Guild Wars 2

Shar.3402:

Biggest issue with current soloQ (which will remain an issue even after A.net makes the split) is that people just plain suck.

It is either they’re bad at playing, or they play with the chat closed and don’t even attempt to communicate, or they simply do stupid things.

I’ve lost too many games because people won’t wait for regroups and go fight 1vs3, or you see random_warrior attempting to 1vs1 a side point holder (with the point not even neutral -> waste of time), or they don’t even attempt to res when you mist form towards them, and so on and so on.
And then, of course, is the problem of people not wanting to defend points and just run around hotjoin style…

True, but if both teams were solo q, then you’d have an equal chance of this happening on both sides thus off-setting the bad play. When you have this against a premade team of high quality, then it only exaggerates the problem even more.

I do agree that the biggest fear of Anet is probably going back to the days of paid/free tournies when there were extremely long wait times and very few teams queing. There is the definite possibility that you will see lots of solo q and very little team q if they split the queues. You may also wind up with teams only facing the same 1 or 2 teams all night which makes for a stale environment. How you handle this is probably the biggest key and why it’s taking so long to get solo q going.

I find I don’t need all the buttons even on the Nostromo. It’s more the ability to alter the button configuration that I like. Rarely have I ever wished I had more buttons.

Moving Terror to Grandmaster does nothing. Most glass cannon necro’s run 30/30/10. Moving Terror up a tier does nothing to fix the build that everyone is complaining about. In fact it would probably make that build more prevalent as straight terror/condi builds would be nerfed by this move.

The solution is not terror. Necro’s have always had terror and it’s nothing new. It is the combination of terror and burning that have people complaining. Fear IS one of class mechanics, but moving it to the grandmaster tier simply won’t work or help anything out.

The problem is burning and how often necro’s can apply it. The solution would be to either nerf the duration, or how often it procs. I’m actually all for removing burning and replacing it with additional torment as I think this would still give us a nice spike but not be as OP as burning/terror combined is.

To recap, moving Terror to grandmaster tier does absolutely nothing to the build that everyone is complaining about. That’s not the solution needed in my opinion. Address burning and the cries will die down.

No one ever cried about terror prior to the patch. Terror is not the issue.

Treeline.3865:

This discussion is kind of derailed. I agree that it would be AWESOME to have both soloqueue and premade queue – But it also requires a lot of players to support – Surely you have tried queues taking several minutes to find a match. If you split it into 2 queues you could double these waiting times. Furthermore you would have to take partly premades into account. Do you simply ignore that people might want to enter 2, 3 or 4 people together? Force them to either split up and play alone or force them to pug their way to a premade team?

Lastly, the fact that some of you meet premade teams should not entirely be considered a bad thing. If you are an average player and run into a fight like this, fear not, they are not very good. If you are a good player who’s in the high percentile (Personally I didn’t see many premade teams until I got a bit into the 90th percentile), and you meet premade teams all the time – Congratulations! That effectively means that you are one of the best soloqueuers in the game. Why would you want to keep beating people who are worse than you then?

You’re missing the point. It’s when as a solo que’r that you face one of the top NA teams that it becomes obvious that something is wrong. If it’s a random pull of one players rating that causes it to queue the entire group against a tournament winning team than something is wrong with that.

Saying congratulations you get to face better competition does nothing because it’s not “slightly” better competition, it’s getting absolutely stomped into the ground. I like playing good teams with my guild team because I feel it makes us better. I don’t like playing top rated teams via solo queue because all it does is frustrate me with this game. My choices are either to quit playing, or continue to smash my head against the wall which is usually a bad choice.

I play with a Nostromo as well. I love it simply because it gives me a way to map keys out for the different classes I play. That said, people that use macros are simply cheating themselves from ever getting better.

If you can’t develop the skills to hit a certain sequence of buttons then you aren’t good even if you win a fight. Relying on a macro to do something specific is just plain bad and akin to cheating in my book. If you wanna be a top tier player, take the time, learn the skills and combos and be able to react on the fly.

Chase.8415:

Why does everyone get the impression that anyone in Absolute Legends is good?

Pointless jabs aside, they are one of the top ranked teams. In no sense, ever, in a million years, in any universe should a pug solo queue group be matched up against a group like that. There are other pug groups queing at the same time, as well as other premades queing as well (I know because I faced many other premades the same night).

There is something broken in the system when it decides that a solo queue pug be matched against a top ranked pre-made. Something is simply wrong with the algorithm and this is what I’m asking to be looked at.

This isn’t a complaint thread because I’m well aware of the dangers of yolo queing. I’ve noticed what seems to be much worse match making than before however. I really think something may have gotten borked with it this last patch.

For awhile there solo queue was actually working out fairly well. Would get a lot of other solo queue’s and occasionally a premade that was lower ranked.

