Guild Wars 2

TGSlasher.1458:

So, rebuilding my S/F last night, I was running a pretty funny build:
20 15 10 15 10

I could take down Bow / Sword Shield Warriors, Most of your other warriors (condition and burst based). The only 2 I had troubles with were the Asura Sword Shield / Hammer because I couldn’t see the hammer till it was too late. And a regen with banners regen based warrior, that was an infinite fight and we bother gave up after 3 mins.

The only classes I have problems with are:
Rangers with spirits and Mesmers. Thieves to an extent.
Rangers because they don’t die and you waist half the fight taking out their kitten spirits.

Mesmers because they stealth to much and if you play S/F a lot you will notice the lack of vs stealth tools it has (compared to d/d anyways). The stealthing combined with their pets that do more damage then they do

Thieves aren’t to much of a problem just a stupid an boring fight as I see the Invulnerable above my character 6 times while the spam away in stealth and I wait for phoenix to come of cd. Usually I just stand still and spam auto attack till I can imob them for a nice DT to the face.

Haven’t had a chance to vs guardian yet, seems to be a lack of them in the 1v1 scene. Neckros aren’t much of a problem, neither are engies. They are fun fights though. Warriors are a fun fight as well, though the ones with double regen (banners and signet) are over the top at defence (esp with soldiers rune lol). But it means they can’t dint my armour and I can’t hurt them too much.

If you run full glass cannon, expect to do less damage then other classes while still being relatively as weak as they are. If you come up against a tank warrior, just leave it alone and move along.

This describes me pretty well aswell.

Mesmers… they just need to kite and spam invis till phantasms down you. Meanwhile were using abilities and dodging all over the place trying to time the perfect combos looking like jet lee but it’s usually of no use.

Thieves- Zerker thieves give me a problem, can usually down me after i blow all my cd’s, I typically can’t kill them because 70% of the time they are invis and other 30% they doing such high dmg im more concerned about staying alive, sometimes i get lucky. Other thieves can’t rly kill me and I can’t kill their stealth spamming selves either usually.

Warriors- I do ok against most types of warriors that aren’t a tank and don’t use healing signet.

Guardians- I typically can’t kill guardians, they heal for to much at once and usually over time. My burst will get them lowish but my sustained damage is just to weak to be a threat. The good news is they usually can’t kill me either.

Rangers- I dominate basically all types of rangers, putting 100% effort into a fight a ranger has yet to beat me.

All other professions basically 50-50 but in saying this trying to be as non-bias as possible. It seems like wars,mesmers and thieves are the best for pvp atm and Mesmers are the true jack of all trades.

I’d also like to add playing S/F ele is the hardest thing in gw2 I’ve ever played. Extremely challenging, but also at the moment in my opinion with enough skill more rewarding than DD.

I don’t like it when I see a profession who can play in a lazy sloppy manner and still beat me just because that profession is far superior to what I play. At the moment warriors healing signet/stuns just seem like the most skill-less excuse of a pvp build to me.

TGSlasher.1458:

Senjun.8149:

How am i suppose to bring down any warrior who heals 400 hp per second, takes minimum damage from my burst, basically uneffected by my conditions and CC and can stun me for 6 seconds almost every 8 seconds of being free?

Tips? Or do i just roll over and die? Because for whatever reason this type of warriors burst is also 4 times greater than mine and 50 times more reliable as i only have a 2 second knockdown with a 50 sec cd to hold some1 down to get some good damage off.

Build?

I generally use Gale into dragons tooth (hope for no lag) then follow with phoenix. Interrupt their heal with comet or poison and then use the blinds as survival (3 in total). As soon as I can get back into fire I go with a signet of earth into dragons tooth (so long as the warrior has waisted his berserker stance). Keep on the move, don’t ever stop. Finally Lightning Flash, this will get you out of trouble when the doodoo hits the fan

My burst build is:
10 30 10 20 0 (10 in fire for 10% condition duration, enough to land a DT off earth sig)
-or-
0 30 10 20 10 (2x lyssa runes for above reason)

On one of these wars you’ll be lucky if the initial combo burst takes away more than 80% hp, regenerating 400hp per second (while we wait to burst again) will get them to about 90-98% hp minimum while our weak sustained damage puts scratches on their armor.

cheshirefox.7026:

Hint: you’re an elementalist
you’ve been re-constructed to lose in every possible situation

It does sometimes seem like that’s what Anet is trying to do lol 1 more nerf and I’ll believe it.

mjharrison.3209:

Don’t use focus for starters.

I actually fair very well using focus, it gives me extra survivability which i find very usefull after anet decided to nerf mist form + ether renewal.

Tried some things mentioned here and still nothing. Any other class (except most thieves) i seem to stand somewhat of a chance against with enough skill. But warriors who deal insane damage, have insane healing (400 per second what!) and great damage tolerance, I can burst them to 70%, but with such low sustained damage as S/F ele they shoot right back up and keep me on my toes the entire fight up to the point i lose.

Why does water 2 even exist may i ask? 1 sec cast time for a small aoe that takes 2 seconds to detonate for damage that’s equivalent to a base burn tick?

