Guild Wars 2

Fire and air toning down would be great as a simultaneous change to toning down other non-zerk meta builds. If they trigger optimally it’s about an extra 500 dps on low armor targets and an extra 2k damage added to a burst.

The fire and air combo is much less passive than IP in that it requires you to actively be attacking to constantly trigger. IP’s behavior allows you to hit and run while running for 2x longer, because of the difference in recharges. IP is also naturally stronger than fire air for another reason, engineer builds are all ranged. This is less punishable whereas fire/Air is more punishable on zerker builds that are melee, as being in the fray is the natural weakness to glass cannons.

Passives like fire/Air and IP are too rewarding for their risk on ranged professions. For melee I find these passive rewards are at least more justified since you are actively choosing to increase your risk by being in melee range.

Manuhell.2759:

I just don’t see it (being cancellable) as an intrinsic advantage of Magnet. I mean…all the skills i mentioned above are cancellable as well, at least in their first “stage”. As i were comparing them, if they’re equal in that aspect, there is just no need to mention it.

Magnet cancel is definitely better than cancelling any other those other skills at any point in time. I can appreciate the effort in defending the skill though.
;)

Agreed by cancelling you force a dodge. I would also say he is undervaluing unblockable.

If you want to compare Tool kit’s cool-downs individually they are very low for the 4 and 5 skills when comparing them to abilities of similar effects.

If you look at engi meta builds as a whole between their weapon skills and 2 kits the longest recharges are if you run Shield, which are 30 and 40 second recharges. If you don’t run Shield though the longest recharging skills are 25 seconds and that’s the 5 skill on both kits.

So engi has 3 weapons effectively with no weapon swap downtime and all skills having under 25 second recharges each with more than useful effects. This is the biggest advantage engineer has over every other profession, and a big reason why it’s stronger than a lot of professions in a lot of situations, since you can always use whatever tool you want as long as it hasn’t already been used and even if it has been used you have backup tools of similar effects and effectiveness, which allows to almost literally constantly use cool down skills and never stop. Ele has a similar phenomenon with its cool down usage, but that’s neither here nore there.

But above is an overarching theme of engineer, the main topic revolves around Gear Shield, which is tied to Tool Kit.

KkIenJuju.9406:

update from the reddit thread : multiple people think this is at least one year in the game, but like me they are not sure at all^

Even confirmed it was added in December 2014

Some people playing the market players?

Atherakhia.4086:

What is up with these forums…

I dont know what you mean by 10 seconds? You want the duration of the block increased to 10 seconds? That’s insane…

Duration: 3seconds.
Cooldown: 25 or 30 seconds.
Trait: -20%

Incendiary Powder:
Duration: 2 seconds.
Cooldown: 10 seconds
or
Duration: 4 seconds.
Cooldown: 20 seconds.

30 second recharge (suggested) minus 10 seconds (margin) equals 20 seconds (current recharge)

Atherakhia.4086:

Why should it be one or the other? Both need to be toned down. The burn duration and/or the ICD need to be changed for IP and the block cooldown needs to be up’d to 30 seconds.

Compensation for these changes need only bee on the pistol auto attack by increasing the bleed duration by 1 second.

Can we justify such a heavy nerf to Gear Shield? 10 seconds on a 20 second cool down is a big margin, don’t forget to look at the skills impact to the builds it’s used on.

I know some people disagree with shaving skills, because of the low frequency of updates. But the concept of shaving is still good, especially if they’ll update more often. The question becomes, is 10 seconds a shave to engi builds or is it too big?

Novuake.2691:

Shockwave.1230:

We’re comparing the impact of gear shield on it’s meta builds to the impacts of other effects on other meta builds and asking the question “is gear shield being what it currently is justified?”

Even worse comparison.

The meta is a constantly changing environment of changes, counter changes, and counters to counter changes.

If you are struggling to cope with your meta build vs another meta build, then CHANGE away from the meta.

I think this would be more valid if there weren’t apex builds and if there was better build diversity within professions at the height of competitive play.

