Guild Wars 2

Mobilty isn’t the problem, Guards actually have deceptively good mobility seeing as Sword 2 and Judge’s are actually teleports; it’s the lack of access to snares outside of immobilize on Hammer and Scepter that make guards easy to peel from. Hydromancy helps compensate a little.

I have to echo ken’s points here. If you spend anytime playing a necro (mained one before guard when game launched), you’ll have a better picture as to why SY isn’t the best idea. Conditions will be the biggest threat to you usually as a bunker guard. Using SY against any competent condi necro or one running well of corruption is just asking for trouble when they already counter you to some degree. It’s an unecessary risk that I feel is worth abstaining from. Like you getting a kick out of stability bumrushing a foe guardian in his bubble, I giggle like a school girl when I find a Guard running SY on my necro :>

And sanc can be super clutch even if the enemy pops stability. It means that they’re less likely to have stab up if they need to stomp/res. Against a veteran team, they will aoe and cleave the kitten out of you when someone goes down to punish resses, anything that can alleviate even a bit of that is a gamechanger.

I personally don’t like Save Yourselves on any Guardian build that’s trying to bunker, easily can work against you. I also think if you want to do 20/30/20, Honorable Shield will help you much more than Mace of Justice ever will Healing Power simply doesn’t scale that well. Resolute Healer is imo the superior revive trait in Honors. If you can only pick one virtue to buff, Absolute Resolution will help you sustain much longer, the stability from courage is awesome, but not as crucial imo. With prioritizing, it’s hard not to have SYG up for when stomp/resses need to go out.

I personally think at this point, there are two ways to go about Bunker/Support Guard. AH with 0/0/30/30/10 which has the most sustain but is a more selfish build or 0/0/10/30/30 with jacked up virtues and imo the best support a Guardian can throw out. I used to run 20/30/20 like you do, but it became harder to justify the 20 pts in Valor and not grabbing AH or another virtues trait the more I played. The 20 pt valor trait just doesn’t have the same weight as the alternatives you could get.

Lastly, Clerics Amulet with Knights Gem (Barbarian) is the way to go, again due to how healing power scales, a bigger HP glob is better. Otherwise, I feel as though Guardians haven’t really changed much trait wise, but the weapons that you’d utilize certainly have gone through trends. Like you, I prefer Mace/Shield Staff now where as I used to do Hammer/Staff.

Blast finishers are so good and can be gamechanging. Leaps often do the same but only for the char leaping. Projectile and whirls are less powerful but still have their place. Good Engi and Eles are pushed to their highest potential through usage of combos, it’s integral to the playstyle.

Players that don’t value combos simply don’t understand how powerful they can be yet, you should help them

Speaking from my experiences as a bunker guard back when game first launched to playing it after coming back for the 12/10 patch.

While the Guardian itself has not changed much, there are certainly a lot more offensive threats than before (lulz power creep). Especially with a lot of condi specs being much more lethal than thy used to be. You really have to be on top of choosing what an when to cleanse conditions. If you’re playing against a good team and blow shelter with poison up, very likely you will get obliterated. You want to avoid that as much as possible, unless you’re overwhelmed, try to save at least one cleanse to get clean heals off. Remember instants like shouts can be used mid block on Shelter to negate any existing condis like poison while blocking new ones from getting to ya.

Welcome back and GL

TheGuy.3568:

Romek.4201:

i could understand pvp and wvw

but pve? how does balance matter in pve?

So basically your saying every time Anet randomly changes builds for PvE with no warning or reasoning it is fine. Despite the vast majority of the pop are PvE players who have complained about this repeatedly for a year.

Some players build their gear around there build. In Spvp this is a light investment but in PvE this is months and hundreds of gold in many cases. When balance changes are instituted that have nothing to do with PvE and builds become obsolete along with their gear it is a much heavier burden for the PvE player than any other.

PvE balancing generally has to do with usefulness to the party in respect to DPS. PvE balancing rarely happens in PvE and meta changes in PvE are general spawned by meta changes in Spvp.

Isn’t the “meta” for PvE just full zerks? Buffs and nerfs won’t change that frankly. Condi specs have no place in PvE and dungeons anyway due to plaguing issues since launch. Nowadays, you’re shunned and laughed at if you even try and run something other than kitten dps, it’s sad really and if anything reflects a deeper issue with dungeon design. Until they change that and people are actually encouraged to gear out from zerkers, you don’t have an argument here. I know not everyone runs full zerks, but you’re being overly dramatic if each balance patch means having to replace a full set of gear, that frankly doesn’t happen.

