Guild Wars 2

I don’t think that normalizing health pools across all classes would be smart. I DO think that increasing health pools on classes that are deemed a bit “weak” until further buffs would be a wise choice to temporarily increase their viability.

Eles, for example, are a class that might need a slight increase in HP since they’ve fallen almost completely out of favor in the meta because of their serious issues with survivability against condis (even with 30 water and ether renewal). Until a meta gets a good smack to change it up any particular class with particular strengths and weaknesses will find itself on the bottom and a temporary (or permanent) change to health pools in PvP would alleviate that at least a tiny bit.

Holesale.2640:

This isn’t really overpowered.. A Mesmer can pull the same amount of confusion if not more if built correctly and have better up time on it while making clones and avoiding damage directed at them sooo how is this overpowered maybe if you put them on a confusion Mesmer yeah..but when is the last time you ran into a confusion Mesmer since the confusion nerf in wvw or in tpvp/spvp?

They give us more build options and everyone is omgz nerfit, next patch when the 6th rune has a 30 second Internal CD you guys will whine about not having build diversity again.

And come on..if you swing wildly with more than 5 confusion stacks on you, you deserve to go down. lol

“swinging wildly” also includes dodging, healing and generally doing ANYTHING that involves hitting a button that isn’t a movement key.

Given that quite literally everything that the engi does can apply confusion and given the absurd number of interrupts and duration of the confusion I would say that these things are probably THE most broken thing I’ve seen in a very long while.

Of course, we’re talking about WvW here where you get a free 40% condi duration. It’s all just an imbalanced joke so who gives a kitten ? free 20+ stacks of confusion is like kitten ing in an ocean of kitten (except with dodge rolls that damage you for 4k)

I have no idea why this has not been done yet.

The only thing that I’m afraid of is that it opens up quite the pandora’s box of changes. In general I’d assume it’ll support power and bunker based builds more so than condi builds because a lack of diversity of stats severely limits power builds and more diversity in stats would be a pretty big boost to bunkers (clerics + shamans = lols).

Another thing to consider would be how much stronger the already strong builds would get. A sword dagger thief suddenly has the option of running a tankier spec mixing zerkers with valks, knigh’s or soldiers, for example.

I would support this change though. Physical DPS is in a rough spot and this would be a good place to start but would have to be considered in depth before anything changes IMO.

Oozo.7856:

Ostricheggs.3742:

Also:

http://www.twitch.tv/ostricheggs/c/2760126

lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKQJYTeHZIo

Maybe it’s tPvP or something but clumping up to revive a guy in WvW will get you a /laugh and a loss.

I don’t understand the need to post a clip showing a loss and ridiculing the other side for it because we all win some and lose some. There was nothing terribly embarrassing about the loss Baest took there. You call it a zerg but it looked like a relatively even number fight to me.

And Yarr does have good players.

I’m not a part of the random group you just posted there. I’m never part of an organized group in WvW because let’s be honest, this entire thing is a huge joke.

Jesse.4631:

Ostricheggs.3742:

I can’t even believe you people consider yarr good. The individual play I saw from them earlier made me cringe.

Heartseeker spam in d/d? Maybe it’s just wvw but in TPvP that kitten gets you a /laugh and a loss.

We’re terribads, sorry we can’t meet up to your standards :S

I apologize sir. Some things don’t need to be said out loud.

Also:

http://www.twitch.tv/ostricheggs/c/2760126

lol

EDIT: That was BM. I am sorry friends.

Fun duels random dudes from collecting loot. That zealot’s flame surprised me

Necros aren’t so broke. The best way to kill them is to dodge their fears (especially DS fear) and interrupt their heal. Knowing what they have up when is extremely important.

Rangers on the otherhand are a bit more difficult. Range down their spirits ASAP. If they they have a nature spirit up KILL IT IMMEDIATELY!!!! It is THE strongest AoE heal in the entire game healing for about 480 per second with a massive radius. If you don’t kill it in around 10-20 seconds you’ll probably lose the teamfight.

Kill their sun spirit asaply as well. AoE burning for the entire team is extremely strong. Avoid their storm spirit’s active (it activates on death as well). It hits for around 4k.

One of the best ways to deal with a spirit ranger is to constantly harass them on backpoint. They become far, far stronger in larger fights as their spirits become harder to focus and their buffs are given to more people. It can also be relatively easy to 1v1 them depending on what class you are. Down their sun spirit and cleanse the burning they apply to you. Blind the storm spirit’s active. Wait for the solar flare to go down from the sun spirit and go in to kitten the ranger up. If you keep a spirit ranger out of a larger fight then you’re doing a good job IMO. If you make him pop his elite in a 1v1 then you’re doing an awesome job.

Spirits do not regenerate HP out of combat on their own. It’s also good to note that they only have hide in plain sight and shared anguish to mitigate stuns.

Many rangers run forge runes and have perma-protection from all their sources of prot. They’re EXTREMELY hard to kill depending on what they’re running and how good they are. It’s smart to take a quick note of their weapon sets too. If they switch out of sword they have far less dodges than if they’re in sword. If the ranger uses monarch’s leap (the sword 2) he’ll roll backwards while evading. If he jumps forward at you he IS NOT evading and is practically a sitting duck.

GL friends, nerf spirits and godspeed.

Daecollo.9578:

they are usually above average players who want to do nothing but complete their daily

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

As a guy with over 5,500 games with nade kit in PvP I wouldn’t suggest you turn on fast-cast. I also wouldn’t suggets a naga.

