A very little buff I’d call it, but not enough to make it good.
Yeh well maybe they could merge the topics into 1, because multiple people opened topics about the trait system.
So yeah, allowing allocation into more trait lines would increase diversity, but only because the traits that people would want to take were moved to different lines, and because, evidently, some trait lines still have entire trait tiers with nothing desirable.
So basically thats an argument in favor of the old trait system. With the old system you didn’t neccesarily have to commit fully into a traitline if this traitline had one bad trait tier. For example the Reaper traitline: you want Augury of Death, Chilling Victory, and then…. nothing, cuz the GM traits suck. They also could make all traits evenly viable, but that won’t really happen, so the old trait system solves this problem (not fully, but still).
Bump………………………….
Hello,
I discussed the same problem a short while ago in this topic: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Discussion-the-trait-system/first#post6134657
The problem that you point out is a sincere one. The ’’solution’’ I came up with, is going back to (a version of) the old trait system. With that system you had more possibilities to mix up different defensive and offensive traits from different trait lines. You also could pick for example a Master trait in a Grandmaster spot, which reduces the problem of GMtraits that actually do not synergize very well with the rest of their traitline (for example the Reaper traitline). Forcing you fully into a traitline in the situation as it is nowadays does not stimulate any build differentiation, especially when almost everyone picks the new elite specialization as their first traitline. Then you only have 2 traitlines left, and it is almost always the case that only 1 or 2 out of the 5 other traitlines synergize with the elite specialization that you just chose. Conclusion: people always end up with nearly the same build.
Don’t forget these:
- Crossfire – Deal double damage when flanking
- Concussion shot – 3 Stacks of Confusion when flanking.
With these changes and yours, Shortbow will be golden.
Nah, flanking is overrated. A shortbow ranger is probably the best in 1v1 situations, where flanking is a rare occasion.
Why would be flanking overrated? This is one of the skillful mechanics in game, its infinitely better than making Crossfire bleed auto.
Imagine that 1111111111111 bleed Krait runes spam fest.
I’m not saying that SB #1 should apply bleeding automatically, I’m just saying that the flanking mechanic is near to useless for a shortbow Ranger.
Agreed to the statement that everything is just TOO much. You can add too much CC to that list as well.
Would be kinda OP to do that, but I’d suggest that they make shortbow #1 a chained attack where for example every second attack in the chain adds 1 stack of bleeding.
Don’t forget these:
- Crossfire – Deal double damage when flanking
- Concussion shot – 3 Stacks of Confusion when flanking.
With these changes and yours, Shortbow will be golden.
Nah, flanking is overrated. A shortbow ranger is probably the best in 1v1 situations, where flanking is a rare occasion.
Indeed they are pretty unique and utterly useless at the moment. They need a buff, starting with the ability to move.
I voted bad. No differentiation if there are no big patches/updates/expansions, poor amount of viewers, and zero renown in the world of Esports.
I agree to everything that leads to more build diversity in PvP.
The fact that anything that involves GW2 has such a low amount of viewers on twitch and that the competative scene is so small compared to other games, does give a sign about the current state of PvP in this game. GW2 is still one of the biggest PC-games played I believe, but you never hear about it. This playerbase is mainly involving PvE and WvW, but it is the PvP section of a game that will draw attention from people outside.
The amulet is determining the builds and meta too much. Although the idea in the OP is too harsh, it is a good way of thinking. They could also make more amulets, but with more different stat combinations; while we mostly have 4 different stats on 1 amulet, you could have 2 per amulet for example. Adds a great deal of differentiation in PvP, which is so badly needed.
This game has great potential to be a great PvP game, but more and more people have to admit that GW2 is a PvE game after all.
Let me rephrase this:
- Reaper’s can run reaper specialization and mix/match it with any other specialization to create effective builds that always allow practical use of Reaper Shroud.
- Tempest, same idea. No punishment for using any specialization with it.
- Chronomancer, same idea. No punishment for using any specialization with it.
