Guild Wars 2

MidoriMarch.8067:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Bristleback-dmg-output/first

Check this thread there are so many people already asking for nerf on bristleback.

Bristleback + smoke scale is kittenedly strong and its just unkillable which is OP.

Inc Wall o Text TLDR at the end

That thread has nothing to do with what I said by the way. If its the DRUID with the pets that are the issue. Then nerf the aspects of the druid that synnergise so well with the pets.

To put it into perspective. The reasons these pets perform so well with druids isn’t the pets themselves. Its how they interact with the druids toolset. A druid has very high recovery and control capabilities. While having moderate damage as well. This means that with the bristleback they have EVERY niche filled. Control Dmg and Support in high amounts in all three sections. Making them godlike 1v1ers much like the DD ele of old. The only people that can win an even skilled fight against them are people running builds that straight up counter them. Or builds that provide the same benefits.

A bristlebacks base burst isn’t higher than the burst of most other classes. Infact as far as individual skills go its actually inferior to alot of burst combos. In that it NEEDS the druids support to be guaranteed to land. (lunar impact. Ancient Seeds. Entangle. AF 5 for examples)

Much life rapid fire much of a bristlebacks f2 can be dodged. It can also be reflected/destroyed. The bristleback himself can also be killed. People used to complain that rapid fire is OP. Now longbow rangers are no longer meta. Infact the only near meta build that uses a longbow…relies on Druid and staff to cover for its weaknesses. Becuase there are so many counter skills that work against it… And this just in ALL of those work against the bristleback as well. Literally every single one of them.

The channel time is long. Supported only by sources of quickness which are easily followed. (Pet swap is the rangers only current source of quickness aside from a sigil)

Does it hit hard? Yes. But ANY telegraphed skill with that long an activation time and that long a cast time NEEDS to hit hard. (Im counting activation the time before it starts firing and after the f2 has been pressed and cast time as the time in which its actually firing the projectiles). If it didn’t no one would ever use it because it would be a dps loss from the auto attack.

The bristleback is very similar to the rangers longbow in that case. Back before rapid fire was buffed, there were almost no times when it was a good idea to use it. It was actually a straight dps loss over firing the auto attack at mid-max range. Meaning the only time it could be used was against thieves in order to follow them in stealth. Or when the enemy was in melee range and you needed a way to pressure them into dodging.

However a bristleback doesn’t have that niche. Its main attack doesn’t scale with range. Meaning it would ALWAYS be a dps increase to use it regardless of range. Causing Spike Barrage to be a dead skill…it would never be used except as a cancel cast to trigger f2 based traits.

The smokescale itself is probably the only real example of a well balanced and FUNCTIONING pet we have. It has its job. And it does it. It has a defensive skill, A CC skill, and a chaser skill. In PvE its a tanky pet capable of self mighting for more damage. In PvP its a harasser designed to stick to a target in order to apply continuous pressure and the ONLY melee pet we have capable of surviving in the AOE fest that is conquest.

The bristleback however is an incredibly specialized pet. Its squishy yet has high damage output. Both on its autoattack and through its burst.

The only time this is an exemption is when ONE minor trait is active. A little trait called bark skin. Which is the source of nearly all complaints that ranger pets are unkillable. This trait massively reduces the damage the pet takes when the ranger is above a health threshold.

This trait has never been considered OP because simple retaliation kept the ranger below the required threshold.

Infact. There is only ONE ranger build that can reliably keep the pet alive through barkskin….And thats the druid.

Due to the druids control skills and active self recovery the druid is able to put themselves back above the health threshold incredibly quickly if even a few seconds are allowed it. Meaning swapping from the druid to the pet in order to kill it to prevent repeated F2s doesn’t work like it should. Because the moment you swap off suddenly the pet has bark skin again. Making it nigh unkillable.

What the bristleback needs isn’t a nerf. It needs the artificial survivability granted to it by bark skin reduced. As druids benefit from this minor trait FAR more than any other ranger build. So the minor trait bark skin should be nerfed OR altered in a way that lowers its synergy with druids but still maintains its benefit to other ranger builds.

Mayhap have it changed so that its a base increase in toughness with a passive regen attached to it like its counterpart in many D&D based games (oakskin).

TLDR; The bristleback itself isn’t OP. It has low enough defensive stats that killing it SHOULD be an option just as all dangerous pets are meant to have (Like cats). However druid synergy with the WK trait bark skin makes that very difficult. As a druid equipped with this minor trait can infact keep there pet alive almost indefinitely simply through self healing up to the threshhold the moment the pressure swaps from them to there pets. In other words there toolset is very well designed towards maintaining there burst machine. Where it SHOULD be possible to break that machine as part of an opposing players strategy.

Id reccomend reworking bark skin to a different mechanic. And putting its defensive functionality on an active utility skill. Such as Guard which has needed a strong rework for a very long time.

If you nerf the pets because of druids you hurt the non druid builds more. If your going to call for nerfs find a way to change them that mitigates the impact to non druid builds. The moment we start balancing the base class around the elite specs the elite specs will ALWAYS be mandatory and we will never be able to get away from them.

What I expect? A shift in functionality. Atm Shouts lack any real sense of Purpose. There almost like blank enchancments based around enhancing the pet. However in how there actually used they tend to point in different directions. Protect me for example causes the pet to stop functioning. Sic Em enhances it while it IS functioning. And Guard and Search and Rescue alter how it functions (though in the case of guard it hasnt been able to work properly since the leash range nerf).

Id guess well see the shouts set into a general theme. Possibly boon related in order for them to fall in like with Heal as One and Rampage as one. How that will effect them mechanically? I honestly have no idea.

Ive been using them for years now (hell I just hit legendary today playing only Shout Ranger and solo queing without even the use of druid) so its kind of reached the point where the only changes I could see being made to them are largely mechanical. I.E. Reworks instead of simply “this now produces fury”.

Adding boons to them like they did with dragonhunters would help sure. But in order for shouts to ever be truly relevant. They need a rework to how they function on the base level.

I would guess they will still be primarily selfish. With a small amount of support. But I COULD see them going towards control. Maybe increasing access to soft CCs like cripple and immobilize. That would actually give them more synergy with other pet traits. Like predators onslaught. Or Expertise training. And would push shouts towards a debilitation role.

On to my speculation part.

In my previous threads most of the ideas people came up with appeared to be in one of three parts.

Control, Support, Internal

I would guess that when Anet says that they want to make shouts more Unqiue that one of these directions is where they are going to be focused.

These are my own guesses. Many of these ideas however WERE influenced by the words of other players in my posts. And I would like to thank those players that contributed.

First up is control.

Guard: The pet aggresively guards the targeted area. The pet cannot LEAVE that target area whil the buff is active. However all enemies struck by the pet in that area are inflicted with cripple.
Potential synergy with Predators Onslaught.

Protect Me: The pet rushes to the player Launching all enemies in melee range of the player. The pet continues to do so for 3 seconds but deals NO damaging attacks for the duration.