As it stands it’s actually better to compare this way. In part because the builds in the game right now are great at many things instead of exceptional at a few things. Also in part because the current meta builds are so long standing, that they’ve proven to be more than viable even when people try to counter build them. Even though people have been trying to change the meta these builds are so strong that attempts have been unsuccessful. It’s so much an issue you have top players calling for nerfs to their own professions, and ANet implementing damage nerfs that will impact heavy might stacking builds more than builds that use less might.

It’s very apropos to be making comparisons in this way, especially given the situation of the game currently as described above.

StickerHappy.8052:

Mister Fluffkin.7358:

Looking at other classes blocks, a 20 second CD block isnt that special. Warrior offhand sword, ranger greatsword, mesmer offhand sword, they all have a a 15 second CD block, untraited. Traits will improve them to 12 seconds CD.
Ok, all of them block just 1 time in case of melee attacks, but therefore they offer strong counterattacks plus a second offensive mechanic, engies toolkit block doesnt. Engis also have to sacrifice an utility slot for it, while the other classes get those blocks on weapon skill.

Im fine with it.

For Mesmers, the counterattack can be dodged, can miss. and has a RANGE requirement

FYI the block takes only 1 hit for ALL attacks not only melee ones. So anyone with halg a decent brain can either:

1.) Bait the block
2.) Trigger the block and be in that block’s outside range
3.) Hit the block with a multi hit attack

and..the block is.. poof! its gone!.. it became coco crunch!

Some of these skills block all attaks only once, but only if there is an enemy within melee range. Otherwaise they can block numerous ranged attacks.

Novuake.2691:

SOoooooo, are we comparing apples with donkeys again?

Seriously though, we CAN NOT and SHOULD NOT compare individual skills as the classes are fundamental different.

The Shield and Gear Block is the Engi’s equivalent of Endure pain, Berserker Stance, ANY form of Stability, Shared Anguish, Blur, and a hundred other forms of damage negation.

Even considering the above statement calling OP!!!!!! on a skill is not possible by just going, oh look, a skill with same function thats weaker.

Gesuz people stop complaining about so much kitten.

We’re comparing the impact of gear shield on it’s meta builds to the impacts of other effects on other meta builds and asking the question “is gear shield being what it currently is justified?”

Theologus.7085:

Gear Shield very strong, but balanced. Engi have very small pool of deffensive cooldowns, very weak vs condi and play with max 1 stunbreaker. Stunned engi can’t spam skills and heal like ele or blink out with 8 sec cd like mesmer. And engineer have weak ranged options, he is node fighter and farther 600 engi have only rifle AA. Yep, nades, but in ranged nades – assault weapon, usable only for bombing point.

I see a belief that defensive cooldowns aren’t readily available.

Are engineer CCs not actually simultaneously defensive and offensive? More simply, in 99% of situations when you CC someone aren’t you dealing damage while not receiving new incoming effects? Is CCs defensive aspect not stronger the smaller a fight is? (3v3 < 2v2 < 1v1)

Is 3 condition removals every 15 seconds at optimal use actually weak? (Transmute + Pickup Healing Turret)

Is having 1 stunbreak to use every 24 seconds early and mid fight and 1 guarenteed stunbreak to use when low on health really the same as only having 1 stunbreak? (Inertial Converter + Super Speed)

Is engineer really not a ranged damage dealer and close combat burster?

Mister Fluffkin.7358:

Looking at other classes blocks, a 20 second CD block isnt that special. Warrior offhand sword, ranger greatsword, mesmer offhand sword, they all have a a 15 second CD block, untraited. Traits will improve them to 12 seconds CD.
Ok, all of them block just 1 time in case of melee attacks, but therefore they offer strong counterattacks plus a second offensive mechanic, engies toolkit block doesnt. Engis also have to sacrifice an utility slot for it, while the other classes get those blocks on weapon skill.

Im fine with it.

Is a utility skill that gives you 5 other tools to use really a sacrifice?

Are skills that block 1 attack for 2 seconds close in strength compared to skills that block infinity attacks for 3 seconds?

Are there meta builds where it’s worth traiting to lower these 1 block skills’ recharge durations?

Does anyone have any idea why Gear Shield is what it is?

