Guild Wars 2

Pterikdactyl.7630:

Hey everybody,

I am a pretty new revenant player, and have fallen in love with Ventari, so I thought I’d give it a try in PvP to see how it fares. So far, good luck; I have been having a blast with this build. I was curious if any of you have experience with anything similar or have any feedback. This is the build I have been running:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAsemn3gmNSuQzJRboNlsP0oS4I6UJ4ENsklZlRNgCawO6q7eNjQGB-TZxHABIXG4n9HA4EAA+TAo2DBAA

As you can clearly see, I do abysmal damage. Seriously terrible. Each match I have played has been a pathetic amount, ranging from 1%-10% of the team’s, but I’d like to think I make up for it with the healing I can offer, which is usually about 60% of the team’s, as well as the support. I have come to really love the utility the tablet can offer, particularly Energy Expulsion and its usefulness in capping/defending points, as well as rezzing targeted allies, especially when combined with Radiant Revival.
Personally, I have found Retribution to be too helpful to give up for Invocation. I have pretty incredible survivability when I’m being focused thanks to Infusing Light, Crystal Hibernation, Versed in Stone, and Soothing Bastion. For Salvation, I am still not sure if it’s worth it to take Selfless Amplication or Natural Abundance.

In your opinions, would you say it’s worth it to have a dedicated support role taking up 1 of the 5 team slots? Clearly it’s a sacrifice in damage, but for what it’s worth, I have the best win/lose ratio on my rev by a fairly significant amount, and feel like I’m making a difference when I play this build. However, I have only ever played unranked so I know that my experience only means so much in the competitive realm. So, any thoughts, experiences, or recommendations from those that are more seasoned PvPers than I am? Would love to hear your opinions.

Thanks!

If you duo with a DPS partner and do a good job of keeping them alive then maybe. You should really use Mender’s amulet unless you want to bunker, Magi is purely for bunkering. Part of a decent support build is either doing ok damage or CCs, or both. For example the current meta ele build does ok AoE damage and gets great team condi cleanse and heals. Mender’s is a small sacrifice in healing and survivability for much better damage. Glint/Ventari is good, I would even explore Shiro/Ventari for fun, since you can use Jade Winds much more often than Facet of Chaos. In the Herald traitline, you should take Shared Empowerment if you’re using Glint, because that doubles the amount of might stacks you can put on your allies. Enhanced Bulwark is a better trait than Crystal Hibernation so long as you’re using Retribution.

For usage I don’t know much about Ventari other than that Blinding Truths is a very useful trait, and triggers around the caster regardless of where you move the tablet. To maximize its usefulness you’d need to be near your opponents, so basically on point just like an ele. But you can keep them pretty much permablinded if you do that. Basically if you maximize your Centaur stance skills and keep the enemy CCed/blinded as much as possible, you’ll be quite useful. But I wouldn’t really take Ventari at all unless the other team has a bunch of Dragonhunters and Druids, otherwise Protectice Solace is kinda pointless (which when used correctly can nullify them). Which, by the way, is the most useful skill due to the fact that it provides on-demand, low CD safe stomps on engi, rev, warrior, and ranger.

Gwaihir.1745:

My biggest problem with rev is how you need to stay in a certain legend. If it were possible to allocate the legends skills of your 2 chosen between each swap it would be better. Against the class concept? Yes. However I can counterplay any rev since I know exactly what skills they have.

The only situation I can think of where you have to stay in a certain legend is where you’re in mallyx and get swamped in condis. What other situations have you found where you have to camp a legend?

Bezerker.2379:

ArthurDent.9538:

Rev is just the hardest class to play in pvp right now. Apparently for top tier it is still pretty ok, but for the vast majority of players they are just better off playing something like dragonhunter, or really any other class.

While I’m not going to argue that there’s a huge difference between a fresh rev and a rev who knows what he’s doing now, I’m going to completely disagree that they are the hardest class to play now.

Their damage got nerfed. Their 1v1 potential is significantly diminished (still possible). They’re teamfighters now and we still combined with the team do a great job of opening up bunkers like a tin can.

Rev is still seen in legend and plat quite often, and it will not be going anywhere. It’s just not 100% required now like it used to be.

Good answer. Rev still has the best AoE CC imo, especially since 2 of those (Jade Winds and SotM) are on low cooldowns. But as for damage, only the sword AA is still deadly. Its other means of dealing damage are just nothing special, they’re mostly a utility in teamfights rather than a damage dealer.

Gwaihir.1745:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Gwaihir.1745:

Its pvp. Mistakes are punished; not walked away from.

Not dodging an attack that can be cast in a quarter of a second without an obvious tell from 1200 range on a 20 second cooldown, on a class that has a ranged weapon justifies unblockable, unevadable hard CC if it connects?

Thank carefully about what you’re saying.

For reference: The Entangle elite has a minute cooldown, 600 range, and a 3/4 cast time for soft cc (and even that needs tuning because it’s bugged. ) .

20s cooldown? Research error. People who don’t understand mechanics aren’t allowed to balance games. The pull cd you complain about is much higher. Oops.
-> “On a class that has a ranged weapon.” What game are you playing that your class doesn’t have one?
-> I can make up a line like that about any class in the game.
-> A pull is not a hard cc. It does not prevent skill usage, knock you down, stun you, nor daze you.
->Entangle is amazing. Anytime you like I would gladly take it over the f1 pull. You conveniently forgot to mention it pulses bleeding, and immobilize every 1.5 seconds on 5 targets. This is so amazing ill even forget you are comparing two unlike skills just so I don’t offend my apples and oranges.

It’s not a very good comparison I agree, but why would you want Entangle? If you want to immobilize somebody in order to use AoE, you already have Scepter 3. I don’t really understand what use you’d have for Entangle on a DH. Unless you’re just expressing general preference?

So I ended up 4-6, 4 wins and 6 losses. I was placed into Silver 3, ironically at almost exactly the same rating as I was on my main account. If I was worse, I’d likely have been placed into Silver 1 or Bronze. My first 4 matches (the ones I won) were very close except for the one where I faced 2 P/P thieves, the losses were less balanced. There were few blowouts, but the other teams played noticeably better in my losses. I’ve attached the final scores of the 10 placements matches.