The only way to throw nades right is to use them extensively. It’s not rocket science, you get better with practice. They’re worth the time :P

dreztina.4820:

I got some flak for criticizing Anvil Rock in an earlier post. I just participated in killing an AR zerg of 20+ with I think four people open field (albiet with some npc help). We weren’t in a group or anything, just a few other people who happened to be in the same area. I have literally never seen worse play in the entire time I have been playing this game.

The last time I saw something like this, I was a fairly fresh lvl 50 paladin still running in the zerg. The premier gank group of the time, CKD, bombed said zerg, killing more than 100 of the people around me. When they finally died, I was stunned. While I waited for mana regen to rez, I asked my group (who had all died asides from me), how the hell could so many people die to so few? No one said a word. That was a bit over 10 years ago.

That was what watching these people die felt like.

Bragging about how many random scrubs you kill in WvW is like bragging about taking the gold at the special olympics.

People in WvW are just insanely bad and you should feel bad for killing those terribads that you incredibly outgear.

You’re not special, you’re probably not very good. You’re just kittenting on undergeared noobs.

overcharge shot is one of the best skills in the entire game. Asking for more than what it already gives is kinda crazy.

The self-CC is to reduce its potency as a CC in 1v1s. In a team fight it becomes better because as you’re CCed for almost a full second your teammates can go ham on a target that’s CC’d for 3.

It also puts some risk in dishing out CC because if it gets dodged/reflected you’re in a worse situation than if you just didn’t pop it.

It’s an interesting skill and I can see why some people would find it frustrating. When you hit a CC skill you certainly don’t expect to get CC’d yourself.

Trust me though, it’s EXTREMELY strong and I would honestly argue overpowered if it weren’t for the fact that rifle engis in SPvP are sub-par in most situations anyways.

If the game remains a 5v5 conquest game then team play will always matter more than individual skill. I’ve seen it more so than maybe anyone else having been in a competitive team and having possibly the most solo tourney games than anyone else in GW2.

I wouldn’t count on dueling to make it in in the near future. If anything I would expect something like 3v3 conquest. It makes the most sense for future game modes. In the mean time I would just make due with dueling in duel servers if that’s your thing.

Also, the game is most definitely not a balanced 1v1 game. Quite the opposite I would say.

cymerdown.4103:

Ostricheggs.3742:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Look there are problems but if you lose alot then you are probably bad.

This is incredibly close-minded. Just pointing out that what you said ignores what you’re talking about which is solo queues in a team game. There are roles to fill and not all of those roles are filled by nature of its randomness. Players that play a support or bunker spec are at the mercy of the noobs they queued with. Thieves, mesmers and high physical DPS classes can vary in effectiveness from completely useless to god among men based on who’s on the other team and what map it happens to be.

Solo queues are so ridiculous that you can win EVERY SINGLE FIGHT, win 2v1s and hold a point an entire game and STILL lose because your team sucks. That is not hyperbole. It’s happened to me dozens of times solo queueing.

Just sayin. Just because you lose doesn’t mean you’re worse than your opponents or did worse than your opponents.

Also, back on topic, yes this is totally unfair and should at least be minimized. It’s also a problem when you get the same people over and over again on your team when you’re legit solo queueing. It’s frustrating playing with the same set of glassy players over and over.

I just think what he was trying to say is that everyone, given sufficient sample size, will encounter the same types of problems you mentioned the same percentage of the time. So, if you lose more than other people over a long period of time, the main variable that is left is your own play skill. Of course, there are other factors too, such as the class(es) you can play (some classes can carry harder than others depending on the matchup). Being able to multiclass, or at least play multiple builds for a single class well, will put you farther ahead in SoloQ. Also, communicating with text and map pings will help you too. But personal skill is the main factor that will enable you to win games that would otherwise be close and that extra little bit of carry changes it from a loss to a win.

I would agree with this if we were allowed to change classes. Sadly we can’t, at least we aren’t intended to, we can’t leave a rated match to switch classes or we’ll be punished.

The only time I’d give what he said any sort of credit is if there were 2 people playing the same class and same build over a very large sample size. But is statement is easily read as “you lose, you’re bad” when the reality of it is incredibly nuanced and it’s impossible to carry on most classes in this game.

http://www.twitch.tv/ostricheggs/b/441984744

I dunno, I’ve been getting some pretty rough groups and going against some pretty good players. That vod is pretty good evidence…

Lordrosicky.5813:

Look there are problems but if you lose alot then you are probably bad.

This is incredibly close-minded. Just pointing out that what you said ignores what you’re talking about which is solo queues in a team game. There are roles to fill and not all of those roles are filled by nature of its randomness. Players that play a support or bunker spec are at the mercy of the noobs they queued with. Thieves, mesmers and high physical DPS classes can vary in effectiveness from completely useless to god among men based on who’s on the other team and what map it happens to be.

Solo queues are so ridiculous that you can win EVERY SINGLE FIGHT, win 2v1s and hold a point an entire game and STILL lose because your team sucks. That is not hyperbole. It’s happened to me dozens of times solo queueing.

Just sayin. Just because you lose doesn’t mean you’re worse than your opponents or did worse than your opponents.

Also, back on topic, yes this is totally unfair and should at least be minimized. It’s also a problem when you get the same people over and over again on your team when you’re legit solo queueing. It’s frustrating playing with the same set of glassy players over and over.

a big BUMP because this is annoying as hell….