How am i suppose to bring down any warrior who heals 400 hp per second, takes minimum damage from my burst, basically uneffected by my conditions and CC and can stun me for 6 seconds almost every 8 seconds of being free?

Tips? Or do i just roll over and die? Because for whatever reason this type of warriors burst is also 4 times greater than mine and 50 times more reliable as i only have a 2 second knockdown with a 50 sec cd to hold some1 down to get some good damage off.

Flame shield is almost useless, it’s a shield that provides no protection it burns for 1 second if you’re hit, it lasts 5 seconds and only gives u 1 stack of might per hit and why is it on a 40 second cooldown?

I’d like to see flame shield buff. If hit 3 times while in flame shield it explodes, dealing x damage to enemies within a 300 radius. and burns them for 3 seconds.

Can we all just agree in here that lightningflash should be shown some love? It’s the only instant distance relief a Scepter/focus ele gets.

Ashanor.5319:

Senjun.8149:

Respect to OP for admitting this mace/shield war is alittle out of whack atm. Change is required.

I do agree that for a long stun ability we Should be able to see it coming rather than just having to guess when a war is going to use it, and an experienced war is not a predictable one.

I like having victories handed to me I don’t even want you to be able to see the stun coming despite the low cooldown

Is all I see whenever you say anything.

Respect to OP for admitting this mace/shield war is alittle out of whack atm. Change is required.

I do agree that for a long stun ability we Should be able to see it coming rather than just having to guess when a war is going to use it, and an experienced war is not a predictable one.

Fenrir.5493:

Senjun.8149:

There are way to many players finding this build of war OP ingame and accross the forums, this is equivalent to the number of players who complained about DD bunker eles. It will be seeing a nerf, it’s not the end of the world. At best it gets a longer cooldown or a shorter stun duration which it much requires. Not game breaking for warriors.

Say to me, why are you ignoring all the facts and evidence that proves that this isnt OP.

Im going to tell you why, because all of you are kids that play the tactic of scream things and at the same time put your hands on your ears so you can not listen to the truth, while you continue with your tantrums.

Because the argument against this being OP is “use stability, stun break, dodge” As an ele my stability 90 sec cd for 8 secs of stability, my stun breakers, all 40+ sec cd. If i was to use all 3 in one build i’d be a failure. To dodge this depends on luck, it comes way to fast most of the time to see it coming. I did manage to dodge it the shield stun 5+ times in a duel recently because i have acceptional reflexes most of the time, you got about 1/8 a second to dodge it but no matter what i did as a scepter ele i did not have the damage to drop this war not even close and eventually his stuns got the better of me all defensive abilites on cd and i died.

This is just one example of how skill could not overcome spam.

The stun reminds me of throwing darts at a board, you keep doing it until you finally get lucky and land the hit then you basically win. I think either wars need to have sustain lowered or the stun cd increased. To me it’s pretty ridiculous. Also Even while i wasn’t stunned he did acceptionaly high damage with the mace and the GS

Oh and thats not even mentioning the mace stun which yes did hit me a few times and of course i had to use my cds for that but its when both hit you that you just have to kind of give up and eventually both will hit you.

There are way to many players finding this build of war OP ingame and accross the forums, this is equivalent to the number of players who complained about DD bunker eles. It will be seeing a nerf, it’s not the end of the world. At best it gets a longer cooldown or a shorter stun duration which it much requires. Not game breaking for warriors.

Calae.1738:

Shockwave.1230:

I compare it to blink. Blink it just better due to recharge and stun breaking. Lightning Flash deals damage, but I don’t know of anyone who ever used the skill for offense.

You don’t?

Swap to earth, cast earthquake followed by a quick lightning flash to your target.
If both crit you’re looking at around 6k damage. While your target is laying on the ground, swap to lightning for a quick zap, updraft, swap to fire, burning speed then fire grab.

If your opponent just stands there and lets you do all of this then you’re facing a very terrible player.

Blaine Tog.8304:

It wasn’t that Lighting Flash can’t have a stun. It was than the Cantrips were bogarting all the stuns and Anet wanted to spread them around, so they took them off the two Cantrips which they though could still make sense without stuns, I guess.

Lighting Flash is still awesome. Blink looks better, but remember that Mesmers also don’t have spells like Churning Earth and Meteor Storm which Lighting Flash makes substantially more powerful than they would be without it. Lighting Flash is a stronger spell on the Ele than Blink is on Mesmers.

Well mesmers blink mixed with a stealth can easily make you lose track of a mesmer in his mess of clones. Which can be >=< the effects of Lightning flash with churning Earth depending on how experienced the mesmer is at using this tactic. I’d rather have Lightning flash on a 30 sec cd with stunbreak personally than have it still able to be combined with churning Earth which is dodged by all experienced players.

Hunter.4783:

Setun.4368:

Hunter.4783:

For all the insults being thrown at us “whiners”, you have failed to provide any evidence at a proper counter to this build, or provide any justification why a single build can provide superior DPS, sustain, mobility, CC and immunity to conditions AT THE SAME TIME.

The argument I keep hearing is ‘lulz you suck nub thief, use stun breakers". Well, that’s awesome and all except for the fact that my stun breaker is on a 60 sec cooldown while the stun comes every 7.5 sec, excluding the shield bash and the bulls rush, which both can be followed by a 100b.

