Guild Wars 2

ReaperJr.5967:

Druid AA is very strong, and their pet is unlikely to die. Constant dps check. They are not forced to run s/wh either. I have friends who play druid builds without any of those weapons and it still works like a charm. All in all, druid is way better than tempest.

I won’t argue the rest then, assuming ele is your main. My experience with tempest is mainly vs them (and some lengthy discussions with them) and they’re usually tougher cookies to crack than druid, but I suppose that’s because we simply have experiences on different classes.

As for the druid AA, a majority of my time is spent on PP DD thief. Anything channeled (hint: their auto) is just asking to get instantly bursted down (impacting disruption has no ICD and headshots costs only 4 ini). The impacting disruption + nearly 8-9k unloads is almost insta kill. If they sic their shadow scale on me, BP+dodge through to instantly break (same applies to rev, but they can eat a headshot too). DH is also ezpz. The only class that gives me a smidge of trouble 1v1 is tempest, but even they eventually go down without a struggle.

Kosard.9720:

does 8,000 damage for getting hit by one ability seem fair? i rest my case.

100b, rapid fire, melee mind wrack, back stab, unload, grave digger are among only a few skills that can hit that much, if not more.

My warrior, with your average zerk build, can hit 17k on his 100b (burn stun breaks and hit 50% HP and its insta GG). My thief can land 10-12k unloads. BP > HS+steal with procs is over 10k as well. My guard can whirl for almost 9k (a lot more of I throw in SoW).

You can argue everything else like how it covers the entire point, how they burn your dodges using LB2 and then daze you with traps so you can’t use your utilities and get eaten up all while fighting from 1200 range or how they have an kitten of CC, but let’s not cry about damage here like they’re the only ones that can burst.

No, he’s saying he enjoys super casual play. I see nothing wrong with that. Let them have their rewards, they already get less anyways.

Heart seeker spam thieves will be next, kappa.

3 weeks until something drastic happens to change balance. Leagues will either be dead, interesting or both.

Another 21 days until this is no longer mandatory. Hang in there, buddy.

Dodge a rapid fire or other multi hit effects and enjoy all of the cleanse ever. DD was meant to be played as an evasive team fight brawler, or at least that was what anet was trying to aim for. Don’t run DD if you still wanna be the +1 back capper.

Crit strikes, DA, daredevil with bounding dodger, full signets and thieves guild. Don’t activate your assassins signet, spam the other signets, leap through black powder to trigger revealed training and then spam unload all day. For gear, full zerk with strength runes. Taking weakening strikes so you can worry a little less about damage taken when you run out of dodges/fudge up a dodge. You can take a strength and an air sigil for even more might/burst.

ReaperJr.5967:

SlayerSixx.5763:

You can focus a druid since they’ve got only one escape. I rarely have problems downing non-bunker druids 1v1. Bunker druids can be killed 2v1 if you wait out the stability, but they usually get help by the time that happens.

Replacing fire with tempest can actually make for a really fearsome bunker with OK damage and mobility only outmatched by a thief.

Of course scrapper is better than tempest, but tempest is still a powerful spec in the right hands, even more so than a druid with very limited options and obvious counters.

… what? No offense but do you have any idea what you are on about? Tempest is incredibly weak to cc and focus fire, more so than druid. Our only form of stability is stability (1 stack) on overload, and if we trait that we lose out ALL vigor and regen provided by auras. Earth overload cannot even be considered using because of focus 4 and 5 which are essential to our survival.

With shouts and focus offhand, we have no escape whatsoever. Lightning flash, rtl, fgs, all moot. No mobility to speak of either. We have no stunbreaks either unless we trait for auto stunbreak every 40s but we lose out on aura support upon completing an overload. Tempest is horrendously inferior to druid, so i have absolutely no idea what you’re smoking.

Ill have what youre having.

Why run shouts and focus then? Replace fire with tempest and keep your usual utility setup. Take rebound over FGS and aftershock as utility #3. For traits, adept is a toss up between gale song and latent stamina, for master you take invigorating torrent and elemental bastion for GM.

Druid is forced to take an offhand warhorn if they want more reliable blasting of their staff water field, which means they’ll most likely take sword mainhand. Sword, assuming they take cele or cleric for the healing power, does negligible damage and is basically a tool for them to run in circles till they can blast their heals again. Their main source of damage is their smoke and if that goes down, its GG. If they don’t take a heal based amulet, they won’t fill their CA bar on a more consistent basis meaning the amount of heal they put out can barely match an ele’s meaning they’d have to hug team mates to heal multiple targets just to keep their CA charged at a reasonable rate.