Bad behaviors I noticed:

1. Poor rotations. Example: Randomly going far when we could’ve controlled mid-home. This was the most common mistake. I most frequently noticed people rotating poorly on respawn after they got wiped at a point, or after finishing a small fight on-point. Seems like people really want to rotate after winning an easy fight, rather than defending.
2. 1v1ing on a bad matchup. Example: In my last match a thief kept trying to 1v1 a warrior. This was the second most common mistake
3. Lack of understanding of secondary objectives. Example: My team ignored Tranquility, I got there first, lost a 1v2, and ultimately the other team claimed it. One guy was yelling at the team to go to Tranq, but only got there after I’d been finished. He died shortly after. Or in the first match in Forest, where my teammate told us in all caps to get the beasts… when we were easily controlling mid-home.
4. Not focusing targets.
5. Focusing the wrong targets. Example: I had a match where a druid repeatedly targeted the other team’s support ele instead of the necro, at times changing the target from the necro to the ele. He blamed me for our loss at the end.
6. Players not playing their role. Example: Thieves not decapping far. Or that same druid claiming that he could heal/rez, but only got 1 rez the entire match (I also got credit for that rez and we both got top stat for rezzes).

So if you’re wondering what it’s like to play at a lower level with unskilled teammates, that’s my experience in my placement matches. I’m honestly not sure if I belong higher or lower on my alt account, I’m ok at FA ele but it’s not my main, I only played it because it’s a core build.

Hey guys, I made a FtP account a few days ago. In case anybody is wondering, I had to play only 43 unranked games to get to Rank 20. I did not play any PvE or WvW, went straight to sPvP as soon as I could after making the account. I’m playing S/F Fresh Air ele, similar to Phantaram’s build but with modifications depending on enemy comp. So far I’m 3-0 in my placement matches. On my main account (the one I’m posting from) I have played 2.5k games and I bounce between Silver 3 and Gold 1, so I consider myself very average at best.

As for the matches, so far every thief has been bad. Every single one. In my first match the other team had 2 P/P thieves XD needless to say that was a blowout, they didn’t even reach 200 points despite the fact that one of my teammates was absolutely convinced that the beasts in Forest are super important. In my 3rd match I fought somebody with the “Primordial Legend” title, so I’m not only getting matched with/against people at my account’s level of experience. I’ll update this once I finish my matches.

Acrobatics staff thief. I hate the build but I’m currently using it for nub stomping to hopefully get through gold. If you time your dodges wisely, and start the engagement with staff 2 → Steal → Staff 4 → AA → Vault → Dodge → Vault → Dodge etc, you’ll win. I’m not any good at it but it’s effective nonetheless, just make sure you dodge SoJ or pop Bandit’s Defense as soon as they pull you.

apharma.3741:

Ross Biddle.2367:

And looking at CD’s objectively is a nightmare when, whenever you do it, it can’t be done as a standalone balancing act of the class in and of itself. You want to nerf a single skill or utility? Without upheaving all the other elite specs you threaten to unbalance the meta and potentially knock a class out of the competition. It’s laughable how few mesmers are playing right not in fact what with all the Dh’s, Ele’s, and War’s running around. Add to that the ever obnoxious druids and even necros, your desire to talk “objectively” about a tweaking a single utility is on par with the effort to take a leisurely approach to hiking Everest.

I find it incredibly hilarious that anyone is complaining about the health of clones and phantasms for this paragraph right here. With the number of DH, Wars (power and condi), overload air, scrappers and just general cleave in a team fight most clones don’t even reach their target with superspeed as they’re already dead.

But mesmers role is not being in the team fight however lets look at what it will fight.
It should rarely be 1v1/2 vs an ele, necro or thief and 2 of those it has an advantage against but they will usually be in a team fight unless running from spawn.

So what’s left?
Rev, Scrapper, DH, War, Druid and mesmer.
Most of the time a scrapper, DH and war will massacre your phantasms and isn’t a favourable matchup at all. So that leaves us with easy kill Rev and a battle of who is pro mesmer. The druid with a moa can be taken out nicely and can be decent for mes to fight but druids do have good sustain, I haven’t fought one my level on mesmer though so I can’t really comment.

Geez, all the exaggeration. DH cleaves clones at first; ultimately condi chrono beats a DH, unless you’re fighting a full trapper that’s already laid his traps and is waiting for you. Their cleaving AoE, particularly ToF, does not last. Power warrior will most definitely cleave illusions, but condi warrior? They don’t even have a cleaving weapon, are you thinking they’d do it with LB burst? I think a healbot ele would not be beatable, I agree, though you could always interrupt water overload and see what happens. Scrapper isn’t really going to cleave your illusions, but at the same time chrono doesn’t apply much of a variety of condis, so scrapper’s limited but consistent condi clears will take care of your bursts.

Maybe you should hit up the dueling arenas and see the possibilities for condi chrono before claiming it has so many terrible matchups, it’s hands-down the favorite 1v1 build. I do agree that it’s generally not very useful in node fights though, it’s a predator not a team fighter.

+1 this, it would be an improvement.

JTGuevara.9018:

Spoichiche.1290:

JTGuevara.9018:

Let’s cut through the myths. PvP leagues have failed spectacularly. Deep down, everyone knows this. It’s time to be brutally honest about the PvP situation. It’s time to stop protecting it. It’s time to stop pretending.

sigh
Just because you make a billion posts about how trash the system is (which is basically the same system used by every team based competitive game), it does not make your phantasm true.
Look at a some actual numbers like twitch viewership on pvp streams. Because this number doubled since the begining of this season. That sure is a proof that the league is an absolute failure, right?

So, let’s see. You’re telling me that every competitive game lets their players manipulate the matchmaking system and leaderboard? Somehow I doubt that lol.

Not all the top players need to cheat, if you want some indication of your skill level then watch Sindrener or Helseth and then try to duplicate what they do.

Junkpile.7439:

I would win 3 vs 1 fights in gold league if i would know how to play better.

Thank you, Junkpile, for that thoughtful contribution.

Huskyboy.1053:

vesica tempestas.1563:

i love sceptre focus and ranged dps, but i have now given up on it for the moment, because it is significantly inferior to dagger – the reasons ?:

- The sceptre burst is fun, but easy to avoid, and sustained dmg is meh

- Sceptre is mid range, but you need to hold points in melee range negating the benefits of range.

- With Tempest you have to move into melee range to apply Overloads – again totally defeating the purpose of being ranged.

-Dagger fire 3 is really strong, the maneuverability is massive for ele survivability + burst

-Sceptre heal – practically non existent v Heal 2 on dagger and no dps ?? Whereas you have strong heal, cc and dps for dagger

-Dagger Air is stronger with skill 3, skill 3 is useless for sceptre

-Dagger 2 offers more on demand survivability making earth a stronger package of mitigation

I really wish they would sort out Sceptre, Ele badly needs that ranged dps role with mitigation – its like the 2 weapons are being developed by 2 developers who do not know what each other are doing.

