Guild Wars 2

The starting play doesn’t matter as much as team coordination and map awareness. Not only that, but the team compositions affect how a match goes down, too. There isn’t just one right way to play a match, and that’s probably why teams stomp pugs so bad 90% of the time.

Although, most of the times it’s hard to find pugs that know how to fight on points or how not to zerg to chase squirrels lol.

She’s bundled up in a scarf and fuzzy cat hat to keep her warm now.

(And hoarding all these presents, mwahahaha!)

I can’t really confirm whether it’s true or not, but yesterday my entire team’s client crashed right before our match. To me, it looked like I got 2 queues at the same time, one match ready screen overlapping a map selection screen, and then my client crashed and sent in a bug report to Anet.

When I logged back in, people were saying it was only my team that crashed, but we all managed to log back in and win the match still. It’s not really miraculous but that hasn’t happened to me before and it’s recent so lol. :P

I really don’t think so, because as far as I’ve seen teams always completely dominate soloers. I think they take the same MMR for both teams regardless of how many players teamed up. :/

I’ve been wondering the same thing lol. If you ask me, I think the best you can do is just test your build on all of the profession NPC’s, then jump into a hotjoin and get a general feel for what it’s like with other players and on the actual maps (mobility, survivability, damage to actual players, etc.) After you feel more comfortable with your skills, as long as you know the jist of how PVP works as a conquest game (or death match if courtyard), you should be fine. Just consider what your build’s strengths are and where your character would be most useful on the battlefield.

Also, even if you play perfectly you’ll still have people raging about how useless you are lol. I had a guy in my last match calling me a noob for losing a 1 v 3 and saying how I needed to l2p, even though the enemy team was premade and we were all pugs lol. If you’re able to cap points quickly, bunk points against multiple players for a decent length of time, or help down and finish enemies quickly then you’re doing a good job, but if you’re dying 10 seconds after leaving spawn over and over again without accomplishing anything then you may need to rethink your build. (Either that or you were up against a premade or in a 4 v 5 lol.)

1. Character customization. It’s addicting lol.
2. Miniatures. They’re so cute and I love seeing everyone running around with all sorts of different minis.
3. The fast-paced combat system.

My wish: Fix Lion’s Arch and add more cute and cheerful stuff?

+1

If they brought back solo q and gave the same rewards as team q to it I would be so happy. It’s really hard to be hopeful and optimistic about that though. I’m just trying to get used to getting endlessly crushed by full premades for now though. :c

I always thought the berserker button mash took less skill, personally. It was always just memorize the combination of your highest damaging skills, press them as fast as you can, and if the person you targetted is still alive, run away and wait for your skills to recharge. That’s how it still is, actually. Then again, I’ve never been a fan of the ‘first to hit wins’ or ‘ending a fight before it starts’ meta. I kind of like that fights go in both directions now, instead of just watching everyone die in 3 seconds lol.

Granted, I do think that rune of strength could be toned down so that the tanky builds can’t be so offensive at the same time. Celestial amulet is just another tanking amulet without it, for the most part, and was always regarded as a worthless amulet until the new runes and sigils came out to support it.

I agree 100%. Class stacking is bad enough without the daily. I can only imagine a ranger and engineer day… shudders

Idk about the mmr prediction but the loss is counted as a forfeit instead of an actual loss if it ends with 4 v 5 (or a bye if you’re on the side with 5, instead of a win).

Maybe that’s why d/ced people can’t reconnect, too. It could be because the game already counts it as a forfeit and locks them out or something (I’m not sure tbh though.) :c

It’s kind of ironic and sad. People were probably thinking “Omg a new map after so long, it must be awesome!” and then their dreams were shattered. </3

Well, I don’t like the changes either, but there are a lot of premade teams now that farm pugs like it’s a COF p1 speed run and they seem to be enjoying it. I can only hope anet isn’t trying to cater to people like them, but with how farmy the rest of the game is, it wouldn’t surprise me any. :/

Lol, pvp has become like Inception.

mima.4126:

its not individual skills, its not certain classes, its not certain amulets, its not certain maps that ruin the fun. its not even frustrated players accusing each other in chat (this is bad, but its merely a result itself).

if you can not guarantee, that solo players will be in a match purely with other solo players, like apparently you cant using the current algorhithms or whatever, then the balance is off way from before the start of the match.

use hardfilters to protect the solo players from being “farmed”. im convinced that the majority of people losing ranked games are solo players. you`re data should back that up. otherwise id be very surprised.