To elaborate, Gear Shield is the following:

• A base 20 second recharge skill
• an instant activation skill
• a skill that is active for 3 seconds
• while active you are immune 99% of the games abilities, except unblockable and and some ground targeted CC (which are few and far between abilities or require setup to create such combos ie basilisk venom and shortbow 4)
• in meta builds this ability is Traited to be a 16 second cool down.

I would like to request that the community find ways to compare this skills usage in meta builds against other meta builds that perhaps can do similar things in order to identify some kind of justification for this skill being what it is.

… unknown obviously, but like others I have a theory. Nothing is hard evidence and it’s all speculation from the game.

I think E stands for the name of secretive group of Master Mesmers.

Their name could be anything obviously, but! if you you rotate an E 90 degrees it looks kind of like an M! Mesmer order confirmed! Seriously though, here’s some better evidence:

Kasmeer (a member of the secretive mesmer order) is the first one in game (that I can recall) to reference E as Mister E. Obviously anyone could come to the conclusion that you can make a pun out of a guy named E, but it raises suspicion that Kasmeer is the first one to identify the pun, almost like she knew about it when she learns the players knows of E (Suspicious).

Marjory is “thought” (cuz Mesmers) to have had a person to person interaction with E where she did not see the person who was talking to her. It’s noted that the person was a male (male Mesmer’s in the group?/or Kasmeer perhaps messing with her mind and later planting herself with Marjory?) and that the person had no Necromantic power (obviously a Mesmer then! CONFIRMED!!!!!!)

During Dragon Bash E advises the player about whispers of a threat to a Ship Counciler. Now there’s lots of ways to obtain information, but my speculation would be that being a part of a group of Mesmers might make it so you don’t even have to hear whispers. Just invade someone’s mind . That’s all speculation there obviously, but the important thing about this is E’s line “I’d intervene myself, but circumstances prevent it.” This isn’t important now, but it’s interesting when we think about Countess Anise shortly. E later asks you to meet up with Marjory who is supposed to be a capable investigator, in order to kitten the situation after the Aetherblade attack.

It’s a trend that E rarely if ever intervenes in all of “his” references. Supposedly Countess Anise is contacted by E advising that the queen’s reputation is at risk due to rumors of conspiring with Scarlet. Interestingly Countess Anise doesn’t want to directly intervene in clearing the queen’s name, so she get’s the player to intervene (exactly what E would do!).

Interestingly Countess Anise feels Canach is rather capable, and has him do work for her (the mesmers) as well. So it seems interesting that Canach is shown joining with the player character’s group in the latest Heart of Thorns trailor. Almost like when when they find capable people E wants to band them together, and maybe Kasmeer is a piece of that glue from E to help keep the group unified (among other reasons, cough Marjory cough).

Who knows, but it’s fun to think about
:)

infantrydiv.1620:

I think most of us are just sitting here wondering how Arenanet manages to ignore balance issues with Engineer so well. cough cough Cele Rifle cough cough

I’m still wondering how they managed to ignore Incendiary Powder after calling Dhuumfire bad design and changing it to something with good design.

It’s also funny that they are apparently ignoring air/fire/doom.

I think we know the answer is Grouch

IP will hopefully be changed someday, hopefully the 16 second recharge 3 second dot block as well.

I am not sure how impressed to be yet with the impact to celestial builds.

• The might changes impact to engineer = old avg from might (7.5) ~262 – new average from might (5) ~140. Net impact is ~120 power and condi dmg. This is 30 less burning damage per second (so 300 less damage over 10 seconds) and 7.4% less direct damage.
• The might impact to elementalist = old avg from might (19) ~665 – new average from might (16) ~480. Net impact is ~185 power and condi dmg. This is 46 less burning damage per second (so 460 less damage over 10 seconds) and 9.1% less direct damage
• The might impact to shoutbow = old avg from might (16) ~560 – new average from might (13) ~390. Net impact is ~170 power and condi dmg. This is 42 less burning damage per second (so 420 less damage over 10 seconds) and 8.8% less direct damage

Besides might engi is basically unnerfed, minus a 17% redux on one of their bleed durations.

The ele changes are more significant. It amounts to probably ~40% reduction in healing during lightning whip usage, based on what I’m reading. The damage decrease to lightning whip could round out to be an extra 2% less in an overall fight assuming 3 seconds of use every 15 seconds.