Some of you are more open minded at least and admit lemongrass soup and/or healing sig are broken. But its the same as agreeing with my claim, u are just trying to sugarcoat it

I also keep seeing the “L 2 Dodge” argument. Well that’s nice and all except for the fact that skull crack is a poorly telegraphed special attack, has a very short activation and difficult to tell from a normal attack, and that’s assuming the warrior is not an asuran…

Here’s a few counters: stay at range, blind, steal the warrior spin, drop a smoke field of any kind and spin to win on it to not only damage but to reapply blind consistently. L2P, use daze shot if you sense skull crack coming, dodge….I don’t play thief and I know all this.

I was never talking from a thief’s perspective, How would a ranger or D/D ele deal with it? oh right, still stay at range and try to CC an un-CCable build, gotcha.

Stop trying to come up with excuses, you know the build is OP. And at this point no one has commented on why a single build has high DPS, high sustain, high mobility, CC immunity, condition immunity and 50% stun uptime potential AT THE SAME TIME

Agreed and the reason no body will stand against that argument is because atm wars are an all in one package and nobody else is. There really isn’t a good counter to this build of warrior in the hands of a skilled player who is choosing to play a build that a brain dead monkey could kill people with. All they need to give this build of war now is a stealth and the ability to spawn clones. And all other professions become completely obsolete.

I feel bad for thieves trying to kill this build of warrior. All good thieves go for high damage which means lower sustain. I’ve seen quite a few die, if that stun touches you and that war gets to 100b you, you are dead. Lol I keep seeing it. Even if he doesn’t hit you with the stun the first 20 times he gets to use it in a fight, more than likely you don’t have the damage output to kill the war within 2 minutes who’s sustain is somehow much higher than yours aswell as damage.

There is something seriously wrong with this build of warrior. Anet has gone mad.

Shockwave.1230:

I compare it to blink. Blink it just better due to recharge and stun breaking. Lightning Flash deals damage, but I don’t know of anyone who ever used the skill for offense.

That’s why i think it should remove a stun so it’s at least somewhat more useful in a fight for a 40 second teleport that does low damage. Why not give it a 2-3 second stun if we actually hit someone with it, give us a reason to use it offensively if that’s what they are aiming for because that damage isn’t worth it.

Was it really so game breaking?
You nerf our aoe
You nerf our healing
You nerf mist form
You nerf our mobility

But this one i just i don’t know. In my opinion lightningflash should do more than just teleport you and do a useless amount of damage. It should remove a stun again, or at the very least stun your oponnent for a couple seconds if you actually manage to hit them with it rather than use it to get away which is all it’s good for is avoiding an enemy for a couple more seconds.

Nerf mace/shield wars, they stunlock like rogues on WoW but every 7 seconds ridiculous.

First let me say I usually play DD ele and when DD bunkers were op (i never really played as bunker much but i knew what they were capable of) I admitted to it. I owned up to it and i even suggested nerfs on some threads.

Now wars with mace/shield and GS combo are overpowered, this much is clear. More and more warriors run this every single day and i find myself saying the same thing “gosh that’s way to overpowered”

most pvpers i group up with agree the only ones who don’t agree are obviously the warriors and people who haven’t encountered it yet.

That stun needs a far longer cooldown you might say “lol l2 use stunbreak” but my only 2 stunbreakers have either a 40 second cd or a 90 sec cd, take your pick. How long of a CD is your stun on? Oh ok.

Not only that but these warriors have such high sustain and survivability, taking one down is like taking down a raid boss if you can’t hold him still. Something needs to be done.

Hunter.4783:

So, lest see, apart from the personal insults I have received which are sort of funny considering some people had to go through my entire post history to come up with em (lol) I have noticed a few things

1) Some people not only claim this build is not OP but heal sig needs to go up to 500 hps
2) Other people claim this build makes warriors now “competitive”
3) And there is a minority that claims this build is OP and might need to be toned down a bit. I am not referring to me and Excalibur

Also, the fact that in less than a day this thread has grown to 5 pages and the sheer diligence in some posters to throw down insults left and right in order to back up their claim kinda hits at the fact that underneath all this charade, everyone knows this build is OP and will get nerfed. People just want to ride the OP train for as long as it last because as some brainless CoF camper put it, its about time for also warriors to be OP.

I mean really, people, you have a build with High sustain, high DPS, near complete immunity to conditions and CC, ability to stun up to 50% of the time and you STILL claim thakittens balanced. Yeah sure food and melandru runes have their own share in breaking this build but the fact still stands this build HAS NO COUNTER.

Welcome to the world of OP classes, where the bad/ ignorant players will defend their class even if it 1 hit kills you. Only most elitist/respectful players actually own up to it. Like when DD eles were op I owned up to it any chance i got.

dani.1956:

There is something in the game i think called uhm block breaker ! Tip : use them ?
In my 30k kills in wvw and some sPvP i’ve never seen 1 guy that is not completly afk to take a 6 seconds stun ! Above all this there is compensation in all , from the crap class that warrior has been for almost 1 year now it started to look good !