IDK man, I’ve never had much trouble vs druids.

Doon.2364:

SlayerSixx.5763:

^im no warrior main, but a moving 100b sounds terrifying.

You mean like Rapid fire?

Except 100b still is the strongest skill in the game by a large margin in terms of raw damage (CoR could take that spot, but youd have to hit someone running in a straight line). The only reason it isn’t viable is because it takes too much to setup and people can still escape.

Edit: Now that I think about it, procession of blades does almost the same damage and covers a whole point. You know what, make it mobile without any drawbacks. It’d be fun watching a huge norn swing his twilight around like a madman and literally mow through players.

You can focus a druid since they’ve got only one escape. I rarely have problems downing non-bunker druids 1v1. Bunker druids can be killed 2v1 if you wait out the stability, but they usually get help by the time that happens.

Replacing fire with tempest can actually make for a really fearsome bunker with OK damage and mobility only outmatched by a thief.

Of course scrapper is better than tempest, but tempest is still a powerful spec in the right hands, even more so than a druid with very limited options and obvious counters.

^im no warrior main, but a moving 100b sounds terrifying.

Increase procession of blades CD by 10s and nerf damage by 20%. Let there be a delay between tossing the chain and pulling it so you have a chance to break it if they try pulling you from max range.

/thread

Silverstone.4539:

ok, necros and minions should share health, i.e, you damage a minion, 20% of the damage should go to the necro too.

Guardians cant overlap their traps, i.e stack all in the 1 spot. this should go for mes and rangers too

eles need a big change to their auras, their times need to be cut down, or the skills that grant them need changing.

The necro nerf concerns me. So if you hit the necro with an aoe and he has 4 minions, he takes 180% of the damage? Base necro already has it hard enough as it is :P.

I agree with the DH nerf. Besides, it far more rewarding to strategically place your traps anyways (vs competent players).

I don’t understand the ele nerf. Maybe its because I don’t see any more of them, but I never found auramancers to be too big of an issue.

ReaperJr.5967:

NiloyBardhan.9170:

Thunderbird.4298:

We are here to rank the classes from #1 God tier, #2 Good (Meta) tier, #3 viable (medium) tier, #4 kinda viable tier, #5 not viable but always end up on my team in solo q’s tier, #6 kitten tier (never seen in PVP) would rather be in a 4 v 5 (berserker/daredevil bunker thief). including all specializations as separate classes! DO NOT ADD descriptions, just your ranking. These WILL BE TALLIED for a following post; if you have for some reason forgotten what all the professions are:
- Engineer – Scraper
- Ranger – Druid
- Revenant – Herald
- Necromancer – Reaper
- Thief – Daredevil
- Guardian – Dugon Hunter
- Warrior – I guess it is kinda a thing… berserker…
- Elementalist – Tempest
- Mesmer – Chronomancer

1. God tier
2. Good (Meta) tier
3. viable tier
4. kinda viable tier
5. not viable but always end up on my team in solo qs tier
6. kitten tier (never seen in pvp) would rather be in a 4 v 5.

HAVE FUN…. letz get some shietzz nerfed TOGETHER as a team!

God tier – Dragonhunter, Scrapper and Chrono
Good tier – Reaper, Tempest (those auras), Herald
.
.
.
.
.
kitten tier – Berserker

I played PvP about a week since HoT release and is currently full of DH trappers running zerks, reapers and to a lower extent Chrono and Scrappers. Other than the first couple of days, I didn’t find a single warrior in either my team or my opponents (let alone a berserker) – not talking about hotjoins btw. Warriors aren’t even a shadow of what it once was…

Swap tempest with druid and that’s about right.

This, pretty much. I’d rank tempest at a midway between wherever druid and scrapper are (not saying they’re as OP as scrapper, FYI). They’ve got similar sustain to druid, only with more mobility. You can argue they do negligible damage since they lose ring of fire to blast and have to wait 10s for their fire overload to get a fire field for blasting, but they’ll eventually wear you down or escape, kinda like thief but they can actually take some pressure.

My only gripe is how misleading bounding dodger is (all that apparent height when, in reality, your basically moving along the ground).

Khael.7325:

I stopped reading when you started complaining about heartseaker spam.

