Well….. there isn’t a counter…. but don’t be afraid, thats basically the only thing a D/D-Ele has going for himself…
- Teamfight presence is bad, cuz melee (so force the D/D-Ele to teamfight)
- Sustain is good in 1v1, but as soon as there are 2 Damage-Dealers against him, he falls over like like something that easily falls over (analogies are not my strong suit. ^^‘)
- sustained DPS is cleared easily and burst is bad as well, so he’ll most likel loose against any other sustain-heavy 1v1 builds.
I actually like them all except Courtyard and Skyhammer, but I really enjoy the long, drawn out teamfights on Foefire mid-node. Also, the seondary Objective can have a high impact and the Map is overall pretty balanced among the classes.
Not the biggest Niflhel-Fan: I like that the Map is big, but the Node mid is horribly narrow and the secondary Objectives’ impact is too low.
Kyhlo is pretty cool with open sidenodes and a nice secondary Objective, but the mid-node is a bit weird (still better than Niflhel though) and it favours teleports a bit too much.
Temple is also pretty open and big and I like how the buffs can focus the attention, but the smallest buffs are usless and it also favours teleports.
Spirit Watch is IMHO very underrated, I like that the secondary Objective is sth. you just constantly have to think about and the Nodes are fairly open. But again, favouring teleports a bit much for my taste.
Not Meta?
In the ESL-Cups, about 80% of Players use this rune…..
Or how about ele is not the only class that has its weapon swap affected by chill?
It goes both ways, you know.
Yea sounds fair to me..
But ele’s do have twice as many skills to use, so unless they are using primarily 2 attunements only during chill duration, it doesn’t have much of an impact. But maybe I’m wrong here…
So? Ele is already balanced around that fact with long CD’s on many weapon-skills, low health and armor pools etc.
In the current Meta with stealth-openers and tons of immob and stuns that are hard to avoid, he could have to wind-up his sword for multiple seconds and it still would easily hit. It’s all about if the dps that follows is worth it.
well yeah, don’t u think ANet knows about blinds and blocks? Taht’s probably why they designed the Reaper with focus on teamfights – you’ll need immob’s and CC from other chars….
I like the concept of very slow attacks but big DMG, it could make teamfights more interesting. If the Reaper is actually good enough to warrant those probably big amounts of support he’ll need.
Kinda doesn’t work with the whole Horror-Creature-Analogy…. Jason Vorhees didn’t need a dude holding his victims down so he could hit them. xD
There are tankier builds that do work, but because they aren’t nowhere near as tanky as before and won’t be able to last long against even 2 dps (holding 2 dps indefinitely was possible way back when…) and because they lack DPS compared to the bruisers, they need tons of teamsupport. Best in this category is very likely Altruistic Healing Shout-Guardian.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAW7elsApVo1CxfH8DRBDRkjNYnFOedRTAA-TpQWAAeZAY/BA
depending on how tanky you really wanna go you can choose offensive/defensive sigils or even go for a mace….
I think Staff-Ele is also viable as fulltank/support:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWhcM6cW4wyBr0AiAB5slqRBlnHTB-TJxHABcs/QtXAAkKDAwDAAA
They are viable mostly because they can tank a little bit more than bruisers, but have a tons of teamsupport to compensate for the lack of DPS. I like the Staff-Ele, because he also has very good decap, so if you can’t teamfight for whatever reason, he can easily get decaps and maybe even caps against 1 Opponent and hold the point, maybe ven 2 players, if they have rather low dps builds.
Those builds are only really viable if your team focuses on Teamfights and has enough DPS.
Fire and Air need to go: unavoidable procs need to go – less RNG, more skill!
I kinda have to agree.
Yes, they could be reworked, but why bother? They are inherently not fun, not skill-based, too luck-based, too bursty etc. They would need a complete overhaul. And all the classes that use them would still be viable without them, you might have to change the playstyle a bit.
Throw ’em in the dumpster ANet, or if the PvE community somehow still wants ’em, just get rid of them in PvP!
Doom and Int can simply be toned down, they aren’t as hopeless as Air/Fire.
(edited by PowerBottom.5796)
I’ve made the discovery, that it’s mostly bad players that open their mouths the most…. nothing new though.
too bad the make people think the PvP-community is full of idiots… I play 99% pvp and I almost never say sth. stupid like that in chat. Mostly I try to be helpful. -.-°
Change =/= nerf
Not every change is a nerf but this change is a nerf.
See this
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Elementalists-and-new-spec-system/first
if you want to know more about the impact.
With my Change=/=nerf comment I was referring to this quote:
Can you provide a link instead of just saying “Go here.” because i can’t find anything other than the changes to the trait system, if that’s what you’re on about.. that’s not a nerf, every class is being changed.
If you would’ve read my whole post, you would’ve noticed that, also, you would’ve noticed that I too think that the D/D-Ele build will receive a huge nerf to the form in which it’s currently played, but I also think that there could be potentially viable builds for the Ele. With that I mean Staffbunker, which will still have tons of support and Fresh-Air, which got some interesting changes that I can’t w8 to test out.
I think a slowly regenerating Life-Force pool would be a pretty good idea, since necro will be pretty much the main focus right off the bat, because of his lack of mobility in fights and poor defensive CD’s. Often you even have to use one of the defensive CD’s before the fight (flesh wurm) to get Life-Force and/or to at least somewhat compete with the mobility of other classes.
A very easy hotfix would also be to make the fleshwurm generate LF on creation: You could go into a fight and put it somewhere right before the fight starts, get some LF and still have the stunbreaker/teleport rdy.
In casual play you also see that Necro’s and Rangers are actually pretty well represented as oposed to anything pre-made.
Casual play doesn’t really represent the balance of the game very well though… At the top-level, player have a higher understanding of the game and winning becomes more important than sth like playing with the builds you like. If we see only very very few rangers and necros at the top-level (and basically only power-builds) and almost no condition-builds in general (only celestial hybrids that have a ton of power as well, either through stats or mightstacking), sth isn’t quite right with the meta.