Are you playing Dagger/Focus? It doesn’t really synergize with FA very well since you don’t have a skill like Lightning Strike. Shocking aura is much better than Blinding Flash, but on more than double the CD you have to wonder how useful it really is in a burst-centric build. I’ll try D/F the next few days, I’m on vacation so I have time.

Ok, tried it in low-level unranked sPvP with my alt account. Still not viable even at that level. Ele is the squishiest profession, playing competitively with a 300 range weapon with few active defenses is a bad idea. Scepter allows you to hurt thieves and warriors especially when they far away from you, but Dagger MH forces you to brawl with them. Just proccing Electric Discharge a lot will not do enough damage. Burning Speed would be a lot better if it automatically aimed itself at the target, but as of right now it’s very unwieldy. Even ground targeting would be better than its current incarnation, which is just going straight in the direction in which your character is currently facing.

If you’re looking for more damage, I’d suggest S/D. Dagger OH is quite powerful and fun, and you still have the usefulness of the Air burst from Scepter.

vesica tempestas.1563:

i love sceptre focus and ranged dps, but i have now given up on it for the moment, because it is significantly inferior to dagger – the reasons ?:

- The sceptre burst is fun, but easy to avoid, and sustained dmg is meh

- Sceptre is mid range, but you need to hold points in melee range negating the benefits of range.

- With Tempest you have to move into melee range to apply Overloads – again totally defeating the purpose of being ranged.

-Dagger fire 3 is really strong, the maneuverability is massive for ele survivability + burst

-Sceptre heal – practically non existent v Heal 2 on dagger and no dps ?? Whereas you have strong heal, cc and dps for dagger

-Dagger Air is stronger with skill 3, skill 3 is useless for sceptre

-Dagger 2 offers more on demand survivability making earth a stronger package of mitigation

I really wish they would sort out Sceptre, Ele badly needs that ranged dps role with mitigation – its like the 2 weapons are being developed by 2 developers who do not know what each other are doing.

Are you playing Dagger/Focus? It doesn’t really synergize with FA very well since you don’t have a skill like Lightning Strike. Shocking aura is much better than Blinding Flash, but on more than double the CD you have to wonder how useful it really is in a burst-centric build. I’ll try D/F the next few days, I’m on vacation so I have time.

Chapell.1346:

There is nothing to troll about the game you cared and love so much. Im just being honest. Call it loyalty

I think we’re gonna call it trolling. You have to pay for the elite specs, Anet needs to continue making money, otherwise they can’t pay the devs who continue to improve the game.

Junior.3928:

It’s sad that a “pro” player would go take an account go through bronze and mock new players. I watched the stream and tbh it looked like he was just pumping his ego, trash talking to bronze players. Now those players will see that they’ve been smashed 5v4 and sure they will think “oh yeah this matchmaking is crap” when in fact you have sad people like him boosting their own ego by “smurfing”.

I think this is just an experiment on his part. Good for him to do regardless of whether he says annoying stuff where they can’t hear it. And they are correct, in a sense, that matchmaking is crap if players that bad are being matched against Helseth. Although I’m sure that’s more to do with his account’s current lack of MMR history.

Phantaram.4816:

An item that takes pvp boxes and churns them into gold.

Phanta are you the kind of guy that just throws his dirty clothes on the floor? I’ve seen your inventory, it’s HORRIFYING. Not saying this is a bad idea, but in the meantime please take a trip to the merchant

Ross Biddle.2367:

There is no situation in which any mesmer will ever think harder about using SoI.

You might have some valid point about CD, but that one isnt it.

“Hmm, I’ve burst and put all my F skills on CD. Time to use SoI!”

Increasing the CD also means very little with CS. No matter what it’s going to find double use every 90s with CS.

Essentially there’s nothing wrong with SoL. There’s everything wrong with HoT elite specs and their overall effect on GW2.

Alright, fine, they won’t think harder. But they will be punished by that decision by only being able to use it at the end of a particular node fight, which might be too late to make a difference. I don’t disagree that HoT specs are ridiculous and make the game impossible to balance, doesn’t mean we can’t discuss power creep with core skills. A 33% reduction in CD on a very powerful normal utility is worth looking at. Why did they even do that? It was still useful when it was 90s.

OriOri.8724:

You waited a year and a half to ask for the CD to be reverted?

Didn’t seem OP when I was playing mesmer

Struct.7453:

there are other game modes available for making gold. This post is useless. infraction?

Seconded. GET THIS MAN OUTTA HERE

This is an sPvP thread

So I was dueling a Mesmer yesterday, he was playing meta chronomancer. I was playing core FA ele (for fun, I don’t usually) and twice he beat me after using the signet and hitting me with his shatters again/distorting during my burst. This didn’t really bother me; yeah, he’s playing a better dueling spec and he won, no big deal. But it made me wonder, why was the recharge reduced to 60s? That means it can be used in almost every node fight. This is a signet that also makes your illusions more resilient passively, making mesmers more useful in node fights since their illusions won’t be immediately cleaved.

A lot of players QQ about moa, but realistically it’s an elite and so should be very powerful. On top of that moa has a big tell and is blockable. That all seems in order to me. But SoI? No counterplay except for interrupts I suppose, and it recharges mesmer’s most important offensive and defensive profession mechanics all at once. That sounds like an elite to me, but it’s a regular utility on a 60s recharge. I think the recharge should be reverted to 90s in sPvP, that way mesmers have to think a little harder about when to use it.

lucadiro.4519:

Gwaihir.1745:

Dps ele is perfectly fine, but people won’t run it since your support is so ungodly strong.

Lol sure… Show me a video in wich you play, or anyone play, a dps Ele spec in mid/High tier pvp please.
I really want to see how PERFECTLY FINE it is.

I dont play healbot Tempest since a lot because is boring, lot of time I play DPS Ele because I love the gameplay of it.
Play DPS Ele after HoT its like play Extreme mode while everyone else play Easy mode.
You say Ele DPS is perfectly fine because you dont know nothing about Ele, maybe you got reckt from someone very good while you are a potato and then you think “DPS Ele is fine”.
But you dont realize that you can archieve way better reward playing with very less effort any other DPS classes.