Lately though I’ve been getting some really strong teams showing up. Today I literally played 3 of the top teams in NA while solo que’ing. My rank and my rating have not changed much I assure you so I can only assume one of two things. Either there are very little people left playing which doesn’t seem to be the case as the mists seem fairly occupied, or there is an issue with match-making.

I’m not whining about it, and I’ve seen other posts complaining about match-making but this isn’t a complaint. I think there’s actually something wrong with it now that might be worth looking into.

Yada yada yada, risks of solo queue etc. I get all that. No solo queue should ever play one of the top 5 rated teams, much less 3 of them in one afternoon.

This is the worst idea ever. Terror is not the problem. Terror has not changed much from this patch with the exception of the addition of Spectral Wall which takes up a utility slot and is easily avoided.

If you nerf terror you force every single necro to now trait into burning. The problem people are having is the combination of burning and terror together. The trade off for this burning/terror build is basically being a glass cannon with no life force generation at all.

Terror is simply not the problem. To imply that it is is wrong. Terror was around pre-patch and was not OP. Terror post patch is not OP. I can’t help but laugh at all the people that think terror got some huge buff because it’s just flat out wrong.

If you want something nerfed then nerf burning because THAT is what people are complaining about. I personally don’t like the build, it’s way to squishy in my opinion and it’s weakness is only highlighted once you have a team that knows to focus the necro.

My recommendation is reduce the proc rate of burning, change the duration or something along those lines. People keep suggesting to move Terror up to the grand master trait, the problem with this is there are a lot of necros currently running 30/30/10/0/0 and that won’t change a single thing.

Leave terror alone, fix burning or change it to another way to stack torment and the cries will die down.

Not taking sides here but it was Jumper and some others that started trash talking Cruuk about his build and telling him he was bad for running it, saying it didn’t fit into the meta and was underpowered etc. Cruuk to my knowledge (unless it was behind the scenes whispers) was generally just minding his own business. That is why Cruuk now has the rage for those that assailed him and his play style.

It makes me sad that our high caliber players generally tend to treat each other like dirt in NA.

JimmyJazz.7943:

When you’re soloing a guardian, in less than…10 secs something isn’t right. High level guardians.

And don’t tell me necro’s are easy to kill please. Cause really, they’re not. Mainly cause necromancers are the only class in the entire game that can simply put fear on every single enemy that are trying to focus them.

Also, if the necro is smart, he will play very defensive, cause right now the meta is: kill necro first or get killed. So, you go ahead and focus Necro, so if him and the team knows that….well; “fear, fear, wall of fear, Wells, kite.” And let your team kill them all.

If a guardian is dying in 10 seconds to a single necro then he is either a very bad guardian or brought very very little condi removal. In either case that is not the fault of the necro.

Necro’s have no disengage. If a team focuses a necro other than Mark of Fear which lasts for all of 2 secs (if traited properly) and is on a 40 sec cooldown, they have no way of getting away. People claiming necros are hard to kill make me /facepalm.

I’ve played necro since beta. I switched to thief after getting bored and getting roflstomped in tournies because necros were basically a free kill. I went back to necro about 2 months pre-patch. There weren’t a lot of us, maybe 10 or so that played at high level tpvp. I found a team that knew how to peel and how to work together with a necro in the comp and it worked really well.

Then came the patch. I was really looking forward to being able to survive, to give myself the ability to disengage and/or keep others from disengaging me.

The patch hit. My build literally changed in 1 single aspect. I swapped my 3rd utility slot for spectral wall. I run the exact same build now as I did pre-patch.

I love to duel as necro’s were always under-rated in 1v1’s. Now when I win people whine that I play the OP class.

In tournies when we win, people cry OP class. It’s amazing to me that people seem to have forgotten how to counter a necro.

I see players that I respect as high tier players doing nothing but whining about how horribly OP necro is right now. I see people who were great at their old class jumping on the band wagon and everyone has a necro now.

It’s disheartening to me. Perhaps I’m intimately familiar with the class but I see people complain about burning and I want to just shake them and tell them a necro traited for burning is the EASIEST class in this entire game to focus fire. They have absolutely no life force generation, the lowest vitality of any other necro build etc. It’s like all these high tier players lost every sense of ability they had and just scream OP OP OP now.

As much as I enjoyed the patch as it gave me another great utility for my build (I play terror) I really wish Anet would just go ahead and give into all the QQ and go ahead and nerf us. Make it an emergency patch and go ahead and just cave to the whiners. I want to go back to being one of the few that made the class work. I want to go back to beating someone in a 1v1 and not get called OP now. I want to log into the mists and not hear endless whining from high tier players that I feel should know how easy it is to counter necro.

Go ahead and nerf us so I can get back to my normal gaming please. I just can’t take the crying and the whining anymore.

Warjin.8942:

Fear dura went up 30% from what I heard, correct me if I’m wrong.