Let’s delete every class that rustles someone’s jimmies.

Welcome.

Your friend isn’t wrong about mesmer. They’ve got what is arguably the highest burst in the game and some of the best damage mitigation in the game (through stealth, teleports and invulnerabilities. Blocks as well if you buy heart of thorns).

I recommend guardian since they’re very noob friendly and guardians are generally wanted in every game setting.

How’s about you start with telling us what you prefer.

Hows about he uses steal instead? Why run shadow trap at all, in fact? Its essentially a weaker shadowstep. Bad rune choice, bad heal skill choice, he’s running d/p so bound is redundant, he ignored the best skill to use in that situation for the escape and then wants to call his opponent OP? I didn’t dodge a gravedigger yesterday (he came out of stealth for some reason) and it literally ripped through me from around 14k hp to 0. Should I cry about that as well? How about not dodging a mesmer shatter? ANET NERF THESE THINGS PLEASE. I’LL BRING A RECORDING LATER IF NEED BE.

I love how he still managed to down notorious elites with the apparently kitten S/D. Nice video, man.

You burn shadowstep for mobility, why? You kept bouncing into the trap instead of stealing out of it (you could’ve, since there was a necro spamming staff at you on point).

DH is definitely going to get a nerf since this community is 90% braindead. The remaining 10% cba to comment here, aside from chaithh who got minstrel removed -puts illerminutty dankmlg doritos hat on-.

This top .0001% that play the game to its fullest, find every abusable comp, stat and trait combo, etc. I’d expect ANET to take their advice more seriously than a person who plays the game for <10 hours a week.

He meant a bruiser build like scrapper or even reaper.

And he didn’t use maw. Well, the traps can use a slight shave, but that build isn’t practical. No condi removal and no mobility. He probably is running the trap heal as well. Bring a vanilla burn guard and watch our friend melt like plastic in an oven.

Also, if this is how you intend to convince anet to nerf, might I suggest also making a video of you standing still while taking the following:

-3 clone melee shatter.
-100b
-heartseeker spam.
-rapid fire + smokescale or the good ole melee ranger burst
-any non-condi related revenant burst skill
-f/d dps ele bombing you with phoenix+dragons tooth + air swap
-meteor + frost bow
-pistol whipx2
-burn burst
-trap ranger (it’ll do enough damage if you stand inside it…..eventually)

^please, we need to nerf these so you can stand still, take the burst and not die. Hopefully will make for some great data anet can use to balance the game for higher level players as well.

tico.9814:

I rather see bunkers than the stupid bunker meta.

Fixed.

@OP

Yea, I agree. We need less tank in our games for more plays and more fights. Increasing DPS to down bunkers faster is ok until a certain point. Then we go back to stealth bursters rolling through players. Maybe we reduce/remove bunk entirely? People who want to support can be given more options, but no more meat shields.

Serious Thought.5394:

You think if I typed out a rework that we all worked on together, that they’d use it XD?

Doubt it. They most likely have their own schedule and IF they discussed changes with players, it’d only be with the top players who have experiences that vary alot more than ours which is why the upcoming changes might not make much sense in the future for alot of players.

The same could be said about warrior 100b and its restricted to melee. That was still nerfed and it required more setup than CoR.

sounds legit.

Even 4s wouldn’t be that big of a deal for a skill so powerful.

CoR is getting a nerf? Since when? I NEED PROOF >:U. Reaper can do that, but weaker ranged weapons. I prefer this vs reaper because of the option to go ranged.

You can attack while enjoying that 90-70% immunity. Its basically a lower CD slightly lower effect EP. Also forgot to mention the passive jalis trait that lets you enjoy another 10% damage reduction below 75% hp which would essentially push that to a full 100% (assuming, again, its additive). So while you camp at range, disrupting with CC and ludicrous bursts of damage, you can then switch on full damage immunity if you get focused. You can do all of that with shiro and still dodge, but assuming you want to close in and bash their faces in with whatever you’re rocking for a melee set, you have that option without having to spam evades so you don’t get dropped.

You can’t attack while dodging. That’s essentially the trade off and it sounds fair in my opinion.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQJAWinXNeNSqJvJR/kHlsgykS4Q5SJYrsrklTFhdZ0pqb6UKNQiHA-TZBBwASuAAkLDA4JAgb/BIHCAA

My current rev build, but its naturally a work in progress that I haven’t had much time to work on in game what with the current exams.