You’re funny maybe your argument would be valid if when i used my abilities to break out of/avoid your stun it wasn’t already off cooldown.

ALOT of people are saying mace/shield war is extremely op atm and i have to agree, the stun is far to long on far to short of a cd. people might say “kitten DE kitten use stunbreak” ok most stunbreakers are on a long cd and war stunlock is unjustifyingly short cd! explain yourself.

Once you’re stunned for 6 seconds in a fight that’s basically an “I win automatically haha” moment for the war.

peter.9024:

With sigil of paralyzation the stun is 4s, and if you chain bulls charge you get another 2 for around 6s of stun.

The build is a good build and it’s a huuuugee L2P issue for most players. As you can tell from OP he has no clue about warrior. He doesn’t know the animation of skull crack as he can barely identify the weapon sets. Since he got downed on the first stun means that he either doesn’t run stun breakers or doesn’t know how to use them at the right time. In the end this probably comes from the fact that a lot of warriors used to be free kills and at least with this build most can put up a fight as long as they can land skull crack.

The really heavy counters to this build is positioning, keep range, and most importantly know how to dodge. Since most classes outside of warrior (and necro) have good access to vigor and dodge boosting abilities, knowing when to dodge every 7s is the key to beating this build. So good luck and get better at the game!

This is probably the best answer here considering you are the only one here who knows that they have a 5-7 sec stun, 6 seconds i guess i was close. But having such a long stun on such a short cd is still pretty ridiculous, I may not know much about warriors but i think if you give any tanky class with moderate-high damage output a 6 second stun that they can use about every 7 seconds than that is a problem no matter what.

Its not exaggeration it could of been 5 second stuns it just felt like an eternity that was on far to short of a cooldown. I wish i could record.

Before warriors go all crazy on me hear me out here and if you are this type of op warrior, then go ahead and defend yourself id like to hear it.

So I heard wars got buffed and i was like oh cool they needed it not asking how, my friend said was it was absolutely insanely op 1v1 but i didn’t really investigate.

I am in ebg jp where alot of dueling takes place and this one war is camping 4 level 80s (we got no mesmers or engineers so no flavor of the month proffessions to help)

He uses sword/shield and then greatsword. He stuns someone for about 7 seconds and he does this almost every 15-20 seconds. In that stun you get bursted about 13k if you are in pvt gear but not running a tank build.

This war is running pvt gear and a tanky build as no one is hitting high on him at all yet hes dealing 13k dmg burst and stunning someone for about 7 seconds every 15-20 seconds. Alot of people claim this is a troll build well, it’s a troll build that’s killing off groups of people at a time.

His greatsword is am amazing gap closer of course and amazing at running away with low cooldown gap closing abilities.

It’s like seeing a vanilla DD bunker ele but twice the single target damage and instead of extra heals he has blocks and reflect. Tell me how is this fair?

EDIT: Correction the type of weapon with this type of stunlock is mace/shield

Not like it really matters the Cd on most attunement specific abilities are 15-50 seconds. Which also is ridiculous considering every attunement offers 1-2 reliably good abilities.

There actually is no good reason to play a DD ele over a mesmer.

How about you get a 50% chance to evade incoming attacks after attuning to air? Lasts 2-3 seconds.

Or you evade the next incomming attack after attuning to air

Hello so I made a thread about a month ago saying that I was gonna quit for about a month or so giving anet time to fix DD eles and nerf the obviously OP proffessions. They didn’t do a kitten thing. This is terrible service to your customers and im considering leaving for good (and when i leave a game, believe me it stays gone i have no interest in playing a game where taking advantage of obvious and lazy imbalances is the key to victory.)

My question is why was it so imperative to nerf DD eles when we could 3v1? But mesmers could always 5v1 and now engineers 3v1 with ease. Why aren’t you in a rush to nerf them?

Ive been pvping all day and this is the conclusion ive come to.

Engineers are just as strong as DD bunker eles use to be, their healing, their utility, their damage and their survivability are just about the same as vanilla DD bunkers. One of them was kiting 3 players around doing mass amounts of damage as i watched and dropping them (none were uplveled) he did this for quite a while!

Every mesmer i run into is using a sword/torch i think? not 100% sure but what i am sure of is that mesmers are stealthing just as much as vanilla thieves now lol… they have no many invises and other other ways to get away from melee range of someone it is utterly ridiculous. Meanwhile their clones are doing consistant 3k damage to you while the mesmer himself has a burst of about 10k and u can never keep a good mesmer targeted for more than 5 seconds which is a terrible way to pvp.

In reality all a mesmer has to do is run around, spam invis, and let his clones burst you down, if you chase him you’re dead, if you don’t you’re dead. I can’t even imagine fighting one of these 1 on 1 its impossible 2 on 1 and only slightly possible 3 on 1 with average pvpers.

a few more weeks i expect some change or ill find a new source of casual entertainment.

dagneyandleo.6378:

The other side to the Daphoenix example is the inexperienced, incompetent d/d ele a few months ago who could still escape when he was outplayed and outnumbered. In the meantime, Daphoenix is still coming up with viable, fun builds (see: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Mastering-the-D-D-ele-5-12-12/page/16#post2363720). Even with nerfs, between RtL, Lightning Flash, Mist Form (sort of… I’d argue this was a MUCH bigger nerf than RtL), fire 3, and even Fiery Greatsword, you can STILL get away. Heck, this is Daphoenix post-nerf: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGhPRMbmdA0. Skilled players can still wreak havoc post nerf.