Search and Rescue: The pet Rushes to a nearby player and for six seconds attempts a knockdown attack once per second on any player within melee range. If no enemy players are within range the pet will attempt to rez the player.

Sic Em: The pet rushes down a specific target. Its next connecting attack deals 200% additional damage and knocks the target down. Is not consumed on missed/blocked/evaded/blinded attacks. Pet has +40% movement during the duration. The pet continues to attack the target for 20% additional damage (down from 40%)

Second is Support.

Guard: The pet patrols a specific location. Defending all allies withing that locations. When the pet lands an attack all allies in the radius gain retalation.

Protect Me: The pet rushes to the player absorbing damage for him. Whenever the pet loses more than 10% of his health 5 nearby allies are healed. The pet can only trigger this 3 times per Cast. The pet does not attack during this.

Search and Rescue: The pet rushes to a downed ally and attempts to rez the player. The player being rezzed is cleansed of three conditions every second. Upon being ressurected the player has protection and resistnace for 2 seconds.

Sic Em: The Pet chases down a specific target. Marking him and making him vulnerable to nearby foes. Applies 5 stacks of vuln and 5 seconds of reveal to the specific target. All allies hitting that target gain 2 stacks of five second might per attack.

The last is internal. This is the closest to shouts in there current form.

Guard: The pet is stealthed and guards a specific location. Guard allows the pet to be active outside of the standard leash range. The stealth is permanent until the first attack and is reaplied once the pet leaves combat. The pets first attack from stealth deals 250% damage.

Protect me: The Pet and the Ranger split the damage each takes by 50%. The pet takes half the dmg the ranger takes. The ranger takes half the dmg the pet takes. The pet continues its combat actions for the duration. Both ranger and pet can a 1 second stack of protection and resistnace per second for the duration. Breaks stun.

Search and Rescue: The pet runs to a nearby ally and attempts to ressurect him. The pet itself takes 50% less direct damage. The pet takes 50% of the damage the downed player takes. Upon a succesful ressurection the pet heals the ally for 2000 additional health above what he would have been rezzed at.

Sic Em: The pet gains fury 10 stacks of might and superspeed and chasing a specific target relentlessly. 20% dmg increase to the pet down from 40%. 5 second reveal applied on cast.

Edit: I forgot to add. During Sic Em the pet would have 70% reduction on all movement impairing effects.

What do yall think. Would you use shouts if they were as above? Would you be happy seeing a shout ranger in your party if the above mechanics occured.

I am sure whatever anet has is probably much different from what I came up with here. This is only my private dream set after all:P But I am curious as to what all of you think are possible.

What do YOU think arena net means when they say they wan’t to push shouts in a unique direction?

Hey all. This post is going to be in two parts so I hope you will bear (heh) with me for it.

Edit: I almost forgot. This is the build I run typically.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnUqA9Ci1CCuCCctgBMhyP8F4x/boBq4eZL8AoknlG-TpBFABqfEAA4CAUVZAHeAAMcIAKa/BA

Some of you may know me from my shout rework threads in the past. Notably my primary one before the release of HoT where I pushed many of you to come with ideas for reworks to the Ranger shout mechanics. Others may know me as “That kittening idiot who refuses to play druid despite being in diamond que” or “That bowtard that is still using shouts for 3 years after we learned they were bad”. >.>…..<.<

In any case thats about what I have as credentials :P not very inspiring huh? But despite that I would like to take a moment to talk about some of the tips and tricks that can be used with ranger shouts. In the spirit of the upcoming reworks. As well as my own speculation for possible upcoming changes.

First the tips. Shouts are based on combos. Not on combo fields. But on combining individual skills to create a MUCH greater result.

The simplest one is opening with Sic Em to boost your pets opening attack. This is VERY effective with a smokescale as it causes there smoke assault ability to hit for quite a bit. But there are also some other combos that some of you might have not tried yet.

Assuming your running a full five shouts you will likely have Heal as One, Guard, Protect Me, Sic Em, and Strength of the Pack. Possibly Search and rescue from a minor trait. But I won’t be talking about THAT skill much.

The highest damage combo for a shout ranger comes from combining Heal as One, Sic Em and Strength of the pack as well as a grandmaster trait in the BM line which grants might and quickness on pet swap. This could be said to be the bread and butter opener,finisher for the shout ranger. If it lands in full whatever your attacking will probably die. And it sets you up to continue high levels of pressure afterwords.

Like all rangers atm. I know that smokescale and bristleback are PROBABLY our best PvP pets for most situations. There are a few exceptions. But not many. Birds are kitten ed good as well depending on what traits you pick.

Lets use the birstleback for this example as its the most extreme case though it works almost as well with the smokescale.

Enter combat and precast rampage as one. Pet swap to bristleback before the cast finishes to buff you and the pet. Immediately cast Heal as one while ALSO simultaneously casting sic em and the bristlebacks f2. Make sure to get the order right or Sic Em will cancel the birstlebacks cast as it counts as an attack order.

What happens next is pretty kitten funny. And it works because of a minor train in nature magic called Fortifying Bond.

Before your first attack even lands. You will have a minimum of 6 stacks of might and 6 seconds of quickness (likely 4-5 after you finish the heal as one cast due to cast time). Your pet will have a minimum of 12 stacks of might and 9 seconds of quickness. You will also have fury swiftness and regen ontop of those giving you a MINIMUM of 5% increase damage for you and the pet from Bountiful Hunter. Your pet will also have an additional 10% dmg increase from Loud whistle provided you are still at high health.

So your pet is already pretty buffed…And you are about to be.

As your pet starts doing its rapid fire attack assuming it lands your gonna start stacking might EXTREMELY fast. At about half way through the channel you will be at around 14 stacks and your pet will have a full 25. Thats a bristleback firing at a target while it has 25 stacks of might as well as fury and additional damage multipliers. Needless to say. This combo can absolutely DESTROY people. The bristleback on its own is deadly. Combined with all the buffs you give it from sic em and the trait damage modifiers and its damage is boosted to almost 50% higher NOT COUNTING all the might it has and its fury and ferocity bonuses.

Combined with rapid fire I have use this combo to absolutely gib everything from a glass dragonhunter who was hiding behind his traps to full bunker mesmers that didn’t even know rangers could nuke them that fast so they were focused on trying to CC me rather than blocking.

Regardless of whether or not hes dead by the end of this both you and the pet are supercharged with boons and can start pounding him with might enhanced damage.

You will do enough damage to pressure even bunker builds enough to worry them.

(But its so telegraphed he can easily see it coming and loldodge or block it) true. Bristleback burst and rapid fire bursts are both highly telegraphed. But theres things you can do to bypass most defenses or avoid them.

This leads into the trick section. Ive got 2 big ones. There called positioning and Guard.

Positioning comes first. Nearly EVERY player will focus on you. Most pvpers have kitten object permanence. Its very easy for them to forget a non player once its no longer on the screen. Meaning directing there attention is easy.