You are wrong. The only duration of fear that was increased in the patch was the .5 secs added to Doom (the Deathshroud fear). Unless very specific traits, runes and sigils are taken this still results in a 2 sec fear ( I haven’t tried to squeak out a 3 sec fear using all of the above but honestly the trade off wouldn’t be worth it)

I’ve been repeatedly making the attempt to educate people that fear in no way received a buff (unless you count the above but again, for 99% of builds it doesn’t affect the damage fear does regardless). What necros got was a utility skill that allowed for one more fear if someone should run through spectral wall.

While I personally love spectral wall it is easy to avoid, has a very short duration (5 secs) and is negated by stability. So while it is nice, it’s not game changing in any sense.

People are freaking out simply because the number of necros that are now out there now. I will admit that the class stacking is absurd. The issue isn’t with the buffs or necros now being OP. What people are seeing is that a class that was previously under-powered and an easy kill is now on par with the other classes. This means the meta has been shaken up because there is suddenly a new contender to compete with eles, mesmers, rangers, guardians, engis and thieves. (Sorry warriors!).

Xeph.4513:

Sadly I do agree, necro’s at the moment are very overtop and the testament to this is the fact that every team has taken it upon themselves to run a necro.
I know certain people believe that this is just a temporary thing, but fact is necro damage and utility is insane at the moment that they by far outclass all the other professions.

A lot of people have chosen to compare necro to the old hgh engie, but to tbh there is no real comparison necro’s are far superior in very single way, the cc poison and damage reduction through weakness, that they offer a team is indispensable.

Please don’t deceive yourselves by saying that necro isn’t over the top, fact is the meta will be dominated by necro’s and the more time you give it the more people will optimise their role and understand how to play around them.
I believe a lot of more experienced necro players then myself believe the same thing.

Regardless I hope that Arena-net does tone necro’s down, but also keep them viable at the same time, its been great seeing one of the lost professions in tpvp again.

Much respect for you Xeph but I’m curious as to what you think they bring now that they didn’t bring before? I will be the first to admit that if a necro traits into burning that they have the capacity to do a lot more damage. My counter to this is that a necro traited for burning has no choice but to be glass due to the trait allocations. Necros disappeared from tournies for quite some time because they were so easily focused down by other teams. A necro who is focused is a dead necro. That brings us to terror. Terror has not changed. Other than the spectral wall utility terror necro’s are the same as they were pre patch. We got some very minor adjustments to life force generation on weapons (we’re talking 1% here). Terror necro’s and well bomber hybrids were the two types of necros you saw in tournies pre-patch (there weren’t many of them though). A terror necro has a bit more survivability due to better life force generation but are still susceptible to focus fire and CC.

Necro survivability hasn’t changed very much at all. Spectral skills working in DS is a nice boost but they don’t overcome focus fire or provide stability etc. The glaring weaknesses of the necro in tourny play are still the same as they have ever been. Why is it suddenly that people feel like that can’t be countered now?

FEARS AND TERROR WERE NOT BUFFED IN THIS PATCH. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY PLEASE REALIZE THIS PEOPLE!

/facepalm

So much mis-information and people believing in wrong things.

First of all, Doom’s little .5 sec buff does absolutely nothing to increase the duration of fear if a necro is already a terror necro. It will tick 2x just like every other fear does. This change ONLY affected a necro that wasn’t specced into terror duration so as a buff it’s negligible at best.

Terror ticks based off condi damage. It doesn’t change. Isn’t affected by the number of condi’s or anything else. It’s also considered a stun so any stun breaker will cancel the effects.

Torment was a great buff and a needed addition to the necro class. I would say it’s the single largest buff we have gotten. Coincidentally, no one is complaining about Torment.

Also, the burning that necro’s got is situational and while some/many necros may run that build it is inferior to the terror build in a lot of ways. Again, a necro that is running burning is a complete glass cannon with poor LF generation. There is a huge trade off to obtain burning.

I’m going to repeat this so that everyone hopefully exercises their ability to read:
-Necro’s got 3 things in this patch.

1)Burning. This is in our power line. Terror necro’s don’t go into this line. It’s the grandmaster trait in this line. If they take it they go 30 deep into it. ANY necro that has burning is pure glass. I guarantee it. Yes necro’s got access to burning but if they are built this way they will literally melt in seconds. It’s a trade off just like any other full glass cannon class. Leave them alone and they will melt you. Play smart and if you see a necro with burning then realize they will explode upon impact.

2) Torment – Probably the most useful buff we got and yet the one that no one is crying about. This allowed us another condition to add to people to cover bleeds. It’s also an immobilize which helps the whole “attrition” class aspect. It doesn’t do much damage but yes it is nice.