Also, 90% of the top-teams (weekly and monthly ESL-Go4GW2 cups) are running at least 1 shoutbow, 1 Cele-Engi, 1 D/P-thief, rest is either made up by more of those builds or mediguards, cele-ele’s, Shatter-Mesmer and the occasional powernecro, staff-ele or sth.
I’m not too concerned with unviable or a bit stronger builds, but mainly of the fact that one whole set of builds (condi-only) is ruled out by tons of mindless, boring and easy to use AoE-cleanses (shouts, warhorn, staff-ele, guardians absolute resolution) and that spiked DPS (almost always together with stealth-openers) just deals way too much dmg too quick with tons of almost unavoidable procs and skills. It just dictates the playstyle and heavily favours certain builds.
go to gw2 dulfy web page, and read about the incoming ele nerfs.
Can you provide a link instead of just saying “Go here.” because i can’t find anything other than the changes to the trait system, if that’s what you’re on about.. that’s not a nerf, every class is being changed.
Change =/= nerf….. And yes, I think he was talking about the specialization-changes… I don’t think that Ele will be unviable in PvP with the new system, like some think, but I don’t think that the same builds can be played that are somewhat viable now.
Besides, atm, D/D-Ele’s are fading out of the metagame, we already see tons of teams changing their D/D-Ele out for builds like Cele-Engi, Medi-Guard etc.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Cele-Ele…. Didn’t think anything was wrong with Turret-engi either….
(edited by PowerBottom.5796)
don’t think we have one of those any longer. all profs are well represented. half as celestial builds unfortunately, other half zerker.
I think one could make a strong argument that compared to other classes and builds, Necro and Ranger are underrepresented…. In general, I think condition-only builds are bottom-tier, independant of which class you’re using. You almost never see Rabid-, Carrion- or Settler-Amu’s.
Also, Ele’s are slowly but surely getting pushed out of the meta.
Thief Guard Engi Warrior
v
Ele
v
Mesmer
v
Ranger = NecroIs what we see in top play atm
Pretty much my opinion as well, though I would put Mesmer above Ele, cuz at least he has Portal, with Ele, most of what he does can be accomplished better by other classes in the current meta.
If you play non-ranked pvp and you give it your best (regardless of how good you actually are), just ignore the flamers. If necessary, report them. If you pvp with random players, stuff like that is bound to happen, GW2 PvP is nothing special – ppl just like to blame other ppl to make themselves feel better.
Yes, point mean nothing and sitting at homepoint when no1’s actually attacking it is useless, but there are ways of telling ppl this without insulting them and where you actually help them to get better.
Hello guys i play gw2 for like 5 months and i only play pvp as thief and mesmer and i can say 1 thing the Medi dps guards are cancer if the guardian knows what to do vs a class they can easily kill everything and i mean everything from condition builds to zerker
i know that they may get countered from like 2-3 builds like wp condi engi but really u hardly find that build at tpvp and it’s like unfair that they can own most of power builds and can stand very well versus the most others,they have a tone of blocks a freakin op burst and they also have a tone of healing and if i try to play them from afar they rekt me with just auto attack
A D/P-Thief isn’t designed to win 1v1’s if you use the common panic-strike build, but a Medi-Guard is strong in 1v1’s and because of his blocks, very strong against thief. If you really wanna 1v1 him, the best advice is probably to stay away from him and bow him while kiting the Scepter-Auto’s. Keep shadow-steps available for Hammer5+teleport. You simply won’t be able to hold a node against him though…
S/D-Thief might be a bit better: set a teleport somewhere with infiltrators strike so you can get back out of Hammer5 and cleanse off Immob from Scepter 3 and just evade the important stuff like Hammer 2 and 3 while training him down with flanking Strikes and some auto’s. Haven’t really played many 1v1’s as S/D against Medi-Guard, but in theory it sounds doable – at least way better than with D/P.
As a Mesmer it’s not much different – very unfavourable MU for you again. You probably will again have to LoS and kite the Guardian and train him down with Illusions and finish him with a well-timed shatter-spike.
Medi-Guard is kinda weird I know, I mostly dislike it because of the undodgeable Hammer 5 + Judges Intervention and the almost unavoidable Immobilize on Scepter. But the class is somewhere in between DPS/Support and Sustain, so it has a hard time against “true” sustain builds like Cele-Engi and Cele-Ele.
(edited by PowerBottom.5796)
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with cele engie and medi guard. theyre right where they need to be.
I don’t mind cele-engis at all (they’re being played like crazy atm, but there are enough counters that ppl will probably soon start playing again).
But the undodgeable Hammer5+JI and Scepter immobilize are pretty stupid…. At least make the scepter immob a projectile you can actually dodge.
at least cele engi cc’s itself. medi has no such balance
yeah, but especially the Guardian Hammer is kinda hard to balance, since the CC is the main Problem (especially the ring), but it’s also a big part of why the hammer is used. I guess it’s kinda too easy to get the huge burst from hammer 2 in though, together with the immobilize. The hammer would otherwise be pretty cool, cuz the skills have a high impact, but you can dodge them easily (at least the 2,3 and 4. The 5 if you don’t count Judges intervention). there’s just too much immobilize thats almost impossible to avoid in the current meta and it’s one big reason (besides stealth and undodgeable procs like air/fire) why the spikes are so effective.
Just a quick thought is it possible to remove Evasive arcana as it is now, and split it up in minor traits(1 point in a trait line).
So if you want the blast finisher from earth you have to spec atleast 1 into earth trait line.
1 point in Fire gives flames burst
1 point in Air gives Blinding flash
1 point in Earth gives Blast finisher
1 point in Water give the water heal
I kinda like it. ^^’
One aspect I still think would make teamplay with the ele much better and actually be very skill-intensive and a nice help to mitigate EA being GM now, would be that you’d be able to target an ally and use things like cantrips (+all the boni from traits) or auras directly on them.
This could also be implemented for other skills; I’m thinking of distortion from the mesmer, “protect me” from the ranger etc.
I think it would be amazing for the game to actually have focused teamsupport, instead of just massive braindead AoE.