Ok so I like most eles am waiting for our much needed buff/nerf revert and I am not going to play till it comes (why should I? I hate leveling and i have other games.) That being said, I do have alot of respect for Excala and he is a really good ele but honestly let’s stop and look at exactly what hes capable of in that video.

First of all the people attacking him are obviously not experienced pvper’s this much is clear, they are more like a herd of sheep.

Secondly, his build is all about defense and his armor provides some damage, but his damage is extremely low and his survivability all depends on luck, if he was to be chain immobilized he wouldn’t of lasted and if those were experienced pvpers he would of been.

Thirdly, how much “havoc” is that build capable of? It’s capable of living long enough to run around obstacles so you have time to let your heals recharge while dealing low damage only capable of killing an upleveled character and a PvEr who doesn’t know when to dodge nor when to heal

This is also a very smart player whos very experienced at doing what he does. So that is playing at the full potential of what that build of ele is capable of and by what you see, if he was playing say…. a pistol/shield / grenade engineer…. He would of not only survived but also would of killed all of them aswell using basically the same playstyle.

A good zerker phantasm mesmer would of made short work of all of them as well, hardly getting a scratch

honestly i just came back from a break and I’m getting really upset. I use to be really good but all these nerfs and tweaks they did to eles. Our cooldowns are ridiculously long for most abilities always have been but our survivability made up for the time it took.

Now our survivability was cut nearly in half and I just can’t do what i use to be capable of, i was never full bunker so i was never OP i was always 10 arcane, 20 water and i was very average. But by nerfing bunkers they took what I am and turned it into something less than average, which means i have to play better than the average player in order to be any help at all. I’m going to step away from gw2 for a month or two and go back to another game and see if this is fixed in that time period, i refuse to level another class just because mine is unbalanced. Thanks the advice anyways guys and have fun <3

I’m a very experienced DD ele its all i’ve played since the first day of release and pvp is all I do. That being said I can take almost any profession one on one except certain engineers and mesmers.

I handle staff and GS mesmers rather well, I have a problem with scepter/torch and sword/pistol i think it is, I have a problem killing a mesmer who stealths every like 8-12 seconds in the fight while running around me in circles teleporting all over spamming conditions on me and their phantasms doing like 3k dmg. How to deal with such builds if im dealing with someone i can’t simply burst down or keep track of?

~heres an example i fought a GS mesmer 1 on 1 she was running full zerker, i dropped her in about 10 seconds, taking 30% dmg. Then a scepter/torch mesmer i think came by also in full zerker but i couldn’t ever hold him still long enough to burst him and he kept stealthing all over while spamming conditions and clones which slowly but surely killed me over the course of one minute.~

I don’t know what it is but engineers seem to be able to heal just as much as me but for more in a single heal and I’m custom build semi-bunker. It seems when a good engineer drops his supply box elite thing I just don’t stand a chance. The spam of conditions and moderate damage on me slowly but effectively kill me as my burst just can’t get through the amount of defenses they have and the amount of heals they have.

Any advice? Tips?

Hello I’m a very active pvper its all I do and it’s all I’ve ever done on any mmorpgs and I love the pvp in gw2 very much, it’s not perfect but it’s pretty well balanced and enjoyable overall.

I have one major problem though and that is the idea of downed state in pvp. I think it needs some changes or needs to be removed completely. That’s just my opinion and I have some ideas for the changes but firstly why I have such a problem with it.

It disfavors the underdog——-
When I am fighting multiple opponents all my level, all well geared and I am working my hood off to take on 2-4 people at once, when i drop someones healthbar to 0% is it to much to ask for that they just die? I as an active pvper and gw2 player feel that the current system cheats me out of many well earned kills and that is a big deal to any pvper. This is just an example.

