Guild Wars 2

I don’t know how anet can fix the game when the problem isn’t the mmr or the queues or even bad players on the team. The real problem lies in the fact that you cannot carry your team to a win no matter how good you are and that’s simply because of the mechanics of the game. The game was like that from the start. No amount of mmr system is going to change that and its impossible to factor in a players true skill with matches because its subjective.

This results in frustration from players who feel they should of won the game if their team mates performed better. This also results in people on losing streaks (sadly if you go on a 10+ losing streak its most likely you are not being beneficial enough to the team to win matches). No algorithm Anet creates will ever fix this problem and people need to get passed this MMR sucks fiasco because its not MMR making the game bad.

I don’t agree with a new condition and boon just for 1 elite specialization

Probably not because anet won’t balance around the new game mode. Stronghold is such a flop its not even funny. Just a bunch of minion mancer and aoe spam.

My main has been an ele for 3 years. It was more fun back in the day because the difference between bad ones and good ones was like night and day. Now eles are still fun, but can get old if all you do is pvp with the meta build. Ele is good in all game modes so its safe to try, though not the typical mage class you are used to in other games.

I also enjoy playing ranger. I don’t know why I do, but it just feels rewarding to play one. IT might have something to do with them managing their skills more so than other classes which is similar to how ele plays.

Classes I don’t enjoy are warrior and mesmer. Warrior seems too simple and straightforward. Its easy to be okay at it, harder to become good at it.

Mesmer I never really enjoyed. I think the passiveness of it (other than dps shatter builds) is very boring.

I don’t see how these changes will bring build diversity and some of them seem way over the top.

As far as pvp goes, the only builds with potential are a condi or fresh air elementalist. The main problem with the condi builds is lack of stats needed to be optimal (we won’t get those stats either) plus mediocre fire traits.

The problem with fresh/air scepter is it lacks the sustain other dps classes have and does not do enough damage vs bunkers because of low auto attack damage.

The first build can be helped by reworking the fire line for better survival in fights. (Like a trait that removes conditions as long as you stand in a fire field.)

the second option can be fixed by reducing the cooldown of arcane shield and changing its functionality to block for 3 seconds regardless of hits but condi damage can go through it (this might be considered too strong in wvw). They could also do something like reduce incoming damage by 100% for 4 seconds instead. As far the damage issue, they can do something like change Elemental Surge so that arcane skills now remove 2 boons on hit.

IT makes sense and makes the less used shouts more valuable

Wolfric.9380:

Shiyo.3578:

Condi’s should be weaker than power builds in PVP because they require almost zero thought or brain power to deal damage with them.

While power builds have to time their damage between blocks, invuls, dodges, and what have you, condition builds can just press their buttons whenever they want and eventually randomly kill you.

Oh, also, the worst thing of all is that conditions burst almost as hard as power builds. That’s not ok.

Most teams I fight in ranked have 2-3 condi players on them, sometimes 4.

Please bring conditions back in line, anet.

While i agree some condi “Bursts” are not good, 2-3 condi classes would mean the game is balaced between condi/power. And in reality we see about 1/3 condi builds average. I know its a bad feeling that condis are out and can kill you but it dosen´t seem to be to much….
I know i die to most mesmers but this doesn´t mean i loose a match … I avoid dueling them and eiter win the teamfight or a duel against a class i can beat…
And the rising condi warriors. I had a hard time bating good power warriors. The new condi ones don´t kill me, the fight becomes a stalemate now. So not all is about meta builds and the picture is over a lot of classes …

Teams can abuse condis if they are all running it. 2 condi builds is bearable, but having burn guards, mallyx revenants, and necros on the same team is gg.

Pretty much explains specializations perfectly. Anet should watch this if they want their game to last.

Well if you look at it from a wvw perspective the healers are kind of necessary to sustain the group. IT offers a new playstyle that relies less on blasting water fields. WvW is probably why so many things are aoe-focused as well.

Celestial is a pain to make and might not be worth it if you don’t roam or play frontline tempest exclusively.

Fractals and wvw backline both use zerker. PvE uses zerker.