That’s why I also really love the new guardian specialization, especially the shield you can guard allies with, while himself being vulnerable from the side or back. We need more focused and skill-intensive support like that instead of huge AoE’s.
we see less and less cele-DD’s anyways, because they’re not good enough in teamfights (Shoutbow is much better and cele-engi as well) and for 1v1/nodeholding, cele-engi is probably at least on the same level, but with better decap and as stated, better teamfight, burst etc.
Also, to be able to run any amus besides Cele or Zerker successfully, there needs to be a HP-increase to the ele, it’s ridiculous…..
In terms of the upcoming specialization-changes:
- Elemental Attunemt: Yes, the skill is very important for Ele’s, but I still don’t particularly like it. It’s just another AoE-spammable skill like all the AoE-condi-cleanse, Boonspamming with Shouts/Warhorn etc. – everything is just a huge AoE…. -.-°
But if they nerf this skill, they’d have to give Ele sth else.
I think with the new specializations, Fresh-Air could be pretty good: The role would change from sustain-1v1-roamer to DPS-Teamfight roamer. The support would still be pretty good for a very high dps-class: Swirling winds, fire fields, tons of blast-finishers, some AoE-heal und condi-cleanse, decent CC, Fiery GS and depending on the build, a dps-oriented range Ele probably has the easiest way to still get the elemental attunemt compared to the sustain-heavy ele-builds.
For tankyness and teamsupport, I’d probably go for a Staff-Ele: It’ll offer less dps than the current DD-Ele, but the teamsupport with the new incresed healing for allies and the added tankyness, AoE-stability etc. from the new specializations, it could be a build that fits a similar role as the Shoutbow now.
Looking at the traits, I’d probably buff the cleansing wave to two conditions (with 1 it’s basically a joke and as stated by the OP, the Ele will need some teamsupport if EA is a grandmaster trait).
(edited by PowerBottom.5796)
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with cele engie and medi guard. theyre right where they need to be.
I don’t mind cele-engis at all (they’re being played like crazy atm, but there are enough counters that ppl will probably soon start playing again).
But the undodgeable Hammer5+JI and Scepter immobilize are pretty stupid…. At least make the scepter immob a projectile you can actually dodge.
It depends on what you’re talking about, sure if you’re a random pug vs an organized burst I am not surprised if you’re 1shot from 3 people in stealth.
However, if you’re with a real team a burst like that almost always fails because the shoutbow, or whoever you have cleansing condis can just cleanse and peel for you. It’s not as if their burst has stab so someone can easily CC.
3 people can jump a thief but a thief with decent reaction time can easily SS out. Why would he not have SS available if three of the enemies are coming in to burst him? Why is he even on point? It doesn’t make sense.
If it’s an engie the 3 are trying to burst he can easily just gear shield it, if it’s a guardian he will shelter. Warriors will either endure it or laugh because they’re the tankiest even w/o endure, etc etc. Every class is able to get out or survive the burst because the game does not punish for wasteful dodging and has way too many invulns. If anything they should remove energy sigils or make them far less effective than they currently are, and also nerf vigor.
Last I checked top teams aren’t grabbing 3 people for a stealth burst. Why? Because good players know how to time their invulns/blocks, peel for each other, and aren’t just sitting bait if they don’t HAVE their “oh kitten” skills available.
But sure, if you have tournament footage of a team just wrecking everyone because they stealth bombed a good team/player, I’d love to see it.
If we’re talking about randoms/pugs/solo Q, I would be really disappointed if they balanced around that.
It’s way beyond being effective only against unorganized groups – it’s basically the number1 way top-teams get kills nowadays, just watch the recent ESL monthly’s.
Cleansing the condis with a shoutbow is almost impossible, because fistly, they’ll spike the shoutbow down first anyways and you’ll have so many condis on you (from nade-engi for example) and die so fast, that it’s impossible to cleanse the important immobilizes. Besides, you’ll also be in the ring of the Medi-Guard, dazed and boonstripped (steal) and they have like 3+ immobilizes (2 from Medi-Guard and 1 from panic-Strike, maybe there’s even a Mesmer in the mix).
And if the spike doesn’t kill you instantly, which is rather unlikely anyways, it’s very possible that your team is out of position and you’ll just get trained down, because the whole movement was either in stealth or with portals.
I don’t necessarily mind the portals or the stealth, but all these undodgeable immobilizes and DPS just rob you of any chance to actually dodge….
The idea is that you block what you can effectively react to, if you have dodges to mind-game their steal-backstab combo then bait it, but if you’re dodging what you’re supposed to then you’ll have skills available to get out of the other stuff.
For example, if you eat a cele engies magnet pull as a thief, and have to shadowstep out in order to avoid the nade combo, and then later he catches you in a slick shoes, you’re screwed because you wasted your shadowstep on something you should have dodged.
This game is far too forgiving and rewarding for the amount of dodges we are given. If anything it should punish people a LOT more for failing to dodge appropriately.
Furthermore, if you’re engaging in combat when your important “OH KITTEN” skills are on cooldown, then you deserve the punishment.
I’m not defending the insta-cast skills, but for every insta-cast skill (of which there are very few that are dangerous), there are 2 “oh kitten” skills you can use to get out or nullify most of the damage.
the main-problem with the stuff you can’t dodge like fire/air sigils, panic strike, guardian Scepter3, guardian Hammer5+JI etc. is that they’re used out of stealth with 2-3 ppl spiking you down instantly. There’s literally no way of getting out of spikes like that if you don’t have CD’s. And once they’ve hit you, you’re immobilized within half a second cuz of panic strike and you won’t be able to dodge.
What you’ve written is completely true in straight-up fights, but falls apart in the above described situation which you see happen A LOT in the current meta. It’s just kinda dumb if the sole reason you’ll survive a burst like that depends on whether your CD is rdy or not. That’s also the reason we see literally 3-4 out of 5 players per team run vamp-runes, why Shoutbows begin to run endure pain and dictates what builds are and aren’t used atm. Thats just another reason we see no real condi-builds: they don’t help you stealth-spike sth. down real quick.
