They could for starters remove the restriction of being able to use the new weapons only when you equip the Elite specialization.
The entire purpose of locking the weapons (and skills) to the traitline is so that so when they introduce more elite specs they don’t have to worry about them cross-pollinating and causing huge balance issues.
Elite specs are designed to be balanced against other elite specs (the mechanical advantages, including class mechanic changes, provided make them a superior option to a core spec unless nerfed to the point of uselessness), it’s just we only have the one right now.
The fact that Elite specs are balanced against each other and not to vanilla trait lines is actually the core of the problem. They therefore remain superior, and that is not what I and many other players would like to see. I play only necro and ranger myself, but I wouldnt see any issues with being able to wear the GS as necro without reaper, or the staff as a ranger without druid. They made certain skills function in a ‘’pvp-only’’ way, I think it wouldnt hurt if they did this as well for the Elite spec weapons.
Because melee builds are generally better pointholders?
Dead players hold no points. And the arguably best point holder dual ranges.
Apples and oranges here. The best point holder is an Ele, but an Ele can’t kill you. So if you are melee you are not ’’dead’’ as you said. Melee is just generally better for holding points. If there are no melee builds around that can hold points, its another issue (although warrior is decent and engi very good, and are both melee. Ele in a certain way aswell). I think ranged dmg is pretty fine atm.
Because melee builds are generally better pointholders?
Agreeing to all problems except #1.
I mainly SoloQd and I reached 1900 rating in EU. Sometimes I win 6 matches in a row, to lose the next 5 in a row. It can be hard. Sometimes you can get farmed by ESL DuoQers. But one of the most prominent reasons for lost matches was the inability/unwillingness to reroll of teammates. Mainly duo thief and duo necro comps can cost you games. Finding a good teammate to DuoQ with can significantly increase your chances.
Sometimes you get unlucky with ur team, but self-improvement is something that many people overlook as well. Besides, there is another topic in the PvP forums about the failure of the current team formation system, which places sometimes 5 1900+ players against 5 1800- players. However this happens more often, I still feel that this system is better than we used to have, and that it actually means something when you climb across divisions.
To be honest the matches this season are as terrible as the seasons before. I play one account on NA and one on EU.
The majority of all the matches are not even close. Which means that one team must be packed with “good” and one with “bad” players.
I don’t see another reason why I win one match by 300+ points and lose the next one by 400+. It’s happening on both of my active accounts.Can this be a random effect? I think that’s most unlikely.
The problem actually is that it is random. Team formations should in fact not be random.
Good post by OP.
Reduced cast time of Consume conditions is not unreasonable. Making it less telegraphed neither.
Burn guard might counter a few classes in 1v1 such as Druid but much more than that it can’t bring to the table.
They either need to tone down the new Elite specializations or buff the vanilla trait lines. The first option is actually hard to do, as the Elite specializations allow players to use an extra weapon (and often better weapons) and often open up a whole new set of extra abilities (for example CA of Druids). Basically every build you see nowadays in PvP contains the HoT Elite specializations. That is just a sign that they are much more powerful than regular traitlines.
I nearly always endorse any propositions that stimulate build diversity, and touching balance within classes is definately one of them. They could for starters remove the restriction of being able to use the new weapons only when you equip the Elite specialization.
GS AA really needs to be buffed cuz its terrible. Other GS skills are pretty fine I think (except from the #5 bug).
Definately applicable to the hideous condi thieves. Although they aren’t played often, they are just broken.
Not played often? O_O….there is a condi thief 3 matches out of 5, they all play the same..rush far/spam dodge/bleeding=profit
I think I have only seen 1 or 2 this season. Maybe they appear more often on American servers or in lower divisions. Probably the last.
They are so easy to just ignore though… Taking the condi dodge over the movement dodge removes so much of their mobility. Don’t fight them off point, and they do nothing all game.
I don’t say they are good or useful or anything. They basically can only 1v1 and have less mobility than regular thief. But when you 1v1 them it becomes a framerate battle rather than a normal battle. That’s the broken thing, not overpoweredness or anything like that.
Definately applicable to the hideous condi thieves. Although they aren’t played often, they are just broken.
Not played often? O_O….there is a condi thief 3 matches out of 5, they all play the same..rush far/spam dodge/bleeding=profit
I think I have only seen 1 or 2 this season. Maybe they appear more often on American servers or in lower divisions. Probably the last.
Definately applicable to the hideous condi thieves. Although they aren’t played often, they are just broken.
Lack of an Elite trap skill is one of the reasons that make trapper builds not viable (at least in pvp).
It also doesn’t contribute to the MMR.
Me! Sick of all those useless boxes and trash items all the time.
The only reason to run Signet of the Wild is the passive effect, to gain Astral Force. If for example you have to run another rune than Dolyak. Otherwise you shouldn’t.
Basically an Ele in your team seems to be required to play necro. And then the kitten messages that you receive from team mates if you die as a necro xD. Losses always blamed on the necro. Pathetic state of the game.
Pick ‘’Nothing Can Save You’’. EZ.