If someone’s spec was nerfed in WvW and had to rebuy gear for that, you have an argument there, but not PvE. Lastly, a lot of nerfs and changes to skills are now only in effect in sPvP and have no relations to PvE or WvW anyway (outside of traits getting moved around).

sPvP isn’t dead, however the competitive scene is certainly dying and greatly diminished from where it used to be.

docMed.7692:

-snip-

Best list yet imo. Can’t really see anything I’d disagree with.

Perfect fit if you’re looking for a group of decent people to play with but don’t want to commit to a team schedule or anything!

Came back to the game ~2 weeks ago as my buddy showed me the PvP blog post detailing some of the 12/10 changes and others that are to come. All I can say is, I’m deeply disappointed that after being away from the game for 8 months, not a whole lot has changed for sPvP.

I’ll give credit to ANet in that they do listen to the communities feedback and generally do try and engage and constructive back and forth. But listening is one thing, where is the action? It’s clear as day that the game is heavily biased towards PvE and not PvP when shockingly PvP was what they did better than PvE in GW1. Not trying to hate on one side of the game, I do enjoy both aspects but I just happen to identify with PvP more.

I was honestly blown away by some of the living story updates, the tower of nightmares (which I only got to toy with for a day before it was gone) was obviously a huge undertaking, the same goes for super adventure box in April (I heard they did a second rendition?) and these things were only TEMPORARY. If they can sink that many hours into something that isn’t even permanent for PvE content, where’s the love for PvP?

You can talk up all the promises and great ideas you have incoming, but the results are clear as day. Since launch, there has been some adjustments to the structure of sPvP but overwhelmingly, all the updates had been nothing but fluff and no substance, the same goes for the 12/10 patch.

I know some new maps have been shown on the developer stream for new game modes and such, but it’s still very much up in the air. And in my opinion, a little too late considering a lot of people that I used to play tPvP with have informed me of the dying scene.

TLDR: Disappointed in the alienation of PvP side of things by the development team. I really wanted this game to succeed and still do, but I’ll believe it when I see it. You’ve really dropped the ball on this one Anet.

Much like how Dhuumfire is the most complained about trait for Necromancers even though it’s not even that good (Terror is what is bursting you fools!), Healing Signet is but the scapegoat.

Berserker Stance and Cleansing Ire are the two things that made Warriors super viable in my view.

Simple fact of the matter is, no matter what skill level you play at right now, Elementalist under performs. I was matched against Caed, Reevzy, Tany, Zeromis and The NA Hero (bulk of them are on the first page of leaderboards) yesterday in a match and Reevzy was playing a staff Elementalist. He did super with it honestly but even then, somehow we were in the lead with a 3 cap. A top player, ranked #14 switched his class mid-match to Engineer and the difference was night and day.

I love how the class plays, I truly do, I mained Ele before I stopped playing last time in July and the self field combo finisher playstyle of it is really entertaining. However, the class really is struggling for some love right now and you have to be blind to not see it.

Gotcha, that makes sense. Last time I played, D/D cantrips Eles were still king, Warriors were considered free kills, Rangers were just starting to be called OP and Engineers started experimenting with HGH. The Necro would benefit from a condition meta no doubt, seeing as they are the only class who can freely bounce them back. So in conclusion, Dhuumfire is a scapegoat for other issues surrounding the current meta, thank you for your time!

Serious question not trying to flame bait or anything, been away from the game for quite a few months, I see that the Necromancer has seen some changes and one that’s repeatedly under fire (no pun intended) is the trait Dhuumfire. Adding burning definitely made condition necros more lethal, but why is this trait considered OP when Engineers had Incendiary Powder for as long as I could remember as an Adept trait? I know it’s getting moved up to masters next patch and that this comparison in a vacuum is not fair. So in the context of the Necromancer, how did gaining burning suddenly push the class over the edge?

pot.6805:

Lumines.3916:

Classes in other MMOs are balanced with a clear distinction between ranged and melee classes. There is no such classification in GW2’s class/weapon system and as a result are balanced as such. The flexibility of not being just stuck in one but being able to freely hop between melee/range is an upgrade.