Near the skill cap and in high level tourneys:

Tier S
Spirit rangers

Tier A
Engis
Guardians
Necros
Warriors
Thieves
Eles

Tier B
Mesmers

I don’t think the meta has properly shifted away from necros because people finally got a taste of condis via an easy to play class. Engineers are a decent bit better than necromancers but require FAR more skill to play. People have latched on to necros because they were incredibly overpowered a couple weeks back and they have a lot of synergy with spirit rangers despite filling the same role an engineer does. However, a large majority of players will continue to play necros because it’s a more effective option for them. It’s also far tankier with plague form, protection and large amounts of condi clear. Necros are also pretty effective against spirit rangers with their CC and condi clear/control.

Alas, spirit rangers will continue to dominate the meta and reign supreme until we see some changes. They’re stupid easy to play, their elite is simply broken in its efficacy and their on-point physical DPS from storm spirit is insane considering they’re actually a condi class… Did I mention AoE burns, AoE blinds and AoE protections for the entire team? Or their insane amounts of condi damage? Or their unique spot as dodge king? Or their insane amounts of condi clear? These will continue to dictate the meta until something is changed. Their efficacy given their difficulty to play is simply laughable and makes a mockery of the entire PAX tourney.

A large number of classes have an increased or decreased rating based on how effective they are against necros and rangers because of their prevalence. A good example of this would be how mesmers have been dropped from being a necessity
to being a liability. When their role as a support/physical dps takes too much support to make their own support effective then they simply lost their viability.

It’s also worth mentioning that it seems like a lot of this game in high level play has become about comp over skill more so than any other period in its recent history. This worries me greatly for this game’s longevity and fun factor and points to a problem that’s too complicated to accurately pin-point. Many people would say it’s simply because this is a “condi” meta, but I believe it goes a bit deeper than that. Just because a lot of the blatantly overpowered classes have recently been condition classes does not necessarily mean that the problem of comp > skill has to do with condis.

FINALLY, if any class that requires any modicum of skill sees another nerf (engis, d/p thieves) then I will lose all hope in this games balance team. We have seen two incredibly easy to play and incredibly overpowered classes recently; the game’s reliance on skill is at an all-time low and it’s depressing to see in action.

killahmayne.9518:

I personally play a warrior and some of my builds have upwards to 24K HP. Not that I necessarily want it that way, but that is the nature of how the stats are allocated on the amulets and the traits that I believe to be the most effective.

Having high vitality is only good for 1v1s and buffering an initial damage burst a little bit. Since in PvP you are likely getting hit by many sources, most of the vitality you have will be gone and if you are a class like a Warrior with high health pool but virtually little healing, you are rarely going to see that HP bar full. So, condition damage isn’t really buffered all that much by stacking vitality. Sustain becomes extremely important when it comes to teamfighting and taking damage from multiple sources.

In the grand scheme of things in teamfights, things like evades, blocks, invulnerabilities, condi cleanses, sustain heals, protection are going to save you alot more than 3000 extra HP would. At least from a warrior perspective. For other classes it might be different because they have inherent mechanics, i.e stealth that allow them to avoid damage altogether.

And many times, the best defense is to apply loads of AoE condi pressure on the enemy team so that way they can’t touch you and are hestitant to trying and attack you.

That 3000 HP on a class with 10k base HP (vs 18k for warriors) makes a pretty big difference

The one thing I noticed on my warrior is that I am able to eat so much crap and still be at half health. While that might not seem great, so long as I’m able to get out of the fight it’s alright. Warrior mobility allows resets that blow my mind. It’s kinda broken TBH

The combination of dhuumfire and terror is simply broke.

Necromancers are going to need dhuumfire. A serious lack of easy application burning is what prevented necros from seeing the light of day prepatch. Terror on its own does not fill that gap as we have seen with a variety of soul-reaping terror builds. Burning on its own is not overpowered as we have seen on many classes many times over (see: engineers).

Also, necromancers are extremely easy to play in comparison to engis. Marks are not grenades.

Godofallu.2935:

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

I think it comes down to replenishing the hp pool. That is what you see with elementalists. Who cares if I have 30k hp if I can’t replenish it. But if I can replenish my 15k hp regularly, it is the equivalent of having more hp in the long run.

Exactly. Vitality really doesn’t matter at all as it doesn’t effect the ability to sustain in a fight.

Vit effects the ability to sustain in a fight where lots of conditions are present. That extra 5-7k HP is the difference between dying or getting an extra heal/condi clear up which could mean you get yet another up.

The problem is that large vit only seems to come with kittenty amulet/rune choices OR trait points and a carrion amulet.

Carrion seems to be the only decent choice with a large amount of vitality. I’ve run carrion quite a decent bit on my engi when up against multiple condi classes. A difficult 1v1 becomes a breeze. The only problem is that you sacrifice sustain against physical DPS classes, a problem bemoaned by many in this thread.

Overall people seem to misunderstand defensive stats. High vitality is excellent for classes with lots of mobility as it gives them the potential to survive a burst then reset.

Another thing to consider is that in a very large majority of fights all parties immediately start with their heal off cooldown giving them an effective health increase (outside of negative effects like poison/CC to the point where they won’t get their heal off). Vitality becomes less important when you can pop your heal for a quick 6k and get far more out of that 6k with toughness.

It also depends on each classes base stats. Guardians start out with the highest base armor in the game but the lowest health pool in the game making it wise to stack more vitality than other classes becasue each bit of vitality gains more efficacy from their high base armor.

Overall, until you see compositions run more than one-two condi classes (something that will never happen until team-fight and until you see a change to how conditions work) I don’t think it’s wise to make major sacrifices for vitality…

Why the kitten are people lumping engis and rangers with necros?

Seriously, all this talk about “condition spam” came along after necros got buffed. When engis and rangers where the only condi classes that were viable none of this was an issue.