It could be improved alot simpler than that. Simply prioritizing the removal of damage conditions and you would already see an improvment.

Wow switching classes to save lord faster. reported for hacking.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Even though i’m facing quite a lot condition builds, dmg taken is always significantly higher than condition dmg taken after a match. Conditions underpowered?

Its more like the conditions/removal ratio is really unbalanced. You can recover from a 5k hit, not a 3k a second tick with no condition removal left.

I give this game until its next expansion before the game enters its end of life phase

Yes conditions are overpowered. I faced a team running 2 necros, venom share thief, condi rev and burn guard and my entire team wiped in seconds.

My advice to you is to move on to other games before becoming too emotionally invested. There are a ton of player suggestions to make other builds better that go relatively ignored. They clearly want you to buy the game and refuse to make core builds more viable. This game was a sinking ship the moment HoT came out.

Caedmon.6798:

Disagree entirely,it’s still a skill that’s highly telegraphed..You can actually See it coming.It is Not spammable right away because as always adren gain while on mace is Terrible unless the person is able to headbutt after the burst and insta fill it again,which normally he has done Before the burst,a swap in between will also happen..

Besides,blocks,blinds,evades,ports,stealth,taking distance while warri’s go into berserk are things you should take into consideration.

@Frowny,basically…you can say the same thing about every other skill ingame.

Are we on a nerf warri train again btw ? Nerf gunflame,nerf adren hp,nerf healsig,now nerf skullgrinder ? Guys please…warri’s were something most people could steamroll before the patch,now we’re “back in business” suddenly no one knows how to counter a warri anymore ?

Well, if most of the community is saying it needs to be toned down then yes there is a nerf train. I keep seeing the arguement that you just need to kite the warrior. I guess thats fine if you aren’t trying to defend a point. Any good warrior will just time dodge rolls anyhow. Hopefully once the bug on warrior is fixed that is enough.

I feel like if you wanted to be a support build med kit is better. Instead of Protection injection take Health Insurance. Just a thought. I don’t really play engi too often.

My only concern is the ability to dodge this attack in a huge sea of red aoe. Its kind of lame to be struck with it, cleanse all the condis then get struck with it immediately after.

In general wvw ppl play staff. It is possible to build a celestial frontline with tempest now. As far as roaming goes scepter is good with a team. The biggest thing is cheese builds that everyone runs since they dont balance around wvw roaming

I am happy that its harder to win. Maybe people in the higher tiers deserve it.

Rekt.5360:

bLind.6278:

FrownyClown.8402:

JTGuevara.9018:

Hahaha! I love it!

It goes to show, there is an anti-warrior bias from some players. They were SO getting used to warriors being a free kill, now they might actually have to -gasp- work for it a bit.

Condi warrior is easily the strongest 1v1 class at the moment. I dont usually cry for nerfs, but I pretty much rage quit last night because of them. A warrior and thief combo on far is pretty nasty.

We’re still fairly easily handled in teamfights, but we’re excellent point holders now. You should be able to outplay the vast majority of warriors, though, unless you’ve got pretty high MMR and they actually know how to cycle defensive abilities.

My biggest problems come from Guardians. It’s difficult to sustain through their initial burst/turtle when we don’t have reliable access to stability. If they catch you on the ring of one of their traps, you’re dead before you can even use EP. Ironic that our biggest counter this season is so far out of the meta.

Yo DH has always been sort of a nice counter to warr (especially double melee war) unless you run signet of might, which condi doesn’t do. Tbh I think I might start playing my full medi DH again, I don’t have any trouble fighting condi warrs on vanilla power warr but in a team fight my berserker ammy kitten goes down fast once my stances are down and I don’t have outside support, as a LB guard at least I can pressure from range if things in mid look nasty.

I don’t play warrior so I’m not sure how they work, but I think its pretty strong to dish out a ton of conditions at once on top of a 3s stun (dunno what the combo is but it gets me every time). It shuts down bunker builds which I like, but I always feel they have way more sustain and do way more damage than me.

JTGuevara.9018:

Hahaha! I love it!