This is especially true for dragonhunters for example. Which have to face you to use there active defense (longbow projectile destruction and there f3) Try strafing PAST a dragonhunter on a point while using this. And you WILL have him turn to face you while your pet is rearing to launch. This causes him to take a large amount of damage from offscreen. Likely either killing him or forcing him to pop multiple cooldowns in order to stay alive. Frankly put. He will probably burn his f3. His heal. And his f2 all within the first 3-4 seconds of the fight. He won’t have much of a choice.

This won’t always work. So you can add an additional layer of trick to it by using Guard.
After the initial pet swap. Before you cast sic em. And while your casting heal as one. (since there instant guard and sic em can be cast simultaneously). This causes your pet to be stealthed. LARGELY improving the chance of the F2 catching the enemy by suprise. As I said before this can be used with ANY pet to similar results as long as the pet is…good. This works great with the smokescale. And I also used to use this combo with the Canines in order to hide there knockdown leaps (9k leap crits on tanky players HYPE).

I am not claiming I came up with these combos or ideas. Though I did discover them on my own. I just wanted to share this for any rangers that fealt like shouts simply didn’t have any Oomph to them.

As far as I can tell its the same exact system. So I would say yes.

Ronorra.1530:

I heard these promises before from Irenio and I simply do not believe that Anet has the will to do the class justice. With their plate so full of issues to fix the ususal suspects will fall of the board to be ignored, like it has been years ago.

Simply put, stick those promises where the sun doesn’t shine because I am very much done with all words and no action.

Hmm well atleast as far as shouts go. He did keep his promise…a bit. Sic em was fixed to longer be canceled upon an order being received. Which was a pretty massive buff to shout rangers. Though I suppose people that don’t use the utilities much probably wouldn’t see how.

Whats got me excited is there actually talking about reworks to make them more UNIQUE. That has me most excited because many of the shouts lack purpose that stands out.

Guard and Protect Me for one and even Search and Rescue. Protect me is an inferior signet of stone with a stunk break that cuts our dps in half for the duration and potentially for far longer.

Guard doesn’t do anything “significant” for shout rangers aside from enabling us to set up stealth bristle back bursts (stealth pet while running up to a dragonhunter kite around the dragonhunter without stepping on point confusing the kitten out of him while bristleback f2 is charging have him facing you when it fires so his defense cone f3 doesn’t block it) Infact non full shout rangers tend to benefit more from it (its a great source of swiftness and regen… two boons a shout ranger will have permanent access to even without guard). Due to its buggy nature. Its effectiveness as a posititioning skill for the pet is very lacking (the pet will flat out ignore the order to move to a specific location if your already fighting something. It will also cancel if you leave the leash range. Meaning you can’t use it to set up ambushes except in very niche locations.)

Search and rescue is an inferior rez skill. The only thing that makes this skill even remotely viable is that its accessible through an adept tier trait. This skill should NEVER be slotted on the actual bar.

Any change to these that actually push shouts towards a cohesive direction can only be an improvement at this point. As it will cause them to have there own specific places instead of constantly being compared to there alternatives…most of which are generally superior.

AgitatedFox.5287:

Shadelang.3012:

As someone that has been using shouts since the beggining of the game. A shout rework is SUPER exciting to me. If I can make it to diamond solo queing as a full 5 shout ranger(non druid). I wonder what ill be able to do when the utilities are better.

Looking forward to what they mean by making them more unique. Maybe having protect me be more than a less effective signet of stone? Or guard actually doing what it says it does? Or search and rescue being worth slotted as more than a trait?.

It looks like its gonna be a pretty fun time.

Your amazing shouts thread actually was taken notice of. I think we can blame you for this one

Hahaha I would like to think I had something to do with it :P but theres no way to tell. And I don’t know if I would say my shout threads were amazing >.< but ty. Was thanks to the other players involved as well as Gaile Gray that it took off as well as it did. We did come up with ALOT of ideas though.

As someone that has been using shouts since the beggining of the game. A shout rework is SUPER exciting to me. If I can make it to diamond solo queing as a full 5 shout ranger(non druid). I wonder what ill be able to do when the utilities are better.

Looking forward to what they mean by making them more unique. Maybe having protect me be more than a less effective signet of stone? Or guard actually doing what it says it does? Or search and rescue being worth slotted as more than a trait?.

It looks like its gonna be a pretty fun time.

I run a 5 shout Spite Soul Reaping Reaper build in PvP atm. Usually using either a Valk or Cav depending on the enemy composition. Works as a team fighter as long as there aren’t too many tempests around. (Diamond skin kittens up power reaper almost as much as it does condi reaper. You don’t really realize just how important chill and vulnerability are until you cant stack them. They are a BIG part of our PvP dmg….especially as a reaper (lot of slow but heavy hitting attacks that benefit massively from vuln)

Edit: also kitten shocking aura.

But against non tempests. Especially when +1ning a fight. You can absolutely destroy someone or cause them to be destroyed in a few seconds.

I ended up taking speed of shadows since i wasn’t running warhorn. The ability to get in and out of Reaper shroud really fast combined with lower reaper shroud skill cooldowns ended up turning it into a really fun playstyle around building life force and shredding people. It SEEMS to work well against its condi reaper counterpart. Though its so telegraphed evade spamming builds can be annoying (Staff thieves…you HAVE to land chill on them)

Dude….Isn’t this old news? Its been discussed before. So all your trying to do is stir kitten up for the luls. Lay off man. I doubt ANYONE involved wants more of this kitten on the forums. Its a QQ fest as it is. Lets atleast keep it about legitimate reasons as opposed to Drama.

Seyiwaji.4082:

Please only for pvp decrease the pet range AI enemy follow to 1500.

A ranger quitting and his pet still harassing, even if the master is over 1500 range…. com’on wtf.

First

The pet range is currently 2000. Infact it is so short that it BREAKS the functionality of skills like guard. Which are designed to do EXACTLY what your describing.

Guard was meant to leave a pet in a specific area to engage targets while the ranger is away.

But since cruise missile pet builds were a thing pet range was reduced to 2k. This caused Guard to stop working and it has been bugged ever since (It will keep the pet there up to I believe 3k-4k range. But outside of 2k hte pet will stand there and do nothing even if an enemy is right next to it stabbing it in the face. Its one of my most requested bug fixes that I have given up on ever happening.)

Second. What your describing is EXACTLY what the ranger was designed to be able to do. Have two streams of effects that can be traded out as necessary or altered to suit a situation.

Third. Your suggestion would kitten up the ranger MUCH harder than I think you know.

When a pet reaches its max range its AI cancels its movement entirely. More often than not it will pause for a second. Even not attacking for a moment if an enemy comes back into range. This is something I notice alot as a shout ranger (again. Guard is an example of this behavior where the pet loses the ability to act entirely at a certain range)

This would mean that another ranged class could bounce in and out of the 1500 range and cause the pets AI to repeatedly bug out. Especially if your trying to hit something with say the longbow.