All of this is because necros are kitten -easy to play and one of the most broken things in the history of this game. More broken than 25 stacks of might mesmers, more broken that block-bug, more broken than bladetrail hitting for 10k+…

Train your ire to necros. Leave the balanced classes out of this…

jportell.2197:

Ostricheggs.3742:

If you are having trouble with an engi running auto-immune, don’t fight him. He’s near worthless anyways.

Wrong… holding a 4v1 for about 2-3 min is far from worthless. Just sayin.

Now whose fault is that? Either that’s pure hyperbole or you done goofed

Zelulose.8695:

The more interesting part is that engineers already have enough condition removal.
With the elixir gun kit alone, -Fumigate- and -Super Elixir- remove plenty of conditions.
The healing kit has -Drop Antidote-. I will list the rest:
Skills
-Cleansing Burst
-Toss Elixir R
-Elixir C
-Toss Elixir C (the profession skill)
As for traits
-Cleaning Formula 409
-Transmute
-Automated Response

I understand condition removal, but considering what Automated response can do alone, isn’t this too much for one class?

A very large majority of engis run without a lot of cleanses. A lot of other classes have far better access to cleanses than we do simply because our utilities are our weapon sets. One of the main weaknesses of engineers is conditions in general when they are not running HGH. If they are running HGH they have to LoS to cleanse and will just fall over to a necro anyways. If they are running a very large amount of cleanse (elixir C + heal turret, mainly) they will still get destroyed by necromancers.

And auto-immune response is almost worthless against a necro. I’ve 100-0’d engis with auto-immune on my necro before… It doesn’t clear the conditions previously applied before the engi drops below 25%.

To even grab auto-immune is a feat in and of itself. If you are having trouble with an engi running auto-immune, don’t fight him. He’s near worthless anyways.

For the record, necromancers have 50X better access to condition removals via transfers and consume conditions than engis could ever dream of. That all comes with their heal and chosen weapon sets. Plague signet is just the icing on the cake and far easier to grab than anything an engi uses to cleanse himself.

A necromancer without dhuumfire would be seriously underpowered again without substantial changes and buffs. Terror does far less overall damage and simply makes dhuumfire more potent because the amount of damage done over a short fear duration is easily considered burst.

Mark my words, the old-fashioned soul-reaping/terror builds will not be viable even if all the changes are kept. The proc on dhuumfire is a necessity to keep necromancers viable. What pushes them over the top are terror fear bombs coupled with the simple lack of care for life force.

Despite my suggested changes to life force being a nerf to all necromancer builds it opens up the opportunity to buff them as well. It’s very easy to add a master or grandmaster trait up one of the unused trees that alleviates deathshroud management. It can also be used to buff unused weapon sets (I’m looking at you, axe)

Roe.3679:

Ostricheggs.3742:

My picture of what a necromancer should be is a class that is less mobile than most but a must-focus target once they get the ball rolling with their life-force. It gives them a unique roll and actually forces them to use their class mechanic as it should be played instead of literally sacrificing their own health to protect it. While the changes I suggested may nerf other specs, let’s be perfectly honest and say that no other specs are worth running right now for the simple reason that the dhuumfire/terror combination is simply too strong right now. Other specs clearly need a buff, but to actually buff them this mechanic and spec need to be changed as well.

It sounds like these changes would force people into a 30/30/10 spec instead of changing Dhuumfire which encourages different builds.

There will always be one dominant spec/traitline for a particular role for a class. The idea is to create other dominant specs that fill other roles with other strengths and weaknesses. As it stands, other trait lines and weaponsets are very lackluster and no amount of nerfs to the dhuumfire/terror build will ever make necromancers be viable in other specs. Given the changes I recommend to death shroud it opens up the opportunity to create changes to traits in other trees based around deathshroud generation etc.

A lot of people misdiagnose dhuumfire as the main problem with necromancer’s dominance, but it couldn’t be farther from the case.

Kryshade.6075:

SNIP

Necros need that access to burning. It’s the combination of the damaging CC AND the burning that destroys people. I throw this example out a lot, but think of it from the perspective of a d/p thief vs a necro. If a necro lands a mark of blood without doomfire, the thief doesn’t give a kitten. But the second dhuumfire procs the thief is in very serious trouble and has to play defensively.

The amount of damage that burning puts out isn’t over the top and the way it’s applied is not in any way intrusive to what the necromancer does per usual. Without the burning terror would be far weaker, but without terror burning would not be weak in the slightest.

My picture of what a necromancer should be is a class that is less mobile than most but a must-focus target once they get the ball rolling with their life-force. It gives them a unique roll and actually forces them to use their class mechanic as it should be played instead of literally sacrificing their own health to protect it. While the changes I suggested may nerf other specs, let’s be perfectly honest and say that no other specs are worth running right now for the simple reason that the dhuumfire/terror combination is simply too strong right now. Other specs clearly need a buff, but to actually buff them this mechanic and spec need to be changed as well.

Also, if given the ability to disengage, necros would be even more overpowered than they are right now. Plus it seems like the developers want engis to take that spot with things like rocket boots and slick shoes. However a very large majority of builds that increase moiblity substantially for engineers comes at the cost of a HUGE amount of survivability just for the fact that they use kits. If there was a mobility mechanic tied to death shroud then necros would just be too strong.

Also, necros are very survivable IMO. At least compared to engis, the class that held the same role previously, necros are gods among men by comparison. The amount of damage they can dish out for how survivable they are is impossible to achieve by an engineer… While it may be one of their substantial weaknesses, it’s far stronger than anything else comparatively.

So thoughts? Comments? L2P-noob-necros-aren’t-OP-L2TPVP?