Yeah… the least they could do is separate the soloers from anyone else who teams up… Even if just 2 people are in teamspeak with one another, it’s still a huge advantage over 5 strangers who can only type or ping the map to communicate.

Guardian: Block block block block, evade, heal, evade, heal, block block block block, invulnerable, invulnerable invulnerable, block block block, heal, evade, heal, evade, heal, block block block, blind, block……….

A good bunker guardian can keep quite a few people occupied for a good amount of time in the average fight. :P

Since you have a guardian, I think it would be a good idea for you to stick with it so you can have at least a small understanding of what’s going on. It’s hard enough to figure out what to do in a new area of the game, let alone trying to learn a new profession altogether at the same time. Try going to metabattle.com for some decent builds to try on your guardian for pvp.

Next, since pvp is a conquest game, there are various ways to maneuver the map given your team composition, and if you want to learn the rotations and such then I’m sure you could find some basic guides on youtube, which would be especially good for you because you can actually see what’s going on while someone describes what they’re doing and why. Youtube could also be used to find yourself a guardian build and watch it in action, too. Just try to filter videos by date so that you find builds that are relevant, and not from a long time ago.

Pvp is all about playing to your strengths, though. As a basic rule of thumb, if you’re playing a ‘bunker’ character with a lot of survivability and low damage, you want to be on points that your team has already capped, or wherever your teammates are, to help keep a point contested or belonging to your team. You don’t want to push to the farthest point away from your spawn if it belongs to the enemy and there’s a player defending it, because you won’t be able to kill him quickly to capture it, but if you play a very high dps bursty character that can take out other players quickly, then that’s exactly what you want to do – keep moving to points that don’t belong to your team and decap them, or join in on large fights and take someone out quickly then move on.

DPS characters are all about having high burst and high mobility so they can move quickly between points, decapping and killing enemies as fast as possible, while bunker characters are all about trying to maintain the points that they already have or prevent the enemy from capping a point by just staying alive for as long as possible on the point.

The great thing about being a guardian is that you can try out both and see which one you like best, because you could either go for a DPS meditation build or a bunker build if you like.

Ele and engi are solid choices, although when it comes to carrying solos, oftentimes that means trying to hold 2 points by yourself, because a lot of the people that you get put with are SO bad that they only know how to zerg to home or zerg off points, in which case mesmer is also a good choice for the portal and mobility, although stealth and not staying on the points can screw you over if you can’t burst people down fast enough.

I’ve had so many fights where I’ll be holding off 3, or even KILLING 3 at mid or far and my teammates are all zerging off point dying to their remaining 2 while the other points belong to the enemy, so sometimes it’s just hopeless and you can’t carry everyone lol.

Aereniel.7356:

Nightshade.5924:

But the main point here, that everyone seems to be avoiding, is that I am requesting the DEVS to PROVE ME WRONG. By creating a “killed in pvp” tracker and publishing the results. By showing with hard numbers and inarguable proof that, for instance, mesmers die 1/2 as often as warriors.

This can be simply done by tracking each class, recording how many times they die in a given series or set of matches, or by sheer numbers, and then calculating the average amount of deaths.

On the off-chance that you’re not trolling – the death counter you are proposing is interesting, but it is far too simplistic a metric to be relied on as a gauge for the efficacy of any given class. No development action should ever be taken based on such a narrow metric. Even moreso because our competitive game type currently is conquest, and killing players, while certainly one way to win a match, is not always the most advantageous path to victory. A death counter alone says nothing about class viability in conquest. A lot of other data needs to be considered.

Lol, I was thinking the same thing. Bunker characters die more than anyone else, but their success is in how long they can stay alive and on point each time they respawn, regardless of how many enemy players are bursting down on them. Sure, mesmers might die less than warriors on average, but mesmers in PVP are usually roaming between points trying to burst someone down on a point then run to the next point to help in fights, not stay and bunk the point themselves. That’s why they have stealth and portals and blink.