It sounds to me that you got outplayed. The ranger new he could go behind cover to recover or disengage and use his pet to pressure you in order to buy time. Like when rangers use a wolf howl to cover for his heal skill.

To put it simply. You could have taken 5 steps back and the pet would have stopped. You didn’t and then you got annoyed. And then you came here to the ranger forum to complain. I don’t think your gonna get much sympathy.

Hmm I think the reason its damage is low is because of the sheer amount of life force you can get from it. When im fighting a mesmer or a reaper that just used rise it is a MASSIVE amount of life force gain if I hit 2-3 targets. Its pretty good in a team fight as well for prepping down cleave. (Add vuln stacks to 3 people trying to rez then enter rs and start the spin-o-death).

Either way. That is im pretty sure the reason for its low damage. But whether thats enough or not I really don’t know.

We already have a really good nuke skill. Im pretty sure the GS would have to lose damage or utility somewhere in order to justify a damage buff on this.

Lets face it. As a preparatory skill. It IS pretty bad kitten . Its just not an INCREDIBLE skill on its own. It’s meant to pave the way for another attack.

Edit: If anything id increase the cone it affects. To make it easier to pierce more than one opponent. That would make it a reliable psuedo heal skill (life force instead of health) in team fights.

No. Ventari as a spec is very heavily focused on support. But its too clunky to be something you can transition from self focused fighting to team focused fighting.

It also requires VERY heavy stat/trait investment to be useful as a legend. Unlike shiro which can be used even without the devestation line.

Also for a heal spec it lacks alot of self healing. Many of it mechanics are difficult to utilize mid combat for not enough reward (the pickup mechanics from its grandmaster trait as well as the staff auto for 1)

It’s 6 skill needs to happen alot faster for smooth use. Or its mechanics need to be changed from on movement to pulse.

The spec also lacks stun breaks. Meaning that in order to break out of CC youl need to actually abandon the legend entirely for your alternate. Meaning enemies can EASILY force you to stop healing your team unlike with druids or tempests.

Some suggestions in the Revenant forum went along the lines of making the ability to move and detonate the tablet useable while stunned. Giving you a non stun break related method of fighting back against CC locks (move tablet to you and detonate it to CC everyone around you as well as create drops for you to pickup to heal back up before swapping to a combat legend)

As said above its self healing is also fairly low. Infact you will heal other people more than yourself. Making it a very selfless legend. The issue with that however is just like with the CC’s It is INCREDIBLY easy to force a ventari revenant out of ventari.

Those two combined with the above mentioned stat/trait investment means that your heavily devoted to healing while not having the tools to maintain your healing output AND while not being able to have significant DPS in order to counter pressure.

If there are 4 other players near you the pet will not be healed. It treats the pet the same way it would a minion meaning that unlike every other heal skill the effects do NOT copy onto the pet and the pet has second to last priority for receiving the healing. Its probably why I will never use this skill haha.

1. Auramancer. Has more projectile hate then any 4 other builds combined. Combine that with diamond skin and it has the potential to shut down two entire playstyles. A condi build in a 1v1 and AOE shutdown of any ranged damage class (aura share to five people= congratulations you either don’t do damage or you try to melee something that heavily outclasses you at close range…yay)

2. Druid. Counters pretty much EVERY non HoT based spec. Too much CC and Sustain for the kind of counter pressure it can put out. (A super Decap Engi)

3. Actually nothing else. Those are the only two I feel are truly out of proportion.

Corrupts nail scrappers extremely hard.

Dragonhunters can actually be killed by Non HoT builds. (Power Ranger ironically is extremely effective against them as long as your watching for the tells).

Daredevils can put out a kittenLOAD of damage but constant aoe pressure will kill them or force them to back off. Also ONE well timed CC if your a burst build can nab you the kill.

Chronomancers are killable by any build with decent sustained DPS now as long as you dodge the CCs. There actual rate of self healing is low. So doing just a couple thousand damage between blocks and evades is enough to chip them down. They HAVE to land there CC’s to survive.

Berserkers aren’t represented enough to know for sure how the old builds do against them. Which tells me they definitely need to NOT be nerfed atleast in the survivability area. Judging from there heavily bloated presence in endgame PvE content. (the damage of a sinister engi with 1/5th the complexity) I would guess that there survivability is going to be buffed. But there damage may take a hit. Id be willing to bet theyl get lower cooldowns or reworks on some key utility skills and traits to get them some of that damage back while being tankier.

Edit: Forgot to mention reaper because as it is its almost the most evenly balanced. I will say that the corrupt on signet of vamp being undodgeable/unblockable/going through walls is STILL bullkitten. But atleast it doesn’t have infinite range anymore.
However I do wish that some of its heavier cooldowns had tells. Plague signet is WAY too powerful not to have a telegraph. Slather it with stability if you want to to make sure it can’t be stopped. But give someone the ability to dodge it haha.

On its own it may not seem like much. But with those corrupts added on to the transfer. It is WAY too strong a skill for 0 cast time and such a TINY cooldown.

Edit 2: I will say that scrapper boon DURATIONS are insane. It’s so high you CAN’T wait them out. I can’t avoid using a rapid strike attack just becuase he has 1 and a half minutes of retaliation. Though I feel if more classes had tools to deal with boon spam they wouldn’t be NEARLY overpowering (wtb more %dmg per boon on enemy mechanics)

Ezeriel.9574:

^going defensive in HoT is the biggest way to fail. If you don’t kill the mob fast, you won’t be able to dodge all their attacks, and then you will die.

Having toughness will also attract more mobs to you, making you die that much faster, and that much more often.

Berserker, Marauder, Viper, or Sinister… pick one, and hide behind the noobs.

Hmm I disagree. JUST putting on defensive gear yet still playing like your zerk? Maybe.

But A bit of defense and a bit of control goes along way.

My cav reaper can handle entire packs of mordrem. And is even able to face tank the DS bosses without a dedicated healer as long as I nail my life force gains correctly.

Theres alot of things that can work. Even just upping your HP pool a little (marauders gear) goes ALONG way towards improving your survivability.

Toughness is really for builds that are DESIGNED to be front line in the enemies face builds. So there expecting to get hit and have cooldowns/traits to account for that.

But vitality works to help dpsers stay alive just fine. And with the new sets its not even hard to put into your build without sacrificing MASSIVE amounts of damage. Its up to the indivudual’s preference obviously. But it works all the same.

Whats happening to alot of people thats killing them is they go full zerk and play like a frontliner. So they die. It seems people still have a hard time getting out of the corner stack mentality.

Edit (in order to avoid another post): To the OP. There ARE builds to counter what the mordrem are throwing at you. Other people have found them. Maybe try looking at exactly what you wan’t to do with your build. And taking traits/utilities that enable you to do that. Wan’t to stand in the back shooting things as a full glass? Id bring some mobility utilities.

Wan’t to be a glassy frontliner? Id take some oh kitten cooldowns things you can pop that break you out of hard cc or move you out of the way of heavy attacks.