It’s on you if you complain about getting kited when EVERYONE can have both and avoid the situation.

Ah yes, you heard it here FIRST. Play longbow/rifle warrior, that will surely match up against the real ranged classes and their utter domination in this games pvp.

Believe it or not, some competent warriors in tPvP are still trying out other venues and I’ve seen good use of Longbow with Axe/Shield. Having the option of both melee and range doesn’t mean you must stack one of the extreme. Bring the combination that can give you the most coverage in relation to your build.

Realistically at this point, the only class that can make a fully dedicated melee build work well is the Guardian. So play that if you want to melee all day. Such is an example: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQRAse5dlUgyDnFyKEf4ESmCRCBxegRcUHdpwhkIA;TgAgzCooyyklILbWuskZB

Classes in other MMOs are balanced with a clear distinction between ranged and melee classes. There is no such classification in GW2’s class/weapon system and as a result are balanced as such. The flexibility of not being just stuck in one but being able to freely hop between melee/range is an upgrade.

It’s on you if you complain about getting kited when EVERYONE can have both and avoid the situation.

If you’re an engineer, grenade kit is the easiest way to deal with such a mesmer. You either dodge the phantasm generating attack or keep eyes on the animations of said phantasms to dodge their attacks.

Grenade kit offers you fat AoEs that is the most reliable way to deal with a mob of illusions. One thing I do need to remind you of is that phantasm mesmers will probably have retaliation on their phants, so be careful.

If you absolutely can’t stand grenades, the only other worthwhile option would be the bomb kit. Big O’ Bomb can give you much needed space and crapping bombs on point will blow up any phantasms trying to melee you. The downside to this approach is that the Mesmer itself can easily kite around you while sending phantasms to their demise.

Engineers with the HGH build is actually one of the Mesmer’s best counters.

^ Wildclaw brings up some good points but it’s a slippery slope. Best case scenario is if they in return buff something else to compensate. But given ANet’s track record with engineers and warriors, don’t expect too much.

I feel people are jumping into conclusions here a bit fast. I can see this working decently; though since spirit weapons are no longer immortal, that also turns me off it a bit. You wouldn’t want to use it in a hectic aoe fest team fight as it’ll basically disintegrate. But you also want to disrupt and avoid as much damage possible with it as that is its given purpose. So that just seems a bit of a conundrum for me.

What I would do is still run Sanctuary with two shouts. Yes the CD is long but it also frees up the 10 pts in Zeal for Purity in Valor. With the spread in Virtues, it’ll also have a 96s CD. Is also very useful for ressing and general trollage or contesting.

If SoA had the same active skill like Engineer shield (daze on throw), that might change my opinion. But at this moment, I’d still go with the consc. This would be funny though with asuran racial d-series golem, too bad that isn’t available in tpvp.

I play an ele and I understand the reasons that make the bunker build OP. Very few classes are able to boast the package the elementalist comes with. Symbolic raises very sound suggestions in balancing said build really well in his blog post.

What I just wanted to add to the discussion is the topic of boon hate. This came from the SOTG and it is my belief that it will offer certain classes the option of shutting down boon machines better once they add such a thing. Compounding both nerfs to the ele itself and boon hate could still end up not giving other elementalist specs breathing room for it to succeed. All eles will have boons popping up regularly throughout combat, it’s just the nature of its design.

Lastly, DPS ele can work atm, but it’s far more punishing to play as such compared to the Mesmer or Thief glass specs. Not counting utilities, landing a fire grab after burning speed is crucial to its burst and whiffing it is way more detrimental than missing a shatter combo or a backstab.

+ brownie points for you.

yea, I just got back to the game almost two weeks ago, it didn’t really change all that much aside from new maps and 1 round tournaments. You look at the level of detail that went into the SAB, then you start wondering where’s that level of effort into even anything for this side of the game. :/

I’ve played both of these in tPvP and they’re both neat classes.

One thing I really like about elementalists that sets a strong difference over mesmers is the use of combos. As an Ele, you have access to a lot of fields and finishers. I’d argue you’re the most efficient self comboing machine with the two most popular set ups. Staff or D/D. Knowing how to weave these combo effects is integral to its playstyle. That’s something completely unique to elementalists.