I doubt we’ll get sth. before the big specialization-patch….. Really wonder when this on’es gonna hit though…. Can’t w8!
…
Sorry, i thought you meant stowing to avoid using a skill in a dodge. For example, you see the enemy starting a block and you stow your pindown as to not waste it. The examples you talked about (stowing a couple of times without watching animations) are indeed bad for the game. However, it would be hard to fix this. The added cooldown would be weird since some abilities would then have a shorter cooldown if you don’t stow them. Suddenly, a whole other problem appears where you can argue that skills like maul and mirror blade have too short cooldowns.
Ah okay, then we’re both right. ^^’
I don’t get your pther point though, why would some skills have higher CD and some lower? stowing only works if you do it fast enough so the skill doesn’t have any effect. The Skills are then put on a flat 5s CD no matter what skill you’ve used.
What I wanted to change was that the 5s flat CD would be changed, so that when you cancel an animation (with esc, stowing or dodging) before it actually had any effect (either because you don’t want to get interrupted, because you wanna bait out dodges or because your opponent was dodging right when it would’ve hit), the flat CD would reflect the actual CD of the skill somehow. So stowing a skill with 50 seconds CD would have 5+20% of 50=5+10=15s CD after cancelling the skill. I guess it could also be just 10%, but there needs to be an increase depending on the CD of the skill you’ve cancelled.
I agree with you, but my problem is that for some skills, such as maul or mirror blade, this cooldown would be larger than the acutual skill’s cooldown. As such, it is never ever worth stowing them. I am not sure, however, if the solution is to handle stows differently or to increase the cooldown of these skills (and in turn increase their effects, i guess).
It would be worth stowing maul when we look at the new upcoming interrupts, which often add additional dmg, conditions, additional CD, buffs for the interrupter etc.
…
Sorry, i thought you meant stowing to avoid using a skill in a dodge. For example, you see the enemy starting a block and you stow your pindown as to not waste it. The examples you talked about (stowing a couple of times without watching animations) are indeed bad for the game. However, it would be hard to fix this. The added cooldown would be weird since some abilities would then have a shorter cooldown if you don’t stow them. Suddenly, a whole other problem appears where you can argue that skills like maul and mirror blade have too short cooldowns.
Ah okay, then we’re both right. ^^’
I don’t get your pther point though, why would some skills have higher CD and some lower? stowing only works if you do it fast enough so the skill doesn’t have any effect. The Skills are then put on a flat 5s CD no matter what skill you’ve used.
What I wanted to change was that the 5s flat CD would be changed, so that when you cancel an animation (with esc, stowing or dodging) before it actually had any effect (either because you don’t want to get interrupted, because you wanna bait out dodges or because your opponent was dodging right when it would’ve hit), the flat CD would reflect the actual CD of the skill somehow. So stowing a skill with 50 seconds CD would have 5+20% of 50=5+10=15s CD after cancelling the skill. I guess it could also be just 10%, but there needs to be an increase depending on the CD of the skill you’ve cancelled.
…
I understand your concerns, but cancel casting should be rewarded, as it is currently one of the harder things you can do in this game. It was a central part of guild wars 1, as well. If any overpowered/abusable things appear after the patch, they can hopefully be fixed.
Now, in terms of doom sigil. You will find it extremely hard to predict and avoid it if they take geomancy with the doom sigil, which many do. In fact, you will find it impossible, since it is now instant. Also, doom can currently be used on basically any build, condition-focused or not. This is because it gives poison to professions or builds that are not designed to have it. Since poison reduces healing doom will always be a strong choice for ANY build.
stowing-cancelling in GW2 isn’t hard at all, just cancel your important stuff once or twice before using it …. -.-°
The hard part in GW1 was using it efficiently, because the drawbacks were immense compared to the ones in GW2, cuz almost every skill used mana, which you lost when you cancelled the spell. So you actually had to watch multiple characters in a teamfight (1-2 Mesmers, Ranger and certain other builds with interrupts or stuff like that), because cancelling your spell when you actually didn’t need to was a big deal, but not as big as if you’ve eaten an interrupt, diversion or sth. like that. So you’d have to watch where the mesmers/rangers are facing, what animation they cast, if they’re near enough to interrupt you fast enough, keep their CD’s in mind etc – all because the drawback of cancelling the animation was high enough. If the cancelling was basically for free, interrupting/diversion etc. wouldn’t have been a thing in GW1. ^^’
The drawback in loosing 5 seconds on a CD’s with potentially 10 times that CD in situations where you could be interrupted (very broadly speaking, just when the classes that have interrupts are somewhere near) is just a no-brainer. If they’d make the drawback higher, you’d actually have to be pretty kitten certain that an interrupt is flying your way if you cancel your important skill.
(edited by PowerBottom.5796)
you’re jon snow….. get it? cuz you know nothing. ^^’
Srsly, get a couple thousand more games and you’ll see how ridiculous your claims are. Some tips if you 1v1 the most common builds:
Mesmer (shatter): watch the little “shoe” icon when they use their Sword3 and dodge when it appears (they’ll have 2 illusions already most of the time they do that). If they do it out of stealth listen for the sound-effect, it’s quite easy to hear actually. If they GS you from distance, LoS them.
Dodge towards illusions that are running towards you, cuz if you dodge backwards, they won’t explode, chase you further and then explode and you’d take the hit anyways.
Stay out of range of them or their illusions when using healskills or other important stuff, so they can’t daze you easily.
Try and interrupt their Heals. If they stealth when they’re low, you can assume they’re using it and fire off a blind AoE-CC if you have any.
Necro: If it’s terror-necro, first of all, you need either very high dps or good condition-cleanse to fight them in a 1v1; not every build can (nor should) win against every other build in a 1v1! dodge the important stuff like the 2 out of F1, which is easy to block if you’re not sitting on the necro. Also, Staff5 has a slightly different animation than the others, which is good, cuz it’s the most important mark to dodge (fear). Don’t use stability and/or mass-boonstacks too liberally, cuz they’ll punish you for it. Use your cleanses smartly: don’t just cleanse after a few bleedstacks, cuz the durations are quite long, so w8 till you have a few stacks to cleanse them. Most importantly to win a 1v1 is interrupting their heal, which is quite easy to do.