I think the buff to dancing dagger is unnecessary. I’d rather see a lesser buff of that go to cluster bomb to make it move more on par with grenades, or an aftercast reduction on cluster bomb.

Like I mention in my previous post on this thread, I’d prefer it if they not buff Nightmare rune…

Anyways, the celestial changes will be noticeable, but I’m not sure how noticeable they’ll actually be as what I was presenting were averages. So the intermittent burst they have in addition to high (but now less high) pressure over time may still prove to be a dominating force, but maybe it’ll have been shaved enough for more build diversity to appear at the top of the meta. Only time will tell, but hopefully not 6+ months of time.

IMPORTANT: PLZ READ!

Please tell me I’m not the only one who realizes that the nightmare rune changes are a buff overall.

The problem is a much smaller percent in the duration, it’s that there’s no tell and it’s nearly unavoidable.

Reducing the recharge is a huge buff, because it’s going to trigger at least two times in 2v2’s and the second time it triggers is not the same thing as initiating a fight, because you can count on having a stun break when a fight starts.

I’d like another reward track that doesn’t fill my inventory with different boxes that give similar loot. The Wintersday track was the happiest my inventory has been in a long time

xDudisx.5914:

Just to situate people at the issue about infiltrator strike:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1vW5kfyoXE

Jumping during the cast of the infiltrator strike to glitch the shadow return gives sword thief and unfair mobility advantage. It falls in the same category as gimicky mechanis as stowing weapon lightning whip and spatial surge

Definitely a bug, different category than stow weapon usage though. Even though it’s possible to do it doesn’t really matter since everyone runs shortbow and that bug is less initiative efficient for distance than shortbow is (5 initiative for 600 range v 6 initiative for 900).

Always so much hate around thieves out there, guess it just comes with the theme of the profession.

Hard for me to believe people think dagger thief is OP (which is most of the complaints I’m seeing, stealth/backstab references) given how much I play it. It’s only strong in conquest because the mode requires mobility. Defenitely not OP though, and thief is definitely not required in a conquest team as long as your team understands the options a thief has given the current situation on the map.

The thief hate is so strong it’s overshadowing any talk about celestial, which is obviously in an OP state currently given how much you can stack them. If that isn’t a show of people’s bias I don’t know what is, but the haters are going to hate.

@Morwath

When something has no counterplay it means there’s no way deal with it. I can list off dozens of ways to deal with thief stealth options. You can feel there’s not enough counterplay to thief stealth, but it’s not uncounterable.

Nice, Gw2 drama doing its job causing drama.

Too bad this incident will cause the devs to be publically and humorously sarcastic less often.

Justin ODell.9517:

Shockwave.1230:

What about Profession based MMR?

It will probably remain disabled (but still being tracked) until we add character locking back.

Okay, character lock is planned to make a return at some point then?

Justin ODell.9517:

Saiyan.1704:

Wait a minute there sparky, so if some one pulls the plug on themselves to purposely dc for 30s, they have the option to switch characters when they log back in?

I’ll just spell it out.

We are no longer locking you into character.

What about Profession based MMR?

Anyone know what the tie breaker is on the leaderboards?

… Indirectly

ANet allows the player character to interact with magic related to the 6 gods, regardless of race, in the latest living story.

That’s 1 big barrier to the Dervish gone. Dervish hype train now for whenever we get to Elona. Choo choo

Mesmer, thief, fresh air, and dps guardian push other berserker builds out of the meta.

Mesmer and theif have stealth and mobility on their side, which make them stand out as better roamers. Fresh air is close to being at the same tier as those two roamers, but with Phoenix and dragons tooth being so unreliable at range combined with how squishy they are if the go close quarters without invuln combat, they are a slight grade down from top tier.

Dps guard is interesting, because it has an edge over Mesmer and Thief in 1v1 scenarios and can in 2v2 scenarios as well. The lack of free roaming mobility is what keeps dps guards a tier down, but if it had that it would be in its own top tier.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Having a personal score system is a good way to indicate whether a player is playing the game mode well. Right now kills give the most points, but arguably that encourages sub-optimal play in conquest.

I really like the idea of having personal score tick when fighting on a capture point. This concept could be extended to behave like the current assaulter, defender, and skirmisher scores where you can still get personal score while fighting close to a capture point.