The Mesmer lacks any reliable finisher and the most you’ll ever touch of the combo system is chaos storm > phase retreat. It’s chaos fields however can be utilized by other players bringing its unikittenfects.

I hate to nit pick Nemosis’ build but it has few glaring flaws that I think people should know about. One, it has nothing for condition removal. Purity and Signet alone will not cut it, any decent Necro or Engi will ruin your day so fast if you do not run with a single on demand cleanse.

Secondly, Stand Your Ground > Hallowed Ground. Yes hallowed ground synergizes better with his trait selection and lasts longer, but the cool down on it is also mighty long. The shout allows you to use it more frequently, this is important as the Guardian in tPvP is one of the most used classes in securing stomps and resses. You also lack a single stun break meaning you’re prey to burst combos.

These are some of the Guardian builds ran by top teams in tPvP right now. Doesn’t mean they’re the best builds out there, but all of them are really well thought out and solid. Study them and see what you can take and learn from them.

Keep in mind different setups call for different strategies and form different synergies. In the end you need to find something that works for your playstyle and performs well with your group make up.

Team PZ, Mace/Shield + Staff:
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7BxZ;1NFV40J3RGF90;9;6TJJ;448A19-18-5wl6;2Uwl6Uwl66gr

Paradigm, Azshene’s:
http://www.intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7Fk3xFKSFk40B3NGF90;9;599TJ;11;04;010A58-5sW0TNV0PcW5PcW56gd

Super Squad, Lastivka’s:
http://www.intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7Fwg-FKSFk40I3wFF90;9;6T9T;409B2;0189XBW7;2sV2DsV2D8Bq

Check out the full listing including other classes here:
http://forums.intothemists.com/index.php?/topic/46-top-tournament-builds/

Copy and paste into URL bar if you’re getting bad URL.

Watch your own animations if your 1 attack on that weapon has a chain, it’ll go through the chain normally if you’re landing hits. Squirm and move around a lot and make your back a hard target to backstab.

I abuse this class so much as it has some of the highest burst potential in the game while being extremely hard to put down or hell..even touch.

Yes shatter mesmers are one of the strongest specs in the game right now and a tough match up for a lot of builds (I’d say pretty kitten OP!), but they’re still vulnerable to smart play. Try playing one yourself, I main a Guardian bunker in tPvP, but my off role is a shatter mesmer. Because I know the class inside out, I also have an easier time against them.

The thing about shatter mesmers is that like 100b warriors, their burst sequence is extremely predictable. It always starts with duelist, dodge roll for another clone, illusionary leap > swap to blurred frenzy + mindwrack. That is because for optimum burst conditions, they need 3 illusions out and most likely will spend their time on staff pressuring and waiting for sword/pistol cool downs when not bursting.

A lot of times in tournaments, shatter mesmers play like semi-roamers and thus join a fight that has already initiated. A lot of them to make room for portals do not run a single condition removal.

TLDR: Pop your invul/OH kitten when the mesmer swaps onto you. Dodging the illusions running at you to mindwrack will also greatly reduce their burst.

Last note: if you front load all your cool downs, you WILL lose (I’m looking at you pistol whip thieves and 100b warriors), Mesmers have the shortest cds on stun breaks and what not (kitten distortion), if they have any of that up to negate your kill combo with, you’re boned. The only way to reliably harm the mesmer is to bait out its CDs and THEN go for the kill. THIEVES don’t burn all your initiative on their distortion!

Signet of Spite is a terrible skill with a cd that isn’t worth it. Also, just what kind of necro are you trying to build. Axe scales better with power, Scepter scales better with condition damage, Staff is a weapon all necros should carry so you really got to make a choice here. From what I see, you went with Rabid amulet, so I’m not even sure why you picked up axe in the first place.

Going with signets stacking might is also a really lackluster way to increase your damage. Additionally, why are you spending 15 pts intetionally in Blood Magic? Siphoning mechanics for the necro is all in all trash. If you’re putting points into Blood Magic, at least go for 20 and grab Wells Recharge, slap on Well of Blood and Well of Darkness (in place of Signet of Spite) and rock a shamans amulet.

It seems that you’re trying to build a condition focused necro, consider looking into the corruption skills like epidemic or corrupt boon, they are the most overused necro skills for good reason.