That’s just my biggest problem, there are other significant problems i have with it aswell i could go on and on and here are some suggestions.

~~~Suggestions if not to remove the downed state completely from pvp~~~

1.The people who need downed state most are those who are at a disadvantage. I think downed state should only be given to upleveled characters in pvp areas so they get a fighting chance to get back up again.

2.A player who falls to downed state in pvp should already be near dead in the downed state, make it so that if a player falls in downed state in pvp if he is not tended to by another player in a few seconds he dies. This can be done by dropping the downed state hp bar IN PVP to 5-10% its reasonable considering he/she has already had her fighting chance and has fallen. Why should you in many circumstances be harder to kill in downed state then you were standing?

3. Reduce the time it takes to stomp by a minimum of 50%, honestly you either spend 1 minute attacking someone in downed state to stay on the move so you don’t die (hoping no one resses them) or you spend about 6 seconds trying to stomp them (and they interupt you or escape your first one of course) which leaves you open to be massacred.

Any suggestions on how you feel about downed state in pvp? To much or fair?

How about we all take a moment and look at the focus 5 ability.

2 second knockdown, 3/4 cast time, 50 sec cooldown.

I personally am a custom build, semi bunker DD ele and I’m tired of seeing 90% of other eles in pvp rolling the same exact bunker build. Sure it’s better than my build because for whatever reason it’s almost equal in damage (mine is better obviously) but twice as strong in survivability.

You might think “Well why don’t you just roll bunker then” because I don’t see the fun in copying the same build everyone else is using, I have used bunker in the past and I have to say in my opinion it is overpowered. And as of right now after the nerfs it is still above average.

As someone who only plays DD ele, I have no other 80s and I don’t find myself using scepter or staff very often. I have to say that the ele needs to be changed. When you see everyone running around with the same build you need to start rethinking this professions other weapons. Obviously staff will always be better for big group battles but what about scepter?

Personally in my opinion scepter isn’t bad but it isn’t great. It’s in a state of “meh maybe ill use that when i get bored of tanking and killing 3 people at once as bunker ele” which btw when i rolled bunker, I could do without falling below 20% hp the whole fight.

As for focus compared to dagger… the focus may as well not even exist in pvp, the only thing it’s good for is blocking siege projectiles, other than that it’s pretty useless.

I think scepter and focus should be shown some love. You don’t really see anyone using it, and the ones you do see using it get demoralized when a DD ele slams their faces into the ground with little effort. The scepter ele doesn’t have a great combo like DD ele’s -updraft-, followed by -burning speed-. You can try -updraft- followed by -dragons tooth- but the tooth is much easier to dodge.

This is what I think scepter needs to at least get closer to being on par with DD ele.

-Shatterstone damage buff (it deals to little damage for an ability that is very hard to hit someone with)
-phoenix i think this ability should cause burning and have a damage increase as again it is very hard to hit someone with, or at least make it travel faster, and upon comming back to the player instead of granting vigor, what if instead it triggers flame shield?
-Rock barrier should grant protection for the first 6 seconds of using it.

Focus abilities
-obsidian flesh needs to have cooldown reduced or its duration increased.
-Gale is a knockdown that doesn’t last long at all, i think it should be instant cast or at least reduced to 1/4 sec rather than 3/4 and a 50 second cooldown? Is that the longest cd on a weapon skill ingame for a 2 sec knockdown?!?!
-freezing gust should have its chill duration increased and also it’s damage increased.
-fire shields cooldown should be reduced to 25 seconds. (shocking aura stuns and has a cd of 25 seconds, fire shield causes 1 second of burning/1 stack of might and has a 40 second cooldown?)
-Flame wall, Should deal more damage to those who walk through it / get hit with it.

Any other ideas or suggestions to improve focus/scepter feel free to share.

Thanks for everyones feedback I’m actually learning some things here but to clarify. I’m not calling mesmers indestructable monsters, I am saying they have to many tools at their disposal that contribute greatly.

This thread is about how mesmers have to large of an impact on wvwvw and how to balance them down to at least near the usefullness of everyone else

Now I understand that every profession has it’s own ways of being usefull in wvwvw but when it comes to mesmers they just about have it all and that makes other professions seem less important (mainly because that’s exactly what they are)

There is a reason you see commanders/pvp guilds/ organized zergs constantly ask “how many mesmers do we have?” Over and over. It’s because in order for a group to be as good as they possibly can you need mesmers, no questions asked you NEED more than at least 5 mesmers it is mandatory. This is a problem, but who can blame them mesmer is obviously the flavor of the month as far as group pvp goes and in most cases people see them as the best dueling class as well (also a problem)

~~Why are mesmers so important in wvwvw?~~

Well let’s see
-group mesmer mind wrack stacking will kill off a large group of players before they can blink an eye

-LOS ignoring pulls. Doesn’t matter if they can’t see you on top of a wall, if they want you down than you’re coming down. (imagine if death knights grip ability could do that in WoW? Yeah that’s a problem, except mesmers pull more than 1 person.)

-LOS ignoring zerkers/clones, In many cases mesmers can take out siege you can’t see with ease and not only that but these do such high damage it’s very likely the siege user is also in risk of being killed, it can be in a place where you think “no one can possibly reach it here” but oh wait it’s very likely mesmers can.

-Portals, having mesmers chain their portals from one location to another makes transporting an army of golems easy, everyone wants to make sure there are at least 3 mesmers around before using golems. Also better make sure there isn’t one hiding in a keep/tower/smc when you cap it….