What other scores could be added, or what existing scores could be rebalanced?

For conquest specifically it makes sense to look at the roles played in that game mode and reward points accordingly.

If your role is burst something that could be rewarded might include:

• Bursting into a down – Causing a down within X seconds (3-4 maybe) of you dealing X percent damage (50-66% maybe)

If your role is stomping something that could be rewarded might include:

• Quick stomps – Landing a stomp within 4 seconds of a down.

If your role is support something that could be rewarded might include:

• Lifesaving – Saving an ally below x% of health from dying for 10 seconds or reaching OOC with protection or healing
• CC Lifesaving – Saving an ally below x% of health for 10 seconds or reaching OOC by using hard CC’s or immobilize.

I’ll come up with more later, gotta watch the game tonight.

ainekitten.9517:

Wow how do you guys get so many? I’d die for such a huge stack of tomes to forego the “NPE” leveling entirely.

PvP for me.

I think to help newer players it would be a really good idea to delay the spawn of bosses until 60 seconds into the match.

That prevents them from even having the option to make a bad call at the beginning of a match.

I’ve got more tomes and scrolls than I’ll ever need given their uses currently. Even if 8 new professions were released I still wouldn’t be able to burn through them all unless the level cap was simultaneously raised.

But because they are such good time savers against the game’s grind (grind from my own personal perspective) they keep accumulating in my bank in case I ever have a need to bypass leveling time gates.

Lettuce.2945:

Phantaram’s a pretty funny guy. Makes an entire thread about shaving ele down which includes fixing the lighting whip exploit. Wins WTS in Beijing. Defends against his own suggested nerf.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/balance/Suggestions-to-shave-DD-ele-into-balance/first#post4582911

If you’ve been reading, Phantaram is not defending against nerfing the lighting whip stow. He’s simply saying it’s not a bug or exploit, which I expand on above. We all want lw stow nerfed, even top tier players and that includes Phantaram.

Chaith.8256:

tichorum.2415:

So? Who cares? It’s a violation of the rules, therefore anyone breaking the rules should be punished. IT’S A RULE. Why have them if they aren’t going to be enforced?

You aren’t being disagreed with on the grounds that ‘rule breakers shouldn’t be punished,’ it’s more… ‘are they actually breaking the rules by using stow weapon?’

Getting additional sustain out the stow weapon feature is confirmed as unintended, but there’s no mention of the stow weapon feature being unintended for things like damage increasing Spatial Surge, or avoiding the Warhorn aftercasts. Heck, on D/D Ele you can avoid the aftercast on Ring of Earth by using Magnetic Leap after.

You can save time and aftercast on a sizeable list of skills by intelligently cancelling or stowing at the right times.

Banning players for weapon stowing sets a precedent that tournament admins can’t enforce.

IE:

“Oh and the Engineer on the Red Team used weapon swap to circumvent the intended big leap backwards from Acid Bomb and get unfair time to cleave the downed body, and it’s ALL OVER, Red Team Disqualified” #esports.

Chaith is touching on the slippery slope I’ve previously mentioned before in one of these threads. As soon as you say you can’t stow weapon in situation A (ie lw stow), when people stow weapon in Situation B (ie spacial surge stow), or situation C (ie canceling a skill from going on full cooldown), or situation D (baiting actions ie CnD stow) people who don’t use stow weapon will start yelling for bans on stow weapon in every situation.

This is why ANet simply needs to take action to change the behavior of the skill in game.

Additionally you can’t even say that lw stow meets the criteria of a bug until ANet officially says it’s a bug. At that point lw stow would be allowed to fall under that rule referenced by ESL, even then ESL doesn’t have to say it qualifies for a ban under that rule if they have a reason not to. As it stands it’s officially unintended behavior (not a bug, while bugs are often unintended behavior, unintended behavior is not the same thing as a bug), it could have previously been intended that the skill fully activate halfway through it’s animation and it could also be intended that stowing weapons exist as a thing in GW2 mechanics. The oversight could simply have been no one anticipated combining that skill with that mechanic while Signet of Restoration is active.