It goes to show, there is an anti-warrior bias from some players. They were SO getting used to warriors being a free kill, now they might actually have to -gasp- work for it a bit.

Condi warrior is easily the strongest 1v1 class at the moment. I dont usually cry for nerfs, but I pretty much rage quit last night because of them. A warrior and thief combo on far is pretty nasty.

Pretty sure all they did was reduce the aura duration from shouts. I don’t recall them putting a cap on aura duration

Ill try those suggestions. Condi warrior is destroying me right now

Condi warrior is destroying everything at the moment.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnMqAdrg1rA2CCctgFGBjpA8tCAwN1raX95JUCSdnoESTD-TJBFQBC4KAAgHBg82fIglBAA

Hi all, this is a build I have been testing in ranked for a little while. Its a power-based trapper build. The goal of the build was to play similar to a DH.

This build offers great damage, mobility and interrupts and feels better than a DH as far as a trapper build goes.

Let me know what you think.

I wanted to play my scepter fresh air build but after a 8 game lose streak I gave up.

I just had 5 losses in a row. I won my first game though. None of the games were close.

Honestly I think its fine. Their sustain goes down over a longer period of time which I think is okay in general.

Welcome to the meta thieves.

If you are talking about the condi thief it will never be meta, just annoying.

The outgoing healing only affects allies if you didn’t already know that.

Wolfric.9380:

It´s arcane like i build before Hot. I used arcane brilliance and cleansing flame and a lifedrain rune. I normaly go hybrid and trait earth over water but my water version would look like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArdnMIC9MgdOAOOA8RghGATqABgPIdEqB/gqQeFiCA-TJBGABAcCAS4BA4dZg12fAA

Of course i assume the runes and sigils work correct.
It´s also devasting close up.
Scavanging over vampire looks strange but it adds more condi punch while rotation fire and earth. And i realy love the brilliance + scavenging rune :-).
Tempest did knock arcane out for me but lately i played a bit with arcane + tempest. Felt good but as much i like shield and brilliance they loose against classic soldiers + shouts … Wash the pain away is so strong in teamfights ….

Yeah, I wanted to create a build that didn’t use tempest. And in all honesty, air overload with fresh air is over rated. I tried a build with vampirism and the sigils. It wasn’t bad by any means, but it lacked that punch that I was looking for damage-wise.

As far as damage builds go, however, this feels like the strongest one in pvp I have played. It might not be quite at meta status right now since it loses vs too many classes 1v1, but it fills the role of a roamer very well with super speed and almost 100% swiftness uptime.

It feels on par with other dps classes for me, usually winning 50% of those fights 1v1, but is lacking vs bunker classes and all warrior builds. It might be very strong vs mesmer with the removal of merc amulet since its hard for them to time instant cast damage with their invulnerablity.

No thanks. It should always be about what an enemy can do to counter, not giving debuffs for using a skill. Think how that would affect the skills if you don’t run a bunker build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArdhMMokhdOwnB8RM0AYSFIA8BpjQR4HUFyrQUA-TJBFABCcCAEvMAAPAga2fAA

Here you go guys. This has been my most successful scepter build yet for pvp.

A couple things about the build.

I take One with Air because it is used for kiting. It is strong when you are getting focused and helps in 1v1 situations.

I take Arcane Precision because I spend most of my time in air so it has good weakness uptime.

Ether Renewal is there for conditions. Its safer to use with this kind of build because you are not in melee range and you can kite with One with Air and Blinding Flash (plus other ways) to use it relatively safely

The combined utility of One with Air, Elemental Surge, Arcane Shield, and Obsidian Flesh makes it so you can take both of the arcanes and still survive engagements.

Arcane Blast is a must have for this build because it increases your damage pressure and makes sure you have Arcane ferocity up most of the time (from elemental surge).

Please try it out and provide any input for the build.

As far as the taunt on f2 skill, I find it most successful with instant casts like bristleback and jaguar. Other cats will stay in place and then leap on the enemy, often causing them to run out of the taunt range. Birds have similar issues.