-Aoe invisibility, do i even need to say how this is usefull?

-Time warp and last but not least let’s not forget aoe quickness which when used with golems it greatly increases the amount of damage they do to a gate in a short amount of time.

~~What can be done to balance this problem?~~

I think their zerkers and that aoe pull should only work on the surface they are standing on. You should not be able to look up 40 yards and just yank someone off a wall that you couldn’t even see that’s ridiculous and why is it’s cooldown so short? You would think pulling more than 1 person into a zerg for certain death would have 1 min cd minimum.

Honestly keep the time warp, keep the portals and keep the barely bearable aoes that’s more than enough to still make mesmers a very important part of wvwvw groups.

Firstly the suggestion, when it comes to immobilize i believe diminishing returns should be added. I don’t believe it should be added for stuns as classes with stuns can’t do it for more than 2 seconds (not that ive seen) and they are not as common so it is never a big deal. However immobilize…. classes tend to have more than one and that can be a real pain when it comes to playing against it.

To a point where I find the combat to no longer be fun or entertaining and i will just sit in my seat and eat popcorn while watching my character die.

Secondly, The examples.

I play a D/D ele and as such i have a couple ways to get around immobilize, but i find facing classes who use multiple immobilize have a huge advantage over me anytime as their cd is often shorter than the cds i have to get around it and they can be chained, this doesn’t get to me so much though.

What does get to me is when I’m against multiple people and immobilize for 3 seconds, then 2 seconds, then 3 seconds again, then another 3 seconds after that. I thought gw2 pvp wasn’t going to remind me of some other mmorpgs and how their pvp works but in this way it does.

I do not find being rooted to the ground for more than half of any fight entertaining and especially for the full fight, and there is nothing I can do about it when facing multiple enemies. It makes combat stale, boring and alittle annoying.

Usagi.4835:

We saw one member of FA openly ganking people in the arena and so we sentenced her to life imprisonment with the siamoths!

She stayed there for a while. Kara said it was fascinating so we observed her behaviour…

“Day 21 – The siamoths have begun to mate.”

Indeed. We observed her behavior from a distance. At first she seemed to grow agitated towards anyone who neared her cage. It seems living with the animals turned me into one of them. In time we earned her trust, she was obviously the matriarch of the herd as the others calmed when she did.

What became of her is unknown after she escaped her cage but what we do know is that she is still out there somewhere….

Bodyguard.7296:

Hey guys, I do enjoy the battles we have had. I hope your not that mad…. please understand it is WvWvW…… and you guys have the # game on your side vs our server…. ILU all though.

ily more!!!! <33333

Why am i not surprised a guild who camps a jumping puzzle thinks anyone even recognizes them? You know like 95% of the time when tarnished coast see’s your guild camping they constantly think and say over chat it’s fort aspenwood? It’s because you’re insignificant and you make no impact on pvp at all and we will continue to thrash your server in wvwvw till you learn to play properly.

BTW that 5v5 in arena was fun, even though you guys got absolutely massacred. Worse thief/guardian ive ever fought, next time i go back remind me to send you guys a gift basket for the free kills :] and trust me… none of the others thought you guys were any good at all and we completely forget about you FA GODS guild… now when they camp JP thats a fight to behold, unlike the amateurs yaksbend can conjure up

Eduardo.4675:

Lets get to the facts, for this i ask you ppl to look at the screenie with a pair of eyes, not your “behind”:
The OP is lvl 80, its obvious, its in the picture,to the bottom left; the screenie is recent, a week old at most,all you have to do is look at the trading post icon and notice that he has a notification, probably to get some gold of sold stuff, this is recent change to UI; the OP is low on tufness, obvious because 3 heartseekers do almost the same dmg, regardless of the <50% and <25% health conditions, of which he met allof them, coz a ele starts at 10k health and cant have much more than the 19k he got hit there; we dont know how many thieves hit him, could have been 3 of them hitting simultaneous at below 25%, in www all thieves are called “fort aspenwood”; if it was only 1 thief,he had plenty of time to dodge/mist/watever, its 3 heartseekers, and its not like this thief was stealthed…

Thank you for clearing those things up for everyone, and yes it was one thief. I’m not entirely sure how the class works completely because I don’t play it. My health is 18.5k and i did indeed dodge, arcane shield and mist form even but it seems like he just tirelessly kept hopping all over the place with heartseeker. Those were 3 heartseekers in a row dealt by one thief in the open which is when i got so fed up with it that i decided to come here.

To also clear something else up my gear is mostly rare pvp toughness/vitality/power stacking gear, the rest is lesser pvp gear.

RageExpert.2453:

Step 1: Hit Dodge Roll twice ( I can’t even count how many heartseekers spammers i’ve dodged doing this, once their intiative is gone, you practiclly win)

As an elementalist you should be prepared to be super squishy, you are a light armor after all, unless you run bunker ele of course.

You can say you PvP in every MMO you play, but that doesn’t automaticlly make you good, there will ALWAYS be someone better then you, I’m not saying this thief is good, but there are thieves out there that have an amazing amount of skill (that aren’t actually backstab glass cannons)

Elementalists have several survivability skills dont they?

Frost Aura.
Shocking Aura.
Arcane Shield.
Mist Form.
Armor of Earth.
Obsidian Flesh.
Fire Shield.

Cant you use one of those to survive?

I’m sorry and I’m usually the one to never say this, but learn to play(Practice makes perfect), I’ve had an Ele Tear me to pieces before, i know they’re good, IF mastered.

Good luck my friend please stop the QQ now

This is a pretty weak argument, i can dodge heartseeker and i do all the time, however dodging a spammable ability has its limits of usefulness if not to stall for time. You’re also assuming i have all of those abilities at my disposal, that in order to survive a thief attack id need to blow all over those strategically while a thief mashes almost nothing but 1 button.