Hey guys. I have played this build for a while now. I wanted to able to play an alternative for the (standard) condi necro. I came up with this Marauder build. I tested more power necro variants, but most of them do not work. The GS is too slow, and the Axe seems to have a lack of burst and utility possibilities. The dagger however is quite decent I feel. Check the build below:
The staff is for decent LF generation, condi cleanse and keeping enemies off you. You basically perma chill your enemy with this build, and your damage output can get very high. The unblockable utility is very handy against guardians, engi’s, revenants and warriors. Use it in a combination with Chilled to the bone. If the enemy team has a lot of condi output, you could change ‘’Nothing can save you’’ for ’’Suffer’’. Also the Spiteful Spirit trait is much better than I would have expected. Plus Blighters boon comes in hand with the Spite traitline.
Give it a try boiz. I consider myself a decent player (not absolute top tier) but I have had succes with this build against many good opponents as well. However, if your team is bad, this build won’t allow you to carry. Good luck.
How important is it to DuoQ to gain a higher rank on the leaderboard? I was on something like 40 wins/27 losses yesterday by just SoloQing, but then I had a loss streak of like 6 games or something… I still feel that very bad players are being mixed up with better players with this pvp system, and big losses (500-150) seem not to be so seldom. Also has to do whether a team has an Ele or not I think.
Yeah, old icons were much better.
Standard power/survival ranger is still playable too.
No changes to necro or ranger? I don’t really see why that is.
Good rune and amulet added though.
Swiftness wouldnt be bad either. Makes necro less reliant on warhorn (= more build diversity).
Yeh, the problem is that Focus #4 is most effective in short range, while you generally want to stay in a large range if you’re using a focus (often in combination with Axe). Although the skill itself is not bad (good LF generation, reasonable damage, good vuln stacks). The regen is kinda useless. Changing it to for example 3 secs of Retaliation wouldn’t be a bad idea I think.
When does the season start?
The problem is, as some other people said as well, that too many DIFFERENT condis can be applied in a short period of time or even instantly. Most condi cleanses only remove something like 2 condis.
If people could cleanse every condi applied to them, then condi builds would be completely worthless.
I’m not saying that people should be able to cleanse all conditions on them every time. I would argue for reducing the amount of different condis certain traits/weapon skills/utilities can apply. This would also increase the usefulness of certain runes and sigils that for example increase the duration of one condi (such as poison), and enhance specialization into certain builds, with more build diversity as a result. It would be better for the PVP game if we have more specific roles for specific builds, and less can-do-it-alls as we have now.
Nah. This would even reduce the possibilities to fight on a node for an LB ranger.
The problem is, as some other people said as well, that too many DIFFERENT condis can be applied in a short period of time or even instantly. Most condi cleanses only remove something like 2 condis.
WAY to much blocks and invulns indeed. Boring as hell. Don’t forget mesmer by the way.
The fact that there is a discussion here about whether Cele Ele was OP is already ridiculous. Ofc it was OP.
@ OP: You actually write something, but say nothing. The meta is too narrow, and yes that has for a large part to do with the fact that meta builds can handle the most other builds very well. So meta builds are better in general, and those are just a few builds → conclusion: not a lot of build diversity. You can invent a build yourself that might be able to overrule one meta build, but is useless versus other meta builds, so the build in general is not useful.
We need much more amulets to keep the pvp scene interesting. Professions are too much pushed into one direction by having so few amulets. Boring and not innovative at all.
And an Elite trap.
Yeh they basically made the spirits instantly useless.
Foot in the Grave baseline would be quiet OP. But making Vital persistence less mandatory is a good idea.
Necro survivability should be improved by itself, not by allowing other classes to heal better.
If it would work the same as with Spectral armor, it would be less necessary to use the Warhorn. This will open up some alternative builds and improves some build diversity. I don’t think it would be overpowered or anything like that if they made it so.
There is no reason to ever give up and quit. Turnarounds happens if you let them.
This entire “oh we are down points so i’m going to afk” is the reason matches are so bad nowadays.
This. +1. Thank you.
Whine topic. As a thief you should be able to win from a necro. Necro and especially Guard havent been in the meta. It was Druid, Revenant and Mesmer (and also Engi) that have been meta.
When you use the trait Spectral Mastery, the duration of the protection applied by Spectral armor increases by 50% (from 6 seconds to 9 seconds). However, the swiftness duration from Spectral walk does not increase by this trait. Is that intended or is this a bug? (In PvP btw).
Necro is a fairly good dueler, but if you got to make a distinction I would say:
- Good vs Engi, Ele, Ranger, Guardian
- Oke vs Mesmer, Revenant
- Possibly hard vs Thief, Warrior
It depends if you play condi or power, and whether the opponent is playing condi or power. I recentaly started playing a power build, and with that build I experienced the list above. Especially condi warrior can be quite painful.
Revenant my friend.
Fix the AA into something useful, and change the axe trait completely, and then you have a decent condi mainhand weapon. You could also turn it into a power weapon, but we already have the sword for this role (although the axe might be more suitable as a power weapon, you need to have at least one condi mainhand weapon).
Although necro might be the harder choice to get to know the ways of PvP better. But patience is key here. If you play the condi necro build from metabattle, you got to play carefully and keep enemies at distance (unless you go into shroud).
No, the changes are not enough at all for a period of 3 months. Especially if you consider all the bad traits/utilities and even weapon skills that have been lacking for ages.
No, its not a bad idea.