Are you for real? FA ele is what Phantaram has been playing primarily during S5. Feel free to watch his videos and learn something: https://www.twitch.tv/phantaram/videos/all

Shaogin.2679:

Huskyboy.1053:

Shaogin.2679:

Would like to point one thing out, EVERY class has better survival when paired with an ele. In fact, those other classes have better damage and survival on their own, and surpass anything the Necro could accomplish when paired with an ele. The reason why you think of necro when you think of ele, is because necro is the only class that NEEDS the Ele. And you guys telling Necros that they can’t have the option to TRADE damage for survival, something other classes do not have to do to the extent Necros do, because apparently they are supposed to be balanced around their Ele babysitters!? Get out of here with that crap

Ok firstly: no, not every class benefits from having an ele. You’re assuming that every class stands near their teammates, making it easy to be healed. Not true. Mesmers stand outside of a node fight unless they have a death wish. They also have mediocre aoe damage and their clones get cleaved constantly in node fights, who would want a mesmer over a necro in a node fight? A D/P thief spends very little time in node fights, and will only be hit by healing accidentally. A rev, if well-coordinated with the ele, will get full benefit. If not well-coordinated, poorly-timed Unrelenting Assault and SotM will cause them to partially miss condi clears and/or healing, which revs desperately need. LB/Staff Druids also stand off to the side like mesmers, but they don’t really need a support teammate. The only builds that get full benefit from eles are scrapper, DH, necro, and condi warrior (power warrior too for the most part, but sometimes they spam GS 3 off CD and that moves them far away). That’s primarily due to the fact that they can stand on-point, and that their movements are highly predictable. An ele can’t heal teammates in disparate locations, so they’re going to focus on healing the people on-point.

So really this was a big exaggeration. No, not all classes benefit from an ele, due to their positioning. And while necro does need a support, meta scrapper with stealth gyro is perfectly acceptable, so long as you’re smart enough not to use down state skill #1 or #3 while you’re stealthed. Ele is not required at all, in my experience you’re likely to have either a healbot ele or a meta scrapper in every match.

Just because it isn’t smart for an Ele to babysit a class that fights off point doesn’t mean that the class wouldn’t perform better if he had an Ele babysitter. And Scrapper can’t provide the support that the Ele can for a Necro to keep him off the ground. Also, Stealth Resses are very situational considering that the enemy still knows exactly where you are and is likely to cleave you to death.

My point (maybe not your point) is that you’re reaching in order to prove that necros are weaker than they really are. Sure they’re comparably bad in 1v1s, but why is it that classes which benefit just as much from ele support aren’t played as often in a duo? Like who really said “wow condi warrior/ele duo sounds like a great idea”? Necro has the best aoe damage over time, and that’s why it’s picked in a duo with ele. Condi warrior’s aoe damage is laughable by comparison. If you can find a way to buff necro’s survivability in 1v1s without buffing its survivability in node fights, I’d love to hear it. Also, power reaper builds can be very good in 1v1s, you might need to switch your build depending on the situation.

As to your point about ele keeping necro off the ground, yeah it’s better because it heals for much more, but engi is twice as good at rezzing, more than twice as good when you factor in stealth gyro. Ele and engi are about equal at condi clears, with inversion enzyme Fumigate is actually preferable to Soldier ammy ele. Rather than just finding everything negative you can possibly say in the hopes that a dev will take pity on necros, maybe try duoing with a decent scrapper and see what happens.

Shaogin.2679:

Would like to point one thing out, EVERY class has better survival when paired with an ele. In fact, those other classes have better damage and survival on their own, and surpass anything the Necro could accomplish when paired with an ele. The reason why you think of necro when you think of ele, is because necro is the only class that NEEDS the Ele. And you guys telling Necros that they can’t have the option to TRADE damage for survival, something other classes do not have to do to the extent Necros do, because apparently they are supposed to be balanced around their Ele babysitters!? Get out of here with that crap

Ok firstly: no, not every class benefits from having an ele. You’re assuming that every class stands near their teammates, making it easy to be healed. Not true. Mesmers stand outside of a node fight unless they have a death wish. They also have mediocre aoe damage and their clones get cleaved constantly in node fights, who would want a mesmer over a necro in a node fight? A D/P thief spends very little time in node fights, and will only be hit by healing accidentally. A rev, if well-coordinated with the ele, will get full benefit. If not well-coordinated, poorly-timed Unrelenting Assault and SotM will cause them to partially miss condi clears and/or healing, which revs desperately need. LB/Staff Druids also stand off to the side like mesmers, but they don’t really need a support teammate. The only builds that get full benefit from eles are scrapper, DH, necro, and condi warrior (power warrior too for the most part, but sometimes they spam GS 3 off CD and that moves them far away). That’s primarily due to the fact that they can stand on-point, and that their movements are highly predictable. An ele can’t heal teammates in disparate locations, so they’re going to focus on healing the people on-point.

So really this was a big exaggeration. No, not all classes benefit from an ele, due to their positioning. And while necro does need a support, meta scrapper with stealth gyro is perfectly acceptable, so long as you’re smart enough not to use down state skill #1 or #3 while you’re stealthed. Ele is not required at all, in my experience you’re likely to have either a healbot ele or a meta scrapper in every match.

Dofty.9814:

phokus.8934:

Dofty.9814:

Huskyboy.1053:

I’m gonna double-check tonight to see if you’re playing DH, hard to believe an objective person would give this response.The current metabattle DH has 3 CCs, unblockable pull on spear of justice, shield 5, and unblockable LB 3, the latter of which is on a 10s CD. And yes Hunter’s Ward adds a 4th CC, but no good player is caught by that. Much more CC than most builds, since you’ll be able to use LB 3 at least 3 times in a node fight.

Meta DH also has 3 condi clears normally, F2 for 3 conditions, Smite Condition for 2 condis, and Smiter’s boon for 1 condition when a heal skill is used. Unless you’re absolutely terrible then you’ll be able to use your heal skill and smite condition twice each during a mode fight or a 1v1. Sometimes contemplation of purity is used against a condi-heavy team.

Unblockable? You surely are not playing a DH then. You can block it and you can dodge roll it.

EDIT: I know it states it on the tooltip but my Spear of Justice gets more blocked / dodged than anything else in the game. Might be a bug in fact.

The initial damage is unblockable.

He was talking about the ‘Pull on Spear of Justice’ that is 100% blockable my reaction was to his statement which I put in bold ;o

Yeah that’s gotta be a bug, feel free to report it. I’ve been pulled mid-dodge and have never blocked it. Also it’s not really productive to tell me that I can dodge it, that’s true of every attack in the game.