(edited by PowerBottom.5796)
True, I think that there is another problem concerning dodging (and the upcoming interrupt-buff), which is the fact that a multitude of skills can be faked (stow-/esc-/dodge-cancel) with a very small downside.
Yes, this doesn’t work for channelled skills and not for skills using some sort of ressource like initiative, but it works for a ton of skills that you actually would want to dodge/interrupt.
In anticipation of the upcoming interrupt-buff, I feel that more and more ppl will actually start using/abusing this more often, so I think the drawback should at least somewhat mirror the CD of the skill, which is in most cases the “ressource” you spend on the skill, if there isn’t an actual ressource like initiative.
Let’s say 5s flat+20% of CD.
In terms of what you’ve mentioned, there could be easy ways to fix it in some cases:
- Geomancy, hydromancy: Make the animation go outward or appear slower with a delayed effect after 1s. There’s already a huge animation that lingers for quite a while, so just make it disappear faster and there won’t be additional clutter on the field. ^^’
- Doom: well, you can dodge the atk, since it’s tied to hitting and you can anticipate weapon-swapping based on CD’s – it’s hard to anticipate, but it’s possible, so I got no problem with this one.
Air/Fire: that’s a bit harder: maybe just make the effects have some sort of windup thats visible? I hate adding more and more visual effects on the already cluttered screen. You could also make them apply the added dmg more continuously, so it can’t be abused that hard in spikes. Like higher perentage of triggering on crit, lower ICD but way lower dmg.
With the Fire Sigil I also had the Idea of just making it hit ONLY the players surrounding your target (but make the dmg a bit higher), not the actual target: couldn’t be abused for spikes and the dps could be mitigated by good positioning.
Eh? Sounds pretty great to me, gives Guardian range, leap and much more than just aoe buffs around self. That’s a lot more active play.
yepp, I like it quite a bit too, the new virtues sounds like it could be pretty cool for actively guarding (like in the name of the class) allies.
The Longbow could be cool as well, there isn’t too much high range support in the game atm.
I still don’t get if we get any stats from choosing a certain trait-line. ANet wrote: “Each profession’s attributes will be updated to have half of their functionality be part of a specialization and half of their functionality will be a baseline for that profession. For example, elementalists now have a base attunement recharge of 10 seconds, which is reduced to 8.7 seconds when the arcane specialization is equipped.” – it’s still not clear if this only considers the attributes specific to each class, like attunement recharge, max Life-Force etc. or for the other stats as well.
@topic: Cele isn’t as possible because it gives you all the stats, but because certain specs could get enough points where they wanted them through traits, mightstacking etc and it kinda worked out with cele.
take cele engi for example: he’ll now just have way less power, when he’d probably rather choose to loose some other stats in favour of more power.
cele-ele gets tons of power/condi-dps from mightstacking, so he’d rather have less points there, but more in stuff like healing power, thoughness and vita.
If there’s no stat-gain from traits at all, then this will also affect certain zerker-builds, like Medi-Guard, that still got tons of thoughness because of how you selected the traits.
I think it’ll positively affect the metagame, it’ll be easier to balance etc.
You are just wrong. I would say the reason to run shoutbow is basically banner. Which you run to res someone after they have stealth spiked your player.
People have been running stealth openers (with mesmer thief originally and now with 3 classes usually) for the whole time of the game and it has been a defining feature.
The more they have buffed d/p thief and nerfed s/d thief = more stealth = more burst = more stealth openers. D/p is the best spec in game, its so OP. what it offers is so irreplaceable with massive spike and perma stealth for all allies.
Stealth spikes are terrible for the game. You will literally be running from A to B and then just get insta-gibbed out of stealth. No counter play. Nothing. And the opponent? He didnt have to wait out dodges, he just pressed 3 buttons.
Damage in the game in general is too high. You cant even run a bunker guardian anymore. Everything has been power creeped over and over but the main power creep and damage comes from sigil procs which should be nerfed as a result. And not 8% nerfs. It needs 100% nerfs tbh.
It’s true that the DMG got buffed a ton, but the defenses didn’t get any better. Best example is, that I was easily able to run a fullbunker Ele and bunker against 2 ppl almost infinitely (I don’t say that was a good thing, but thats how it was) and there were several builds that could do that. When I go fullbunker now, even a bit more defensive, I maybe survive for as long as I have dodges and I’ll have to burn all my CD’s. ^^’
I’ve just returned to play a few months ago and there were basically two things that changed that made this enhancement of DPS possible:
- reworked traits, that added dps or heavy CC, like panic strike, sleight of hand, fresh air, read the wind
- Sigils being able to proc without shared CD’s
Add probably a ton of individual balance-changes, that all kinda leaned towards more dps and less tankyness and were in the current meta.
With the changes, it wasn’t necessary anymore to have really bunkery stuff, because you couldn’t survive against two dps anyways, so you’d just have to be able to win 1v1’s – thats how all those celestial builds came up I’d guess. The DPS was still so strong, that all the zerker-builds stayed viable, so now we have zerker+celestial meta. Add in stuff like shoutbow and condition-only builds completely fall away (they’re already worse against a meta that runs much more vitality and burst than thoughness and stustain than before.
But maybe with the new specializations, it’s worth it again to have a fulltank – if 2 dps can’t just spike sth. down within seconds… I’m especially curious about how earth/water/arcane Ele fulltank with clerics will do against spiked dps.
Also, interrupts get way better, stats get more evened out (so maybe less full-dps, don’t know how it’ll work exactly), rezz-traits get better, some pretty bursty classes like mesmer might even have more sustainy or more support-oriented builds and tons of other stuff that might mitigate the bursty nature of the current meta.
The Sigils should just add the dps less luck-based but mroe sustained. like a third of the dmg, cannot crit and triggers on every critical hit with 2s CD for Air and 3s for Fire.
Or you could make the fire sigil deal the DMG only on the stuff surrounding your main target, but not the target itself, but lower the internal CD a bit or add some DPS.
