Guild Wars 2

So far all I have seen of EoTM is that it’s another zerg fest blob map, only this time your doing it in choke-points/bridges, bitterly disappointing.

Backstab should be a skill you use in at a specific time, i.e. a one shot high damage dealing ability. It NEEDS a cooldown, as it stands a thief can virtually chain this ability. Maybe even tie it too initiative, so that it’s only usable as an actual combat opener if your initiative is high enough. Make ability require skill and timing.

Any ETA on this, I currently have a naked warrior that I need to put gear on :P

Carpboy.7145:

The only thing i do is solo roam. Occasionally i do PVE to get ascended and skins to look better while i roam. Also working on spvp r30.

But every single roaming build is labeled “cheese” nowadays. Makes it a bit discouraging knowing when i win ill get flamed for playing some OP cheese build

Not every build. I try and roam on my Power Necro (no MM, No Conditions), I use a zerk Mesmer build, it does annoy me when I come across a PU Mesmer or similar cheese build, I just disengage and won’t give them a fight.

Solo roaming is all but dead. Unfortunately, it will just end in frustration. Not many players are willing to 1v1 you and you will constantly come across gank groups or 20+ blobs of players. There is a lack of build diversity, most players are running bunker builds of some description or you come across GC thieves that can and will down you in under 2 seconds. So many builds at the moment are frustrating to fight, Bunker Condi necros, PU Mesmers, Stealth Spamming Thieves, Warriors that are built like tanks but hit like trucks.

Unfortunately Guild Wars 2 is just devolving into Blob vs Blob, with aNet seemingly pushing players into this play style with there continuing focus on bunker type builds and less diversity.

Lorelei.3918:

I roam as a power necro. Full Pvt gear, runes of exuberance, applied fortitude, sigils of accuracy and perception. 0/0/10/30/30 build. I have 34k hp and 27k DS hp with fortitude…so 60k hp combined. My crit in DS is around 75% with a full stack and asparagus steak. I can rebuild my HP with dagger 2, my heal and regen buff. I can build LF with dagger 1, and focus 4. I have 2 full cleanses via heal and dagger 4. Well of Power gives me vigor, regen and protection. Wells give me protection. Best of all thanks to dagger speed trait I don’t lose speed. You can’t strip it, it doesn’t take up a util slot and it works in Death Shroud. If I want to be a real kitten I can slot plague form as my elite instead of lich.

I’m not mobile beyond my 25% run speed. I show up and I either win or die. I usually win, even when outnumbered. In a long fight I could take over a 100k worth of damage or more. It takes a zerg to burn me down, and even then it takes awhile if they’re too stupid to interrupt my skills.

My only real concern are other heavy sustain enemies like cleric wars/guards/eles. I have to overwhelm their healing with my burst because their sustain outpaces my own and will eventually negate my 40-50k hp head start.

I roam in a combination of PVT gear and Valk accessories, I gear for mobility, use a 30/0/10/0/30 build, Dagger/Warhorn, Axe/Focus, Consume Conditions, Spectral Walk, Spectral Armor, Flesh Wurm + Golem with Trav Runes. With my 25% run speed, Warhorn Swiftness, and 2 x Ports from utilities, I have a pretty decent amount of mobility which I use to kite/evade groups. You can take a surprising amount of damage whilst still being able to have a pretty high DPS sustain with burst from Axe 2 and Life Blast.

What kind of damage can you output in your build? I’m trying to figure out ways of increasing my survivability without decreasing my mobility.

My old server Piken got matched with Gandara so I actually went “Judge” hunting on my Mesmer, not even sure what build I was using, I was trying to use one of Osi’s builds I think!

I found Osi and about 4-5 other Judges roaming and tried taking Osi out (bad idea) well I gave them all a good run for their money, of course I died but I did message Osi and he said I really good in-combat mobility Made my day that did!

Roll a Warrior.

SOLD!

Berk.8561:

Bhodi Le.6251:

As a player who has been in WvW since beta I have come to the conclusion that it is all but impossible to defend. Think about it, the defenders inside a structure (keep, tower, garri) should have the advantage. The have the high ground, they have the walls, gates etc… but they are actually at a disadvantage. If you are on siege on a wall, in a location where you can actually hit an enemy, then you are AOE’d by a 30 man zerg.