3) Spectral Wall – kitten kitten . If you run into this you need to play better. If you get hit with it once ok, it’s a 1s fear, it’s completely avoidable. If a necro drops it on top of you it doesn’t cause fear, you have to actually move through it.

Doom getting a .5 sec buff did absolutely nothing to it. Terror necros are already specced into condi duration to allow for 2 ticks of damage from fear. The .5 sec buff to doom does not extend the fear duration past the 2 ticks. NOTHING changed here.

You guys fail to understand that the buffs to necro did not make them suddenly god like and overpowered. What you are seeing is an influx of necros and fear being used more often because there are simply more people using it.

If everyone was in here whining about Torment I could understand that, but all you guys claiming fear is OP now and unmanageable are just plain ignorant of the fact that nothing was given to this spec in the patch other than ONE utility skill (Spectral Wall) that is easily avoidable.

So remind me again, what exactly is everyone saying is OP now that necros received this supposedly amazing buff to terror that actually doesn’t even exist?

Yes, necros got burning. If you allow a glass cannon necro to drop conditions all over you then you deserve to die. They melt so fast it isn’t even funny. That spec also has VERY LITTLE life force generation which means they don’t have much access to DS either.

Please explain to me how exactly this buff made necros OP? What you all are complaining about (without even realizing it) is that you don’t like necro’s to be stacked on teams. Any team is like this. Remember teams with 2 trap rangers? 2 HGH engi’s? 2 Ele’s? There is nothing different here.

For the sake of your intelligence, please understand that NOTHING was buffed about terror. Nothing… nada. There was no magic bump in damage, no extended duration, no nothing. I’ll say it again. Don’t walk through Spectral Wall and you are now playing against the same necros you faced pre-patch.

I main necro, other than thief it’s all I’ve ever played. I honestly love the new changes to the class but I hate that it has brought in a HUGE influx of necro players. I enjoyed being 1 of about 10 people that played them in tournaments.

Yesterday was ridiculous. I solo que’d a good bit and I swear every single match had at LEAST 4 necros in it with sometimes 6-8. It was an absolute cluster. I won’t get into the whole argument of people rolling the FOTM etc but I think the problem people are seeing with the class is just multiple necro’s per team. The CC on the fear compounds greatly with multiple necro’s and makes it seem like they can’t do anything (they can’t without stability).

I’m hoping people go back to their other classes and we start seeing all these people jumping back off the band wagon soon. If not then I honestly am 100% for a nerf to necro’s which I thought I would never say.

I agree that part of the issue is people aren’t used to facing necro’s. I like to duel a lot and would win a lot of 1v1’s simply because people didn’t know what to do.

There’s a lot of crying going on right now (I’m one of them!) but I think it’s more to do with the fact people are just encountering multiple necro’s on teams now and don’t know how to handle them. The biggest counter to a terror necro is stability and being focused. Nothing at all changed with our ability to handle focus fire. 2 DPS on a necro will absolutely destroy him in a heartbeat.

I’ll preface this by saying I only got to play for a very limited amount of time yesterday. I main a thief and a necro. Standing around in the mists I heard everyone talk about how necro is OP now and the new FOTM.

There were a few trait changes and some weapon skill changes along with the addition of Torment to death shroud. Being pretty familiar with the class I was excited for these changes as I’m pretty sure everyone can agree necros needed some work.

My question is why are people suddenly calling them OP?

They got exactly one more fear in the Spectral Wall utility. The duration of wall is very short now and it’s a wall, it’s avoidable and stability negates any effect so I can’t imagine everyone else is saying this skill alone made necros OP.

Torment is neat. The damage is rather meh though. I can’t imagine those three ticks of torment hitting for 78 are turning the tides of battle suddenly so I don’t think it’s this skill either.

Power necros got somewhat of a boost. The burn on crit is nice for sure but power necros suffer from a major lack of burst (unless you get caught in multiple wells) and a major lack of survivability. I don’t think people are complaining of being axed/daggered to death.

Terror has always done good damage and is nothing new to the class but is limited by somewhat long cooldowns and again negated by stability, cleanses etc.

So what is it that people are concerned about now? I’m genuinely curious to the communities reaction and thoughts on this. Are there just suddenly more necros out there so people are being exposed to them more? Is there a new build I haven’t played with yet that is just destroying people? What is it that is now making everyone say necros are the new flavor of the month and the new OP class?

Hallelujah! Praise God!

Phantasm mesmer build requires absolutely zero, zil, nilch, none, nada skill to play. You summon 3 phantasms and go afk while they blast people for 4k damage each.

If you think this build had any value or merit at all in the PVP world than you either sit in duel servers all day thinking you’re good because the computer kills people for you or you hotjoin tournaments hoping to get into a 1v1 on point and think you did something amazing for your team.

Plain and simple this build is so dumb my dog could play it. I’m sorry and no offense to the OP but if you relied on this build to feel like you were good in pvp then it’s high time you were forced into another build.