Other than that its an issue of positioning. Know what your fighting where the enemies are and what there doing and youl know where you need to stand to avoid getting hit by immobs and the like. If your running by a husk. WATCH for that animation. Its pretty obvious and it travels pretty slowly. Move in a different direction further away from him when the line starts and you won’t even have to dodge.

I REALLY like how the offhand axe works. The “rift” style attack is super cool to me. I would love to see a mainhand weapon that works in a similar attack. Like making lines that pulse for heavy damage a moment later. The kind of weapon thats highly telegraphed. But has heavy impact on the fight. A weapon that can force dodges for MORE reason than just its super high auto attack dps (looking at you sword 1 spam)

Something like the axe master in DS’ Attack where it drives a blade into the ground which creates damaging dark red lines on the ground that slowly spread out and impact more and more area. Just the concept of that combined with the whole rifts into the mist is super cool to me.

I think its more what your building for. In the VERY RARE occasions I run druid. I typically don’t run glyphs as my build has no issue with AF generation. In which case ill either take the aoe stealth or the reduced condi duration based on what im fighting.

Necros? Taking natural stride.

Revenants? Taking the aoe stealth to break UA.

My biggest gripe with auramancers is that aura’s have no counterplay other than “don’t attack”.

I feel like if the auras themselves had a maximum number of times they could trigger before disspearing. (Like 5 total times) then they DISSAPEAR. It would be okay.

Or if there was some method towards attacking through there effects.

As it is. You can’t even stop attacking the tempest for a time and hit something else. Because that something else is going to have all the same auras the tempest does. Meaning its very likely your going to get stunned every other second and chilled constantly in a team fight unless you have have very high stability uptime.

Is it a coincidence that revenants and scrappers are meta builds? Franky there the only builds that can really apply constant pressure in a team fight where a tempest is present. All the others have to burn long cooldown stability sources just to be able to apply a few seconds of pressure. And if there ranged dpsers than frankly there SOL.

Tempests have an absolutely REDICULOUS amount of projecitle hate.

Setting time.

I am currently in diamond attempting to reach legendary.

I mostly play two classes. Ranger and Necromancer.

I have little to no experience with any other class when it comes to PvP. I make those classes long enough to learn there combos and how there traits work. Not long enough to be even slightly competent with them.

What this mandatory achievement means. Is what when I go for it. I am throwing pips down the drain attempting to get wins on a class that I have 0 competency with. Meaning I am basically queing again and again hoping to get carried.

I don’t enjoy playing the other classes. So its not even fun for me during the match.

And that isn’t even the worst part.

I am hurting other players doing this. I am actually harming my team mates for queing on a class and build that I don’t know well enough.

At the very least it isn’t fair to them.

I have no desire to spend months in unranked playing a class and build I hate. But at the same time if I que in ranked on these builds before I learn them I hurt those that I am teamed with.

I will say this. I won’t be playing this other class any more than I absolutely have to for the achievment. I will be deleting it the second I can. kitten far it has had not even a single good memory attached to it.

What I ask is that this achievment be changed. Or even removed from being required. As it is. Ill continue queing. And continue screwing over other people in the vain hope that I get 5 wins with this so I can forget about it until I have to do this again in tier 3. Only for SEVEN wins then.

(Edited in order to make it less obnoxious to read)

chibbi.3706:

Gonna talk a bit about reaper since its the only class I play besides warrior (but they sucks so no one cares)

I think reaper is in a fairly good place.

First, contrary to the popular belief, reaper doesn’t have more chill than base necro. It makes chill stronger, and it makes it last 20% longer,but it actually have less chill application (it trades a long chill on a low cd skill for 2 chills on long cd easily avoidable skills)

Secondly, its not just a straight up better version of base necro. It might be stronger (and quite frankly I’m not even sure about that) but it’s mostly different. Death shroud has more straight power while reaper has stability and mobility. You have to give up a good trait line to take reaper, and reaper’s trait are not especially better than other trait lines.

Reaper might need a few number tweaks,but overall its a well designed spec.

The other specs though, have fundamental design issues because they just give you new mechanics instead of trading for something. As for balance, I think DH and druid are ok, daredevil is a bit UP, berserker is pure crap, tempest i cant really say since my biggest issue with them is the stupid diamond skin which is more of à design issue than à balance one, revenant looks extremely broken, sustain is insane for a spec, same for scrapper, and mesmer is just conpletely fun sucking with all those invul, block, dodge…

I think one of the reasons people say reaper has more chill is…because it does. The whole “fear applies chill” thing actually adds 3 new chill sources to a reaper.

Nightmare runes. Which nearly EVERY reaper in PvP is taking.

Reaper shroud aoe fear.

And Staff 5 which is more often than not unblockable.

Thats a large amount of extra fear.

Also any fear from boon corrupts as well

If you add all that in. And add the damage on chill. And also take into account all the free damage you can land because they simply WON’T have enough condi removal to get rid of it all. And you can start to see why people are bothered by chill.

Theres a reason the only builds that can handle condi reapers on point are either those that are immune (DS Tempests) or builds that specialize in simply not taking the damage at all. Evasion/invuln/block spammers.

Removed my post because it was obnoxiously written.

Id get a rebalance of our trait lines to make the synergies properly with eachother. No more incredibly niche (this works with this and NOTHING else) situations.

Then I would get a rebalance of less used weapons.

Finally (and this is the biggest one for me) I would have the spotter and frost spirit damage buffs taken OFF of there current places and attached to our class mechanic. To expand upon that I would make it so that each pet FAMILY gave a unique buff to the party.

Birds would give spotter for example. But there would also be things like + power pet buffs. + Ferocity pet buffs. x % chance to proc x pet buffs.

The goal would be to give underused pets a purpose. As well as to free up our build diversity. Atm you build to maximize the number of + dmg modifiers you can bring not for yourself but for the party. Meaning in the end your builds are often designed around being a buff bot primarily. And an actual player second. This wouldn’t be too much of an issue for me. Except our more self centered builds simply can’t preform well enough in comparison to make it an honest question of (do I take the damage modifiers for the grp? Or do I buff myself and ensure my performance makes up for that)

Id like that question to not be necessary anymore. Though I doubt it ever will happen.

I feel like the “special” traitlines of each class should be buffed to elite spec level and made mutually exclusive with the new ones. Like beast mastery on rangers. Arcana on ele. Virtues on guardians etc.. But make it so that each is as valuable as an elite spec individually.

But I don’t know if this would help build diversity (BM ranger vs Druid ranger) or just crush it (No bm druid rangers.)

EDIT: The reason I say this is because I know for several of the elite specs. There is a VERY real threat of the old specs/skills being nerfed because of there synergies with the new specs. I.E. Unblockable Marks be nerfed on necros due to there synergy with reaper chill traits (staff becomes an EXTREMELY good aoe condi dmg weapon in the hands of a reaper. MUCH more so than in the hands of a non reaper)

Or ranger pets being nerfed (I.E. bristleback and Smokescale) due to there synergy with druid (Druids can go super tanky and STILL have higher than bunker level burst damage ontop of all there control skills making them very difficult to deal with in 1v1s. Even though base ranger doesnt have that number of tools)

What im most afraid of in the January patch is the base core specs/skills being nerfed due to how they interact with elite specs. Meaning that it really will become a case of pay to win. If the classes as a whole become balanced entirely around the elite specs. We have issues for anyone that prefers the old build. Or simply doesn’t have heart of thorns because 90% of the expansion doesn’t interest them but loves the PvP in this game and still want’s to be competitive.