It’s bad enough that one can get attacked anywhere on a wall but it’s even worse than that. The walls actually get in the defenders’s way and help the attacker. Cannons have blind spots. Mortars are put behind crenellations and structures that block their fire. The walls usually have a lip that helpfully prevents attackers from pulling defenders off of the wall, but it also blocks outgoing ranged attacks, including AoE attacks down forcing defenders to jump up on the wall… where attackers can pull them off. Only a madman would build fortifications that do more to help the attackers than the defenders.

Want to make WvW more interesting? (And, yes, I know this would be a nightmare to balance well.) Make all the locations flat-topped boxes and let players place the built-in siege, add crenellations and lips to the walls, put in a moat, ditch, or spikes to keep pesky Dragontooth Elementalists away from the wall, add siege weapon platforms to the insides of walls to build siege weapons on further in, add small siege weapon towers to allow ballistas and other weapons to fire down without being on the edge, and so on instead of forcing players to defend a stupidly built location that they can’t fix. Let players actually build up the sites they defend.

THIS. Exactly this. I agree with every single point you have made if keeps/towers had a more intelligent design and actually let you defend, then you would find more people willing to try and defend. As it stands, people don’t bother because they know that a blob can just destroy most of the siege you place on walls by just AoE’ing areas. It’s honestly ridiculous.

style.6173:

@OP:

lol. you clearly have never faced a GC ele or GC mesmer or pretty much GC anything. Any class has the potential to burst down another quickly if they spec that way. Of course the downside is that they die really fast too.

Are you kidding me? a GC Ele or GC Mesmer cannot deal the same level of burst as a GC thief. I roam WvW on a GC zerker Mesmer, I get attacked by glass thieves all the time and there burst potential FAR FAR out weighs mine. Just the other day a GC thief from BB did the following to me: Baruch Bay [SP] Bronze Invader hits you for 7,683 using Cloak and Dagger. Followed by: Baruch Bay [SP] Bronze Invader hits you for 12,112 using Backstab. Now I have these on screenshot, just can’t be bothered to upload them but will if you want me too.

Now thats 19,795k damage delivered in about 2 seconds, my Mes has a total of 20,211k health. I expect to receive high damage attacks because I too am a GC Mesmer, fine but certainly not my entire health pool being stripped from TWO abilities in a space of about 2 seconds. That is the highest damage I have ever received from any player in WvW since beta. The most I might receive is a 4-6k CnD followed by a 6-10k backstab. Even with that damage (less experienced players will struggle to deal with that burst), I still have enough of my health pool left to Decoy, heal and attack the thief. With the damage from the other thief, no chance. No profession should be able to do that amount of damage in such a short space of time. And the killer is, if he misses the 1st backstab, 4 seconds later he can just do it again….

3 Likes
1) Roaming
2) Balance
3) Skill/Small Scale PvP

Dislikes
1) Mindless Zerging, no incentive for small scale WvW
2) Warriors and their mobility, it’s quite frankly OP (oh and hammer warriors are EVERYWHERE, does that tell you something aNet?)
3) Condition Bunker builds that take little skill for a higher reward than someone who runs power/zerker builds which you are nerfing….

I do not main a thief, but I made a point of levelling one to 80, I slapped on some zerker gear and I can guarantee to take over at least over 50% of a targets health before they can even react by pressing Steal->Cloak&Dagger(pre-casting while stealing) then make sure I am around the back/sides.

This does not take much effort at all. SR is extremely powerful, but the real problem is the Hidden Killer trait, you can make an extremely tanky character, that has lots of access to stealth, coupled with SR and they are essentially a tank that you will struggle to target, but with hidden killer, they retain the burst potential they honestly should not have.

I have been using a similar build for a few months now, although mine is set-up as the following:

Mixture of zerk/valk armour and accessories, zerk weapons. GS with Sword/Pistol 20/20/30, I take empowered illusions, shattered concentration, deceptive evasion, debilitating dissipation (it’s free damage plus debuffs) the rest of are the normal PU traits.

Traveller runes have been on my mesmer since they were released and have always sat nicely with this build.

I personally only use portal situationally if I’m in a dedicated group and the commander requests. I really don’t “Run with the zerg” as it is just not fun for me and there are professions more suited to this.

What I do is run in havoc squads, solo roam and scout. You will find you will need multiple gear sets depending on what role you are doing. You will realise how slow your mesmer is compared to other professions, well every other profession with the exception of guardians :P And you will have players that will just run and you will not be able to catch them unless your are gearing specifically to do so.