All that said, I’m not for keeping ele lw stow as is. I’m simply pointing out that this is part of the game, and more importantly has been since launch and ANet has at least known about this for a year. This has allowed any top tier ele player to commit this to muscle memory, and it is not reasonable to have the expectation that telling people “this is banned” and expect them to not use this at all during a match when they don’t always have time to think about what they’re doing.

Again this is why ANet simply needs to make a change to it themselves, because it’s so long standing and has been known for so long it’s unreasonable to ban a whole team if their ele uses something that has been legitimate and follows the mechanical rules of the game for so long.

someone.7485:

If a build is truly overpowered you would see full teams running the build and winning all the time. The only build I have seen full teams run is turret engi, and they still get stomped by competent players.

Because this is a team based PvP you do not need to remove the ability for people to play that build, it just forces both team to have at least one player using the build.

The metabattle page for d/d ele suggests that the d/d ele is weak to Axe Longbow Warriors, Hambow, Condi Engi

D/D ele is weak to nothing, different builds just perform relatively less bad vs it.

I used to believe that the indication a build isn’t OP is that you can’t class stack it, however, now I think it’s also important to look at the meta overall and see in how many winning team comps a build is in.

D/D ele by the way can be stacked and is in pretty much every winning team comp you’ll see.

Eura I disagree with removing mainhand weapons, offhand weapons perhaps, but mainhand weapons kills the amount of available options.

If things were going to be banned ANet would have to take time to come up with both a system and process to do so. Maybe they should spend time on this, maybe they shouldn’t. There is merit to the idea that the game simply can’t find an acceptable balanced from a build diversity perspective given ANet’s track record. I’m just not sure that ‘ban parts of builds’ system is the right way to spend their time, which from a pvp perspective seems to be relatively low in comparison to the rest of their game (which is fine since they have yet to include PvP as a significant part of their revenue, don’t want the game to die as a whole, but hopefully pvp doesn’t).

Justin ODell.9517:

Cynz.9437:

Ever had an idea that people maybe don’t want to play particular classes nor will be good at it no matter what…? Especially if their mmr is actually relative high due to how well they play their main class?

Yes, we are aware of this. This is why the server supports blending in a profession specific MMR. It’s currently disabled because we want to give those profession specific MMRs time to settle. We’ll likely enable them after this test season.

It’s true some people just don’t like a certain profession, or their play style doesn’t fit well with it. It’s also true that some people try a new profession and find they like it more and have an easier time with it.

You guys will probably want to do additional test seasons, to see if these changes are going to work out.

I’ve seen several posts about changes that will be made to improve quality after the test season, and I’m not sure how you’ll be able to test these without more test seasons since the changes aren’t getting push during this season.

This may neither be here nor there, but I’ve been finding it hard to want to play in this new matchmaking system. I’d honestly rather just play in custom arena with people I know are good players, because I feel like I can actually learn something in that environment. I just am not enjoying matches enough in ranked or unranked.

I don’t know if the new systems in PvP are better overall, but their impact on me has largely been negative compared to the old system. One thing that I think would help is to give parties a flag they can trigger to only allow matches involving a party of equal size. This may not help duo’s very much, but it should help soloer’s and 4/5 man groups a lot, and will definitely extend queue times for those that use the flag, hopefully it doesn’t extend the queue times too much for the player base at large. However, that said even it does raise queue times, it’d probably be good metrics for you to see if players are more inclined to use that feature or not, since you could gather metrics on whether people are using such a feature.

I think the biggest issue I have is match quality, and I’m not okay with the frequency at which I get bad matches. Whether the numbers say it’s the same, worse or better as the old system, I feel like it’s too frequent of a happening for me and not worth the new matchmaking at this point.

kokiman.2364:

Lastdrone.6387:

kokiman.2364:

This is clearly a macro to gain a gameplay advantage over other players, no reason to argue about that I think. And “everyone does it lol” isn’t an excuse for macroing and exploiting broken mechanics.

How is it clear? Why are you convinced people are macroing it?

It’s so freaking easy to pull it off consistently because unlike Mesmer Spatial Surge, Lightning Whip casts so fast you can easily get a rhythm for it.

And why are you trying to tell me that there is no one out there using a macro for that?

Innocent until proven guilty possibly? What evidence do you have that indicates anyone is guilty?