Part of what I did that seemed to help with the stress of seemingly bad games was start doing exercise when I made one of a small list of mistakes.

Give up a terrain advantage? thats a set of ten. Look at the scoreboard mid game? Another set of 10. Lose a fight I should have won? Another set of 10.

It had two effects.

First. Its incredible stress relief. I stopped getting angry. And when I do get angry it usually disappears pretty quickly.

Second. I started noticing my own mistakes during the match as being more “Real” and its helped my game play ALOT.

If your matches are going badly. Id recommend doing the same or something similar even if its just putting down a tally mark on a piece of paper whenever you do X thing.

Sure it might be your team in a way. But its also likely something you yourself are doing wrong. Even if it seems a small thing. If you do it 3-4 times a game you could be throwing the match without ever realising it.

You won’t be meta. But it is possible to be effective using only the base classes. Just understand your opponents will likely have an easier time beating you than you will beating them. So be ready to outplay them. And don’t expect super quick easy victories. Play to the strengths of your build and try to build aimed at gaps in the metas defenses. They are not* 100% foolproof.

One of the most hyped parts of the expansion were the elite specs. However as far as the story and in game events goes. The elite specs aren’t mentioned at all.

There is no talk among guardians about the zealot like dragonhunters with there almost suicidal urge to hunt there foes.

There is no talk among rangers of those among there kind with a strange affinity for celestial power.

Theres no talk among necromancers about the cold ferocity of the reapers.

Its like the elite specs don’t exist to the npcs. Or to the story.

I feel like there should have been some mention the further you go into the jungle among the NPCs. Strange rumors the soldiers talk about, about new powers and methods of fighting. There should have been key officers gaining these new abilities or discovering the paths TOO them as the events progressed.

A ranger who sees his companion dieing learns to heal in his desperation.

A necromancer who sees a hated foe escaping after killing her squad rips them or freezes them in ice before executing them.

Just small things that make them feel more real. And add them to be a part of the story.

It largely felt like elite specs were in there own little universe. Where no one even noticed people were doing things that hadn’t been done before.

It was kind of disappointing maxing out my reaper only to look around and realize my accomplishment had no real connection to the world outside of immediate combat.

There was no “Wait…what the hell is this..” feeling in the world as I started using powers that for all that I have seen as far as the story goes simply didn’t exist.

I hope the future elite specs will have a bit more impact as far as the story and lore goes. Instead of just being this “well I guess I’m a daredevil now”.

LordOtto.2650:

The answer to the question is no, you can’t pas ruby with solo queue, I’ve tried, got to 8 pips, after that I had to team up, I made it to 15 pips, after that I lost I won, now I’m at 12 pips again…. There are out hungry guilds who will eat you up while soloing… and there is a meta team already… I don’t want to say it, because everybody will run that, it is so effective… and yes, this is sad, solo queue should be for solo people only! This is messed up!

It is DEFINETLY possible. Ive done it. It just takes you taking charge of the flow of the match.

Azhure.1857:

Shadelang.3012:

Alot of people don’t know just how many tricks you can pull off with shouts :P went to my advantage.

It’s true enough. I’m also using a non-meta ranger build, though different from yours, with great success. The sadistic side of me gets deep satisfaction from destroying players that are using meta builds and seem to have forgotten how to play against non-metas.

Hahaha aint that the truth. That moment when you 100-0 a dragonhunter or a druid in around 2 seconds. is just amazing. As he probably has no idea what actually went into making it happen. So he can’t stop it.

domino.6910:

Shadelang.3012:

Yes. I was able to get out of ruby and into diamond on what is largely considered one of the worst ranger builds possible. The last few pips are the biggest PITA though.

Trick ive noticed is playing in a way that causes you to have as much of an impact as possible. I swapped to a much glassier setup and started winning matches much more often (when from bottom of ruby to diamond in one 6-8 hour stretch…my head hurt like hell afterwords) because the impact I had on individual fights was much higher. This let my skill level have more of an impact on the course of the fight instead of waiting for key moments to try to nail something.

So if your build has a strength or a specific role. Altering it or moving your focus into a direction that is much more direct may help. (like a chronomancer focusing super heavily on the control aspect of the spec instead of just the bunker nature.)

Which ranger build did you play?

Full shout zerk ranger. Zerk amulet Trooper runes. MM NM BM. longbow GS. Alot of people don’t know just how many tricks you can pull off with shouts :P went to my advantage.

After getting diamond im pretty proud of mine. Im not sure id be as happy if it just dissapeared. No matter where I am.

Yes. I was able to get out of ruby and into diamond on what is largely considered one of the worst ranger builds possible. The last few pips are the biggest PITA though.

Trick ive noticed is playing in a way that causes you to have as much of an impact as possible. I swapped to a much glassier setup and started winning matches much more often (when from bottom of ruby to diamond in one 6-8 hour stretch…my head hurt like hell afterwords) because the impact I had on individual fights was much higher. This let my skill level have more of an impact on the course of the fight instead of waiting for key moments to try to nail something.

So if your build has a strength or a specific role. Altering it or moving your focus into a direction that is much more direct may help. (like a chronomancer focusing super heavily on the control aspect of the spec instead of just the bunker nature.)

Just an update on my previous reply. Finally managed to make it to diamond using only shout utilities and without the druid elite spec. The last 3 pips took me several outs of getting to 1 pip away and then back down to 3 away >.<. I got a lucky stronghold match that pushed me over for it though (cheers)

I ended up swapping to a full zerk amulet with trooper runes though. It improved my damage massively from the marauders amulet and I still had over 17k health so I wasn’t really gank bait. The extra damage goes ALONG way towards gibbing people. And I had several really good combos where I managed take out druids and dragonhunters in one burst.

Hey all. I have recently started playing a power reaper in PvP. I have had a necro for an extremely long time. But my preffered playstyle has never been meta so its been difficult to get into it. However with reaper a shroud focused playstyle seems more possible. Except for one issue.

It feels like alot of the damage comes from multipliers that activate at x percent health (things like our might generation as well as our heavier multipliers) yet GETTING people to that health seems to involve alot of vuln stacking to boost our early damage (again Im speaking from a power build perspective)

In nearly any class except for elementalist and daredevil I am able to maintain steady vuln stacks. Usually between 12-20. This is often enough to pressure en enemy to the health threshold needed to activate the dmg multipliers. However when an elementalist is involved that all goes out the window. There diamond skin makes it nearly impossible for me to kill them even in a power build. Simply because I can’t hold them down with chill or stack vuln in order to get the damage needed to eat there health through the repeated shocking auras and heals.