“Don’t chase the squirrel.” That’s a good pvp lesson for you. If you’re mad because you chased a thief or a mesmer all the way across the map to his zerg then died, or died before you even made it to a point, it’s because he’s doing his job but you aren’t doing yours. Usually, if you’re fighting on point and focusing on what you’re supposed to do without being kited around, you can stand a better chance in a duel against a thief or a mesmer, or possibly hold out long enough until your team comes to help you. Even if you do lose to them, you were still supporting your team by fighting on point as long as you could.

Lol I don’t know if I was in the same match as you but the exact same thing happened to me yesterday. Skyhammer ftw. xD

Do you get the same amount of rank points/points toward the reward track for unranked matches though? Just curious…

Nausiation.1469:

Lindbur.2537:

You’d get crushed in seconds with zerker gear even if you stay at the back of a zerg with all the AoEs that get thrown about.

would you REALLY though? I am currently playing full zerker ranger and yes, I know ranger is a BIT tankier than an ele, but I almost never get hit at all as ranger. 1200 range is more than enough to stay out of aoe.

I feel like running soldier would be a crutch for people with bad positioning and who can’t stay out of red circles.

Well, this is why it’s advised to have at least a little bit of vitality in your build :

Haters gonna hate.

Kharr.5746:

I assure you that this has nothing to do with you playing a female character. The PvP community in this game is toxic, moreso than any other MMO on the market.

It only takes two clicks to block someone. Give it a try! After a while, every pvp match is dead silent.

Idk about that. Sure, it gets pretty toxic at times, but that’s nothing compared to some of the things I’ve heard my brother screaming over Call of Duty, or even just Minecraft with his friends. xD

The thing is that you shouldn’t take anything guys say personally. They probably don’t mean to hurt your feelings, they’re just venting. Even if it sounds horrible, they’ll get over it pretty quickly usually. After all, it’s just a game. :P

You could try running a diamond skin elementalist, a necromancer, a warrior with berserker’s stance, or a condition bunker ranger. Those all do pretty well against other condition classes from my experience. Maybe conditions are just your weak spot right now though. You’ll find that if you go with a class that’s strong against condition builds, you’ll feel weaker against classes that can burst well, and vice versa. There aren’t really any builds that have no weaknesses lol. :P

In regards to what Chaith said, I don’t really think elementalists would be completely unviable without celestial stats. I can’t really speak for engineers too much because my engineer isn’t my main and I haven’t actually played on him (except for berserker builds) in a while, but elementalists could actually still get away with using either the rabid, carrion, settler, cleric, berserker, or even soldier’s amulet in tpvp. I don’t think anyone would even consider replacing their guardian with an elementalist in this case (in competitive play), but they’re not complete garbage either.

Unfortunately, I think there would still be a problem with might stacking when combined with the tanky amulets, though. I also think that nerfing one viable amulet into the ground or removing it would just make everyone split up into the other remaining viable builds, and you would just see a lot more elementalists running with Diva’s condition signet build with Stone Heart or berserker S/F or staff bomber builds lol.

I’ve had people call me OP when I was using a cleric/settler amulet before, so I have a feeling that the whining won’t stop even if celestial is removed. :P

Simon.3794:

Kako.1930:

There again, it’s not elementalists/engineers or the celestial stats that are overpowered. Pre-patch celestial was regarded as a trash amulet, and boosting the stats by 6% isn’t enough to suddenly make it god-mode.

Nothing significant changed with either elementalists or engineers either, so you can’t really say that they’re OP because they weren’t OP before the runes and sigils change and nothing really changed about their skills to suddenly make them OP.

It’s the might duration runes and sigil of doom/battle that need to be fixed, because only elementalists and engineers are able to abuse them to the extent where it becomes a problem.

They could nerf engineers and elementalists, but it might only cause more problems with balance and functionality versus just tweaking the rune and sigil stats.

Either way, I don’t really see a way to adjust elementalists and elementalists to cancel out the rune/sigil changes that wouldn’t also nerf all non-overpowered builds that don’t use them.

Nerfing celestial stats back to the way they used to be wouldn’t affect much either, imo. It feels like a broken record to keep saying this, but elementalists and engineers haven’t changed much in the past year, so how could something that was virtually garbage last year become op godmode without any huge changes to the classes themselves this year?

Also, if these OP elementalists and engineers didn’t have sigil of battle/sigil of doom/rune of strength/rune of hoelbrak, would they still be OP? The answer is no, because they wouldn’t have the massive damage to support their tankiness that they do now.