At the moment everyone and their mother knows that necros are broken. Their strength has gone up so much that everyone now believes that a necro is necessary on a team to be competitive.

To me this isn’t THAT bad of a thing. It sucks for the moment, but it’s kinda nice to see a couple of necros out there. Alright, there’s more than a couple. Even still, their place as the flavor of the month means that it’s pretty easy to dissect why they’re overused and what a-net’s balancing team can do about it.

And for the record, the entire goal of nerfing the necromancer is to keep them in the meta without the meta being dictated by necros. When a class becomes so strong that an entire team must change their builds, playstyles and comp for a single player in a teamfighting role then something must be done. In my eyes necros have taken a spot that the condi engi previously held. They’re roaming condition teamfighters that destroy everything when left alone and given enough time. They control a fight through condition swaps, boon hate, crowd control and sheer damage. Again, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just bad right now because they were overbuffed.

So onto the suggestions.

1: Remove the extra condition damage portion on terror OR have it deal max damage by default but reduced damage per condition on the target.
Terror is a lot of the source of problems people have with necros. Fear is a very strong and lengthy CC already and it’s also the only CC that stacks in duration. What becomes a problem is that when a target has a large number of conditions on them they’re already fighting for their life. If a necro gets a dhuumfire proc, mark of blood and chilblains on someone then it’s either they get themselves cleansed, run away or die to the next set of attacks. Fear makes this next to impossible. This isn’t terrible on its own, but with terror fear now ticks for 1k+ damage per second. This is simply over the top.

2. Remove ALL deathshroud on death (not downed).
This is a big one and IMO a nerf that’s less about nerfing and more about forcing a particular playstyle that I believe was intended in the first place. If a smart necro gets caught and simply knows that he’s going to die then he’ll just die without going into deathshroud to save it for the next respawn. He then can go into a fight with a large amount of deathshroud and a large amount of damage. At the moment in the standard dhuumfire terror set of specs, life force is a must-have to deal the substantial amount of damage available to you. The thing is though is that that particular spec does not gain very much life force at all and it’s even harder to maintain it under focus fire.
Should this change end up going through, life force management would be difficult but not impossible and bring necros into a suitable position to actually bring about more changes if they’re necessary, buffs or nerfs. However, until this change goes through deathshroud is simply a failed mechanic used as a second healthbar only on occasions and is more protected than their actual health bar simply because deathshroud is a huge source of damage for the necromancer and it’s smarter to die than to not have deathshroud now or later.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Age restrictions: The reason for the 18 is due to travel/hotel requirements.

For regions: we hope to expand those as we go forward with future tournaments.

More details: There will be additional details/rules coming in the near future, as mentioned in the last section of the announcement.

Balance: We are being VERY careful w/ balance between now and the tournament so you guys don’t have builds changing every patch. This is why we did the larger balance patch last month – we wanted to do smaller and smaller changes as we get closer to the tourney. We know there is a perception that a few things are too strong right now, so we’ll be looking at those between now and the tourney.

Necromancers. Don’t let anyone fool you. For the love of god necromancers please

tarcheg.4872:

Ostricheggs.3742:

Engis kill BM rangers pretty easy too, lol. Maybe not EU engis and their crazy specs, but I know BM was one of the easiest, albeit annoying, fights I could have had.

I’m honestly not too sure why you guys are having so much trouble with a class pushing far-point that destroys a lot of unprepared teams on their backpoint. That’s especially true in a build designed for the role and is less-than-optimal everywhere else.

If you somehow manage to neutralize what the engi does with EU specific far-point engi builds than you’ve destroyed his reason to be playing an engi entirely.

I am genuinely confused at this thread. Outside of the honest complaint about elixir R (the stunbreak issue never fixed the core problem and just destroyed good builds) I don’t believe that this thread has any merit. It’s like complaining far-point thieves need a nerf because your mesmer backpoint is getting destroyed.

Switch your necro, other engi or any other class that can 1v1 that build to your backpoint, communicate where the engi is at all times INCLUDING respawns, watch your backpoint like a hawk and laugh your way to victory as the engi struggles in a different role.

A good comparison would be phantasm mesmers. They’re 1v1 gods, extremely difficult to kill but once you find someone who can kill them they become useless. Either that or just ignore them and find a way to deal with it with either high mobility back-caps yourself or winning your teamfights at mid to collapse on the engi.

Just unbelievable – you must be so terrified that your engi might get another nerf to write such kitten and be serious about it.
You’re saying an engi can only 1on1? You compare his team fight ability to that of a phantasm mesmer???
Engi has 2 rezzes, lots of AoE and CC and his dmg through conds is anything else than low and his elite is nothing less than a 2s AE stun + heal and turrets.
And if you watched the recent streams you even might have noticed that putting a necro on close is not an instant win against the engi. It’s more like the engi destroys the necro in 1on1’s on the last few high lvl match ups I have seen.
But my point is that engi is really good in team fights and almost unbeatable by in 1on1’s. There are so many matches on twitch that prove how much influence an engi has who his pushing far 24/7 (hint carcrash vs denial).

I’m not “afraid” of my class getting a nerf. History has proven that, I was the first one to say HGH needed a nerf months ago.

Sadly this is not the case. The build is beatable and destroys many standard backpoints and is very subpar in teamfights by comparison to many other standard builds.

I’m just recommending things is all. It’s clear that people don’t wanna listen and would rather insult my experience in TPvP and call for nerfs. If I had a team on EU against these engis I’m sure we’d do fine. The build relies on constant damage from burning via incendiary ammo and large ammounts of CC from shield/FT/bomb kit.