Looking at this thread, it’s pretty clear that some people think their professions should be able to do everything. Reality is that Mesmer can’t do everything and in fact has to respect everything other professions can do.

I fear this mindset that professions should be able to do everything has been brought along by the Celestial meta.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Monumental_Tapestry

Cele Ele can out pressure Engi over time because ele has more burning and more heals and more condition removal available, but if the engi gets his intelligence procs and CC chain when the ele is around half health he can take the fight.

Usually the 1v1 isn’t worth fighting on an enemy point unless you are planning on having a +1 arrive shortly. If you’re the engi though, it can be worth it if you can land your knockback or pull into slickshoes to get a decap. You need to force Armor of Earth and Lightning Flash though before you can expect to get the decap. Ele’s only decap option is updraft into earth immob/knockdown and that cooldown is 40 seconds, so it’s much less likely to be worth attempting the decap in that situation as the ele.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Hall_of_monuments_guide

There’s so much misleading that is being attempted in this OP it’s really not worth discussing.

Describing tactics of a zerker Mesmer and accusing it of being over powered without providing any sort of context around any combat situations does nothing.

Every matchup has strengths and weaknesses, it’s up to players to build their team comp in a way to minimize those weaknesses and highlight those strengths. Then it’s their job to execute their strategy. Mesmer has plenty of bad matchups, and can be put into bad situations in any size fight. Thief is the easiest way to do so, DPS guard is a good way to do so, pulls are a good way to do so, as a necro you can port to a mesmer and fear them towards your allies, rangers can train mesmers through their stealth, etc.

If you don’t want to get bursted by a mesmer from stealth then save a dodge or defensive utility for when they do stealth. Decoy and Mass Invisibility are their only stealths on standard shatter, and sword torch only has 1 more stealth in order to give up the utility of staff. Mass invisibility is on a 90 second cooldown. Both of the other two are on 32/30 second cooldowns.

Thief can burst out of stealth more than Mesmer, yet you aren’t complaining about them, and as a necro you’ll have an easier time vs mesmers since they don’t have condition removal, which means you’re forcing the enemy team to blow cooldowns of other players to save the mesmer.

I can’t believe I’ve been baited into a response, but it’s better that the community not be persuaded by misinformation and being uninformed.

4v4 is nuts lol, I’m just talking about 2v2s.

Narcarsis.5739:

Cele Shoutbow Warrior is also far weaker of a spec than both Cele Ele and Cele Engi. The only reason it really does well currently is because it does extremely well against those classes and provides a good amount of team support. Burst counters Shoutbow with ease (something even you have with Cele Engi if you use Intelligence properly).

-Caed

Even if the dual meaning isn’t intended, this made me laugh.

Dear ANet,

Several mechanics in your game are wildly in consistent. While it may not feel wildly inconsistent to you, players will tell you otherwise, which I hope means something.

One mechanic with this inconsistency I’m referring to are teleport skills that aren’t true teleports (ie anything that isn’t portal or spectral walk).

The other mechanics I am talking about are passive and RNG mechanics. Something like transmute which you can’t account for mid fight when attempting to perform an immobilize or fear. Or something like necro fear procs, which you can’t keep track of after you open a fight.

When mechanics these activate mid fight and deny burst, or when ports fail randomly it’s 100% luck. And when you have high risk high reward builds that exist in team comps these luck moments will often result in the high risk builds dying.

I would like to compare this to super smash Bros simply because I’ve been playing it recently, but you can compare this to other games as well. In smash Bros you have characters that are riskier to play, often squishy characters in team fights.

However even though these characters are riskier in theory because they are squishier, players can manage the obvious weaknesses by capitalizing on the characters strengths and knowing the team matchups and abilities to lookout for.

There are no hidden passive, anything passive is obvious in the game. There is no RNG except minor variance on % damage dealt similar to what exists on weapons in Guild Wars 2 already, and the only true RNG that I can think of is Mr. Game and Watches side special, but that’s it.

Additionally teleports abilities’ behavior is extremely consistent in smash Bros, I’ve never had a port fail for me on any character.