If you want a reliable taunt and decent damage take the jaguar

Well he is right. Just look at your friends list. Most of them probably having logged in weeks or even months. My entire guild only plays during our raid hours, but spend most of their time playing different games.

He stated a hard truth not just for the pro league players but for all guild wars 2 veterans. Esports ruined pvp and heart of thorns destroyed peoples desire to continue playing it. But hey, Anet made there money so congrats on making profit but losing your loyal players.

what. /15 chars

Gokil.2543:

Since this is a very hot topic, I figured I’d weigh in with my 2 cents.

D/D ele used to be strong because it was the king of controlling an engagement. Mainly soft cc and medium range were its greatest assets. Enough CC (chill/cripple/immob/stun/knockdown/knockback) to keep the enemy at bay and avoid being overwhelmed by him. Enough range to keep the pressure up against both heavy melee specs and specs that were built to kite.

It’s innately a low damage spec, but a medium-high pressure spec due to its ability to keep the damage rolling at all times, by virtue of its medium range and ability to control the engagement. (I know this sounds a little vague, but I had to edit out a lot of text to keep things concise)

Heart of thorns did 2 things mainly:
- Establish ranged damage as a cornerstone of combat, with specs like rev/druid/dh (and buffed necro scepter to some degree) being able to apply unprecedented ranged pressure
- Litter melee specs with hard immunities to counter balance the added risk of being a melee spec in this landscape

Both of these are very hard to reconcile with what D/D ele is and has always been. The point I’m trying to make is that trying to make D/D ele work in the game as it is now, would require completely turning around what the spec is, or completely turning around what the game is.

If you’re still here at this point, I’ll try to explain why this shift in meta hits D/D ele particularly hard.

- All the options D/D ele has to keep someone out of his melee range are obviously useless vs ranged pressure. The main tool of damage mitigation it employs is therefore rendered obsolete vs a very large portion of pressure. If you go through the list, pretty much every ability on the D/D set works to stop other melee-based builds from going full pve rotation on the ele. That’s its main tool of damage mitigation. Soft CC. I hope it’s starting to make a little sense.

- D/D ele being a low damage but high pressure spec falls apart when its contestants in melee range get spammed with immunities. The reason old D/D ele could get away with having low innate damage, is because it could keep very high uptime on its damage. Both by staying healthy due to high sustain, and by outranging its opponents slightly. Now think about a scrapper, which is one of the most prominent competitors for the bruiser role. It’s no longer possible to keep a decent uptime of damage since they can avoid so much of it by hard immunities (hammer 4, 3, sneak gyro, stability uptime). Rev is the most notable offender on this front, but daredevil is also very problematic for ele in particular. This ofcourse impacts every class, but D/D ele suffers especially, since it’s a low damage class by nature, meaning it can’t reach killing pressure anymore without proper uptime and control of engagement.

So in short, DD ele can’t really work in this game anymore without either changing everything the spec is about, or changing the game’s landscape.

I’d love to discuss this a little. I skimped over some stuff(DD sustain) to try to paint a clear picture, but in hindsight im not sure it worked out.

Yes, I see what you are saying, but keep in mind that d/d was nonviable in pvp for most of GW2’s life. It was really only good in pvp because it passively took enemies down from burn damage while outsustaining.

If you took everything about cele ele before the nerfs and put it into this meta it would still do a good job because people are forced to fight on point and take the bulk of the burn damage.

To me it was a lot of small things that made it unviable. What you said has merit and I can see the shift, but its really a small piece.

D/D ele will probably never be viable again for a dps/bruiser spec unless damage can be completely negated.

This won’t make d/d viable and makes going tempest required still.

Also, cleric amulet has been in the game longer than most players. Why remove an amulet that only performs on maybe 2 classes and makes you unable to kill anyone.

Abysmal. They need their balance team to be the pvp team and get rid of the esport concept. Anet is just a cash cow these days.

Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318:

FrownyClown.8402:

Its a step in the right direction to remove the amulet. Its forcing condi builds to sacrifice survivability for the damage potential. It provides room for under par classes to perform better as well, namely thief and warrior. Fresh air ele will still be bad though lol.