*Edit: I’m also for a rework to some boons; higher impact, shorter duration. Like protection would reduce physical dps by 50%, but have a 20% reduced duration. This could also be a viable reaction to spikes you could actually pull off against stealth-spikes.
(edited by PowerBottom.5796)
But aren’t the stealth-openers the bigger problem than the sigils? I mean, if spiked dps is the real problem…. Bc if you at least see the opponents, there are tons of things you can do to stop a spike:
- blind
- targeted CC like interrupts
- dodge the important stuff (no way of dodging at the right time if you don’t see the enemies animation)
- CD’s
With stealth, dodges are just random if you feel like they might jump you and CC is more or less reduced to AoE insta-stuff…
Considering the bursty nature of the game and the sigils, I guess it’s best to w8 for the specializations. I think the meta might change pretty heavily and it’s IMHO kinda hard to tell if the focus will shift onto more dps or more tankyness or even support because of the added stuff.
The whole AoE-Condi-clean, especially of shoutbow, is a whole other problem, since I don’t see pure Condi-builds being buffed at all or the AoE-cleanses nerfed.
It’s IMHO not unsurmountably huge, but the fact that we see almost no rabid/carrion or other pure condi-dps-amus in competetive play says a lot. Also, there’s no decision-making, timing or skill involved in just cleansing all the condis on the whole team.
-> Make some of the AoE (condi-cleanses) “on-ally-target”: This will lead to better teamplay, having to actually make decisions which conditions to cleanse from whom etc.
Really: ANet is digging themselves a huge hole because they’re too stubborn to implement skills you can target on an ally.
If targeting spells on allies is not possible, all teamsupport-skills are doomed to either be huge AoE’s or ground-targeted, which will make them AoE as well and often make them feel clunky (who doesn’t like to shout in Teamspeak: “don’t move duuude, I’m gonna splash you with my watertrident!” -.-)
It could be so simple to make the game more interesting and to have a much bigger control of how effective spells are in 1v1’s VS in teamfights: Make certain skills like shouts affect you and an ally you have targeted (if he’s in range of course).
It’s not that hard to implement a system either: there’s already clicking manually on the ally, there’s the healthbars on the top of the screen you can click and just make an option to tab through allies like there is one for tabbing through enemies.
This could really add a whole new dimension of teamplay to GW2 that I loved so much back in GW1, but thats completely and utterly missing in GW2 and I cannot find a single reason why.
(edited by PowerBottom.5796)
LB zerker ranger need a a slight nerf for the same reason turrets got nerfed. Its not op per say but to rewarding for the effort req to play. Reduce the range of the lb to 1300 and that would do wonders,
Thats just lazy…. There simply are builds that are easier to play, but if there are enough counterplays available, just suck it up and deal with it appropriately.
In GW1, we had tons of builds (teamcomps rather) that were very easy to play and there were almost no real counters available and the good players sucked it up anyways and played the harder builds and won…. or not.
Isn’t it its own reward if you are able to win with sth. thats harder? Doesn’t that make you a better player? Why nerf everything you deem easier to play? where does it end? Yes, it’s a stupid argument to ask “if we nerf X cuz it’s easy, why not just nerf everything”, along the lines of ppl arguing against guy marriage, because it might lead to ppl marrying their houseplants…. But if you want to draw a line somewhere, I think Turret-engis where the right point to stop.
Really, if it’s so annoying to you to deal with PR’s, then build your team accordingly, or just have a counterbuild rdy you use when you see a ranger in the opposite team (it’s gonna be a PR, cuz other ranger-builds aren’t really viable).
At least w8 till the spezialisations arrive, it’s gonna change the whole meta anyways and it’s useless to nerf/buff anything before that that isn’t absolutely broken and PR’s clearly aren’t.
I am extremely excited about two builds in particular, that could be very powerful, but are also interesting to play:
Powerblock Sustain-Mesmer
I would probably play the build with a semi-defensive setup of runes/amu, because it could be really good at sustaining itself with phantasmal healing, restorative illusions and shattered conditions. I’m absolutely hyped to try out powerblock, duelist discipline and evasive mirror (are they serious? this sounds so insanely powerful!)
The build could also easily played without interrupts and just more shatter-dmg, but I think the interrupts have potential.
Oh how I love quick draw already; it looks like it has so much versatility on a longbow/GS Ranger: Need interrupts/CC, just quick draw then LB 4 or GS 5, need to decap sth? Quick draw LB 4 and GS 4. Need dps? Quick draw LB 2 and GS 2. Need to survive: Quick draw LB 3 and GS 4. Need to run to a point quickly? Quick draw GS 3 while in fight and jump away! ^^’
I’d love to play the build with shortbow instead of longbow even more, but I don’t think the better daze/stun on shortbow compared to the longbow would make up for the loss of DPS.
(edited by PowerBottom.5796)
PowerRangers are only a “problem” in random beginner-matches, in coordinated group play, they aren’t often played, because they have several big disadvantages compared to other DD’s:
- Very easily countered by reflect or stuff like that
- Offer only very little teamsupport/utility (nowhere near what for example a thief offers, or even a S/F-Ele, Powernecro or any other “glasscannons”)
- In coordinated groups, you almost always have classes like thiefs, medi-guards etc. that can easily jump to where they are and burst them down.
- Ppl that know how to play actually know how to LoS.
People hate ranger because they’ve always fit under the category of “easy and effective.”
That’s why I am baffled by the fact that we see almost no outrage about the Shoutbow War, not necessarily Overpowered in the current Meta (but surely at least close to it) but it severely hinders the viability of full-condition-builds: The only build, that by itself makes the meta much more narrow.
(edited by PowerBottom.5796)
What equivalent of condition sigil would it take to keep up with this?
http://fs1.directupload.net/images/150505/nn6xmhax.jpg
http://fs2.directupload.net/images/150505/x2x7ezmd.jpg
That’s one thing that has actually annoyed me a bit for the longest time: There aren’t many really strong on-crit-procs for conditions. I kinda like the torment one they’ve implemented, but i still think it’s too weak compared to the power-based on-crit effects on sigils.