You can do quite a lot in a havoc squad:

1) Cut off enemy supplies by taking camps, killing dollys
2) Protect camps, help run supply, escort dollys
2) Scout for the main force, backup the main force
3) Be a quick reactionary force to contend a keep/tower before the main groups get there
4) Ninja keeps/towers, surprisingly easy to do if for example the main force is engaged on the other side of the map, you can for example take a keep with 2-3 players.
5) With good organisation/teamwork and people who know their profession, you can take on groups MUCH larger than yours. A well organised small group can defend a keep/tower with properly placed siege for quite some time even against much, much larger numbers.
5) Be a right royal pain in the kitten to enemy

I run 2 main builds in WvW, the standard PU Condition build using either Staff/Sceptre-Torch or Sword-Pistol/Sceptre-Torch. I tend to use this for solo and basically annoying/distracting trolling groups. You will be hard to kill, you won’t be able to catch anyone if they decide to peg it with no access to swiftness outside of runes if you decide to use them. But if you play it right, you should be able to harass havoc squads, take camps solo, hunt dollys and take on 2+ players without breaking much of a sweat.

My other build is an offensive PU variant, using a mix of zerker/valk gear. I use traveller runes, GS + Sword-Pistol. Utilities are Decoy, Blink, Veil, Mass Invis. Your fast, hit like a truck can catch runners and are very slippery due to PU+Stealth. This at the moment is my preferred build for solo/group play as it covers the mesmers main weakness in WvW which is speed. It also works in a havoc squad with veil/mass invis providing utility if your group starts getting pressured or you need to tactical stealth/avoid a zerg. It is however weak to conditions, necros and other heavy condition pressure builds will hurt you, but if you play correctly you can mitigate their condition pressure by bursting them and putting them on the back foot, generally if you can force a necro into deathshroud early, you have the upper hand. I have found though, that using the -40% condition food does help along with the stealth, it won’t save you against a really good necro but it will certainly help with general condition damage.

You can also run an interrupt build! I sometimes use the same interrupt build I use in sPvP/Tournies, the times I’ve run with it, I found it works quite well.

You will come across some really quite terrible players and groups, you will also encounter some of THE best players in the game who are either roaming solo or in havoc squads. Hopefully you will have some good times, it can be fun, it can be frustrating (getting steam-rolled by a 40man blob, this happens a lot)but when you have those amazing fights, not much can top that! I didn’t mean to write so much, hope my blathering on has been of some use, have fun!

I find their longbow knockback really, really irritating. Apart from that, they are just annoying.

I try playing burst builds, when I dump my full burst rotation on player and there health doesn’t go below 50-60% and they immediately start regenerating health, turn and around and promptly smash 10 bells of kitten out of by paper thin Mesmer when they are in fact a “tank”. I say if you can’t beat them, join them. Respec to PU condition bunker, roll my face across the keyboard to win (it’s so easy it’s not even funny, it literally is bunker wars 2), get bored and log off.

A lot of players are forced to play bunkers or bunker hybrids because of this current meta and to be frank, Warriors. aNet created a build that gave people sustain, decent survivability, good condition removal, CC and burst via CC all in ONE package (Johnathan Sharp said so himself), people don’t like getting smashed by Hammer Warriors/Hambow variants and respond in kind by bunkering up. Then it’s a ripple effect…that was the catalyst for this ridiculous meta and it doesn’t look like this will be shifting anytime soon…

Silferas.3841:

The thing is, that pretty much everyone who has played pvp since launch/betas (there ain’t many of those people left) have built up such a high level of frustration over pvp in this game, that they(we) are basically walking explosives of rage just waiting to be ticked off by any minor thing.

EDIT: oh yeah, and if anybody wanted to drop the old l2p here, yes. It’s l2p issue. It’s not like those builds are not killable by proper specs, it’s just that the skill requirement for each side is so drastically different it’s making the fights very unfair regardless of skill.

Just look at it from this point of view: the most popular builds right now are warriors, spirit rangers, condi+stealth or phantasm mesmers, MM and/or condi necros. All of these builds have one thing in common: they are easy to play yet brutally effective. Since they are naturally tanky, they carry little risk for very high rewards and leave room for errors.

The second part of this is that there is quite a big number of players who enjoy playing power/burst setups, just for the thrill or because we simply enjoy the combo-ish feeling such a playstyle brings. But there is not a SINGLE meta-friendly burst build that would be effective enough compared to the risk it carries in comparison with the popular meta-builds. Moreover these specs get hard countered not just by their own squishiness and susceptibility to damage + CC, but even by the huge number of ways to mitigate direct damage (weakness, protection, toughness, vitality, health regen/healing, dodges, blocks, evades, invulnerabilities ect.), most of which are drastically less effective against condition damage.