Doesn’t matter tho, hambow and warrior is nerfed around them, so ele and engi should be nerfed as well.

cele or the class, your choice.

Correction: Hambow was nerfed because the hammer could output berserker damage with a soldier’s amulet. If there was a problem with a specific skill or weapon at the elementalist’s/engineer’s disposal, then that would call for a nerf, but it wasn’t a rune or sigil that made warriors strong, it was their weapons and traits.

Also, warriors were OVER nerfed, which is another reason I think a rune/sigil change would be better than a profession overhaul. It’s a case of “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” There’s nothing wrong with elementalists and engineers, it’s the runes and sigils that are messed up. :P

There again, it’s not elementalists/engineers or the celestial stats that are overpowered. Pre-patch celestial was regarded as a trash amulet, and boosting the stats by 6% isn’t enough to suddenly make it god-mode.

Nothing significant changed with either elementalists or engineers either, so you can’t really say that they’re OP because they weren’t OP before the runes and sigils change and nothing really changed about their skills to suddenly make them OP.

It’s the might duration runes and sigil of doom/battle that need to be fixed, because only elementalists and engineers are able to abuse them to the extent where it becomes a problem.

They could nerf engineers and elementalists, but it might only cause more problems with balance and functionality versus just tweaking the rune and sigil stats.

Either way, I don’t really see a way to adjust elementalists and elementalists to cancel out the rune/sigil changes that wouldn’t also nerf all non-overpowered builds that don’t use them.

Nerfing celestial stats back to the way they used to be wouldn’t affect much either, imo. It feels like a broken record to keep saying this, but elementalists and engineers haven’t changed much in the past year, so how could something that was virtually garbage last year become op godmode without any huge changes to the classes themselves this year?

Also, if these OP elementalists and engineers didn’t have sigil of battle/sigil of doom/rune of strength/rune of hoelbrak, would they still be OP? The answer is no, because they wouldn’t have the massive damage to support their tankiness that they do now.

I always thought that life theft should be a percentage of the direct damage that you deal with the life stealing skills, but maybe it would be too OP in this game. It just seemed like a cool idea to have a profession that could sustain itself by draining the life out of its enemies.

If celestial was really OP, you could equip it to any profession and beat that same profession using any other amulet/build just because the stats carry you. The only professions that can do really well with celestial are elementalists and engineers.

Try using celestial on a mesmer, necromancer, or thief in PVP then see if you still think it’s completely OP. xD

The problem isn’t the amulet itself, it’s the runes and sigils that are giving professions the ability to apply conditions they shouldn’t be able to apply (like sigil of doom) or stack a ton of might on themselves (with rune of hoelbrak/strength). That’s why it makes elementalists and engineers seem completely OP compared to other professions that can’t make use of all of the stats and blast their own fire fields endlessly.

Without those might stacks and the ability to cripple other bunkers via applying poison so easily, celestial hits like a wet noodle. I was using celestial both before and after the patch when they implemented the rune changes, and the stat change alone didn’t change much, but once I figured out that my elementalist had the ability to stack might to boost her DPS on top of poisoning other bunkers just from swapping attunements, she went from being a full-out bunker to being some sort of a crazy juggernaut able to tank like a boss while bursting other people down lol.

I don’t think you should hold your breath. If anything, it’s gotten worse, not better. The amulets used to have a gem that you could choose to have different stats from the rest of the amulet, but now it’s all in one amulet. Arenanet hasn’t made any comments referring to a possible change to the stats in the near future, either. :/

I always saw warriors as the go-to class for new players. It’s not entirely a bad thing that they have so many passive skills to act as crutches for inexperienced players, but to main a warrior as an experienced player can be boring because of it.

I think it would be a good idea to implement more active skills to reward more skilled players, but I don’t think that the passives should be completely taken out either. They’re not really as useful in competitive, high-skilled play, but they help a lot with the l2p issues of starting out fresh. :P

The only reason I even jump into wvw once in a while is to flip fully upgraded camps then go back to pvp lol, if they did that then I wouldn’t even bother. Not everyone likes to zerg blob around all day, and if the objectives are so important then guard them yourself. :P

That’s just my opinion, but I think players that are willing to do and think things for themselves shouldn’t be punished for it.

Narcarsis.5739:

Do you like kittens?