And the problem that people face is less about the build and more about elixir R on reset. It was never a good idea. The best solution would be to move the rez-mechanic to the activated skill and have the endurance refill break stuns and be the tool-belt with an increased cooldown.

Give the necro a warhorn and flesh wurm, sacrifice epidemic or a spectral skill.

An engi without rocketboots will not outrun a necro with warhorn, let alone flesh wurm.

If you do not see the engi then assume that he is going for your point. React accordingly. Communicate where he is AT ALL TIMES. This should happen anyways for all players, but keep a special tab on the engi. If he engages in any fights then he won’t be useful and will be extremely vulnerable. If you cannot kill a bomb/FT engi in a teamfight then your team has more problems than your backpoint.

Otherwise, find a build that can beat said engi 1v1 on another class. I’m sure there are plenty given that he’ll have no stunbreak…

Engis kill BM rangers pretty easy too, lol. Maybe not EU engis and their crazy specs, but I know BM was one of the easiest, albeit annoying, fights I could have had.

I’m honestly not too sure why you guys are having so much trouble with a class pushing far-point that destroys a lot of unprepared teams on their backpoint. That’s especially true in a build designed for the role and is less-than-optimal everywhere else.

If you somehow manage to neutralize what the engi does with EU specific far-point engi builds than you’ve destroyed his reason to be playing an engi entirely.

I am genuinely confused at this thread. Outside of the honest complaint about elixir R (the stunbreak issue never fixed the core problem and just destroyed good builds) I don’t believe that this thread has any merit. It’s like complaining far-point thieves need a nerf because your mesmer backpoint is getting destroyed.

Switch your necro, other engi or any other class that can 1v1 that build to your backpoint, communicate where the engi is at all times INCLUDING respawns, watch your backpoint like a hawk and laugh your way to victory as the engi struggles in a different role.

A good comparison would be phantasm mesmers. They’re 1v1 gods, extremely difficult to kill but once you find someone who can kill them they become useless. Either that or just ignore them and find a way to deal with it with either high mobility back-caps yourself or winning your teamfights at mid to collapse on the engi.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Ostricheggs.3742:

Sn: Duke Henry – Necro main

If you cannot kill a s/d thief or bomb engi as a necro then you can not complain about them. It’s only because you’re a not-so-good player…

Both specs, given knowledge of the classes, are easily beatable by a wide range of specs. That’s especially true for necro…

The irony of a necro asking for nerfs to other classes before his own is too funny…

You are a troll mate.

Have a proper conversation perhaps. Why is what I play relevant? Jesus, you have issues dude.

look up a few posts and see my explanation. I to assume you mean the efficacy of a far-point assaulting engi and s/d thief respective of your current class.

The thing I found ironic is that as strong as they are they are not anywhere near as game-breaking as necros currently are.

Avead.5760:

Ostricheggs.3742:

Sn: Duke Henry – Necro main

If you cannot kill a s/d thief or bomb engi as a necro then you can not complain about them. It’s only because you’re a not-so-good player…

Both specs, given knowledge of the classes, are easily beatable by a wide range of specs. That’s especially true for necro…

The irony of a necro asking for nerfs to other classes before his own is too funny…

He was the first asking for necro nerfs..
Btw if you cant see how bombs engi has taken cantrips ele spot atm then you need up your game.The only difference is that ele used to be full tank and never die 1vs1 ,hold for a bit and run in 2vs1 while the engi just kills everything 1vs1 including full bunkers apart from necro(which is not mobile enough to prevent decap) ,has more mobility plus stealth and way over the top cc to neutralise against anyone.
To be frank with you even if ele wasnt nerfed id still pick engi cause it just seems more effective by far at pressuring far point .
Just look at top teams eu..

Bomb engis have very minimal stealth that depends on some of their key abilities to be up, most of the time they’re on cooldown and are used to fight on backpoint. Big ol bomb breaks stealth if it hits anything while blasting into a smoke field, so purposely get hit by it if the engi is attempting to stealth.

Bombs themselves are extremely easy to avoid. I VERY RARELY get hit by any bombs outside of glue bomb because glue bomb doesn’t do anything unless chained into a big ol’ bomb. Understand what bombs do what and what radius’ each bomb is. If you get hit by any damaging bombs you’re doing it wrong.

Teldo’s build specifically is very easily exploited by catching him off-point and not getting hit by his bombs. If you’re going to lose a fight walk off the point and a large majority of his damage dissipates.

Flamethrower’s 1v1 potential is huge, but enough condi clear to deal with incendiary ammo and incendiary powder destroys any sort of potential it has.

Adequate communication of where said engi is is paramount to dealing with him. Far-node engis are very hard to deal with if you have a tanky comp and someone not familiar with how those engis play.

Learn what builds they run and how to beat them. A lot of them run without stunbreaks and run without any sort of decent ranged damage.

Sn: Duke Henry – Necro main

If you cannot kill a s/d thief or bomb engi as a necro then you can not complain about them. It’s only because you’re a not-so-good player…

Both specs, given knowledge of the classes, are easily beatable by a wide range of specs. That’s especially true for necro…

The irony of a necro asking for nerfs to other classes before his own is too funny…

KrisHQ.4719:

I have stopped playing PvP because of the current meta. I didn’t really like the bunker meta either, but I kept my hopes up a more skill-based meta.
What we got instead was my worst nightmare tbh. Conditions are fine as long as they have to be used strategically and remain as CC. I really dislike the DoT-Spam.
There are some good stuff in this thread, so this post basically functions as a secret bump.
The only hope I have left is “Condition-Hate”. When boons ruled the meta the developers tried to counter it with “Boon-Hate”. If they could somehow implement “Condition Hate” so that spamming conditions would not necessarily always be a good thing I would probably return.
It could be everything from dealing extra dmg with conditions to getting healing pr. second based on the amounts of conditions on you (for a limited time period).