I hadn’t really thought about using rabid amulet in sPvP, I probably would’ve used Viper. How long would a build like this take to kill, for example, a GS/Mace Burst warr? Let’s assume you start the engagement with a successful Sneak Attack.

saerni.2584:

Shadow Strike isn’t a projectile, and the block/invuln issue isn’t unique to condi. Also, with basi-venom the first burst is unblockable.

Resistance also isn’t much of a barrier as long as you bring some boonstripping. At a certain point the counters aren’t impossible to overcome.

Could you post your P/D build? I can see Mender’s ele, power rev, GS/Mace Burst warr, other thieves, power mes not running Inspiration, core engi and, some varieties of guardian (no contemplation of purity, not running Valor) could possibly be beat by a P/D venom build.

Problem is that putting a venom in the utility slot means that you’re forgoing a defensive utility, so you’re highly dependent on your first burst being high-damage. The rest of the duel requires your enemy to fail to capitalize on your lack of active defenses and general glassiness, the problem with condi bursts is that they can be cleared before they do a bunch of damage, so your enemy can mitigate with a clear and go on the offensive.

saerni.2584:

Well I agree that his condi clear wasn’t exceptional. The main thing that wrecked the condi thief was a lack of closing ability. Most of their attacks were wastes of initiative.

Against this guy using P/D you would have projectile hate, but you could probably spike torment on him with Shadow Strike and with venoms he would die quite quickly enough. Another would be using D/P and just interrupting him for torment and spiking condis through a few other abilities. Probably a hybrid with carrion would be most effective in that case.

So long as you wait out his projectile hate, blocks, and invuln, and dodge his 2 CCs (both 900 range) you would win. But that’s just a specific case, most builds on every class have more readily accessible counters to condi than his, power rev being the noticeable exception.

saerni.2584:

Ah yeah that was it.

Ok, now I can provide some feedback.

That thief lacked mobility enough that he basically just ran around and avoided a number of attacks.

The ele was condi cleansing repeatedly. Not sure why you think he wasn’t? Condis fully disappeared from his bar multiple times. I suspect, not being an ele, that he was traited to clear condi when he applied regeneration? Or he is using another clear method I’m not familiar with.

Actually you’re correct, he does have some condi clear, I forgot about weapon skill condi clears. Earth 4 clears 3 condis, Fire 3 clears 1. Those are both on 20s CDs and locked behind attunements. He doesn’t have any traits which clear condis. You can find his build on metabattle, it’s the Fresh Air ele build, he does not use Diamond Skin. But those condi clears are infrequent, and not sufficient to combat a build like Condi Chronomancer. But D/D condi? Absolutely. If you watch Phanta’s stream (which I highly recommend) you’ll see that he’s very weak to condi and has to run from most condi users in a 1v1 situation.

Pistol MH condi thief would do equally poorly against his build due to Air focus 4 and Earth focus 4 providing projectile hate.

It’s Phantaram’s video called “Fresh Air Elementalist solo queues” recorded on december 20th, 2016. What are you seeing? At 3:49:10 he’s standing on point at the Altar in Temple of the Silent Storm and he’s approached within a few seconds by the condi thief. Is it possible you’re going to 3 minutes and 49 seconds, instead of 3 hours, 49 minutes and 10 seconds?

saerni.2584:

That link isn’t working for me.

I just changed it from the m.twitch.tv link to a www.twitch.tv link. See if it works now, it works for me.

Here’s an example of why D/D condi specifically is so useless, it fails against even builds without condi clear. Go to 3:49:10 to see Phantaram win his 1v1.

Gwaihir.1745:

For healing they’re either running valor or virtues. If they have valor they have no f3 stab so you’re free to interrupt the heal. They will heal 4.3k from smite trait but the other 8k can be easily stopped. The only way they have to burst heal past that is to burn smite and ji, which if they do you essentially can cc them and kill. If they have virtues they can secure the heal every other time but burn a lot of CDs to do so. And they lose the meditation heals so after a 40s fight the kill is open. A lot of even the best players don’t realize this and disengage when the fight is actually over for the guard if they pressured. You only need 5s to 100-0 a guard during this window which any dps spec can handle. However this window is about 12s long before I can start cycling CDs again so even an attrition class like scrapper (especially scrapper) can do a takedown before the window ends.

Thanks, this is a much more balanced answer. It pretty much underlines the problem with DH, that being their ability to delay death is crazy long. In those 40 seconds they still own the node they’re likely standing on, and have so gained 20 points for their team. If I kill them I get 5 points. Doesn’t really work out for the attacking player in conquest.

OnizukaBR.8537:

Good condi clear? They normally have only one in a big cooldown. Decent health? Like really? They have the worst hp pool of the game. This show how knowledge you are with the class.
Cc? They have a pull on 40 sec cd. Maybe a knockback on LB if traited. An impossible to land CC on lb 5 if a player is decent. And thats it. As they normally go with Sword and shield for swap.
The only thing they really have is the good amount of PROJECTILE blocks. Because 1 block of aegis every 45 seconds is pretty poor.

I’m gonna double-check tonight to see if you’re playing DH, hard to believe an objective person would give this response.The current metabattle DH has 3 CCs, unblockable pull on spear of justice, shield 5, and unblockable LB 3, the latter of which is on a 10s CD. And yes Hunter’s Ward adds a 4th CC, but no good player is caught by that. Much more CC than most builds, since you’ll be able to use LB 3 at least 3 times in a node fight.

Meta DH also has 3 condi clears normally, F2 for 3 conditions, Smite Condition for 2 condis, and Smiter’s boon for 1 condition when a heal skill is used. Unless you’re absolutely terrible then you’ll be able to use your heal skill and smite condition twice each during a mode fight or a 1v1. Sometimes contemplation of purity is used against a condi-heavy team.

You mean like static field? It’s not like Engi’s hammer 5, it’s more like Dragon’s Maw in that so long as you don’t try to cross the threshold then it doesn’t hurt you. Deep Freeze is very powerful, but also super telegraphed and slow. If you get hit by it then you deserve what you got, it’s not even unblockable. Evading it is more than enough counterplay. You’re probably right when it comes to earth shield though, magnetic shield has a long cast time but its animation isn’t so easily identified. That being said, earth shield has low damage, so even if its CCs were chained it would only be useful to a coordinated team, the elementalist can’t easily take advantage of the CC. The base damage and power coefficients of earth shield are quite disappointing.