Who doesn’t like kittens? :P

NeXeD.3042:

Kako.1930:

Hm, so you wouldn’t say calling someone a moron or claiming that they haven’t played for more than 4 months, are a WVW/hotjoin hero, and said that xxx is OP and the game takes no skill when you know nothing about the person is offensive?

Sorry, but I see it happening on the forums a lot, and when you try to invalidate other peoples’ opinions by claiming that they’re just scrubs that don’t know what they’re talking about, it only makes you look like a jerk.

You can try to cover it up with cluelessness and sexist comments, but it is what it is. Putting other people down doesn’t make you look stronger or more competent. :/

I never made a sexist comment so don’t lump me in. Your welcome to have an opinion of a player but id rather look at their competitive history it’s a much better indicator of skill. I never said anything about you not playing for months or being a hotjoin hero wvw player etc.

Your attempting to defend your personal opinion which is great, but I’m just looking at the pvpers body of work, most of the players on that list have won tournament or at least been extremely competitive in the tournaments.

Well if it’s based on winning tournaments and duels that’s one thing, and they should mention that in the OP rather than claiming that these are the best players in NA. It would be like announcing that the winner of your high school’s spelling bee is the best speller in the country lol.

Also, sorry for lumping you in with the other guy. I just don’t like how toxic the forums are sometimes, it makes it hard to have any form of a civil conversation.

Hm, so you wouldn’t say calling someone a moron or claiming that they haven’t played for more than 4 months, are a WVW/hotjoin hero, and said that xxx is OP and the game takes no skill when you know nothing about the person is offensive?

Sorry, but I see it happening on the forums a lot, and when you try to invalidate other peoples’ opinions by claiming that they’re just scrubs that don’t know what they’re talking about, it only makes you look like a jerk.

You can try to cover it up with cluelessness and sexist comments, but it is what it is. Putting other people down doesn’t make you look stronger or more competent. :/

Actually, my opinion comes from playing matches with these guys, and yesterday Magic Toker was linking his twitch after every match, win or lose. And no, I’m not a WVW hero, I pretty much only pvp in GW2. I used to exclusively play in team Q because solo Q players often seemed less skilled, but lately I’ve been venturing into solo Q as well, which is where I saw Zoose and Magic Toker yesterday. It’s also where I’ve seen a lot of these other players, too.

I never said they’re not good players, and clearly they have a very aggressive fanbase, so hats off to them…

That’s just coming from a girl who loves to pvp. On this account (my second account which was created in June of this year) I’ve won 308 matches and lost 259 in team arena, then won 156 solo q matches and lost 123. On my old account I won about 500 and lost about 450 team q matches and won 407 matches in solo q while losing 373. (My account used to be called Lindsey.2691 but was changed to BEETLEjay.2459 and then I just quit using the account entirely and started fresh on this account for personal reasons).

You guys really shouldn’t jump to harassment just because someone disagrees with you. In fact, it doesn’t actually help your cause because it shows how much of a jerk you are.

I’ve pvped with a lot of these guys and they’re pretty good, but there are a few players I would rank higher… they may not win in popularity though because I’m pretty sure they’re not streamers. (At least, I haven’t seen them spam map chat with their twitches after every match like a few of the guys on this list do lol.)

Yeah, I’ve been lagging a lot only recently too with no change to my internet service or anything, and I’ve noticed a lot more people D/Cing in PVP or complaining about lag too. It’s not reserved to PVP either, because WVW’ers have been complaining about the same thing for weeks now.

I’ve been hearing it from a lot of people who have some of the best ISPs too, like fiber optics and such, so I have a hard time believing that all of these different ISPs suddenly just started messing up simultaneously.

S/D thief vs. Elementalist
Thief vs. Mesmer
Power Ranger vs. Mesmer
Med Guard vs. Warrior
Diamond Skin Elementalist vs. All pure condition builds.
Necromancer vs. Engineer
Necromancer vs. Elementalist
Moa Morph Mesmer vs. Minion Master Necromancer
Staff Elementalist vs. Turret Engineer.
Stunlock Mesmer/Warrior vs. Necromancer
Bunker/Condi Ranger vs. Thief

These are just my opinion, but I always feel like I’m at the advantage if I’m playing in these situations. :P (or disadvantage if I’m the one on the right)

I love posts like these. It gives me faith that not everyone is a whiny brat and there are people out there who do have a sense of humor lol. Bravo.