Spite is in general a trash trait line for any necro thinking about conditions, good ones to pick up for PvP especially are Greater Marks and Reaper’s Protection in Death Magic, Soul Reaping traits like path to midnight and Soul Marks. You have a lot of fine tuning to do with your build as it is a mess.

Arah Lupicus phase 1 and sometimes phase 2. If you melee him phase 1, you’re going to feed him grubs and possibly get group kicked. Your only choice for here is to melee his adds but under no circumstances should you ever approach lupicus in phase 1 with a melee weapon.

Phase 2 if he’s fixated on you for his charge (he usually picks 1 target), being in melee range makes it harder to dodge. He also throws random bolts out that has a trajectory and hits pretty hard even if you have toughness, again bigger window to dodge when you’re ranged. Last but not least his massive AoE circles that actually don’t really show where the bolts are going. You can’t follow the circles for these but rather you have to watch the bolts, you can very well be hit by one zig-zagging even outside a red circle. Again, more distance between you and lupus, the easier to manage. Even IF you’re a kittenongst mere mortals with your dodge reactions and infinite dodge bar and lupus is charging someone else on your team. Having to gap close in between said AoE and his charges means a lot of downtime for melee damage. Phase 3 is the only one where you can reasonably melee him.

Twilight Arbor F/U Nightmare Tree. If you want to melee him, you’re going to pull more aggro on spiders that your group won’t appreciate having to deal with. His shockwaves after all, already spawn them the first few times. Your skill set as a Guardian also means you should be protecting your group (probably hanging out back) with reflection, and projectile absorption. You should have a melee weapon to grind down those spiders but trying to melee the tree itself is more trouble than its worth.

Path 1 is bugged, but Path 2 and 3 are easily do able, 3 especially. Two can be lengthy but the final boss is not the crazy impossible wtf people make it out to be. The pull before it just have people spec for mass interrupts, AoE knockbacks, KDs, whatever and focus fire. The less dredge adds out the easier it is to manage.

The final boss also requires people to pay attention, you have a window while they’re self repairing to kill both so go easy and hold back if one golem is too far ahead of the other. Get them down at the same rate and all is well.

As much as I understand the sentiment but thing is, where do you draw a line? RNG has been in MMO combat forever but it’s always the newer concepts that seem to come under fire.

A string of lucky crits that bursts someone down to the same string of moves not critting at all is the same polarizing scenario you’ve described in your examples.

I do like and agree with some of your proposed changes though, just some food for thought is all.

I don’t really see how a Guardian weapon would ever not work with any of its traits or gear. All of the Guardian’s arsenal in general scales well with power and there are very few weapons that need traits to function well. Hammer is the only exception as having two-handed mastery greatly benefits the flow of combat with it.

I run primarily with Hammer/Staff with Greatsword, Scepter and Shield in bags, haven’t found the need to carry anything else. There simply are some fights where you’re screwing your team if you’re trying to melee. Lupus for a few phases for example. Also, on a fight with less melee opportunities, what are you going to do, just stand there? That’s wasted time doing no damage output.

I don’t have a problem meleeing full time even on the more punishing encounters like Alpha (which largely tests your dodge timing is all), but to never just have a scepter back up as much as you would dislike it is kittening yourself. After all, you can switch equipment, utilities and what not out of combat for good reason.

It doesn’t anymore, you’re a few patches late. Now it’s just sometimes inconsistent in that every now and then it will decide to go on cool down, poison you, and do nothing even IF you’re in perfect LoS and they didn’t dodge roll. Otherwise, it corrupts aegis like all other boons now.

From my experiences and all of my fellow mates that I do tournaments with, we always get the loading screen bug when respawning with the scoreboard open. That was a consistent way we were able to reproduce the bug. It’s the same deal in hotjoin too.

I feel like the people who dislike the downed state are coming from other mmos and refusing to adapt their knowledge of cool down usage to work better with the downed state.

It’s very possible to burst someone down and turn a 1v2 into a 1v1, but you NEED to plan around downed state. All classes have ways to secure res/stomps when someone goes downed (except maybe necros who have to bug it).