@Ostricheggs
Engineers have a very low skill floor just like every other class in GW2.
I would consider myself much more skilled in CS 1.6 (or CS:GO) than I am in GW2 (with many years of experience), the difference is that I would never stand a chance against any competitive team in CS. In GW2 I made the top 500 by solo/duo-queueing pretty easily.
There is not denying that the way the combat in GW2 works right now, there is very little room for individual skill. The difference between spamming your skills with the right build and actually being a skilled player is incredibly low.
One of the lowest skill floors I have seen in pretty much any game tbh.
I still really like the combat though, it has great potential.

the difference in skill over the course of a game is pretty massive. A good player makes good decisions, extends his own life, buys his team team and wins almost every even fight thrown at him.

One bad player can bring a team down in competitive play VERY easily. The difference being that there are 5 players working in tandem with set roles. Unless you play at that level individual skill hardly matters because you can’t work with pugs in a solo queue.

Also it’s good to mention that leaderboards don’t matter for kitten.

My theory:

Engis were the best team-fighting condi class in the game for a few patches running. I’ve never seen someone pick up an engi and play it at a high-tournament level in less than a week. It has a very high skill floor and almost impossible to reach skill cap. There was never more than 2 top condi engis playing at a competitive level in NA.

This last patch necros get ridiculously over-buffed and outshine engis in almost every respect except mobility (and therefore 1v1 potential, although if you try to engage a necro in a 1v1 you may as well log out unless you’re a necro). Necros also have a low skill floor and low skill cap with large access to defensive mechanisms and cooldowns (more-so than the engineer by a long shot).

Everyone then hops on the necro bandwagon and can play the necro like a champ.

Voila! Condis everywhere.

jportell.2197:

Fenrir.5493:

jportell.2197:

Jesiah.2457:

I’d be more worried about them nerfing longbow though it is vastly underrepresented.

Out of the dozens of matches I have played since the patch. The one thing that I see more and more warriors doing is using longbow and its really annoying.

Why?, because you dont want warriors to do anything to you and just faceroll them forever dont you?.

No. Because the longbow warrior is adding more to the mindless AOE spam that is dominating the meta. I have fought and respect several good warriors. But long bow and sword/sword bleed warriors with the long bow can stack bleeds that are just as annoying and harder to clear than hgh engi/necros spamming their conditions. This is why the longbow warriors are annoying. They are adding to a current problem. Hammer warriors are great they are amazing CC’ers

This has got to be an elaborate troll or a very self-centered person.

Skyro.3108:

1) Putrid was already nerfed this last patch. It transfers 3 condis off yourself per target hit. I believe it also just transfers 3 condis off allies now as well regardless of the number of targets hit but I haven’t gotten around to testing that yet. IMO this was a good change.

This is not true at all. Putrid mark was buffed substantially by making it TRANSFER blinds instead of blinds making it miss. This was the only change to putrid mark.

If I would go about nerfing necromancers with the sole purpose of making other condi classes viable in addition to necros then I would start with putrid mark.

Simply put, putrid mark is the shortest CD full condi clear in the entire game and clears condis off allies as well.

More than dhuumfire, more than terror, more than the CC or survivability, the ability cleanse all conditions on yourself and any ally in the putrid mark as ewll as turn them onto your enemies where you can then epidemic them is just insanely broken given the fact that it is on a weapon set and has a 20s CD. It was tolerable pre-patch because necros were severely underpowered.

Compare putrid mark to plague signet. Plague signet deals large amounts of condition damage on yourself, putrid mark does not. Plague signet has over double the cooldown of putrid mark. Plague signet has less reliable condi clear on allies. !!!!Plague signet takes up a utility slot!!!

While putrid mark is how it is you will never see another condi class outside of back-points in a competitive team unless necros are nerfed to the point where they were as bad as they were pre-patch.

I have over 5.2k games on my engi, a good 90% of which I used nades.

I don’t use fast cast.

All it comes down to is practice. If that fails, roll a necro cuz marks are easier to land.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Already made a thread on necro forums about this stupid trait months ago, as it is really broken vs pure condi specs…Pretty much an autowin button.
Obviously nothing was done about it, but at least the newest necro spec can finish off such crap with dagger/staff auto, and DS 1. Pity anyone speccing 0 in power or running no minions is pretty much screwed.

And because people seem to believe it’s fine to have such a trait on no ICD, no limitations whatsoever, I demand, as a necro, a trait to give me immunity to all sources of damage apart for conditions as soon as I hit 25%. Funny how it wouldn’t be even remotely as broken though.

The fact that you cannot see beyond the limitations of this trait is beyond me. I’ve fought engis before with this trait as a pure rabid condi engi. I’ve killed over 50% of them on my own.

The sheer amount of kitten that you need to sacrifice to get that trait is completely in line with its power (which isn’t very strong to begin with). It can be a frustrating experience but its one that you need to accept and either call in another DPS or try using some of the tips this thread suggested. Simply do not attempt to 1v1 said engi and you will be fine.

If you cannot deal with an Automated Response engi then I’d suggest you try playing one to see how “overpowered” the trait actually is. I’d be interested to see the results…

Divus.3175:

@Manuhell: this trait was nerfed with latest patch. Before it cured all conditions at 25% hp and make engi immune to conditions as long as they’re lower than 25% hp.