- Daredevil, same idea. Nothing will nerf your Daredevil abilities.
- Scrapper, run w/e you like with it. Nothing will deactive it’s use.
- Dragonhunter, yup lots of builds to mix with DH spec, with no punishment.
- Berserker, plenty workable with power/condi/bunky builds.
- Then you have Druid where if you don’t use Beast Mastery shouts for practical force gain, your celestial avatar class feature is virtually useless.
That is the point that I am trying to make and it needs to be fixed.
There are plenty of other options to get your CA bar filled. Main reason to choose BM is easy mightstacking, not gaining CA.
Although you deny the fact that a lot of people just walk out of the roots because of reduced incomming condi durations or reduced movement impairment duration.
I’m not a gaming expert, so I could be wrong, but I have the intuition that a true balance should force a player to make a choice: choose what gameplay/role you want to fulfill, build in consequence, and accept you need to sacrifice something. Either damage, control, defense, support… but not all at the same time. Natural counters would then emerge, and team effort would be properly rewarded.
Very true my friend. These days you got to have good mobility, good sustain, good team support, good CC, decent damage. Excelling at one thing and being less good at another is not rewarding at this moment, except for maybe thief. This is the reason we get those thight meta’s nowadays, with just a few viable professions and builds for top level PvP play.
More mesmer QQ’ing? Every season it’s the same sob story. I get it, Bunker mesmer last season was bad. But we are far from that now. After the way to many nerf that mesmers has incurred in the last year alone, we are left with one viable build. ONE! & the only reason why the class is surviving pvp is not cuz of the merc amulet or the inspiration line or the high skill level that mesmer players are in. It’s cuz none of you keeping the pressure on the mesmer. It’s way to easy to kill it. You complainers are just to use to have to deal with mesmers that does no damage & that you can deal & dispatch with last. With no consequence. I’m sorry, but i feel the game more balanced then ever since this off season we are having more & more close matches then disparities.
Lol. You seem to be surprised that mesmer only has one viable build. 6 out of 9 professions have 1 viable build for top pvp, the other 3 have 0.
Talked to a good mesmer player yesterday. He said that Chrono was OP himself. Their survivability seems to be too high for their damage output, or the other way around.
Hell no. Enough with these changes! At this point Anet just needs to keep a system and improve on it, instead of changing every year.
Improving a bad system requires (big) changes to this system.
Hello all,
I have been PvP’ing for quite a long time now, but with some long breaks due to pure boredom. After a big update/patch I start playing again, and after some time I lose my interest in the game again. I know that this is mostly because of the lack of differentiation in PvP. In a lot of topics on these forums that I respond in, I try to convince people that a larger set of different viable builds for every profession is a key factor to make PvP more attractive and competitive.
In its current state, every profession has pretty much only 1 viable role in the higher tiers of PvP. For example:
- Revenant: Power damage
- Elementalist: Support
- Druid: Support
- Mesmer: Condi damage
- Etc.
One of the reasons behind this, is the fact that you got to fully invest in 3 traitlines. With other words, for 1 trait that you need in a traitline, you have to pick 2 other traits in that traitline that you might not even want. If this is the case, you really have to make sure that every trait is pretty much evenly useful. Unfortunately this is not the case. The HoT Elite specs are almost always stronger than the normal traitlines, and every profession still has a lot of useless traits (even Grandmaster traits). Therefore it is a bad thing that if you only want an Adept or a Master trait from 1 traitline, you also have to pick a Grandmaster trait from that traitline, while an Adept trait from a different traitline might be even more useful. I play Ranger/Druid these days, and I can think of many examples for this, so I guess that could be for every other profession the case as well. The old trait system allowed you to actually do this, while the current trait system does not.
Therefore, I think that this trait system does even less stimulate build diversion than the old trait system. When I see an Ele, I do not want to know for sure that it is a bunker on beforehand. When I see a Revenant, I do not want to know for sure that it is a power rev on beforehand. This game really needs more build diversity, and not a very tight Meta with just a few viable proffesions and specs. Adjusting the trait system would be a first step to reach this. I would enjoy watching an ESL-match between 2 totally different teams a lot more than 2 basically the same teams.