Elementalists:
-Armor of Earth
-Mist Form

Warriors:
-Frenzy
-Balanced Stance
-Dolyak Signet

Rangers:
-Signet of the Wild (when traited)
-Quickening Zephyr
-Rampage as One

Necromancers:
-Foot in the Grave
-Pressing Shroud and stomp/res at the same time to shroud stomp/res (Most likely a bug).

Guardians:
-Stand Your Ground
-Hallowed Ground
-Virtue of Courage Traited for Stability

Thieves:
-Stealth
-Haste

Engineers:
-Toss Elixir S
-Elixir S
-Elixir U

Mesmers:
-Distortion
-Time Warp

All classes are decently equal at securing finishers, if they lack stability they usually have something else, only necros are probably the weak one in this regard. I would say Mesmers probably hold the best chance to 1v2 someone, you can burst them really quickly, drop a Timp Warp, distortion stomp and turn it into a 1v1. Not all classes downed states are equal, but aside from Elementalists, they all have counters. Rally range probably needs a fix, but overall it’s fine as a mechanic.

You can teleport to thieves mid stomp animation when they try and port away. Mesmers port randomly and they always have an arrow above their head, sometimes they’ll even stay close enough so that the stomp goes through regardless. All other downed states can be countered with a stability, stealth, or invulnerability stomp.

It’s how you pace your cool downs, if you have to use quickness (some builds do) to down someone in the first place, have a back up for when you finish them. It’s a tactical decision to whether drop all your cool downs during regular combat or have one up your sleeve during a pivotal moment when someone goes downed. Downed state is a neat mechanic once you make it play FOR you instead of playing against it. If you removed it, all you will ever see in PvP are burst thieves and shatter mesmers.

Due to the fact that their best mobility skills (Judge’s Intervention) and what not usually require a target to use, their mobility moving around the map is far surpassed by your usual choices for offensive roamers. If you do have a target, then it’s great. But after the Greatsword Leap-weap swap bugfix, movement wise, the Guardian is reduced to swiftness. Thieves have infiltrator’s arrow + shadowstep, warriors can use rush and whirlwind to move around too.

Also, Guardians share the same HP modifier as thieves and elementalists, the lowest, meaning when they build for burst, they’re also way squishy. If you opt for Knight’s amulet instead, your burst is also much lower than a shatter mesmer or a stabby stab thief. Even if you inch the Guardian to full out offensive, its burst potential just isn’t as high as the more popular choices.

The fact that some classes serve as much better roamers than Guardians coupled with the fact that Guardians make incredible bunkers puts them in the defensive support/bunker role on most teams. In a tournament setting if a roamer can’t reinforce quickly, you may lose the point. You may also be needed at more than one point as it’s very possible they’re split pressuring your points. Being able to get from point to point fast and finish the fight is what you want in a roamer, Guardian’s don’t exactly fulfill that better than other classes.

Most played in tPvP (Descending Order): Guardian, Mesmer, Necro, Ele

Easiest to Play:
1) Warrior
2) Guardian
3) Ranger
4) Thief
5) Mesmer
6) Necromancer
7) Elementalist
8) Engineer

Hardest to Succeed With:
1) Engineer
2) Elementalist
3) Ranger
4) Necromancer
5) Warrior
6) Thief
7) Mesmer
8) Guardian

My list may be a tad different than everyone elses, but I will explain. I have tried out all the classes and given them a fair share of time due to PvP reasons, it is my opinion that the Engineer and Elementalist has a steeper curve than all other classes due to the large assortment of skills they have to juggle. The only reason I rate Engineers higher than Elementalists is that they have no CD when it comes to kit swapping. When you’re playing an elementalists, it’s easy to fall into a rhythm or cycle when it comes to juggling attunements. Some skills in different elements chain perfectly into one and another and the CD with attunements means you want to use it most efficiently. The Engineer’s combos are more free form as they need to pull out the correct kit at the correct moment, otherwise the two classes are more of less the same. That doesn’t mean the Elementalist is any less punishing to play, if you make a mistake, it’s going to hurt. I just feel Engineers have to do more.

The Mesmer does behave differently from your average class in its skill set, however once you get familiar with it, I feel it’s definitely one of the most forgiving classes out there. You have a tool for every situation and plethora of ways to tip the balance in your favor, their burst spec is also in my opinion way stronger than thieves.