One thing I’ve been thinking is that the CD on conjured weapon skills should be recharged when picking up a new one. So for example, if I use Flame axe skills, drop it, then pick up a new one, the CDs on Flame axe skills would all be refreshed. Conjures are used to add a few extra weapon skills to mix it up, they’re not generally OP by any means. But there’s not much reason to use them as opposed to a lower-CD utility, and the CDs are a problem as-is because you are locked into those 5 weapon skills while holding one.

saerni.2584:

I think there are marginal situations in which builds or types of builds are more or less effective. I know that is a fairly generic statement but I think it can be readily applied to a few cases.

One is the invulnerable warrior or engineer. A condi burst can overcome the sustain that invulnerability offers. As I mentioned, it may be faster to kill with condi than power for this reason (the sustained condi DPS outdoes the power DPS).

Another situation is more psychological. A person is taking a lot of condi damage and has confusion. They see another person start to rapid fire them. They know they need to block and face a dilemma. Do they use a skill to block the damage and take confusion damage? Or do they eat the rapid fire? It becomes a lose-lose where the choices they have become less meaningful and more paralyzing.

And I don’t necessarily disagree that condi thief could use a buff to be made more accessible to more people and more competitive. I would disagree that, given the impact player experience with a build has on performance, marginal differences between condi and power make condi always a wrong choice regardless of weapon set. As I mentioned, D/D may have serious design level limitations in high level play. But D/D isn’t, imo, the optimal choice for condi anyways, so I raise the alternative choices to say “condi can be useful and impactful.”

Yeah this is true about condi, it does perform better against certain builds. Guardian not running contemplation of purity will eventually fall to a sustained condi build. Power thief will fall to well-timed condi bursts. Power rev will beven more easily fall to condi thief than power thief, but we already have the advantage there. And so on. There’s a few 1v1s where a condi thief shines no doubt. The problem is that a condi mesmer will pretty much always be a more well-rounded choice for 1v1s in general, and also carries port. Condi thief kills people slower than power thief, though perhaps more reliably. Yet again though, we’re discussing ranked sPvP as indicated in the threads’s title. Condi thief just does not fulfil a role better than the other options available to the player, this is what I’ve been saying the whole time. It’s not useless, but at the moment it is clearly undertuned for the game mode.

rennlc.7346:

Questioning consensus only has value when the consensus is wrong.

I would amend this point to say “demonstrably wrong.” The only point in this thread on which any condi thief enthusiasts have engaged in a fact-based discussion is in talking about cover conditions, which has still failed to discuss its inferiority to condi mesmer’s cover condi application. There’s no point in continuing this discussion as if condi thief is equal to power thief or other condi builds without its supporters making comparisons on their own time, and explaining why this is a great/superior style for ranked play (the only subject of this thread is condi thief in ranked sPvP).

Rennlc like I said in my first post, these are primarily solo Q players. In other words, people who don’t spend their time talking, listening, and collaborating with other players on strategy and tactics. And that’s exactly why they play these builds, lack of sufficient input to show them why these condi builds are ineffective. Unless they have a major personality shift, or improve their reading skills, this conversation will go nowhere.

Zintrothen.1056:

All of them. Seriously. Every profession has a meta spec right now, and all can succeed if played properly. However, some can succeed significantly more easily. The most notable one is Guardian (Dragonhunter). The ones that players generally hate seeing on their teams are Necros (Reapers) and Thieves (Daredevils) because they’re difficult to play well, and if played poorly, are basically a waste of space that could be used for two more DHs! That’s one thing that makes DHs so amazing is how good they are when stacked. Being spammed by traps used to be one of the most annoying thing in the game, but now they don’t daze (Thank you Anet!). But being knocked through Several Tests of Faith can be painful, and it’s something that so many players aren’t careful about. The main issue with DH is that once you know how to counter them and can get through their sustain, they actually die pretty easily, especially at lower ranks. DHs are less popular at the highest ranks for this reason; players know how to deal with them, and they have such a low skill ceiling that even a lower ranked player can almost master one. Still though, any level below the very top, DHs can have a tremendous impact on a match.

There are two support specs that are almost must haves to win against a good team, Ele (Tempest) and Ranger (Druid). These two can provide unmatched support and can keep a competent teammate alive for far longer than without support.

Previously, Rev (Herald) was just about the most OP of all the professions, but recent nerfs have brought them in line a big better. They’re still incredibly strong, but difficult to play and so aren’t nearly as popular as before.

Warrior (Berserker) is pretty easy to get the hang of and are quite popular because of that. Though they are easier to counter than DHs, so they won’t have an impact on a match as much as a DH. But if players don’t know how to deal with a Warrior, they can literally be killed in 2-3 hits, or condi bombed with no way to survive.

Mesmers (Chronomancers) are popular and extremely powerful, but is probably the most mechanically difficult profession to play well against good players.

Engis (Scrappers) are still a great asset to a team, but strong nerfs a few months ago hurt their popularity, and they can difficult to play.

If I would rank the top three most impactful professions on a ranked match when played welled, overall (meaning all levels of play in general):

1. DH
2. Chronomancer
3. Tempest

DHs are just powerful, Chronomancers provide powerful utility (though portal is generally wasted on uncoordinated teams) and Moa, and Tempest has unmatched healing and other supports.

If you care about my thoughts, don’t run DH because it’s easy and popular. Everyone loves having support, so try out Tempest or Druid. Both are extremely powerful and useful. If you want an easy DPS profession, Berserker is probably the next easiest from DH. If you just want the most powerful power damage, DH, Scrapper, Thief and Rev are your friends. (Recently a power Reaper build has been showing up, using Axe. It does some monster power damage and is more survivable than the condi specs.) If you want powerful condition damage, Chronomancer, Reaper and Berserker all have great condition specs.

In WvW? Can’t help you there!

+1, good summary. All depends on what you want thr most of, speed, damage, or support. No build has it all.

babazhook.6805:

rennlc.7346:

I understand you can make condi work well enough for your liking in WvW. The majority of the negativity in this thread directed toward condi thieves is directed at those who play it in ranked sPvP. That’s where we’re telling people to play power builds.

That is not what i see at all. I see a group of people who have found something that works for them unwilling to entertain the thought that any other build/style can work and unwilling to adapt to other builds.

It regimented thinking. That unwillingness to try and adapt their builds to other playstyles or types is limiting . If they are not very top tier and can not prove a win every time they play with their own version of how things should be done than the claims “no other style but this works” does not have merit.

You should not be “telling” people what they should play in any format .

My way or the highway only works when one can demonstrate they win each and every match no matter the skill level. If one has a 60 percent win rate using power as compare dto a 40 percent win rate using condi, nothing is really proven.

I understand that the way PvP constructed leads to this type of thinking on the part of the player as made evidentby the OP. It is also why I find PvP not to my liking as it far to limiting which made even worse by the DEMAND that people should only play a defined and approved build.