There is no other spec in the game that requires such a low skill level, nay I say, NO skill level to play. Summoning computer controlled AI that hits for 3-4k, auto attacks, auto faces and has about 5k hp requires neither skill, timing or anything other than a smash of the keyboard.

This is the greatest news I have read on the forums today! Weeeeeee it feels like Christmas and I asked Santa for a brand new shiny bike!

I’m a fan of x/30/30/x/x myself for my thief. My only problem with it is if an ele/ranger is on point, you can harass them like crazy but often it becomes a draw in terms of the fight. Maybe I can wear them down, maybe they wear me down. With all the stealth though you can’t cap the point and if you do and they return they just neut it again. If the fight stays prolonged they wind up capping the point anyway because everytime you stealth they get a capture tick.

This usually results in an endless 1v1. If you win great, but it’s usually temporary in the sense as soon as they return the point gets neutralized. The S/D offset helps against these classes but with only 2 signets your ini regen isn’t very good to allow prolonged S/D use.

I know your good at what you do, but how do you make this work if you’re fighting on a point they’ve capped? If it isn’t capped you hold it neutral but that makes the rest of the fight a 4v4 for the rest of the map. Just curious how you overcome this.

Yes confusion only hurts if you are spamming skills through it. So when you get caught by a mesmer, and have 8 stacks of confusion on you you have exactly 2 options: either stop attacking and wait for it to wear off, or you cleanse it off (thus hurting yourself from a skill activation).

Again, mesmers are fine. Confusion is fine. It doesn’t need a buff. That’s like asking them to buff phantasm damage on the iDuelist, or sword damage on a thief. Why ask for buffs to something that doesn’t need it?

You compare confusion to bleeding, yet bleeds need to be over the 10 stack mark to do significant damage and unless you are an engi who can apply every condition in the world easily, bleeds are usually cleansed very quickly with no negative side effects. Plain and simple, confusion is fine where it is.

Condi mesmers are about to get a huge buff with torment. Now stacking torment AND confusion you’ve just shut down someone completely. Can’t activate skills and can’t move around. Better stand still and twiddle my thumbs while this mesmer destroys me.

In before L2P and L2dodge.

I’m well aware of the difference between power and condi builds. My point was that if you buff the damage of confusion you are buffing it across the board. Engi’s already put out more condi damage than a necro. Hybrid builds would benefit from both.

Confusion from a shatter mesmer may not tick for as much as a condi build but its still going to tick for something and it’s not hard to land 8+ stacks of confusion from a full shatter combo. This still ticks for a large amount. Moderate to high stacks of confusion are already one of the more powerful conditions in the game, buffing them even more serves no purpose. Mesmers are not in a bad spot for their damage output, why ask for more damage?

If you want condi mesmers to be more effective then just wait for the patch. They will have access to torment. You don’t need to buff confusion.

That’s just the opinion of someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about though.

What? No. Just no. Confusion is devastating with even moderate to high stacks. Sure 1 stack of confusion doesn’t do much, but that coupled with the damage output of mesmers anyway is just icing on the cake. Buffing confusion damage is just plain silly.

Minion necro is a garbage 1v1 build. What the hell are you talking about.

The best necro 1v1 build by far is a terror build, and even then it’s a mediocre spec by 1v1 standards.

I have a nasty MM build that wrecks most people in 1v1’s. Minions used with the siphoning trait, zerker ammy and utilizing power will own a lot of people. I’m not saying it’s the greatest build in the world, but it certainly isn’t garbage. I’ve won more 1v1’s than I’ve lost against good players with it. The problem is, unlike phantasm mesmers, it has too many easy counters and isn’t viable in tournament settings.

I think everyone can agree this build is pretty much OP when it comes to 1v1. Again the complaint is there is no skill level involved to play this build because the AI does the fighting. Minion master necro’s are a good example of a strong 1v1 build that absolutely sucks in tournaments. The build is relatively strong when played well (again the AI is doing a lot of the work) however there are some very significant counters to it such as Moa, direct sustained damage, AOE’ing the minions etc (pretty sure minions have about as much life as a traited phantasm). The phantasm mesmer has NO direct counter and outshines even the strongest 1v1 classes.

I dispute all of you that say this build has no place in tournaments. It has no place in a 4v4 team fight sure, but even then the range on the iDuelist is what, 900? It’s nothing to place 3 iDuelists on your side of a point and sit there twiddling your thumbs while every 5 seconds they pump out 9k in damage combined. Map positioning is the ONLY thing this class needs to worry about. Drop them on a ledge, drop them outside a window, scatter them around a point and it’s stupid sustain damage.