Have you ever tried bursting the standard hambow warrior with a glkittenter mesmer? It doesn’t kill him, he never comes close to getting downed with your whole combo even if he lets himself get hit. He can just stand still and until your combo is ready again, his HP goes back by 50%. But if he catches you, you are in for a world of pain. That’s why most mesmers don’t play shatter anymore, they play the braindead blackwater spec or just as braindead phantasm spec.

These things combined lead to something that makes people rage quite fast and effectively. When we grow tired of playing these dumb specs, we sometimes go back to playing something we actually enjoy and have fun with, like dps ele or shatter mesmer, or d/p thief. And then after getting into any random tournament or hotjoin or wherever game, we are faced with people who are more often than not new to pvp compared to us and we get facerolled so hard we burst into tears of rage and foam starts coming out of our mouths. For we have been slain by a build that can miss any single skill in it’s rotation, and as long as he connects a few of them he is going to win. That’s what makes us rage.

I think I love you. This is exactly where I am with the game, I’ve played since beta, I’ve recently stopped playing due to the current meta. Just the other night I dusted off my shatter zerk mesmer build and ended up rage quitting, from condition necro and then your run off the mill hambow warrior.

I then end up re-speccing to PU (blackwater build) which requires little to no skill and promptly faceroll people, In one match I killed 3 players (3v1) and when the 4th came, I did a /wave emote and then logged off.

Do I like Guild Wars 2 PvP? Yes I do. I hate the current meta, if they shift things back to burst builds becoming more viable, where timing, positioning and knowing when to burst comes into play, I would probably play again.

And yes, I have raged at players, normally warriors, I’m not proud lol

aaron.7850:

what killed this game for me was the major buff to conditions

“what utilities will I bring?” “how should I open?” “when should I disengage” are questions I asked myself some months ago whenever I faced an opponend… but right now? Its all about “how many condition removal my class has?”

conditions should never have been worked as a primary source of damage, it lets these classes have tanky stats while doing insane damage. conditions should always have been a secondary source of damage.

its even worse in wvwvw where condition duration is mandatory in food and runes…. if you dont have those then you are a dead man. its just sad how power builds are useless right now

This. Every single profession I have played in WvW, Hotjoin and tPvP is forced to run with as much condition removal as I can possibly fit in. Just to counter players who have little risk (bunkers) but gain massive rewards from the way conditions were changed. An example of this is the current hambow warrior, a Beserker specced player that still does substantial damage through burning without having to invest in condition damage. That alone shows you scaling is out-of whack.

It’s all too little too late, even with proposed balance changes on the 10th of Dec, it won’t be enough. They need to do more to bring players back, bring skill back into the game as much as possible, get rid of these brain-dead passive builds that every play. Force people to benefit from risk vs reward or at least fix condition based builds that get way too much benefit from essentially being a tank while still being able to put out significant damage via easily re-applied and difficult to counter conditions.

Menace the reason why people aren’t trying this build is because it’s not very good. Hybrids are not as good as you seem to think they are and a video of you doing whatever won’t convince people otherwise.

hybrids are not viable Menace, they are not. You don’t have enough burst to pressure, you don’t have the condition damage to pressure via conditions. If I came across someone using this spec in Solo Q It would be an easy win.

And as for roaming in WvW with this build, no, just no. Your better going full zerker or full PU condition.

So you change things, maybe encouraging players to try more Solo Q PvP and the first game I try is a 5v4.

so aNet when are you going to do something about this? Why should I bother playing Solo Q if you can’t put things in place to discourage/penalize players for leaving?

It’s conditions and it’s beyond ridiculous. Look at the top damage dealers on death and it’s conditions that are killing you, for example, 31k of burning damage I took in 21 hits, I have 3 cleanses and STILL couldn’t clear burning, it can just be re-applied and all the time the person applying it is a kittening tank that you can hardly dent.

Again this stupid game is rewarding un-skilled passive play, It NEEDS to change, this ridiculous meta NEEDS to be changed otherwise no one will be left playing.

How they ever thought that immobilize stacking was a good idea, god knows. Why they haven’t immediately hotfixed this kitten, again god knows.