Baba if you genuinely believe that I’m generally guilty of regimented thinking and that I reject non-meta builds out of hand, come duel me on my condi rev. It’s usually laughed at by people who are living 1 year ago after its initial nerfs, it’s actually quite strong. I play it all the time for its versatility. I’ve also been enjoying FA ele, even took it into a few ranked matches today b/c I’m a Phantaram wannabe.

My isssue with condi thief isn’t this philosophical “regimented thinking” mental obstacle that you’ve referred to. It’s watching condi thieves fail over. And over. And over. To achieve kills against players who know how to press V. The burst is weak, and yes the cleave is terrible. This thread is about condi thief’s unviability in ranked, that’s it, and I made it after too much playing with/against condi thieves, not too little. If they were effective then this thread would not exist. I couldn’t care less about whatever off-meta build somebody plays (like core bunker guard) so long as it plays its role well and doesn’t force a loss. But the latter is precisely what condi thieves do: they fail to contribute to a useful role due to slow time-to-kill and low survivability. If this were a 1v1 game mode then I wouldn’t care because I wouldn’t be playing the build myself.

saerni.2584:

Condi damage can be less damage on paper but comes with some advantages.

If poison is part of the condi spread then heals are 33% less effective. So condi needs to do less damage to overcome healing. Also, even though condi does its damage over time, if there isn’t enough condi clear then that person will die before they have the chance to heal back up (i.e. use a healing skill or other form of reset).

Your suggestions would make me (or another condi thief) into OP gods of the field. In sPvP my opening combo right now is 16.2k damage—without counting the variable damage of the confusion I apply on steal. My suggestions would be to increase the sustained damage portion (i.e. bleed on Sneak Attack) and thereby increase the burst by roughly 2k. So the burst would go to 18ish and the sustained damage would be stronger as well. Give me burning and more confusion access and my burst will easily exceed 25-30k. That would be OP. I’m not saying I’m overly powerful now, but you do need to be careful in saying “buff condi because it sucks” when the reality is not nearly as hopeless as you seem to think.

And saying “telling players not to play is productive” is clearly wrong. It isn’t a reasonable suggestion so if no one will take your “advice” it won’t actually matter at the end of the day.

What you say about poison is true, but it’s a null point when compared with D/P (which is what I’m comparing condi thieves against). Dagger AA applies 6s of poison, and you also use shortbow 4 to apply poison in certain situations. Regardless of how much damage you do with the poison it always has the -33% heal debuff, so that’s not an advantage that condi builds have against power D/P.

A large part of condi thief’s weakness is that it has access to few conditions, and condi clears get rid of all stacks of a set number of condis. Doesn’t matter if I have 20 bleed stacks, 1 condi clear gets rid of all of them. It’s a structural weakness of the build(s) that can’t be fixed by more stacks or longer durations, thieves need access to cover condis or a greater variety of non-damage condis.

Everything that I’ve said following “uninstall” has been backed by reason, so it’s entirely reasonable. You might not like my reasoning but it’s backed by facts, as well as evidence such as that no ESL thieves play condi thief. And who knows, maybe some people will see this and start playing D/P instead, we have no way of knowing. But it’s better than saying nothing and getting stuck with players on mediocre builds.

And here it gets personal again, making kittenumptions about what I do/don’t do. I duo quite frequently actually. That and discuss strategy, including decaps and such. Does not account for players who don’t read chat or have no intention of playing like a team. Still not sure why you’re using the phrase “premade group” because that concept is dead in ranked. It’s not even possible to play with friends, only friend. Pretty lame that you’re making statements you know to be false in order prop up your personal attacks.

I’m not going to reexplain how invulnerability works, you clearly don’t get it. Reread my explanation until you do. And your torment explanation is just a description of bleeding (why else would an open wound kill me in less than a minute?) so idk where you’re going with that. Add to your comments about the perplexity rune, that’s is just a blank “too OP” explanation that’s not actually an explanation. If the condi application is too high according to some abritrary threshold, then lower the number of stacks or duration.

And you are correct that regen alone doesn’t counter condi stacking, but it doesn’t counter power damage either. I don’t know why you keep contrasting these as if they are completely separate concepts, condi is not generally stronger than power, and in the case of thief it’s weaker.

emkelly.2371:

How would Burning make sense for a thief? they don’t have a torch, they don’t have an elemental affinity, they don’t have magic (i mean, i guess shadowstep is magic but you know what i mean.)

Lore is not really of interest to me nor is it relevant to a discussion about optimal builds in ranked. If you want to get into it, what is Torment really, and why do thieves have access to it? Why is it applied when I stab somebody? It’s a videogame, conditions don’t make much sense, and they don’t have to. If thieves had a burning effect on Body Shot, would it matter? To me what matters is whether the thieves on my team are playing these unoptimized condi builds. Thief condi builds could be better in the future, but the thread is about why they should not be played in ranked at this moment in time.

Confusion, they have a 6 stack on steal. which is fairly substantial.

Why not on other skills? If we’re going by what makes “sense” then I think it should be applied on the Sword stealth skill.

Honestly, the biggest problem with condi thief IMO is that a thieves condi traits are all in the wrong place. look at the thief’s trait lines and you’ll notiuce this is a huge problem with more than just condi. Everything is so far spread out that a thief cannot take advantage of their abilities without giving up more important things.

I don’t know that this is bad, but you are correct, they are very spread out. Increases to power damage are also spread between deadly arts and critical strikes, in sPvP only one of those is taken at a time.

Is Condi an inferior way of doing damage? eh, probably, but it also has less counters to it. Sure, direct damage does more damage, quicker, but it is countered by everything from high HP regen, Burst heals, Blocks, and Invulnerability. not to mention that if you fail to kill with your first rotation, you have to reset.

Condi burst damage is stopped by Blocks, Condi Clears, and Resistance. Thats it. The large majority of invulnerability skills don’t stop condi by design. On top of that, Condi allows you to put pressure on an opponent and keep the pressure on while you prepare for your next burst.

All of the things that counter power damage also counter condi application/damage, with one exception: skills which only make you immune to direct damage, such as Endure Pain. Those are different to invulns like Distortion. Warrior also has Berserker Stance so it’s not like they’re more weak to condis or anything.