I would propose that the mesmer loses a certain amount of health each time a phantasm is killed. This would make focusing the phantasms a viable strategy and having a lot out at once (i.e. 3 iDuelists) would be a risk the mesmer needs to calculate. Tie it to signet of illusions or whatever, but make there be some sort of risk/reward involved with this build.

This. Phantasm mesmers are worthless in tpvp, and the few you actually get are usually going down vs most shatters even with a “dueling” spec (Cuz 99% tpvp phantasm mesmers are low ranks obviously) so not really a problem. May be a problem if you play hothoin or swag duel but since both 1vs1 and hotjoin are crap this is not an issue at all imo..

You guys are wrong. Again, this USED to be the only reason and excuse this build wasn’t in the spotlight. It’s becoming more and more common in tournaments and THAT is the problem. When you have a build that absolutely requires you to send another person to defend your home node because a class can easily 1v1 someone it creates unbalance. I honestly wouldn’t care if it was only super lethal in the hands of a really good player (i.e. I’ve seen Teldo push far point over and over but he’s extremely skilled at his class and thus it’s not effective in the hands of everyone). Phantasm builds are click and win builds. There is very little to no skill level involved because the AI does the work. If it wasn’t for this build emerging in the tournament scene I wouldn’t care in the least.

You can gripe about thieves but a thief that isn’t actively playing, positioning, timing stealth etc is a dead thief. My point was that a phantasm mesmer does noting except summon phantasms and that’s it. They do all the killing/work. The mesmer has to do nothing but run around/stealth/blink/phase retreat etc. The may be glassy but they have lots of ways of surviving including phase retreat, stealth etc.

My gripe is not just with the damage they put out as I am well aware there are other dps classes, my gripe is exactly what Jzaku mentioned and that in a tournament when they push far point by nature they force a 2v1 because there are very few classes/builds that can win a 1v1 against them. Saying they have no place in tournaments no longer works because they are certainly being brought into high level tournies where the cheese of the build is becoming more obvious.

I’m not whining calling for a major nerf to damage or whining about thieves (lord knows thieves have been nerfed enough). What I’m calling for is an adjustment to an iWin button through computer controlled AI. Make the build involve skill. ANY kind of skill. Even the mesmers and the phantasm build defenders admit the build takes absolutely zero skill. That’s what I’d like to see fixed.

Who all here is a Phantasm Mesmer, raise your hand.

You must be joking. :\

I hear a lot of people saying that they are “over the top 1v1”… I can think of a few specs that are more than capable of smashing them 1v1.

BM Ranger
S/D Thief
S/P Thief
Minion Necro
Bunker Engi
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Now considering that there are 5 specs which can smash them 1v1 on top of the fact that they are useless in team fights… you should know by now why Mesmers who are serious about sPvP choose to be shatter Mesmers.
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I’ll say this as well, I think that Engineers, Guardians, Elementalists and Thieves have better 1v1 specs than the joke that is Phantasm Mesmers.

Wrong. If you watched the tournaments this afternoon you will see that Apollo beat Ovi in nearly every 1v1 and Ovi is a pretty good BM ranger. A S/D thief is also a poor match because the iDuelists auto-target and channel their unload meaning even if the thief is spamming evade/dodge, they are still going to eat the unloads (it would be nice if they all fired at the same time, but they don’t, meaning no matter what, your going to eat one, and a S/D thief is glass meaning they eat the full 5k damage). S/P thief is just a joke, they got nerfed into non-existence). Minion necro.. eh, maybe but unless they have full DS going into the fight to soak the damage they still can’t handle the sustain damage). Engi I will agree with you as they have enough AOE to spam the point and hope they kill the mesmer before the phantasms kill them.

If you read what I said before, they never used to be brought into tournaments. The problem now is people are figuring out how to use them properly (far node assault, spreading phantasms around a point, in the windows at Clocktower on Khylo etc). The build is not only nearly impossible to beat 1v1 but it requires no skill at all and that’s my problem.

I get that some builds are good at 1v1. Thats fine and there is a spot for those, but they at least take some skill, reaction time, thinking etc. Phantasm mesmer requires absolutely none of that. The AI does the work while you sit there and do nothing other than make sure you have the max amount out and maybe try to not group them up so they all get hit by AOE. Again, I’m not saying to destroy the build, but at least find a way to make it involve some skill, or take the auto-target/channeling/high health etc away to make it stand out in the hands of a good player.

I’m not one to gripe about builds and classes. I think that for the most part they still require the person to stay active, manage position etc. Yes, some are easier than others and some have a lower ceiling. I get it, it’s just the way it is.

The problem that I have is with phantasm mesmers. I can’t tell you how aggravated I get whenever I see one of these. They do nothing but dump out 3 iDuelists and then run around doing nothing while you get melted for 5k unloads (each!). If you have more toughness maybe they only hit you for 3k each round, but with 3 of them that’s 9k damage every what, 5 seconds? They insta-fire, shots home in and are channeled so nothing stops them.