Zanryu.3417:

I don’t have time to read through the rest of this thread, but I have read the first page. I’m going to sum this up with a statement I got from a thief when discussing the current state of stealth.

“It’s in the game, so it’s not broken. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”

Nobody ever seems to give a legitimate argument and when met with a counter argument they get raged at or told Warrior are OP without any actual math or experience to back it up. I’ve had this happen to me personally, and while it’s laughable, it shows how pitiful some people can truly be when it comes to the game.

If you think Warriors are overpowered give a good example of how they’re broken. If you can’t do that, kindly save your crying for the next fotm class/build.

Since you haven’t bothered to read through the thread how do you know that counter arguments and math have not been discussed? You have just jumped in and said “I read the first page and jumped to the conclusion everyone is an idiot”

Show’s how pitiful the forums are when people base entire opinions on the first page of a thread…see what I did there?

Is this even a serious thread? Your complaining about the least OP spec? and your a spirit ranger to boot. I might understand if you were a warrior, and someone manage to escape your CC spam but a Spirit Ranger? LOL

Honestly it wouldn’t surprise me. They are looking to counter conditions….and aNet are silly enough to drop something like this in.

To the OP, I was going to respond to you in another thread, mainly because your sentiments towards players is “Learn to Play” and you seem to assume that everyone that complains about Warriors at the moment doesn’t run with any stun breakers and is essentially a moron.

While I agree that Warriors CC can be counter-played against and it can TO A CERTAIN DEGREE, you can only effectively kite for so long, before everything you have is on CD, you have no more vigor and you get caught. Stun-Breakers are on a disproportionate timer to the CC a warrior can apply. Some professions do better than others, Thieves (S/D Evade Builds) and Mesmers are probably the best at counter playing a Warriors CC spam. Your answer to everyone seems to be “use stun-breakers” people ARE using stun breakers, it’s still not enough.

Warriors survivability is too high and this is purely down to Healing Signet and in some degrees Adrenal Health, but mostly down to that Signet. People have posted numbers to back this up, someone in another thread suggested a reduction in it’s base heal tick, but let it scale with healing power, so you HAVE to spec to get that extra healing, maybe at the cost of damage, it’s a good balanced suggestion. At present that signet heals for too much and just add’s to the problem.

I rolled a warrior alt, just too see what the fuss is about, I am in no way an expert in Wars or melee professions for that matter, I main Necro, Mesmer and recently Guardian for sPvP/tPvP. I do know the abilities of professions and would say I’m above average. I can literally lock down anyone and they can’t do much about it. The only professions I had issues fighting were S/D Evade Thieves and PU Mesmers. A ranger managed to kite me for a while using bow evade spam, but I eventually caught him and it was quite an easy kill once I pinned him down. The damage you can put out in what is essentially a bunker still surprises me. Against good players you still have the edge because of your passive healing and ability to continually chain CC/Knockbacks. Against inexperienced players and your average tPvP (solo Q) player, well this build is monstrous.

I think Warriors being left in this current state is severely hurting PvP at the moment, purely down to the number of warriors you see in PvP and just how overly-effective they are.

Nothing will put of a new player or someone trying sPvP for the first time more than coming across a seemingly unkillable Warrior that can lock them down with seemingly nothing they can do about it.

I play a MM Bunker Necro, I’d love NOT to play this build but others just aren’t viable and as you have said passive builds don’t require much skill at all, including condition builds.

Why am I playing this build that you despise so much? Warriors. Pure and simple, without any kind of significant tank/bunker they would just walk all over me, I can’t play zerk builds/spectral builds because they would just CC me to death and there is very little you can do about it. How aNet is still leaving warriors in there current state is quite frankly insane. D/D Ele’s were quickly nerfed down, but warriors are still left un-touched?

Professions like warriors that are quite frankly OP are FORCING players to use cheap bunker builds, like MM Necros. I occasionally log in a warrior, when I get fed up enough of facing 3+ per team and I’m still staggered by how OP it feels, I’ve only played maybe 10 games and I am literally walking all over people, I even feel sorry for them, especially the one’s who are trying non-gimmick builds.

This is more or less the exact same build I use in tPvP, it was NOT op pre-patch and it’s NOT op post patch. Stop spreading hyperbole and making false statements like this, I’m glad aNet don’t actually read our forums, the last thing we need is a dev thinking MM builds need toning down when they do not.

Oh and one more thing any player who knows how to play a condition class will rip you too shreds in that build, your one cleanse doesn’t even come close to enough cleansing to keep you alive against any mildly competent player.