It was resonable option to take as bunker engi, but with current amount of damage over time conditions, it’s kinda weak. Engi won’t last long, even with this trait, as a pure bunker.

To OP: this trait was ultimate counter to condi burst builds, and it was on same tier as hgh, so no dps would take it. It was really good, maybe a bit op.

For the record it never cleared conditions…

Jesiah.2457:

Kryshade.6075:

I will give this more time to ease into, but trying to cleanse, what 7 or 8 conditions as a thief is near impossible.

Runeset of Lyssa & Elite. All conditions gone!

Hide in Shadows + Shadow’s Embrace trait (a trait that 90+% of thieves won’t try because it isn’t part of the lol I can instant gib you thanks to Arenanet’s “balance” design) this will effectively remove burning, poison, bleeding & one other condition upon stealthing! 4 Conditions, one heal. Still have 3 or 4 on you? Try shadow step / shadow return immediately to clear nasty conditions, it might seem like a “waste” but really, if those conditions are going to kill you, it’s not that much of a waste now is it?

For example, lets say you’re running S/D … your infiltrator strike is on shadow return. You’re in combat, just got hit with a full list of condis … shadow step utility, shadow return utility, then shadow return from sword 2. Hide in shadows + shadow’s embrace. 8 conditions removed!

^ Is one of many reasons why I think condition thief doesn’t really much of a place in this game. Condition removal in this game is very strong, and that’s on a class that apparently some people think can’t remove conditions very well. Then there’s elementalist … water attunement, I don’t need to say more, I think we all know well enough by now how that goes down (or doesn’t, at least to condis)

Lastly … burst damage. It’s way … too … stupidly … high. I mean it’s higher than I am on a good gaming night with friends and a fresh bag of lovely lovely greens. That’s pretty ridiculously high, if you ask me. Simply put though, the speed at which burst alters a team fight compared to condition, coupled with the fact that down state has conditions removed … man, I don’t even know. I’ve tried so many ways trying to make condition thief a “thing” that I’ve given up hope, more than once, yet I still entertain the idea in my head that someday it might be strong and not looked at as some stupid “troll build” thanks to other overwhelming factors.

It’s not the condi clear that’s a problem, it’s the fact that necros have a large number of CCs, both hard and soft, and the fact that thieves have the lowest health pool in the game.

Necros eat thieves alive. If a thief gives up his damage he might as well reroll.

Romek.4201:

they should remove the button where you can choose red or blue and make YOUR Team random like it was before. When wanna play in a team go customarena (could give customarena finaly some sense) or Tournament but dont farm new player in the ground on their first steps so they quit before they see whats going on.

I saw this sooo often – i even saw top teams farming randoms as a full team on spawn (The Morticans – i made screenshots) thats just lame and very bad for the game.

And classtacking in pvp games ALWAYS show which class is op atm – its a golden rule
and it is NOT ONLY necro – thats the new guy now but go and make 20-30 hotjoins in a row and you will see 5+ thiefs (saw matches like 8 thiefs vs 5 thiefs )per team or 3-4+ mesmers

I think that the classes people play, especially in hotjoins, aren’t exactly indicative of their OPness.

I think it’s more attributable to the fact that necros are both incredibly OP AND easy to play. Honestly necros are a pretty huge face roll ATM with very little difference between the top players and nubs. Good players can pick up a necro and compete in high level tourneys in under a day.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

That depends entirely on the build you’re using with each class, what class you’re fighting as well. The game is based on matchups of build and class.

This for the most part.

I would honestly rate the classes based on how hard it is to do their job properly. A bunker might not be killing things but has one of the more difficult jobs in the game.

In terms of rating a classes difficulty I’d say that each individual class has a different skill floor and ceiling. When I’m talking about a skill ceiling I mean what does it take to play a class completely optimally and how much effort does it take to play a class at that level. A skill floor is just the opposite, how easy is it to pick up the class as a totally new player and do relatively well with the class. A new player can pick up a thief and spam backstab all day but will get absolutely destroyed against any good team, for example.

In terms of skill floor/ceiling for classes in general I’d rate them as:

Warrior: Skill floor 2/10, Ceiling 4/10
Mesmer: Skill floor 2/10, Ceiling 7/10
Ranger: Skill floor 2/10, Ceiling 4/10
Bunker Guardian: Skill floor 4/10, Ceiling 8/10
Thief: Skill floor 1/10, Ceiling 8/10
Necromancer: Skill floor 2/10, Ceiling 5/10
Elementalist: Skill floor 3/10, Ceiling 7/10
Engineer: Skill floor 4/10, Ceiling 9/10

Of course it all depends on spec and matchups and I’m sure I’ma get kittened at for this, but I think these numbers are pretty accurate yo.

it’s very easy to deal with. Just don’t fight the engi with autoimmune response alone OR attempt to get his condi clears on CD and burst him before he clears them off at under 25%.

It’s a grandmaster trait for cryin out loud that only applies in 1v1s against certain classes/specs and doesn’t immediately make a fight “I win”.

Anyone who thinks necros aren’t broke right now is insane.

There has never been a condi class as strong as necro is right now. The entire meta literally revolves around necros and will continue to do so until something is done.

Furthermore its a very easy class to pick up and play unlike the team-fighting condi engi that it replaced. As of right now playing a necro is like an ez-mode HGH on crack.

They are not “glass” cannons. Engis were far squishier than necros and performed the same role with substantially less damage. Necros have the benefit of plague form, death shroud and large amounts of hard and soft CC to stay alive unlike engis.

If you do not believe that necros are overpowered I emplore you to play a 30 20 0 10 10 engi and see how that works out for you. They simply eclipse all competition and dictate the meta currently.