The fact that there heals and auras are aoe makes it even worse. As while I can hurt there allies. Its often no where near enough to go through there sustain. Even in a valk or zerk amulet which leaves me EXTREMELY vulnerable to counter pressure.

It feels like any team fight where an elementalist is involved is one im better off simply not participating in. Does anyone have any advice on the matter?

I have heard condition reapers have almost the exact same issue. (getting an ele below the diamond skin limit) so even advice from my condi counterparts would be appreciated.

Chaba.5410:

Are you using the “Allow Target Change” option and changing targets when you are stomping? That will cause stomp failures.

If that’s true that’s a pretty massive issue for me. As a ranger using my pet to dissuade ressers is a big part of my ability to secure a stomp (hard to rez when a bristleback is unloading its f2 into you). And that option is pretty near mandatory for me at this point.

Ill test it in game to see if this caused the problem. If it did. That’s not a good sign for my future matches haha.

Andraus.3874:

It’s not a Mesmer right? Lol. Idk I feel like if this was as common as you make it out to be a lot more people would be reporting it. But that is my take on it.

Also yeah that makes sense if their team can Rez then it probably isn’t lag. However there’s no way to be 90% sure it isn’t lag unless you see them rezzing. Which is why I commented that it probably was lag since you didn’t mention in the OP that these downed were being rezzed.

That’s why I made this post to see if anyone else was having this issue before I made it. And no its not a Mesmer haha. Its happened with every professions so far I multiple situations. If someone else has had these issues before I could narrow down the cause by finding out there stomp methods and seeing if there are similarities between the two. As it is it looks like I have a lot of testing I need to do.

Andraus.3874:

Actually this issue is very common if your enemy is lagging. It rarely has anything to do with ileap and more with lag. That enemy’s team mates also won’t be able to Rez them if it is lag.

Again. I am 90% sure that isn’t the issue. As enemy team mates have ZERO trouble rezzing them. What usually happens is I stomp them. Nothing happens. They get rezzed. I get slaughtered in the now 1v2. Or I go down because there team was downcleaving me and I was banking on that kill to lower the pressure.

Has anyone else noticed any issues with stomping? Especially in relation to quickness? But also when no quickness is involved?

What I’m talking about Is where you do a complete stomp. Aren’t interrupted by ANYTHING. And nothing happens.

That’s has happened increasingly often to me over the last couple weeks. And in the game previous to me making this post. EVERY stomp attempt I have made has failed.

There isn’t anything I am doing differently to before. Previously all the various stomp methods I use have worked 100% of the time. Now there failing the vast majority of the time.

Before you respond.

Yes I know that quickness can cause the animation to go off sync. This isn’t the issue. I am 100% certain of that. This is an actual case of the stomp going off COMPLETELY (I mean full non quickness stomp animation timing) and failing even though the target hasn’t been moved. Nor has he done anything that could POSSIBLY interfere.

Yes I know that there are issues where occasionally a players real downed body will be in a different location from where it is animated. I am 90% sure that isn’kitten Because that typically occurs fairly rarely and in some unique circumstances. (dying just at the start of a leap or a teleport for example. Or in the middle of a pull).

I’m at the point where I am literally not even attempting to stomp anymore. Just cleaving and hoping that I can outcleave the guys rezzing him.

Has anyone else had this issue?

I would like to point out. That the vast majority of the builds you posted in the OP. Aren’t viable either due to revenants, tempests, or ironicallly enough druids. As such atleast as far as PvP goes they can’t really be counted in build diversity.

Edit: What I mean is. You can post as many possible builds and attach names to them as you wan’t. But if there so massively inferior they aren’t taken in ANY competitive environment. Then they can’t truly be considered potential builds for actual use. As many of them have critical failings that the majority of meta builds easily access.

As far as PvE goes. I think herald is kind of limiting the class. It is just too kitten amazing. Combine that with the support legend being…sub par compared to tempest and druid and the fact that revenants primary condi relies on movement. And you have an issue. Almost all power revs have there build decided for them. Nearly all condi revs lack a place. And support revs don’t really exist except in niche situations and compositions. (they work just fine. But not as well as others and they give up too much)

azyume.6321:

Wait what? How tempested forced DH out of the meta? It didn’t, it wasn’t tempest but demoniac revenant. Which forced, as well, reaper and tempest out (I’d argue the pro league was stubborn to bring tempest, only to die repeatedly, when scrapper fits way better in the meta).

Rely 100% on the longbow is very silly, can’t say the projectile reflect from earth attunement, which can happen every 24 seconds is the reason. The reason is the lack of sustain of the DH and guardians in general against a profession with high damage and condition at the same time.

Err. I think your purposely leaving out the OTHER forms of projectile hate tempests have. Which I am sure you know about. There’s multiple sources of magnetic aura. One of the earth dagger skills. Swirling winds. When you look at it they actually have ALMOST complete coverage of projectile hate for the first 20ish seconds of a fight. Which is the duration most burst builds can stay relevant to a fight.

I feel like your trying to understate the issue here. But you really CAN’T deny they are a walking projectile hate fountain. Which is a hardcounter to certain builds and even entire weapons.

Was a big part of the DH getting pushed out malyx? Sure I can see that. But malyx revenants push ALOT of builds out of the meta. But even then their not the “whole issue”

And a malyx revenant doesnt prevent a dragonhunter or a ranger from hitting OTHER members of there party whenever they hit sword 3.

The biggest issue with tempest isn’t just their own personnel immunity to projectiles. Its that they do it for their entire team. Meaning they can take entire builds out of a PvP match just by BEING there. A malyx revenant doesn’t do that by a long shot.

Tempest pretty much kills any ranged projectile build that relies on projectiles to deal there heavier burst. So Power Rangers and DHers pretty much have to rely on really out of the way tactics to kill them. And it generally takes over a minute of baiting cooldowns waiting for the right sequence of stuff to go on cooldown before lining up a combination of skills to all go off at the exact same time so they cant just overload earth or water and lol at you.

When I fight tempests now Im mostly trying to decap them as apposed to killing them. Because it simply isn’t ognna happen unless the tempest makes a mistake. It also pretty much makes stronghold unplayable for me. Becuase one tempest can pretty much keep doorbreakers immune to ANYTHING in my skill set.

Hmm if hte pulse actually STOPS after hitting 5 targets. Theres alot of things that can fill that target cap. Random ranger pets. Frontliners. etc.

I feel like this might actually affect things more than youd think. If the frontline actually does STOP the ruin from happening in its first pulse or two. THen theres nothing left to hit the backline. Meaning frontline can actually weaken the revenants damage. Massively so. Simply be being there to take weaker hits.

One of the reasons it was so strong was that it completely bypassed the tanky frontline whos jobs were to take damage for the backline. So the backline got hit by it anyway. Now revenants will have to swing widely around the frontline to hit the back of zergs. Making them fairly easy targets for things like rangers,mesmers,dd eles, thieves (One staff DD can kitten a revenant up pretty fast or atleast force him to swap to shield.)