Thieves get a target painted on their back because the majority of their builds rely on a corner stone attack and it completely stomps new comers or people who just aren’t very good at PvP yet. However, at higher levels, thieves actually have to be tricky as the more well known combos are extremely predictable and easily countered once you see it more. They also have far less innate defenses than the Mesmer and is in my opinion, the squishiest class in GW2. That being said, their overall class strength is still really high, they have all the tools they need to succeed hence the rating.

Warriors are a lot like thieves, they flat out destroy inexperienced players thus leading to the QQ about 100b. Yes it hits like a truck, but they’re also way more predictable than thieves and they lack as many fancy tricks as other classes. A warrior that succeeds in higher skill environment usually has to play really well with his team to ensure his burst sets up perfectly and doesn’t go to waste. Otherwise, if you can’t avoid a 100b combo by now, you’re just not as good as you think you are.

Ranger weapons are extremely one dimensional, so are most of their utilities. I feel like they’re the “warriors” of primarily ranged classes, simple to execute and understand. That being said, while their best specs are by no means abysmal, their skillset greatly limits them. They simply lack tricks and utilities like most of the other viable classes.The good rangers out there really have to massively outplay people to win.

Sword/Focus + Greatsword was what I ran around with when initially leveling my Guardian.

I don’t use the 1h sword anymore in PvE. However, it’s still an excellent weapon to combo any off-hand with in tPvP. Current favorite is Sword/Torch with Scepter/Shield offset.

Powerful Auras is an awesome trait, I run it in my D/D bunker build and it works great for both bunkering and roaming support in tPvP.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k33;2R0VU0z4-N-Z0;9;599TJ;10;04;042B43-7w0;3PcW5PRnC3gO

The reason I didn’t go for 6pc Earth is that it does NOT trigger at 20%, in fact it triggers the aura at a much much lower percent, from my observation it procs when you’re at 5-10 percent and I feel is not as viable as it could be. That is why I went for additional boon duration instead. Feel free to test it out in the mists, just go to a dummy and get smacked until it procs.

copypasta if you get badlink.

If Phantasms ignoring LoS was the corner stone to your success as a mesmer, then you’re not as good of a mesmer as you think you are.

Yep, don’t get me wrong, HA and GvG had numerous issues too but the fact is, from the ground up it’s much better than what tPvP has to offer atm. Due to the lack laddering and what not and the /rank and fame title track you’d get from participating in HA, that led to a lot of rank discrimination when forming groups. That eventually made the PvP circle smaller and smaller until it killed itself.

People went through the same issues tPvP has right now where a prospective PvPer just starting out is excluded due to lack of /rank. They also had trouble finding enough space or even other people to practice as full teams usually roll over any PuGs/newbies. It also did not help that Random Arenas, Team Arenas and Alliance Battles were very different formats and did little to prepare them for GvG or HA. As a result, GW1 PvP had a downward spiral that eventually ate itself.

And now that situation is unraveling in GW2 as well.

If you watch his combat log, you’ll see he’s spamming pistol whips while remaining completely invisible.

Edit// If you pause vid at the scoreboard, since the guy filming is blue team, chances are its the thief at the bottom of red. S K I I or something?

Aberrant.6749:

Lumines.3916:

Mesmers unlike a lot of classes also have a much bigger variety of viable specs

This made me lol.

Mes is very limited right now. Staff+sword/pistol or focus. That’s it.

Scepter, sword offhand, and torch suck… and GS is bugged (mind stab will continue to suck even after they fix the zerk bug as well… not to mention the bug where wave doesn’t push back close up people).

Carry on rationalizing however you want to, won’t change what’s factual. Mesmers have shatter, phantasm, and condition builds going for them. They have defensive builds though its not as popular and you probably want another class for that usually. Still Mesmers can do it really well.

Classes like Necro and Ranger? Conditions or go home. Warriors? Outside of their burst, no one wants them as Guardians bunker better. Elementalists? You only see defensive/support ones out. Engis? Don’t remember the time I last saw one w/o Bomb kit.

You may be using similar weapon set ups in a lot of builds, but there’s way more freedom and viable traits scattered in all lines compared to most other classes.

Mesmer is tied for most played along with Guard and Necro for me in tPvP and Hotjoin.

It’s the only class without a true hard counter. Thieves come to a full stop against bunkers, warriors have trouble with anything that kites remotely well. Condition specs should always fall to Necros and so forth. But there’s nothing in the game that comes remotely close to checking Mesmers.