Just to be clear: altering the trait system would in my opinion be a good first step, not a solution to every problem. What do you guys think?
Traited Healing Spring is quite fine atm.
Condi not that much, but the amount of CC has always been ridiculous in this game. There’s just too much.
Nah not fully agreeing. The removal of the celestial amulet was a good thing. First of all, the total stats the cele amulet delivered were higher than other amulets. Second, and more important, is the fact that the cele amulet allowed certain professions to become a ‘’can-do-it-all’’ class in PvP. It turned out that these can-do-it-all classes performed the best, for example dd-Elementalist. They had good survivability, good mobility, good support, good offense, etc.
It caused the merge of different professions into more or less the same role, and that was quite bad an extremely boring. I found the removal of for example soldiers or settlers amulet way worse.
If you run Druid you’ll be pretty fine. Otherwise it aint so good, but still fun to play.
Dps condi is very strong..and if you are squishy as a ranger..you’re doing something wrong. Also, I have never seen anyone complain about havign a ranger in their group in like 3 years.
With the removal of settlers amulet In PvP its too squishy to be viable in high tier PvP.
Easier said than done.
Balance patches often radically change what role a profession will fit into. It used to be that Guardians were good for nothing but bunkering, which is pretty much opposite from their current state (well, assuming that guardians are still good for anything nowadays…sorry guys).
I would be best if Guardians nowadays could either choose to go bunker or non-bunker builds. A selection phase as is discussed in this topic, is only relevant if you can make a decent estimate about the composition of the teams. Nowadays you know that a Guardian on any of the teams is playing offensive with traps (like… 90% of the times). If you do NOT know this, you can not really adapt pre-game. I think that would be good for the state of the game. This game just needs more build diversity in PvP.
I did not play these maps a lot, but the changes are definitely an improvement.
1. Power Rev / Condi mesmer
2. Bunker Ele’s / Druids / Thiefs / Scrappers / Reapers
3. Guardians / Warriors
Honestly it is hard to make a true distinction between for example thieves and reapers. Tier 2 profs have their different roles so its hard to compare. These 3 tiers are how I see it in terms of usefulness in PvP.
I miss settlers amulet too for my ranger, I feel ya.
It would be good, if we had a minimum of viable 4 builds per class. But we barely have 2, and only on some classes. And even considering different builds, the playstyle is roughly the same due to elite specs.
Elite specs killed the diversity in this game, no matter what you do it almost always feels the same. Launching only one per expansion is a mistake, they should have released another set with LS3 – especially since some classes were shoehorned into roles players didn’t want.
100% agreed with this.
Didn’t read it all, but nice that you made such a detailed post. However, I would choose Natural stride over Celestial shadow and swap out Signet of the Hunt for something more useful.
Not so good indeed. You can try full condi bomb which is fun to play, but not really viable. Too squishy. Talking about sPvP here though, don’t know about the rest.
These are 2 pretty different builds, so it will be hard to ’’merge’’ them together into one better build. It should depend on your team and the enemy team which build is the best choice. However I can give you a little advice for some improvement on these builds:
Build 1;
- Sigil of Force on staff with a condi build is rather useless. Sigil of Doom or Geomancy would for example be a better option.
- I found it a waste to use rabid amulet if you are not making use of the Precision stat. Carrion amulet in this condi-heavy meta would be better.
- Therefore Rune of the Undead… meh. Try Rune of the nightmare.
- Most important I feel; you miss any source of Stability. Swap out Entangle for RAO. You already have a lot of immobilize with ancient seeds, you don’t need Entangle that much.
- I would prefer Sigil of smoldering for Torch, 20% longer burn duration > 6% extra condi damage.