Yes I know the whole theory is “well just kill the phantasms and then they have no damage”. The issue with that is that with signet of illusions they have about 6k health each. By the time you take one down, the mesmer is able to spawn another. The build is pure cheese. Relying on the computer AI to do the fighting requires no skill at all and the damage is insane for the amount (lack) of work it takes to dump these things out. The fact that they are tied to weapon sets and not even utility skills means the mesmer can spam these things repeatedly.

People used to say this build has no place in tournaments because AOE would destroy the phantasms but as noticed today in the tournament with Apollo playing such a build, there is literally no class that can win a 1v1 against a phantasm mesmer except MAYBE an engi that has a ton of AOE. It’s a seriously cheese build that needs some looking at. I’m not one to call for nerfs, leave them as strong as they are but either tone down the reliance on the AI to do all the work, make the mesmer actually DO something to engage the phantasms etc. Sitting there akitten while 3 computer controlled AI phantasms wreck everything in sight is just dumb.

(Yes, I know this is 100% total QQ but this build is seriously the most aggravating build to play against. Not even a S/D thief is worse).

Ok, I’m done with my rant. Thanks!

I’ve also been getting random lag spikes of about 3-5 seconds. Only seems to happen when I engage in combat though. I can run around the mists just fine but as soon as I get into a tourny and start fighting a get these random spikes. Makes it very difficult to PVP.

Steb is legit. Great pickup for someone looking for high quality talent.

Oh man, another thief whine thread. Let me guess, you were in hotjoin and a thief stole your boons. You didn’t think how to actually counter it but instead came here and made this post hoping that thieves will get nerfed yet once again. Kudos for your originality!

I was really expecting to open this thread and see “Mesmers are fine”, instead I started reading about how someone thinks they aren’t fine. That’s when I laughed and stopped reading.

Definitely a solid group of guys. If you’re looking for a serious team I suggest you try out!

Countering elites is part of the game. A Mesmer can Moa Morph a Necro out of Lich/Plague form. Plague Form helps to counter Timewarp, An AOE condition cleanse will get people out of tangling roots etc.

Having your boons stripped is all part of the game. It adds strategy and skill when elites can and should be countered.

Zodian the point is that there is no synergy in the necromancer trait lines. I’ve played around with just about every build I can imagine on necro. I actually came up with one heck of a bunker build that is very hard to kill. Necro’s “can” have different builds, the problem is they sacrifice everything for it.

In today’s meta where classes can be both tanky and put out a solid bit of sustain damage the necro falls behind because the trait lines simply don’t mesh well. Look at most necros and they are running some hodge podge of skills trying to synergize a build because the traits are spread through multiple lines.

You want to put out mad DPS? You’re going to get blown up by the other team because you have ZERO survivability. Want to be tanky? Fine, but you will put out absolutely no damage (unlike rangers/engi’s/ele’s) want to hybridize? Ok, but then there are several other classes that do it much better. Want to be great at 1v1’s and be the back point holder? Minion builds actually works decent for this, but it has absolutely no place in a team fight, again unlike ele’s, engi’s, rangers, etc.

If Anet will fix some of the synergy amongst the trait lines I think you’ll find necro’s have a much better place in high level pvp.

MM’s make a great 1v1 class. They can be somewhat tanky and put out good DPS on a single target when fighting on a point. The problem lies in no burst ability, poor minion AI and minions dying way to fast in a team fight which is why you don’t see them in tPvP.

I’m gonna go ahead and call this a whine post. You got beat. Don’t come to the forums and whine. My team has lost to these guys as well and they are a really solid team. Why? Not because of the classes but because they play well. The rotate well, they team rez well and they know when to get the heck out of a fight that isn’t going well.

When we get beat by a team it makes us want to learn from our mistakes and see what we could have done differently. I love when we lose to a team only to face them again and win because we adapted.

Don’t come to the forums and whine about downed states. That’s honestly just pretty lame.

Congrats my friend! Hard earned for sure. I laugh at the people that don’t realize how much you troll them and it’s funny that they fall. You are certainly a great player and a good member of this community. Keep trolling people and keep winning!

Yes a S/D thief can cleanse conditions using Infiltrators Strike and then return, but this only cleanses one condi. The initiative cost to cleanse 3-4 of them is too prohibitive and once out of initiative a s/d thief is a sitting duck. The key is to cover up the bleeds so that the other condi’s like poison, weakness etc are cleansed first.

Honestly you should be having more trouble against a d/p thief with condi cleanse in stealth than a s/d one. Necro’s dont’ rely on boons very much so the only thing you’re having a hard time with is the raw sustained damage from sword. You need to make sure you’re kiting properly, using your marks effectively (i.e. don’t just spam them all in a row). Use your fear mark for when you need a breather, don’t chill then fear as it makes the range covered by fear negligible and allows the thief to stay on top of you.