The Good:

Condition Floaters
UI Changes
QoL tooltip changes

The Bad.

Para sigil change did nothing for the current meta, warriors are still rife in sPvP and still dominating
Necro changes to the blood magic tree were more or less pointless they did nothing apart from cause brief debate an how much of a non-change they actually were, very, very disappointing
With CC via warriors already causing massive issues for players, you introduce immob stacking….this was in a lot of peoples minds completely un-warranted and un-needed.

The Missing

Warriors Healing signet STILL needs to be adjusted for comparison, a Warriors healing signet OUT HEALS my MM Blood Magic Necro, that’s right, it passively out heals something I specifically have to build, trait and spec for, that alone should tell you how out of balance that signet is.

Bunker based condition builds are too rewarding, they reward low risk/low skill gameplay but give incredibly high rewards

Humbolio.2174:

There will be nothing we won’t be awesome at. ANet clearly play warrior and I’m just waiting for them to add a skill that grants perma stealth.

THIS is so true lol

At leas they know how to scale warriors heals the changes to Necro’s siphon is a joke.

I’m noticing the opposite, minion responsive seems worse for me in sPvP.

From my initial testing, Vampiric master is a nerf for MM builds. Pre-patch I would see around about 114 inc heal from a minion. Now I’m seeing 86 pre minion, I changed to a Clerics Amulet, took my healing upto about 1360 and it didn’t change so it looks like it is NOT changing with Healing Power? Also life siphon doesn’t seem to scale well at all either. Another thing I’ve noticed, minions are LESS responsive post patch, they seem to sit there for upto 10 seconds before attacking my target.

The more I look into this, either stuff is just broken (they got the scaling completely wrong) or it’s an ill-thought out “buff” that is ACTUALLY a nerf. This is in sPvP/tPvP btw.

I haven’t seen the changes in detail, have they reworked stability so it lasts longer than 0.5 of a second or however it lasts now?

Lighter.5631:

are FUN or COMFORTABLE ever be in your consideration when you are playing a GAME?

Absolutely, to me some of the cookie cutter spam builds are not fun, they are boring, easy and repetitive. Finding a build that takes skill, timing and effort provides me with fun, because I’m working for my win. That way, when I take down a Spirit Ranger, Hammer/Longbow Warrior, Phantasm Mesmer, Condition Necro etc.. etc.. I get a sense of achievement. Because those builds require little skill and give a high reward.

Divinity.8041:

Loco.4561:

ensoriki.5789:

Eg for 4. I’ll probably never play Necro, have 4 games on Necro since Launch, as OP as they get, I can’t get into it past the Axe which isn’t that great in itself and literally the moment I weapon swap I want to delete the profession out of boredom. I have no idea how anyone plays Necro without preffering to alt+f4 and watch the paint dry within 15 seconds of touching the profession but to each their own.

I play a power Necro, I use an Axe and kill lot’s and lot’s of players. Lots. It’s fun. Especially fun when you kill a Hammer/Mace+Shield or Hammer/Longbow warrior who thinks they can just roll their face across the keyboard to kill you. I out play them, kite CC, interrupt, stuff that takes thought and timing.

Do people say I’m playing a bad build because I’m not using conditions…yep. Do I regularly finish top of the scoreboard…Yep. Sure I can play one of the cookie cutter FOTM builds, but they are boring and don’t require skill. Until aNet change things, I’ll keep playing “bad” builds.

It doesn’t matter what build you use in hotjoin though…it doesn’t count lol.

Don’t jump to conclusions, I wasn’t talking about hotjoin, hotjoin is for testing builds etc… and quite rightly doesn’t count. I play solo tournies and team tournies (if I can ever find anyone to play in a team). I do still get people asking me to re-spec to conditions or saying I’m under performing using a non FOTM cookie cutter build, I disagree. I can bunker a point just as well in my power build as I could in a condition build.

ensoriki.5789:

Eg for 4. I’ll probably never play Necro, have 4 games on Necro since Launch, as OP as they get, I can’t get into it past the Axe which isn’t that great in itself and literally the moment I weapon swap I want to delete the profession out of boredom. I have no idea how anyone plays Necro without preffering to alt+f4 and watch the paint dry within 15 seconds of touching the profession but to each their own.