I can’t say that I feel that air and fire sigil are such a big problem for me. I really like to play S/F-Ele and I feel that the +7% crit is better than the fire-sigil. But that of course depends on how many on-crit effects the build already has because of traits and how much ferocity the build has and if you value the added AoE of the fire-sigil highly enough.
most definitely Shoutbow…..
It’s not necessarily overall imbalanced, but definitely one of the top-3 builds we see in absolutely every competetive team.
Also, it kinda hurts certain classes/builds a bit too much with the huge AoE-Condition clear. Truly one of the main reasons we don’t see true condition-builds anymore at the highest level, or very few.
Oh yes, it’s also very easy to play.
> warhorn-nerf inc! ^^
just because people run staff eles in esl doesn’t mean that it’s viable… there where all kind of things in esl, like static discharge engis for example..
idk why you think staff ele is good fro stronghold, there are no points in stronghold, all open field, and generally staff eles suck in open field.
playing d/d also offers more reliable cc, so if you want a side point bunker just keep playing d/d and not staff.
Really?
I’ve actually began to watch most of the ESL-Cups a few weeks ago (or at least look at the builds) and Staff-Ele is very near the top-5 builds that are consistently and successfully run by top teams. Like SALT for example, who reached the semi-finals in just the last ESL-Cup.
We almost always see:
- Shoutwar
- DD-Cele-Ele
- Panic-Strike
- Cele-Rifle Engi
We almost always see one of them or more per team, but on the second tier of builds that are used (in terms of how often they are used by top-teams), Staff-Ele is definitely amongst them:
- Medi-Guard
- Staff-Ele
- Shatter Mesmer
then the pretty rare builds, that are IMHo still very viable:
- S/D-Thief
- Terror/Power-Necro
- Fresh-Air (mostly in NA)
- Power Ranger (mostly used by one team on Foefire, forgot which team it was, but they do it pretty consistently)
- Hambow (also more or less just 1 team I can remember from the top of my head, but they run it pretty consistently)
I can’t remember seeing any static discharge Engi btw. and I’ve litereally checked out the builds of every team in all the ESL-Cups from the last few weeks. I only talk about the top-8 and maybe sometimes the top-16 builds.
(edited by PowerBottom.5796)
staff ele isn’t played now and it won’t really be played afterwards.
ofc you can take multiple supports but why would you take something that is not the best availlable build?
i agree with the defensive for fresh air, just nerfing the damage on air was unnecessary.
I see tons of Staff Eles in the competetive scene in the ESL-Cups, both in EU and NA…. It looked really really good for stronghold as well, so I predict a bright future for the build. (the samy-tank/support build with celestial I mean)
And yes, if the build is better in every aspect that important to the game, then yes, go for the same twice, but that’s never the case. But even though some guardian, warrior and staff-ele builds could all fall under the suport/semi-tank category, they all offer something individual.
well, Ele can still support extremely well with staff and even if shoutbow and guardian might as well be strong in these areas, that doesn’t mean that a team can’t run multiple supporters/semi-tanks.
I do think that very tanky builds/sidenode-holder Ele’s might come back and I don’t necessarily feel one way or the other about it, cuz it’s unclear if he’ll be able to tank most 2-dps combo’s like fulltanks were able to when tankguard mid and sidenode fulltank ele were the meta.
I also feel though that stuff like the S/F-Fresh Air (most likely air/earth/water or air/water/arcane) could be very viable and this is definitely a very strong teamfight-build: high ranged sustained DPS with great support from swirling winds, CC, some AoE, some heals/condi-remove etc. could be very useful and not a lot of classes offer quite the same things (most full dps is more bursty than sustained, has to go into melee for bursts and offers another kind of teamsupport).
Main problems for the Fresh-Air was being really squishy and having very little condi-remove (I’d still consider it very viable in competetive PvP) and these aspects should be much less of a problem with the introduction of specializations (full-water with condiremove and full earth for shorter defensive CD’s and more tankyness in general or arcane for evasive arcana, elemental contingency etc.)
I can definitely see Ele’s still being played in teamfights as support/semi-tank or DPS/support, but also as fulltank nodeholders/invaders. SO IMHO, the Ele will still have a few very viable builds and roles he can play.
Are you really certain about that? So when they we’re talking about Grandmaster-traits, they were only talking about major grandmaster Traits?
I’m 100% sure. Watch the livestream if you an answer from the devs.
And why does this Image then not show selected grandmaster traits for all specializations?
https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/1aa49HeroPanel_ScreenshotSkillEquip4-590x447.jpgMaybe they just wanted to show how it looks like prior selecting a gm trait. Who knows. Anyway, a level 80 character will be able to select three grand master traits. (1 per trait-line).
cool, thx for the info!
Wrong wrong wrong and wrong.
Well, thats a nice start for an argument….
“We” are asking for ~20v20 arenas since.. beta weekends? headstart? I don’t know when was the first time, but it’s not a new thing.
So? The competetive PvP-Community has been asking for true GvG with 8v8 (6v6 or 5v5 would be fine as well, since the more important part is the gamemode(maps) on maps similar to those in GW1, which means multiple objectives, NPC’s etc.
→ we get Stronghold soon…. years later
Asking for sth. for a long time isn’t really an argument….
Really? You’re gonna go there and talk about RA and TA? I’ve played GW1 PvP for 5k+ hours, top-20 GvG-team, multiple bronze and silver-capes and the only thing GA/TA was good for is what the trainings-dummies in the mists are for now. :P
This thread was started in the HoT subforum, then moved to sPvP subforum, but a lot of wvw players are asking for it as it’s not that easy to do it in wvw. Ppl are doing it of course, as you can see in videos.
And I believe we don’t even ask for a Queue-system. If you could just do it in Costum Arenas, that would solve a lot of problems (and could generate gem sales, if it’s a special costum arena which must be bought).
Maybe you can’t see the potential in it, but that doesn’t mean there is no benefir making it.