I’m pretty sure it’s for the same reason that Skyhammer still exists.

I use sword and shield with the rifle and use this build in PVP (I can’t really speak for PVE):

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAseUjMd04ZVIGeQHigfgCZMUDmCgrFeKoLNA-TJBFwACODA02foaZAAPCAA

It’s not meta, but it works well for me. Even though I use the berserker’s amulet I’m not terribly squishy (with 23,272 health and 2,724 armor), and it puts out decent burst. I was using longbow for a while with cleansing ire and rending strikes instead of crack shot and last stand, but I prefer this setup more.

Note: I’m not claiming this as my original build or anything, it’s just what I’ve been using.

The sword doesn’t do as much damage as the greatsword does, but if you use final thrust on someone or something that’s bleeding and below 50% health then you’ll do a lot of damage (which isn’t hard since the auto attack inflicts bleeds too).

As long as you switch back to the sword and shield, you’ll benefit from the +25% movement speed too. Or you could go with 2 melee weapon sets. Even though I don’t use it in PVE much, I’m sure it would do fine there too. It’s just not the most optimal DPS meta setup or anything (but neither is having a 1h sword + shield in PVE anyways lol). I hope this helps a little.

Weird. I usually get anywhere from 3 to 6 thieves in my matches.

Actually, playing with a staff gives you the potential to be even tankier than D/D eles because of their water fields and long-ranged CC’s. They’re great for PVP because they can dance around in their AOE’s and destroy anyone that stays inside of them for too long.

You’ll want to practice a lot though and learn how to combo your skills so they’ll be most efficient, though. If not, you’ll find yourself either not doing enough damage to kill anyone or not being able to survive well enough depending on whether you over-emphasize offense or defense. D/D is more forgiving in this respect because you don’t have to worry about aiming/timing your skills as much.

It depends on which weapons you’re using. If you use a staff, you could use either of my two builds that I was using before I got celestial gear. I personally liked the condition variant more, but the power version works fine too.

(Note: It might work for D/D or D/F too, but I’m not sure. The condition one would be great for D/F but I haven’t really played with D/D too much. I always just used a staff though.)

Power: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWhcM6cW4wyBd0AhAFxHYBGHAFQ+XsGKBA-TFiEABCp87hHAApKBpb/hVU/BAzfcoDYhLAAZAM3CA-w

Condition: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWhcM6ZW4wvBd0AhAFxHYBGHAFQ+XsGKBA-TFSFABAY+Lu9HKRHQDPAAPVCSj6PBp8DhLAAhAUMHA-w

Condition 2 (more vitality): http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWhcM6ZW4wvBd0AhAFxHYBGHAFQ+XsGKBA-TFSFwAGUCCw8X89HKpDYoyvGPAAaq/g4CAQIAFzBA-w

If you use D/F it would probably be better to take final shielding or renewing stamina instead of blasting staff for your arcana trait line, but you could also just use the standard meta traits (x/x/x/6/6) with the same equipment too.

I’m pretty sure these would be cheaper than full berserker’s too, although you wouldn’t want to do speed runs or anything with them. I mostly use them to solo camps, roam around in PVE and WVW, and gank dolyaks and sentries.

Depends on the dungeon. Twilight arbor? Guardian/Thief would be at the top. Arah? Guardian/Mesmer/Thief. COF? Elementalist, Mesmer, Guardian, Warrior. COE? Mesmer, Necromancer, Thief, Elementalist, Guardian, Warrior. AC? Elementalist, Warrior, Guardian, Thief. Etc. (Add Engi to every dungeon too)

I think the only one that doesn’t really have any perks of bringing it is ranger. They don’t really have any special abilities besides boosting their party’s damage with frost spirit and spotter.

Even so, I wouldn’t say there are any professions that I absolutely wouldn’t take into any dungeons. That’s just me speaking for myself though, other people might feel differently.

Kittens really have become majorly OP, haven’t they?

Necrotize.2974:

Kako.1930:

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Let’s fix celestial amulet so it reduces 2 specific builds, and makes it entirely useless for 6 other professions to use in any sort of way.

One word. Myopic.

If a minor change to 1 amulet would make it useless to 6 other professions, it’s probably useless to those professions already (hence, why they aren’t in the meta). I don’t think they would nerf it that bad anyways though.