You pop it at max energy assuming you’ve been kiting with hammer. Once you’ve kittened the enemy off enough with you blasting them with hammer skills, you should have more than enough energy if you aren’t spamming your skills and watching the state of the fight progress. This only works in team fights which is where jalis shines anyways since you’ll have more than enough targets to smack at for energy. For 1v1 encounters, shiro is obviously the better pick with sw/ax for the superior 1v1 dps, gap closers and control. You could always forgo all support from mallyx/ventari (lolsupport)/glint and go shiro/jalis with sw/axe + hammer and wipe everything in existance.

I doubt any buffs are coming soon. Change the way you play and your build. Or don’t and quit :P.

Rite of the great dwarf + vengeful hammer + forced engagement proccing improved agression. If all of these bonuses are additive, thats a solid 90% direct damage reduction and 20% condi reduction. If not, its still ALOT of damage reduction. You could take it a step further and take a valkyrie amulet since invocation gives a buffed fury for 40% free crit on what is more or less 100% uptime assuming your target has alot of CCs (I know one of my toons does) and basically tank like a champion boss. Shiro is definitely easier to use and more suited for 1v1s, but Jalis lets you do what warrior was meant to do which is leap in like a madman and smack faces in.

You could take it even further with mallyx and do necros job for them and make the enemy team regret bringing their burn guard.

They aren’t pre-placed meaning that you’re free to engage him. Once you see them go down, doesn’t change the fact that mesmer has a 101 ways to escape something static.

I haven’t seen a single self respecting mesmer die to traps.

Eisenwald.8562:

SlayerSixx.5763:

Eisenwald.8562:

If you do not take DA or CS you hit like a wet noodle

Most thieves I know take improv over executioner. If you’re referring to the minor trait that increases damage by 10% when target is afflicted with conditions, I doubt you’ll miss that much. If you’re referring to mug, again, theres a substitute for that if you look hard enough. Very easy to replace DA and not feel much of a dps drop.

I suppose that’s true with DA. You won’t lose out on a TON of damage, but more so if you drop CS. DA also does have nice poison damage uptime, that mug damage for burst, and a nice immobilize for more offense. It’s mainly giving up utilities and being forced into trait lines that don’t promote the staff playstyle (Shadow Arts) that bothers me. Yes you can build a stealth staff build somewhat, but I don’t think that’s what the staff was suppose to be and it definitely shouldn’t be a requirement.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAqYVn8lCVmiFmCmOB8Phlmiy7FahZgbAOgAY+8b/5H-TpBFABCcCAEvMQDHBga2fYhDBAAPAAA

This is what I’m using. You replace mug with impacting disruption. Yes, this means you can’t just bp>heartseeker>steal whenever you feel like. You have to time it and oh boy, nothing says kitten you better than having the pulmonary impact proc a few seconds later when they thought they were safe and watching them die. Can I hear a five finger death punch :P?

Why did I take fist flurry? Shadow shot into this is just too fun. Throw in a basilisk venom to guaruntee it landing. The burst potential is just too ridiculous with this. If this isn’t your cup of tea, go ahead and take anything else (I recommend giving distracting daggers a shot for chain proccing impacting disruption, although you can do the same thing with headshot).

Superior mobility through unhindered (also why we’re not taking withdraw). Proper usage of steal is even more important than ever since it bolsters your dodge uptime by a gazillion% (one free dodge + 10s of vigor). BP > heart seeker at a little distance away from then and the jump unhindered right behind them for the instant backstab or even fist flurry them since they won’t see it coming. Even more rewards for proper headshotting. I just love this build. Since we’re taking SA, we don’t need to worry about condi cleansing. As for the reveals, lets be real here and admit that it isn’t as bad as everyone thought it was. If you see a herald, avoid him entirely or rek him 1v1 since theres absolutely 0 chance he can pin you down. If you see stealth gyro (no serious engi takes this) smash it or unhindered away from your last known position to avoid the reveal. No DH takes the reveal trap. Rangers have far more toys to play with, so no need to worry about sic em.

Anyways, give it a shot and tell me how it goes for you. You can PM me here or in game if you have questions.