Hopefully in the same update thay make the wyvern attack speed not as slow as a GS necros with slow u.u I really wanted them to become my primary pets (I’m a dragon fanatic) but its difficult to use them as they are (They miss anything moving. Even worse than an arctodus trying to land its f2).

On the note of NEW pets. Shadowscales. Windriders with boon manipulation. And basalisk with a multi pulse stun f2 would be amazing (everything has more than 2 stacks of stab now so its hard to land CCs that matter).

I would also like Raptors, Pocket Raptors (pocket raptor alpha with hte ability to summon 2 more pocket raptors?), the two types of saurians we still don’t have, Nightmare Hounds with an f2 poison/torment howl (like the opposite of a fern hound), Bats, a Tankier bird pet (something like a valk stat bird), A bear with high power high vit and low toughness (its a bear. Have you ever seen something get hit by a bear and NOT be injured before? What the hell is with bears in video games…why are they all things that can be flat out ignored), A Colocal (these things are freaking COOL), and a Siege Devourer.

Yo. Shout Ranger (power) here. Its been rough especially since im trying to reach diamond only solo queing without relying on druid to carry me >.<.

Feels like alot of the elite specs have soft counters coming out there kitten. But its doable. Just takes alot of patience and your going to definetly have to outskill your opponents.

I will say one thing. Next time someone says I run a no skill build after the adaptations to my playstyle I have had to make so far I am just going to laugh haha.

Its been pretty satisfying so far. Even if it is rage inducing. But my main goal is soloqueing as a shout ranger all the way to diamond.

I will say that the unqiue support is actually one of my least favorite parts of the class. Don’t get me wrong its GREAT for getting us into raids. But more often than not its the REASON were brought to the raid. As typically the only build we play is one that provides those unique support mechanics.

Again. Don’t misunderstand me its great for the class. It just sucks for people whos normal build is in a different direction >.<.. Since it often feels like the ranger itself is balanced on the assumption that those mechanics are taken.

Edit: Fixed some awful sentence structure.

Khristophoros.7194:

Shadelang.3012:

I do kind of feel that agro could be held in other ways. A debuff of whoever engages the target first for example.

The toughness based agro mechanic makes it hard for me to take ANY gear other than full glass. And lets face it. If your trying to complete content in a raid without a druid putting on a little toughness ain’t exactly horrible as long as you kill it before the enrage timer.

On that note however. It does give a purpose to toughness builds in a way. But in the end. They made it so that most of the mobs are so easy to tank through active defensive that the toughness can be completely irrelevant if your good at rolling cooldowns. It doesn’t even take skill to do it but mechanical knowledge and muscle memory since none of the bosses have anything that punishes the tank any more than its other attacks.

In other games bosses would often put some kind of debuff on a tank. Something that caused him to take more base damage for awhile, would cause his cooldowns to take longer to come back (chill would work >.> Would atleast require them to pay attention to there cleanses and cooldowns.), or have a quick cast unblockable attack it would occasionally use that bypassed shields but wasn’t a 1 shot. But it occurred quickly enough that if the tank got low it would finish him. And occured often enough that it was something the tank had to be constantly aware of.

Well I don’t think there’s a lack of skill required for the role. The tank’s job is to position the boss, and how the boss is positioned makes a huge difference for everyone in the raid.

Oh don’t get me wrong I am not saying its skill less by any means. Just that the amount of skill required isn’t particularly more than needed to be a good druid. Or needed to be a good sinister engineer. Its a different skill set. But in some ways its simpler. As you can devote your focus more often than not to a clear series of tasks that follow a predictable pattern. Vale guardian for example shows that there is indeed some skill invovlved. As timing for moving him is very important. Especially after the second split phase. Otherwise youl end up with green circles in places your dps REALLY don’t want to stand in.

Edit: TBH Tanking is something I probably would go insane doing haha my skill set is in other aspects of game play. Id have to learn something form a different perspective entirely if I wanted to be a good tank :P its why I am really glad that tank for my guild is someone else. And also why I am glad that aside from gorsevals buggy movements sometimes hes good enough at what he does that I can do my job freely.

(also I was tired when I rote my OP I didn’t quite mean it the way it came out. I wish I had been more awake when I reread it as I probably would have changed the wording ALOT)

Note that this is from the perspective as someone that mains ranger. As someone who has 0 unblockeable attacks in his skill set thanks to “reasons” in PvP atleast seeing that signet on a warriors bar has actually made me happy. Because I know hes probably the only person on the entire team that might be able to kill that god kitten ed bunker chrono in less than 2 minutes of kiting/trolling/blocking/evading/invulning/ccing.

I wish the other builds weren’t pushing beserkers so hard. Because atleast against chronos a few key warrior players I have met have been a godsend. I just wish more warriors went in with the goal of kittening up a chrono.

I do kind of feel that agro could be held in other ways. A debuff of whoever engages the target first for example.

The toughness based agro mechanic makes it hard for me to take ANY gear other than full glass. And lets face it. If your trying to complete content in a raid without a druid putting on a little toughness ain’t exactly horrible as long as you kill it before the enrage timer.

On that note however. It does give a purpose to toughness builds in a way. But in the end. They made it so that most of the mobs are so easy to tank through active defensive that the toughness can be completely irrelevant if your good at rolling cooldowns. It doesn’t even take skill to do it but mechanical knowledge and muscle memory since none of the bosses have anything that punishes the tank any more than its other attacks.

In other games bosses would often put some kind of debuff on a tank. Something that caused him to take more base damage for awhile, would cause his cooldowns to take longer to come back (chill would work >.> Would atleast require them to pay attention to there cleanses and cooldowns.), or have a quick cast unblockable attack it would occasionally use that bypassed shields but wasn’t a 1 shot. But it occurred quickly enough that if the tank got low it would finish him. And occured often enough that it was something the tank had to be constantly aware of.

It is because they have already stated there plans. There isn’t anything else to say until there scheduled balance date. They don’t want to do knee jerk reaction nerfs. Considering almost all of the ones they have done up to this point have left the builds they effected entirely unusable atleast for a time. And often had effects that extended into the other game modes.

What there planning probably isn’t just a few number tweeks. But reworks on how some of the new skills actually work unless I miss my guess. That takes time to get right.

A couple weeks isn’t long enough when there are as many variables involved as the GW2 build and combat system have.

They probably want to tune builds without breaking them. Or at least thats what I would hope at this point in the game.

I doubt its because there embarrassed. They don’t really have anything to be embarrassed about.

Also the professions I doubt are unfixable. Its just gonna take more than a couple weeks to do it without cutting them in half.

Does it suck right now for anyone caught in there way? Sure. But the same could be said for every other time a meta has pushed certain builds out of the meta. Its just a different group of people getting screwed over is all. The meta will change again. And itl be a different set of people being shafted then who will come to the forums to make posts like this. In the end nothing will ever really change. Same is true for every game.