But what about builds that already have low toughness or mediocore healthpools? Necromancers are hardly tanks, same for condition malyx.

Like seriously how many condi builds are there in the meta and or a tier below? Like 3 or 4 tops? Only or two of of them can be argued to be a tank somewhat. And that is the chronophantasma shatter and druid. the other tank is pretty much a cleric tempest which is anything but a condi build.

What about power builds using marauders, palladins or demolisher amulets? Should they also be removed? Or is the problem rather with certain traits and skills of the classes themselves.

The mercenary amulet provids only 560 toughness and 560 vitality. Most builds do not magically become tanks.

heck condi warriors also suffer from this you know.

I can’t argue too much since I don’t play warrior, but from what I can tell this is a soft buff to power warriors. I believe removing the amulet can push thieves and power warriors to a better point than before

Assassin O.9367:

Do you guys remember the fire trait nerfs and the dagger main hand (fire trait) nerfs that happened right before HOT launched? (Drakes Breath, Ring of Fire, Blinding Ashes) Does anyone else agree that the nerfs should be reverted with the Power Creep that arrived with HOT Specializations? At this point most of the Ele Grand Master traits are average at best. Oh yeah lets not forget we have the weakest elite skills in the game

Some of the nerfs I would say yes. But anet rarely reverses nerfs. They are real big on simple fixes that players suggest though, like auto attack cast times or damage from attacks. I would like at least the traits reverted, but why get your hopes up for something they’d never do? All is vain.

From what I can tell the removal of the amulet won’t affect necro as much as other classes. I believe people have been trying vipers amulet for necro these days, but correct me if I am wrong anyone.

Necro was dominant last season in part due to the large chill uptime and strong damage application of chill. They used merc amulet and had decent tank status as well.

This season with the reduction of chill uptime I think people are turning towards vipers or perhaps wanderers, essentially losing out on the toughness and vitality.

They are still pretty strong if used a bit more carefully, but I don’t think you will be seeing many of them in ranked this season.

Its a step in the right direction to remove the amulet. Its forcing condi builds to sacrifice survivability for the damage potential. It provides room for under par classes to perform better as well, namely thief and warrior. Fresh air ele will still be bad though lol.

A big thing that I think would be great on a thief would be projectile blocking.
It would be great if they had an on-demand smoke field that blocked projectiles

Agemnon.4608:

Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318:

Shadow Bane.9362:

RIP Burn Guard too? It was a fun distraction. In the right comps it could even work. More of a toy build but now less fun options for guardians again. I have a swell of pity for everyone who mains guard right now not necessarily because of this but in general they’re in such a kitten situation in almost all game modes.

Glad I’m not the only one. Wow. There goes my kittening burn guard. Had some promising results in unranked. I was like maby. Just maby this could work. But nope. Guess i won’t get the chance to find this out in ranked. On the other hand necro’s and mesmers are a lot squishier now. So yeah. And how funny, to do change this right before the season starts.

Have you considered Viper? It has expertise and burning while having a high damage modifier lasts a short while, so expertise and burning go really well together.

Guardians will only have 10k vitality then. The difference in base-vitality stats is also a huge limiting factor for Eles Guardians and thieves as far as what amulets they can use.

Its a tough match up indeed. Most mesmers have enough invuln and dazes to make the fight difficult to win.

The biggest thing is getting interrupts on them.

The beginning of the fight is all about avoiding their damage and shield 5 skill.

If you can force them to blow all their cooldowns without losing much health it will put you in a good position.

You might want to consider changing your shouts since they are a long cooldown.

I know that powerful auras is a strong option, however, your survivabilty will increase substantially by simply changing your utilities to lower cooldown auras and taking cleansing water.

Allies still gain the benefits of auras from shouts and Elemental Bastion which I feel is more than enough support.

You should really take Invigorating torrents instead as well since auras will remove conditions.

Not enough damage in your build to justify traits and utilities to increase damage output.

Sorry if thats all over the place. Alot goes into fighting chronos, however, I find alot of their rotations generally the same.

I still think mesmers will do just fine with vipers amulet. They can pretty much just avoid damage most of a 1v1 anyways.