It is just disappointing that high risk builds such as Dagger thief, Mesmer, or zerk anything don’t have reliable viability due to not only the reward of lower risk builds, but also mechanics of the game itself that make these high risk builds even riskier to run.

I would love to see the kind of consistency, simplicity, visibility, etc that smash Bros has in its mechanics focused on, because you do have the best combat of any RPG I have ever played MMO or not, and I believe you can do better.

Omg! If this skill was a real teleport like portal or spectral walk I’d actually use it! The inconsistency of its reliability is this skills main weakness.

NeXeD.3042:

Ohh look another thread full of people who can’t ele complaining about an extra 230 hp every few minutes. If you think you can just sit in air and do this and not die your just not the brightest light bulb in the box. Keep it, remove it… doesn’t matter much. Same players are still gonna ruin you even without it.

It actually does allow you to gain nearly an extra 500 health per second while you kite for your life. There is some validity to in your statement, but it is largely inflammatory and unhelpful.

Amir.1570:

Phantaram.4816:

It’s not a bug. Not considered by the developers? Sure. But that includes a lot of other stuff in the game too.

People have been using the same exact mechanic since the beginning of the game.

Direct your mad somewhere else and not at the players.

Look at this guy. It just shows Phantaram is fraudulent because he thinks being able to heal 250 every 1/3 second with the stow lightning whip is fair game. That’s his definition of high skill cap folks, even though triple cantrips is already low skill floor low skill cap high reward no matter what you do. BLATANT FRAUD.

Just WOW. If this was league of legends, you would’ve been banned permanently or for a month for using exploits.

Not even the triple chop stow weapon is broken compared to Signet of Restoration + stow lightning whip.

It’s not an exploit. Stowing weapon is a completely valid strategy and mechanic. ANet can’t say that a couple skills aren’t okay to stow, because people who get dodges baited by weapon cancels will then start complaining about stow weapon usage for that too. Next thing you know everyone that stows weapon for anything is getting called an exploiter.

Calling out a top Ele as an exploiter when he is good at the build regardless of lightning whip is just silly.

ANet just needs to fix the problem skills. Be mad at ANet for only doing balance passes every 6-7 months and not addressing this in the last balance pass when it was clearly known.

Don’t hate on the players for maximizing their efficiency using a mechanic that is perfectly legit. And don’t try to spin legitimate mechanics into being an exploit. Everyone agrees it’s a problem. Phantaram has even offered suggestions on how he feels Ele should be properly nerfed, which includes changing lightning whip stow.

Call out ANet, not the players.

Rangelost.4857:

Cynz.9437:

let’s report every single ele in tourneys…

Yes.

Instead of making matters worse, let’s try and get it dealt with properly. If “every single ele in tourneys” are deliberately exploiting a bug that gives them an unfair advantage over other players, they deserve the consequences that come with breaking the Rules of Conduct.

Stowing lightning whip is not a bug. Many skills can be stowed during their animation. Cloak and Dagger can be stowed on thief for example. Mesmer can stow every Greatsword ability.

The reason stow lightning whip is a problem is that the skill fully activates part way through the animation. This allows you to trigger the signet far more frequently than you should be able to.

There are numerous ways to fix this problem, ANet just hasn’t. But to say that Stowing weapons during a skill animation is cheating is simply an opinion that in my opinion is invalid. If you weren’t meant to be able to cancel skill activations with weapon stow or escape, you wouldn’t be able to do so with any skill.

Edit added
The best skill to compare lightning whip and it’s behavior to is thief Dagger 1 chain part 1.

During double strike you can cancel the skill in between the two hits. There’s no good reason to do so, but the mechanics of canceling these two skills are identical. Again the reason lightning whip stow is a problem is signet of Restoration, not even anything to do with lightning whip. The player base will change its behavior when the ele’s mechanics are changed, because it’s not a bug. And even if you consider it a bug, then you are saying other parts of the game are bugged that have never been called bugged before.

Watching a zerk meta is far more enjoyable then watching a meta full of sustain. Not sure how people enjoy watching conditions counter sustain. In the current meta when the camera is on the fight with the zerker classes is when I am most entertained, because they are what swing team fights for the better or worse if they mess up.

Necro burst and engi burst is interesting too, but I dislike the lack of risk they have when compared to something like mesmer or thief.