A good necro is a hard fight for a thief. I consider myself pretty decent and when I fight a high quality necro I spend half the fight cussing at being constantly chilled, feared away and bled to death. I pay dearly for getting close to them because I know I’m about to eat 6-9 stacks of bleeds as well.

I know you say you’re doing all of the above but I’d recommend you focus on the kiting aspect and proper use of your marks and seeing how long you can live vs trying to kill the thief quickly. The hardest part about being a necro is learning how to kite and survive since they have crap all for defensive utilities/stun breaks.

Here’s some tips:
1) As a necro, you have marks, use them and stand in them. A thief must get close to you to do damage (especially S/D). S/D thief only has 1 condi removal when he teleports back from infiltrators strike. Stack your condi’s so that your bleeds are covered with other condi’s. A thief can use Shadow Step to clear 3 but this is on a long cooldown. You should be able to apply condi’s faster than he can cleanse them. Thieves have very low HP pools so condi’s will chew through their HP very quickly.

2) Chills – a thief’s worst nightmare in almost any spec. Takes away our mobility and halves the range on HS as well. A slow thief is a dead thief.

3) Use your AOE’s. Even if your marks are down and on cooldown, use your AOE’s, evades don’t work so well against those. They hit even in stealth and once in stealth a thief has to either wait 3 seconds for 1 condi to clear or unstealth and restealth again to clear a condition quickly (or burn a valuable cooldown).

4) Don’t stand still. An easy target is a dead target. Stay in your marks but be moving all the time.

5) DS. Use it, AOE lifetap will hit a thief even in stealth, fear is great to use if you’ve been caught in an immobilize or to soak up a burst if all else fails and it gives you access to another chill.

You guys act like Ele’s cant do anything but be everything. Ele’s can still do great DPS, they can still bunker very well, they can still be very mobile and make great roamers.

Just like every other class out there, it’s time to pick what you want to do. You don’t get to be all 3 anymore and that’s the only change that was needed.

Mug giving a heal over time (a decent one) would actually be beneficial as it makes sense to pop this at the start of a fight. A “burst” heal on mug is just wrong as mug is generally only used to initiate a fight as a gap closer when a thief is already at full health.

They mentioned that they want the thief to be able to engage in a fight on point a bit more (thus the boon stealing) but a heal on mug isn’t what’s going to make that happen.

The only build I could see this being viable in would be a bunkerish build relying on mass evades/dodges where a thief is saving the steal to use as a heal. For all burst thieves, this change makes no sense.

Now a heal over time would be a much smarter move and would actually make sense here so I really hope the devs read this post. I know it’s too late to make a change for this patch but please consider that as an option if you’re going to stand firm on this mug giving a heal thing.

LOL at all the Ele’s that think they should have highest mobility in the game along with survivability, sustained damage and best disengage out of any class.

The adjustment makes perfect sense. You want to use RTL to get away without dying? Fine, do that and you’ll live. You just won’t be able to repeatedly get out of every fight meaning you’ll have to play smart and choose when to engage and where. Want to use it for the knockdown? Great, low cooldown on that. Awww, you mean someone dodged your RTL? Don’t spam the ability and actually THINK before you use it.

The range was not a nerf either. Anet came out and said this was a bug and not intended so dont’ whine that it’s getting double nerfed. The amount of crying here about a needed change and one that was implemented well by the devs is astounding.

How does shadow shot not break stealth when it hits thus making it so you can’t backstab?

The difference between necro and engi is that necro’s are MUCH easier to blow up. I’ve played my share of necro as well as Thief and I can tell you a necro makes for a much easier target. Dead necro = no dps.

Yes, I know DS, chills etc all hamper them dying against a thief, but a necro focused on AOE’ing a point is usually caught unaware. Lack of stun breaks is their downfall. Engi can do just as much and is a harder kill.

Yes I can only strip boons from stealing so there is that limitation, however FS only removes 1 boon so the initiative spent to do that is high. I’m also not sure how high the damage of FS is. I do know that standing around in a fight is not a good idea for any thief because AOE’s will destroy us.

Yes, trying s/d would be outside my box as I haven’t played that build much. From my understanding though it’s reliant on stealth which just got nerfed as well so maybe not as effective anymore either.

What you are forgetting is that s/p also gives you a pretty incredible amount of damage via pistol whip as well as the movement restrictions/stuns. I run 20 into trickery for the boon strip on steal so I’m not losing out on that ability.

I’ve honestly not played much with s/d so I wont’ comment on it’s effectiveness in high level tourny play. My point was that thieves claiming that s/p wasn’t viable need to stop and think outside the box for a bit.

Alas, the nerf to haste (because a hasted PW was critical to the build) has severely cut down the effectiveness of it to the point I don’t think I can run PW in tournies anymore.