I have seen thieves who choose not to spam heartseeker and i honestly applaud them and i do enjoy fighting them. It’s typically a fair, fun, dynamic fight. However whenever a thief attacks me and i see heartseeker is his ability of choice, than i lose 100% of the time. Even with help most of the times.

masztipapa.7519:

Just posted in the thief feedback to add some diminishing returns for initiative skill spammin, but this is quite possible! I play a lot spvp these days and thieves still hit 4k heartseeker even when im using survival builds with heavy hp and armor.

Same here i can put all points into water and earth and try to be more of a tank/support ranged class but thieves still hitting me for a minimum of 4k with heartseeker

Uberlicious.3956:

a glass cannon ele can crit with a metor shower on my glass cannon thief for that easy enough

Lol im going to have to call you’re bluff. If you stand in the meteore shower it might add up to 8k damage if you stand in it for it’s full duration. If you’re saying 1-4 meteors strike you for a total of 8k damage than you are not geared at all. I will screenshot several meteor showers for you as proof.

Uberlicious.3956:

also a geared ele can hit me for 7 – 8 k the fact you mentioned you hit for 2k would lead me to beleive your below lvl 80 and not geared

What ability hits you for 7-8k, proof?

skupuz.6940:

At the end of the day, I look at the thief class and say “What the kitten happened?”

Every class weapon abilities are restricted by cool downs. But what happened with the thief class? They are the only class in the game that can spam an ability (not indefinitely but still can). It’s like letting a Warrior spam eviscerate 3-4 times in a row. It’s not the thieves fault, they just want to play a class they like. I blame the Dev for their design choice which distinctly gives the class an advantage over others.

This is mind boggling isn’t it, honestly it would be like taking meteor shower, turning it into a single target 1 meteor ability, increasing damage by 300% and letting me spam that on people with no cooldown.

That screenshot is actually from this morning you can claim it’s old but fact of the matter is heartseeker is still to strong.

BTW ignoring all “l2p” arguments, that argument won’t work for me as I do indeed play my class very well, that argument is a very weak one i’d like to see more structured arguments, thank you.

In WvWvW which is all i play, it’s basically all i played from level 30-80 and all I played afterwards, pvp is basically all I do on any game and I know what I’m talking about when it comes to class balance.

First The Proof.
let’s take a look at this screenshot, from this morning
http://s903.beta.photobucket.com/user/Bergenor/media/gw2thieves.jpg.html

Let me tell you guys before you start assuming things that I am decked out in pvp gear and I i spend some points in Earth attunement just to get some extra toughness. The fact a thief can spam one ability and continuously hit 5-6k is very unjustified. I as an elementalist can hit 2k on a single target on a 1.5 second cast time, with a long cooldown. That is my best burst ability. The fact a thief can spam 5-6k in a skill-less, obnoxious manner is very unfair. This ability needs to be nerfed its damage would still be highly acceptable even if it was cut in half.

Second, the probability thieves are overpowered.

This isn’t my only encounter with a thief who seems use to getting 1 button kills. It happens to me every day, and I figured “this is such an obvious case of an overpowered class that gw2 staff will fix it quickly” I guess just like other games the most obvious needed nerfs take the longest to apply, the fact this happens 100% of the time to me vs any thief means this is a highly overpowered class (and overplayed, all i ever see is thieves and mesmers, coincidence?)

Third, the survivability

Thieves with such high damage should have low survivability but infact they have some of the highest and although thieves may disagree with me here if you played in the shoes of other classes you should know where I’m coming from. In pvp a thief can basically escape and run away from any fight he wants to at any time he pleases. Just vanish and poof run away.

A thief can also use his consistent invisibilities to make himself last longer in a fight and dish out more damage while being able to take worlds less damage because the thief can dance circles around someone while flickering on and off in and out of stealth. This makes his survivability higher than most classes who can’t just poof and have to stay and try to hold their ground.

Four- How thief encounters are handled.

Usually when I see a thief I no longer try to fight them one on one because I know they are an overpowered class and I try to avoid 1v1 or alot of the times even 2v1 encounters. I know if i don’t have a tanky class with me to help a thief can easily take care of me and the other.

Just not to long ago a thief and me were fighting and i did what i usually do, try to run away, stunning, mist form, arcane shield, basically anything i can do, which is always unsuccessfully because thief has ranged cripples and other ways to stop me and catch up with me, like leaping faster than i run. I ran over to a necromancer and i figured yup were going to lose, even though he was pvp geared aswell. The thief easily 3 shot me, turned invisible and finished me off, then 3-4 shot the necromancer and killed him aswell. All the time he used heartseeker with only 1-2 other buttons.

Meanwhile in our scrap i used over 6 buttons and managed to take him for 20% of his health.

Fifth- the conclusion

In conclusion basically the thief needs to have his tools and damage changed a bit. Damage needs to be brought down definately. Although many thieves may point fingers at other classes and deny their class inevitably needs a nerf, you need to think about the balance of the game and not your personal preference to be overpowered. However if thieves do not see a nerf within the next 2 weeks I will be posting another thread with much much more proof as i will be recording, screenshotting and investigating all further fights with thieves, but really how much more proof do you need?

Edit: Sorry about the screenshot being kind of an annoyance but im still not 100% sure exactly how to work these forum posts completely as this is my first thread but after clicking the screenshot you can just go back a page back to this thread.