People often get confused on this topic; “they’re invulned but still taking condi damage, clearly this doesn’t counter condis!” It does. They’re taking damage from condis that were applied before the invuln was activated, just like they’ve already lost health from direct damage attacks landed before the invuln. It’s the same thing, you cannot apply condis or hit with direct damage when someone is invulned. Thief’s condis are applied through attacks, just like power damage, and those attacks can miss, be blocked or be neutralized by invulnerability. A burst heal can be saved to heal after a certain amount of condi damage has been taken. Regen counteracts condis more effectively, if I have 10k health and I can regenerate 10k health in 10 seconds, it doesn’t matter to a power user. If they can deal 12k damage in 3 seconds then it doesn’t matter how much regen I have, the damage has been done and I’m dead. Since condi damage is generally dealt more slowly, it’s more effectively counteracted by regen.

When you play on a team who knows you and how to use you, you are far more likely to succeed.

Who are these teams and where can I find them? In the current ranked system you can’t rely on your team to know much of anything. I was playing D/P yesterday, in Gold 1, and was teamed with a guard who kept trying to decap far… by himself. And the worst thing is that if you watch Sindrener, Phantaram, etc’s Twitch streams you’ll see these kinds of bad rotations occurring in Platinum or Legendary too. Completely nonsensical. D/P already requires the team to allow the thief to play its role, but at least the majority of players know what D/P’s role is. Introducing a infrequently-played and inferior playstyle to a population for no real reason isn’t going to work out well with 3-4 strangers. If you’re going to do it, at least be honest about the fact that this is a choice you’re making for your own enjoyment and to the detriment of your team.

NeXeD.3042:

im really enjoying this newfound animosity the new leaderboards have created… its almost like this is a real PvP game now!

Hey I wanna fight too! bud u r bad at the game (fight meh plz)

saerni.2584:

If you honestly believe that condi thief is underpowered—which needs some specificity as to what weaponset you are talking about—then the question becomes how would you buff it in order to make it strong enough to compete?

Just coming here to attack players who want to compete with it, and attacking us for trying to compete with it, isn’t productive.

Take a build that runs P/D. They doubled the torment on Shadowstrike. Is this not enough or is that fine? Should we buff the condition output or durations? Is Sneak Attack’s duration too short in sPvP? Or is the problem that there isn’t enough poison built into the offhand dagger set (increasing total condition potential application). Are venoms, which are what I used to burst condition damage, still underpowered and need buffs? Is it merely the damage that needs a buff or another decrease in the cooldown?

Personally, I think the bleed damage/duration on Sneak Attack is oddly small compared to the PvE and WvW variants. That could be buffed significantly without becoming overpowered in the gamemode. The reason is the present trend in HoT condition clears that require a player to stop attacking in order for the conditions to not be cleared (think Diamond Skin or Escapist’s Absolution or Hunter’s Fortification or Adaptive Armor—not a clear but 20% reduction when struck—or (special mention) Druidic Clarity which is just a massive condi clear once they have done enough damage/healing on a short timer).

Rather than a tone adjustment I think you need to make productive suggestions if you want people to listen to you.

This thread is a productive suggestion: don’t play condi thief in ranked. However, if you’re looking for productive suggestions for Devs to look at, increase thieves’ access to burning and confusion. DoT builds do not favor thieves, as they’re not built for sustain, yet thieves have access mostly to bleed and torment, the latter of which is only significantly dangerous to nubs when it’s stacked up to 8 or more stacks. 4 stacks does not impress me, even without cleansing it’s only going to do about 3k damage max. Because thief has poor options for sustain, they need condi spikes the same way power thieves need direct damage spikes.

But that is not what this thread is for. As it is right now it’s an inferior way of doing damage, and with shortbow it only ties D/P for decap potential. Has less stealth, unless you’re running offhand pistol and Bound (meaning less mobility). And finally, it’s a poor option for bunkering compared to ele or druid, and while a bad DH bunk might will die faster than a condi thief bunker, they can also contribute to team fights. Regardless of the weaponset, it’s never the best at what it does, ever. The productive choice is to choose something else.

Stormleaf.1769:

You are playing a game that is competitively dead, and that has been so for quite awhile. There are, what, 16 people (or rather, accounts) in NA legendary right now? That should tell you all you need to know.

The system and matchmaking aren’t the major problems here. It’s the fact that the game (or at least the mode) has such a dismally low population at this point that it can’t manage to find ten similarly-skilled people to pit against each other in the “higher levels” of play. Because there just aren’t that many reliably available at one time.

It’s simply the sad reality of playing a withered and starved game mode. I’m surprised someone so high on the leaderboard hasn’t already recognized and come to terms with this.

Many people on the forums are saying the opposite, that there are actually many people coming from outside the sPvP community to play, primarily for rewards.

I think there is an issue with the fact that your gain/loss is dynamic depending on the other team. It fails to take into account random factors that happen all the time, like a good player being tired/sick, afk because someone came to the door, decent player raging and playing badly as a result, etc. Just “this team should win b/c higher MMR” is not enough information from which to accurately forecast a winner. It’s the MOST useful individual piece of information, but by itself is hardly enough.

Why not just give/take a static amount of MMR for wins/losses? That way people can move up more quickly. If they’re bad then they’ll also drop back down quickly since their MMR loss won’t be reduced because they were “supposed” to lose. I don’t see why this dynamic adjuster makes the game more fun.

John this man is clearly a prodigy. CLEARLY. Certainly not everyone can do that kind of damage, certainly not a lowly pro-league player like Phantaram. Let’s make this happen!!

Actually he carried his team lol. Just because you’re not good enough to play it doesn’t mean it isn’t effective, Phantaram just played it competitively yesterday and was winning 1v1s against thieves (which counter ele btw) and was even occupying the other team in 1v2s.

sexuallegend.2153:

I’m surprised you haven’t seen Episode 1 of Best Player. That’s one of the best, top quality GW2 combat movies ever released. Watching the best individual player will learn you some tactics

Unfortunately it will not “learn” you good grammar.

If by “reward” you mean the amount of MMR you gain/lose is adjusted, then yeah. Although I think that you should have to gain at least 2 categories to get any MMR reward. 20 kills sounds impressive but if that’s the only thing you did, then you weren’t really carrying. But if you get top kills AND top revives, just for example, you were clearly not just tunnel visioning on kills, you were contributing o the team’s success too. Kills by itself isn’t necessarily impressive because you could easily just tag someone that your teammate is fighting 1v1 and get full credit for the kill.

I definitely don’t think that anything other than MMR points should be awarded, if you start giving gold/items then it will encourage even more bad behavior from pve players that pvp just to farm ascended armor.

But this is part of a larger discussion about top stats and if/how they should affect MMR, there’s already a thread on that topic if you guys want to chime in.