I play a power Necro, I use an Axe and kill lot’s and lot’s of players. Lots. It’s fun. Especially fun when you kill a Hammer/Mace+Shield or Hammer/Longbow warrior who thinks they can just roll their face across the keyboard to kill you. I out play them, kite CC, interrupt, stuff that takes thought and timing.

Do people say I’m playing a bad build because I’m not using conditions…yep. Do I regularly finish top of the scoreboard…Yep. Sure I can play one of the cookie cutter FOTM builds, but they are boring and don’t require skill. Until aNet change things, I’ll keep playing “bad” builds.

[/quote] Eg for 4. I’ll probably never play Necro, have 4 games on Necro since Launch, as OP as they get, I can’t get into it past the Axe which isn’t that great in itself and literally the moment I weapon swap I want to delete the profession out of boredom. I have no idea how anyone plays Necro without preffering to alt+f4 and watch the paint dry within 15 seconds of touching the profession but to each their own.

[/quote]

I play a power Necro, I use an Axe and kill lot’s and lot’s of players. Lots. It’s fun. Especially fun when you kill a Hammer/Mace+Shield or Hammer/Longbow warrior who thinks they can just roll their face across the keyboard to kill you. I out play them, kite CC, interrupt, stuff that takes thought and timing.

Do people say I’m playing a bad build because I’m not using conditions…yep. Do I regularly finish top of the scoreboard…Yep. Sure I can play one of the cookie cutter FOTM builds, but they are boring and don’t require skill. Until aNet change things, I’ll keep playing “bad” builds thanks.

Thoth Divine.8642:

Caffynated.5713:

DPS builds in every PvP MMO lose to tanks. It’s by design.

You’re trading strong solo ability for the power to burst through healing and actually kill people. A tank sacrifices the damage output needed to kill a healer (bunkers in GW2), and in exchange they get the health and armor to outlast DPS.

This.

Rock / Paper / Scissors

No single class/build can win every 1v1 against everyone. As a thief, your counter is tank builds.

So what’s a counter for a tank?? Burst?? You’ve just said it’s not a thief, so what is it? Another tank? Because that’s the only option left.

Archaon.6245:

Problem is still the same, dps builds are not getting survivability while cond dmg specs do (Only exception would be d\p thief glass cannon with some survivability due to stealth, but since there’s still broken s\d pressure build aviable nobody is playing it anyway)…both from amulets and traits.

High dmg builds both condition and burst MUST have low survivability, if you spec for survivability as a bunker you should deal almost no dmg (Like bunker guardians) all i see are tanky-crazyregen-permastability-condition immune wars hitting like trains, permadodging rangers oneshotting glass eles (Yeah dat ostrich’s video) and so on….if you deal high damage, any sort of it from burning, to FEAR, to burst, to stacking bleeds spamming autoattack like a braindead you MUST NOT have decent survivability and any other dmg spec should be able to kill you if he plays better…you can’t just trishot a mesmer permastunning it and then tank up other 2 players for 30+ seconds…it’s stupid…and you know it

This this and so this. But the problem is, aNet don’t see it as being an issue, if the leaked patch notes are correct they are not addressing this current meta. The proposed “fix” to warrior CC that’s being banded around is not a fix, it will only shave 0.1 second off applied CC, warriors will still be chain stunning, doing too much damage whilst still having tank like survivability. Heavy condition builds will still be tanky and still be able to out DPS actual DPS professions by just spamming a few abilities.

The whole risk/reward thing seems to have completely missed aNet and unfortunately the game has turned into Bunker Wars 2

Mesmers aren’t really viable in tPvP right now. In hotjoins though, every single match has Mesmers and Warriors. Last match, the opposition team had 3 Mesmers, 3 Hammer/Longbow warriors. You can imagine how much fun that was lol But you can get that in every game, 5 thieves in the previous match!

sorudo.9054:

necro’s are close to OP, they can take down any prof even before they can do anything at all.
problem isn’t the necro, it’s the player using it.

Nice troll attempt, please don’t listen to this dude.

Necro’s are “Ok”, outside of condition builds, Power Builds still needs some tweaking. MM Bunkers can be good fun, but the pet pathing is still buggy, minion abilities sometimes dont worth and those minions, well they are just plain dumb.

Ezrael.6859:

Another stunlocking AoE spamming Hammer Longbow Warrior playing easymode.

At least until they nerf the fact that you can have high AoE dmg both melee and ranged, multiple stuns, the highest hp regen and best personal heal, high toughness, condition immunity, condition removal, fast combat speed, stability and gap closers all in one build.