Still, I don’t think celestial itself is the problem. Even though the ferocity change was bundled in with all the changes to runes and sigils, I think the bigger problem is with the might stacking buffs.

Still, the “suggestions” a lot of these people make are incredibly short sighted and usually fueled by ulterior motives. I’ve seen a few such as:

Nerf might to give less condition damage per stack
Nerf might in general so it doesn’t give as much damage
Nerf battle sigils(they usually don’t get more specific than that with how they plan on doing that without hurting every other class that uses battle sigils)
Nerf signet of restoration heal passive(because attacking to get a passive heal is too strong compared to just a plain ole’ Healing Signet :P)

And quite a few more that usually fall under one or more of those topics.

All of which affect more than just DD cele ele. Some affect other ele builds that aren’t meta(hence why they probably never consider them when making these suggestions), some affect the class in general and some are so wide and nearsighted that they’d affect a build from at least every class.

I’ve said it before(can’t remember if it was in this thread) but IMO people are always so quick to asks for nerfs because of personal grudges. If those weren’t a factor, we’d see more threads asking for buffs to the classes they play in order to combat certain builds. But that is too difficult and way too constructive. It is far easier to just say the class they’re losing to is “OP GOD TIER” and then ask for nerfs to every thing that makes the build strong until its no longer a build anymore.

True, but you could also argue that nerfing elementalists as a class because the rune/sigil change made them OP doesn’t take into consideration the elementalist builds that are balanced already that don’t rely on those runes/sigils.

I don’t think any of the professions were broken/unplayable before these runes/sigils became the meta, and changing them won’t break anything, but changing elementalists could cause only 1 elementalist build to be viable at all, if any. I think that’s why arenanet has said they don’t want to nerf elementalists directly, because there isn’t one skill or build that’s OP for them, it’s just the combination of what they already had with the new rune/sigil buffs that they could take advantage of.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Let’s fix celestial amulet so it reduces 2 specific builds, and makes it entirely useless for 6 other professions to use in any sort of way.

One word. Myopic.

If a minor change to 1 amulet would make it useless to 6 other professions, it’s probably useless to those professions already (hence, why they aren’t in the meta). I don’t think they would nerf it that bad anyways though.

Still, I don’t think celestial itself is the problem. Even though the ferocity change was bundled in with all the changes to runes and sigils, I think the bigger problem is with the might stacking buffs.

Relentliss.2170:

The problem is they have a very high defense and a decent offensive output (with very easy to obtain might stacks). They are imbalanced with what other classes can do. They have very little counterplay and just having one in an even numbered fight pretty much assures a victory. They have very strong defense and heal at 700+ HPS, which means very few builds can harm them 1v1 at all.

So they have 3 options 1) nerf might stacking 2) nerf Celestial 3) buff boon stripping and/or other counterplay 4) nerf the ele in general.

I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I’ve been hearing that they said they won’t be nerfing elementalists, so my guess is that if they do address this, it’ll be in the form of a might stacking nerf targeted toward the sigils and runes. Especially since elementalists went from completely useless to OP god mode after nothing but major nerfs to their elites, aside from the buffs to runes and sigils in the past year or so.

People cry that this would be an all-around nerf for everyone, but it would really only hurt celestial elementalists and engineers more than anyone else, and if they don’t go overboard, it wouldn’t completely make them useless, but even things out.

It’s not hard to maintain 20+ stacks of might by yourself on a d/d elementalist with strength runes and sigil of battle. You don’t need to trait less defensively, you don’t need to sacrifice defensive utility skills, and you don’t even really have to go out of your way to focus on stacking up. 9 of the stacks just happen from switching attunements, with another one being added when you swap to fire attunement. Before the rune and sigil update, this wasn’t a problem, but this gave tanky elementalists (and engineers) the ability to have 25 stacks of might +5% damage pretty much permanently in a fight. I think it should be renamed to Rune of the Juggernaut because that’s pretty much what it’s being used for.

TL;DR: Celestial D/D elementalists benefited the most from the rune/sigil patch. Not much has changed about them since launch, and it’s likely that not much more will change in the future with the class itself. If people want to see engineers and elementalists balanced, they need to let go of the idea that a sigil/rune balance would be an all-around nerf to everyone and accept that it would benefit everyone in the long run.