Well, I have no real problem with it then when the effort to doing it was pretty much non-existant.
so, here you go:
+1 to giving ppl an arena-space with 20 slots per team and a simple, traightforward map. This would also solve the dampen for 2v2’s and 3v3’s a bit.
Hi@all,
I’ve been reading up on the new Specialization-Stuff and I’ve got a few questions that I couldn’t really find an answer to:
1) Do we get 16 trait-points or 15 in total? So 2 or 1 more than now? I’m pretty sure it’s 15, but just not quite…..
Would be equal to 18. trait-points.
First you select three trait lines (with the patch out of 5; with HoT out of 6).
Then you select three traits per line / you can fully skill those lines.2) it said sth. about being able to get 3 Grandmaster traits now, but isn’t it possible, even with “only” 15 trait-points, to get 4? like with a 6,6,3 trait-split? Or do we need to go to a certain trait-point number in each tree? (for whatever reason)
Same question as above, but well, I’ll answer again: 18 points.
So f.e. you can say, that you will be an Dominatoin/Delling/Chaos Mesmer (6-6-6-0-0)
Are you really certain about that? So when they we’re talking about Grandmaster-traits, they were only talking about major grandmaster Traits?
And why does this Image then not show selected grandmaster traits for all specializations?
I mean, you could be right, once again the wording of ANet is so unclear, that even after reading all the stuff multiple times, I can’t really find out what’s going on exactly. :P
okay, now ppl not only want 2v2 and 3v3 Arena, but also 10v10 and 20v20? GW1 never had an arena-mode, because it’s a bland and uninteresting and strategically boring game-mode, whether it’s in a 2v2 or 20v20…. -.-°
I sincerely hope ANet won’t waste it’s time by introducing a game-mode for WoW-fanboys.
And if you want large-scale battles, go WvWvW, do you really think they’ll make a 20v20 Arena for PvP? This would mean:
1) potentially splitting up playerbase for structured PvP even more. Although I doubt anyone would play it for anything else than a small distraction.
2) Ridiculous waiting-times in match-making or even worse match-making in terms of actually matching up teams of equal skill.
3) There would be almost no competetive Teams and eSport possibilities for it, simply because of logistics: It’s hard enough to coordinate schedules for 5 players to consistantly play together, but for 20?
4) Why would any sponsor pay for a 20-man team anything more than for a 5-man team when there is actually almost no more exposure for their brand?
and yes, if they plan on making an entirely new game-mode etc. I think the aspect of it potentially being watched and heavily played, like an eSport, should definitely be considered and it just makes no sense for what you want.
Hi@all,
I’ve been reading up on the new Specialization-Stuff and I’ve got a few questions that I couldn’t really find an answer to:
1) Do we get 16 trait-points or 15 in total? So 2 or 1 more than now? I’m pretty sure it’s 15, but just not quite…..
2) it said sth. about being able to get 3 Grandmaster traits now, but isn’t it possible, even with “only” 15 trait-points, to get 4? like with a 6,6,3 trait-split? Or do we need to go to a certain trait-point number in each tree? (for whatever reason)
I think thats it for now. ^^’
(edited by PowerBottom.5796)
We all know Diamond Skin is a terribly designed trait: It is either a straight-up hard-counter or completely useless. So let’s talk about some options to improve it.
Here is my suggestion:
Conditions of the following types have no effect on you while in the corresponding attunement:
Fire: Burn does no damage
Air: Weakness has no effect
Earth: Cripple, chill, (and immob maybe) have no effect
Water: Bleed and torment has no effectThis is a very high-skill trait, and since no ele spec can camp any single attunement has lots of interesting counterplay.
Please post your own ideas below, as this needs to be addressed regardless.
Dude, I looked at this thread and immediately though: sth. with resistances depending on attunement would be cool, so I already like your basic idea.
It’s also true that diamond skin as it is now is just horrible.
I also like your proposed change, I think it’s a very good idea that allows for smart play for both the ele and his opponent. Much better than just having tons and tons of condition-remove, cuz at least the opposing player can keep CD’s of the attunemts in mind and add the right condis at the right time.
Okay, I was really disappointed when I saw the “new” predators instinct, which is still completely and utterly lackluster and won’t ever be used competetively, just like it never has been before. But I also think back to good old Crippling Shot Rangers from GW1 and I see a ton of potential for the trait to be amazing in teamfights and reward good play, awareness and positioning.
What the crippling shot ranger basically did in GW1 was two main things (in a GvG-Teamfight): He applied crippling and poison to multiple core targets, either to help out your backline to kite the opposing melee-DPS, or to help your melee-dps to more easily pressure the opposing backline AND he had to interrupt important skills.
This meant the ranger had to have perfect positioning (being able to interrupt the right targets and also apply cripple/poison to either the back- or frontline was not easy, since you had to often stand pretty close to interrupt certain sub-1 second skills). He had to know where which class stands that he will have to interrupt (mostly backline) and he had to decide and have the right positioning to either cripple the back- or frontline, depending on whether your teams needs more pressure, or needs to be relieved of pressure.
I’m already happy to see a buff to the interrupts, but I’d love to see sth. that feels similar to the crippling shot. You might say: “This isn’t GW1 and it’s just nostalgia”, but it was actually very fun and skill-intensive to play a CripShot-Ranger and theres a lack of things like that in teamfights currently.
Here’s my proposed change for Predators instinct:
New “New” Predators Instinct ^^’
Internal CD = 2 seconds
Health Threshhold = none
Crippling duration = 5 seconds (a longer duration is worthless in most 1v1’s and especially in teamfights cuz of massive AoE condition-cleanses)
+ add 5 seconds of weakness (I like that one cuz it can be used both defensively, to reduce dps, or offensively for pressure, cuz it affects endurance-reg)
+ The same target cannot be affected by predators instinct for 10 seconds (It simply would be too strong otherwise and wouldn’t force you to intelligently fire it on multiple targets)
The design would enable smart play, offer you a choice to use it offensively or defensively, encourage you to switch targets and not just spam it on one poor soul and just be IMHO fun to use and strong enough to get played.
thoughts?
(edited by PowerBottom.5796)