Mesmers unlike a lot of classes also have a much bigger variety of viable specs, for most other classes you could count at three max, one really viable and others just effective. For the Mesmer shatter is possible the most “OP” one, but that doesn’t mean any of the other builds are lacking.

The class design in itself is really slippery, like Thieves they can get away with building full on glass if you’re decent at actively avoiding damage. They have stealth too (albeit more limited) but also the huge advantage of really good ranged. Not to mention, distortion effects on Blurred Frenzy is bounds better than Pistol Whip evade or any other channel swing shindig skill. If you’re a shatter build, you’ll always immobilize them before your burst combo and unless they have a condition removal, they can’t peel. You can’t fear a Mesmer away like you would a Pistol Whip thief or 100b Warrior mid channel.

They also have the lowest CDs on a large number of stun breaks and better iterations of other class’ skills like Blink > Lightning Flash, Null Field > Wells.

Then you get to the elites, even though Time Warp is the best elite, Moa is still bounds better than a lot of what other classes can utilize, most classes can only dream for their elites to have such game changing consequences as Mesmer elites.

Mesmers are also really self sufficient, unlike some specs who play better when supported (Warriors), Mesmers are great at doing whatever they’re doing AND bringing unique support to others at the same time.

All of these points while not OP by themselves adds up to a lot and sets this class ahead of all classes right now in PvP. Yes, Mesmers are OP.

People are still complaining about the Lt?

He’s a really easy fight and I skipped him all the time unless troll spawned. However, since the patch hit, the rewards ARE ample incentive to kill him.

You know before his pull, he actually charges it and it’s captain obvious if you have a shred of situational awareness. Any sort of projectile reflection will also negate it, hell Aegis or LoSing it will also negate it too if you’re out of dodge roll. Even if you get pulled in, pop a stun break/invul right away and move your way to victory.

I regularly skip crap that is just tedious and not rewarding in dungeons and cannot picture why you’d want to kill everything every time but to each and his own i guess.

However Kohler a cheap fight? How is it? It doesn’t one shot you out of nowhere.. it kitten telegraphs it. Cheap mechanics are unavoidable one shots, that’s not what we’re dealing with here. Fault sits with you completely if you can’t deal with it. There’s a serious lack of challenging encounters as is in this game.

Sebyos.4089:

Trap/Condition Rangers are crazy good against melees in general they can stack a hell of a lot of bleed while keeping you CCed.

And this game is so kitten condition removal is almost useless against good condition builds since they reapply faster than you can remove and then when you’r cooldowns are all poped and they still put bleeds on you with lame auto attacks, you’r screwed.

I mean who thought it was balanced to put condition removal on 15-60 seconds CDs and Bleeds on fast auto-attacks ? kittening braindead devs of course.

Players that complain about condition removals not being effective plain do not know how to properly utilize them. Obviously some classes are better off than others but this is a L2P issue.

I’ve only ever played a ranger in BWE3 and disliked them as they’re anything but similar to the GW1 ranger. That being said, I can’t fanthom that a thief is complaining about a ranger.. rangers are by far one of if not the weakest link right now when it comes to class balance. They were promised a decent overhaul last patch and got nowhere.

Rangers right now are reduced to traps and quickness bleed stacking, they don’t have anything better.

Your ideal of PvP sounds like people performing PvE rotations on each other and sounds boring.

You’re comparing to using a bunch of skills to just one plague, no kitten you grabbed skewed results. What are you doing after plague finishes, standing there and scratching your nuts?

What if my Necro has Well of Darkness, off-hand dagger AND plague? I’d have way higher uptime on blinds than you. When your 20s rotation is done, I’d still have most of my cool downs up while yours are all burned if I pop plague first in this vacuum time line you created.

You also can’t really put into numbers how valuable stability is. Yes you can’t cancel it to res/stomp people but having it on Plague which is a great defensive CD means you just in general a bigger annoyance that is harder to stop in team fights.

Plague also is a perma poison in that AoE for 20s, so not only are they greatly reduced in damage output when you act as divine wrath for the old testament, you’re also reducing their heals.

Mesmers still the best class in the game, pity you all can’t see that. Shame if a bug was the only thing that made the class fun for you.

You seem to be alone in this regard.