Build 2:
- Cleric amulet means you barely do any damage. You could go full support, but then your choice for Greatsword is not really attractive. Personally I would swap for sword/warhorn. Sword has nice avades to keep you alive for a longer time, warhorn is a nice team support weapon. Also you seem to lack swiftness in this build, warhorn would be a good solution to that.
- Again, make your Elite RAO instead of the Glyph. If you’re a team support character, its no use to get CC’d to death all the time. You need the stability imo.
- If you decide to use the warhorn, swapping out Evasive purity for Windborne notes could be viable since you already have decent access to condi cleanse.
- Choose different sigils, only Leeching is a good choice. The other 3 should be swapped.
- Scrapper runes are not a bad choice, but you could also try Runes of Leadership.
- Pets: Wolf is good, Lynx not so much. Try a more supportive pet.
Some things are just personal preference, but it can’t hurt to try these things out. Hope it helps you a bit. Most important thing would be to try Rampage As One as elite skill. It might be the most boring Elite, but I consider it to be the best Elite we have.
Staff AA better than LB AA, and also very underrated. Try Staff AA with Marauder amulet and proc sigils and be amazed.
Revs damage seems to be a bit out of line in general.
Uh, not so fast please. why dont you test the changes a bit more rigorously before putting up praise threads? are you aware of what other professions are capable of? that being said:
OH axe has been made…viable, or almost viable. it’s a good offensive weapon that pairs well with sword.
MH axe is a fully viable weapon now, on condi and hybrid builds. i only wish aoe #3 was baseline.
sword works better, despite a big damage nerf.
sadly, SB changes were way off the mark. the entire weapon needs either a complete rework or more drastic buffs. i got excited for a split second when i heard about this, then my heart sank upon reading the changes and after i tested. every ability other than #5 is lackluster, and the weapon is still dependent on AA spam that inflicts more damage on the ranger via reflects, retal and confusion, than it does on the target! What gives??
and im still waiting on WH #4 to be buffed. it hasnt been touched since release. it’s a pure garbage skill that makes WH non-viable outside of niche might stacking builds.
some improvements, a lot more needed.
Agreeing with this post.
They made a good first step with polishing some ranger weapons, but there is still a pretty long way to go. Especially the shortbow needs more attention. Some Shortbow skills need a total rework, not just a bit longer condi duration or something like that.
The shortbow changes are not sufficient. Especially #4 is disappointing.
Depends on the rest of your build ofcourse, but I actually use Marauders the most often.
Nothing wrong with wanderers, Mercenary could be open for discussion. But imo more different amulets should be available, not less.
The lack of burst options is a different problem than the nerf of the bristleback. The bristleback was obviously the best pet → every build, whether it’s condi, support or dps uses it → pet badly designed. The problem is actually that a lot of other pets are basically useless, and the problem is not the fact that the bristleback has been toned down.
About the staff: the only skill that might need a rework is #2, the rest is fine imo.
Agreed, especially our weapons except staff need to be looked at. Although I don’t think the bristleback nerf is a bad thing.
Bullsjit topic. I played many condi druid builds. They are fun to play and can be very bursty, but easy to counter and it has many weaknesses.
Hi there,
As the title says I am looking for a PvP team on EU servers to coöperate with. It can be a small guild or just a team of 5. I am not really looking for PvX guilds with PvP departments or something like that. All I play is PvP.
I want to have a team with voice communication, a nice atmosphere and the will to improve the effectiveness of the team in general. Doesn’t have to be ESL worthy, but I also don’t need pure beginners.
I have played 5k matches in total. I played mostly Necro through the years, but I play ranger/druid as well often these days.
I would also listen to plans to found a new team or guild.
Thanks in advance.
Don’t feel yourself forced to play the druid traitline. Standard power ranger is decent in pvp although not top tier. For casual play it is worth it to try a little harder to master your own power build. It is important to synergize your pets F2 with your own burstskills, and to mitigate incomming damage at the right time using LB #3, and GS #4 and #3 for example. For more help you should post your build here.
Indeed. Although the removal of the Celestial amulet was the first good step.
Strongly agreed with OP.