Which they are not doing in the next patch….because they are too focussed on buffing warriors shouts. It’s mind boggling that aNet as NO clue how to balance there own game.

I still can’t get over the fact, that even though we spec for it, trait for it and have to rely on minions hitting things to get heals, a warriors healing signet still outheals something that we specifically spec into….

People will stop flaming the devs when they START listening to the people that PLAY their game and stop making silly un-thought out changes.

How do you not instantly explode when someone decides to kill you? You have one stun break, no stability, no blocks, any decent player will make you pop that early and you will literally be down in seconds.

Also, staff as a DPS weapon?? What do you use it for? The auto-attack is so slow it’s easily avoided, the only ability that might hit hard is putrid mark, wouldn’t you do better with Axe/Focus? It has more synergy, will give you more damage, AoE Cripple, Chill and boon stripping, surely better than staff? I mean I use Staff on my mesmer power/zerk builds, but you CAN dps effectively with a mes staff, I just can’t see it with necro staff.

Last game had 2 warriors on our team running Hammer/Longbow….FOUR warriors on the opposition team running Hammer/Longbow….every single warzone at least 2-3 Warriors PER team……Now I’m no mathematician…but even I can see that if one particular build is being played more than anything else…well there has to be a reason…there can’t be that many warrior lovers out there that all of a sudden found this awesome build.

Arena Net messed up AGAIN, and over-buffed yet another profession. Only this time, instead of toning this monstrosity down, they are leaving warriors to continue dominating sPvP, while anyone who isn’t a warrior get’s frustrated and stops playing.

This game is not designed for people who want to win through skill or playstyle, it’s designed for casual players who don’t care for skill and just want to win with the least amount of effort possible. It’s the direction that aNet wanted to take this game and they have lost and are still losing the core sPvP community.

Do aNet care not really. The fact that every match is riddled with the current FOTM least effort required specs and professions is testament to that fact. Warriors are not even being balanced in the next patch, aNet are BUFFING their shout mechanic. They have no issue that the Healing Signet is quite frankly over-powered. If I spec my Necro for MM and spec for Heals from my minions, which does not scale with healing power and only provides healing on attack, with four minions attacking and siphoning health (remember I have SPECCED for this, not just slotted a signet…) I still don’t get anywhere near as much healing as that healing signet and that heals PER SECOND, yet aNet seem to think it’s balanced? On a profession that has the highest base toughness, vitality and easy access to defence, CC and stability.

In ever single warzone, there are at least 2-3 warriors per side, all running Hammer/Longbow or Mace,Shield/Hammer/GS. The last match had FOUR Hammer/Longbow warriors on the opposing team, how much fun do you think that was for the poor souls on the receiving end? Do you think they re-queued for PvP or logged off…..?

I get frustrated with people who repeatedly do solo tPvP, even after I ask them where they are going, what the tactics are they don’t speak, then they just run around death matching it up while the opposition smash us too pieces and you wonder why people get frustrated.

Sure I expect that in hotjoins, but not in tPvP, I play tPvP because I want a higher quality of opponent, closer matches and I want to play with people who are there to win, not people who are to just run around not contributing anything at all.

Brutal Arts.6307:

After some tyhorough testing (Reading, wrecking people that dont bring stunbreakers in pvp) I can agree with the sentiment that, Stuns, when combined with sustain from healing signet(heaven forbid the banner) will wreck most everything that doesn’t spam blinds blocks and evades.

It would probably be a good idea to decrease the power of healing signet in pvp only. Once (if) anet adjusts the condi meta we will see more people taking stunbreaks/stability.

Anet please select ONE aspect of the warrior and shave it down, not all of them. I dont want to wake up, read patch notes and see
- all stuns halved
-healing signet halved
-stance duration halved
-block duration halved
-warhorn cd increased by 100%
-Sword 2 leap reduced to 300 range.

It’s not happening in the next balance patch, warriors are getting shouts buffed, nothing nerfed. So none of the above is even being looked at, I just don’t get aNet’s complete misunderstanding of the current meta and what looks like complete ignorance to what’s even going on in there own game at the moment.

No one cares about sPvP, it’s a sideshow. They will increase the playerbase IF THEY BALANCE THIS GAME PROPERLY and cut down on these ridiculous meta’s. Imagine how someone will feel if they join a hotjoin match and come across the current FOTM Hammer/Longbow warriors build that’s dominating (ruining) matches at the moment, I guarantee they won’t play many matches…