game.

You could do PvP arenas even though build diversity is lacking or maybe you can do it in WvW if you want to pay gems to move away from your friends to be on the opposite servers for a quick duel….

I don’t think it is very hard to get guild hall arena unlocked.

It took me and two other friends about a month’s time to get our guild hall arena.

Carighan.6758:

For me it is:

• E,S,D,F – Movement
• 1,2,3,4,5 – Weapon skills
• F1,F2,F3,F4 – normal shatters
• Middle mouse button – Split
• ` – elite skill
• Q – healing
• W, R, T – utilities
• A – weapon swap
• G – interact
• Shift – dodge

Wow, found another weirdo like me who also uses ESDF for movement.

For me:

ESDF = movement
1-5 = weapons skills, have 1-5 on my naga mouse
Mid mouse button = interact
A = dodge
QWRTY = 5 shatters
G = heal
CVB = utility skills
X = elite skill
Z = weapon swap
Shift = about face

I would say stick to revs for the most part. It is still the best offensive carry in the game if you play well. It has two 1v1 weaknesses, vs mesmer and vs thief. But that shouldn’t be the excuse. Every profession has some bad matchups anyway.

If you have time, you can certainly practice another class in those rare cases where your team composition just can’t compete with you playing revenant.

Sins.4782:

Do any of you honestly expect the current ‘balance’ team to make any positive changes anyway? Until they get someone who actually understands and cares about the game in charge of balance it’s not going to be getting any better.

Yes.
Almost every patch, they are making the game for the better.
The only complain I have is it is too infrequent.

KrHome.1920:

Exciton.8942:

The new build on metabattle works really well for me
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Reaper_-_Procmancer

This one feels so much more solo friendly compared to previous meta builds.

Only in low level PvP. You will lose every 1v1 (which happen frequently in solo Q) against an opponent who knows how to dodge or block your 10 second cooldown proc burst. Between these bursts you are extremely vulnerable and super easy kiteable in shroud as it drains fast. It is a pure team fighting build.

It has easy-to-use and frequent AOE boon corruption and very good sustain as well.

This build has the lowest possible sustain necro can offer. Not one single defensive traitline.

If you think this build has good sustain you never fought competent opponents.

In a realistic situation, you don’t have high-level pvp these days. And it doesn’t matter for 99.99999% of the player base.

Currently, ranked queue is ridiculously long. In unranked queue, you get ESL players and total noobs at the same time.

This build works pretty well in all situations you will possibly see these days.
(at least this is case in NA, maybe EU is different as there are more high-levle players).

Gone were days when meta S/D thief can teleport 2000+ distance through shadowstep+steal+sword2 on top of you.

The new build on metabattle works really well for me
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Reaper_-_Procmancer

This one feels so much more solo friendly compared to previous meta builds. It has easy-to-use and frequent AOE boon corruption and very good sustain as well.

I think tempest trait line needs a bit rework. Off-hand dagger needs slight buff.

Off-hand dagger mostly needs some CD reduction. Reduce frost aura, RTL, earthquake CD to 30 sec. I don’t know if RTL should receive evade frame. It might be too much with 12 sec CD if traited and also hit the oponent.

For tempest GM trait, everyone is picking elemental bastion. The other two traits feel kinda meh.

Lucid Singularity can be changed to some new condition cleanse trait so you cleanse conditions every second when you are overloading.

I also don’t like 40% protection being baseline for tempest. It means as long as you pick tempest, you will need to pick either earth or arcana for the protection boon. The 40% protection boon trait can be integrated into a new GM trait together with the passive Sand Squall.

To compensate the defense loss, let tempest gain 10% damage mitigation during and after overload for a short time. This can be either a major master trait or minor master/GM trait. There are quite a few overloading related trait, just combine and rearrange them to the right place.

Seyiwaji.4082:

Elementalist, is the worst kitten ever.
You can try to be damage dealer zerk, you won’t survive.
If you try to mix damage and survival, you will be useless.
With so much condi cleanse in game, their condi dmg is ridiculously low.

In the same basket as necro; They are free kill.

They have nothing, they are nothing but meaningless

Such lol.
TCG won the recent world championship by using a tempest and a reaper as their core.

ThomasC.1056:

Exciton.8942:

I don’t understand where this condition meta is.
The only meta condition damage dealer is reaper and that is it.
All other profession meta are power. So your criteria is that not even one profession is allowed to play condition as an optimal build?

Even in PvP, you have about 50-50 split on condition and power. How does that make condition overpowered?

I’m not talking about PvP, as stats are given from another mechanic. I was mostly sharing thoughts about the so-called condi meta that some people here are complaining about.

I mostly play condi, and I enjoy it. Matter of taste. My wish is everyone should be able to play the fashion he likes, and enjoy it too.

We already have plenty of competitive power builds if ppl don’t like to play condition.

The only problem those players have is that they want to be able to beat condition builds by taking minimal condition removal.

But srsly, if condition builds even lose to build with very little condition removal, what is the point any more?

I don’t understand where this condition meta is.
The only meta condition damage dealer is reaper and that is it.
All other profession meta are power. So your criteria is that not even one profession is allowed to play condition as an optimal build?

Even in PvP, you have about 50-50 split on condition and power. How does that make condition overpowered?

skcamow.3527:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Power Mesmers strength (or the return thereof) lies in the games overall mechanics. Adding more damage to Power Mesmer is a stupid way of bringing it “up”. Rather a reduction in stability access, aoe spam, condi spam, and other power creep problems related to the HoT debaucle are what’s needed.

This problem will never be resolved and instead will become exasperated with the release of subsequent expansions and Elite specs down the line.

This game suicided. Have a great day! (playing better games XD )

This sums it up well … FWIW, Anet has publicly acknowledged (on a twitch stream) the power creep HoT introduced and said there is “a lot to work through”. They know about it, hopefully the semi-infrequent balance updates coming will continue to address it.

They are tuning down the overpowered stuff and tuning up underused stuff at the same time.

GS2 already was given back the extra bounce. GS1 also got a bit of QoL improvement that reduces aftercast.

Ecto maybe?
Since AB multiloot will ultimately get nerfed, you would expect ecto price to slowly rise back. You probably won’t earn a lot but it should be safe investment.