They should bring courtyard back as an official 1v1/2v2 duel map.

tbh, I prefer jalis over glint, but the herald traits are all (mostly) directed towards using glint and the few ones you can use universally are pretty meh. Jalis provides decent condi cleanse, a ton of damage mitigation, aoe stability in the form of an epic stone road and a trait to passively proc the elite. If people ran this over glint, you’ll find condi and focus fire to be alot less effective, but I suppose people are simply incapable of managing energy. Maybe someone will show it off one day and then the real QQ can begin.

iZerker sweeps. Assuming we’re talking about every point that isn’t foefire mid, it would usually cut a clean swathe across the point, essentially telling you its safe for you to advance. If his traps are off point and he runs away to pull you into them, the moment you’re pulled in, you can either distort, blink, or well evade assuming you’re trapped by maw and can’t simply dodge roll out of them. If the clones don’t automatically trigger the traps by following him for the shatter, he’ll continuously eat some of the highest burst in the game while trying to hit his ridiculously telegraphed true shots vs a class that can now easily match his levels of damage mitigation (if not more, what with the double block on shield, evade on sword and well, etc). If you’re still trying to test the point for traps, mirror blade spawns clones even on evade which will let you spawn even more fodder for the trap clearing.

These are all solutions and I have <10 hours on mesmer. All of these counters to damage with no cost to burst and I don’t see people saying anything about chrono (not calling it OP, mind you). People want to cry about the loudest, most noticeable stuff.

Mak.2657:

Non idiot shatter mesmer would loose to non idiot DH unless moa’ed last in most cases (in conquest setting). Imho.

Send in iZerker > trigger traps > ….. > profit

Send in iZerker > trigger traps > he lays down second set of traps > iZerker triggers them again if it isn’t killed, in which case, send another clone/illusion/phantasm > ….. profit

While you’re waiting for the traps to get triggered, you either outstealth his blocks or simply outblock/well evade with chrono.

glaphen.5230:

SlayerSixx.5763:

If he’s nearly dead after the invuln, toss S for stealth and disengage. He has a revenant, a mesmer and a ranger on his team. Any of those 3 could’ve dealt with the DH in a timely fashion (especially the mesmer). If the mesmer isn’t an idiot and our friend here kept filming, you would’ve gotten to watch the DH die miserably.

Yes watch him die to 4 vs 1.

ANY of them. Read carefully, friend.

I also agree that having the traps already start ticking away at their CDs the moment they’re placed is weird. There are many utilities that’d work amazingly well if their CD started ticking the moment they were used. Perhaps this is the nerf that could finally fix DH without breaking them.

If he’s nearly dead after the invuln, toss S for stealth and disengage. He has a revenant, a mesmer and a ranger on his team. Any of those 3 could’ve dealt with the DH in a timely fashion (especially the mesmer). If the mesmer isn’t an idiot and our friend here kept filming, you would’ve gotten to watch the DH die miserably.

Eisenwald.8562:

If you do not take DA or CS you hit like a wet noodle

Most thieves I know take improv over executioner. If you’re referring to the minor trait that increases damage by 10% when target is afflicted with conditions, I doubt you’ll miss that much. If you’re referring to mug, again, theres a substitute for that if you look hard enough. Very easy to replace DA and not feel much of a dps drop.

Vapour.7348:

Herald and DH took it

And we ain’t giving it back, so don’t ask.

Rely on stealth and teleports to keep yourself away. You should have more than enough on a condi mes. Keep your eyes open and you should be immune to basically every kind of burst build, excluding thief.

If you’re not using your defenses and just eating a burst, what do you expect to happen?

Just lost both dodges and he just lost both pulls. Now, assuming LB/GS, he has LB5 and maw. Assuming you aren’t built as badly as the engi in that video, you should have another 1-2+ defenses/ mobility skills of your own. LB5 is a nonfactor in 1v1s, so he realistically has maw. If the engi had JUST elixir S, that fight would’ve been insta GG for him.

That, my friend, is called counterplay. Nothing is wrong here and everything is working as intended.

Chingiz.6481:

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

He hit you with three traps + his own LB DPS. If, for any reason, you managed to get out of the trap burst or have an ally there, he would’ve melted just as quickly as you did. DPS guardian builds (burn or power) always frontloaded their entire burst always. I’ll agree that burn/medi power isn’t the same as the traps that you can’t see, but the mindset is similar. I’d honestly consider traps to be UP if using 3 didn’t create a dangerous situation for the trapped guy.

Also, I notice you weren’t running elixir S. That gyro skill makes very little sense in comparison to elixir S imo.

@Trevor

Over 500 hours playing medi guard. GS5 is a terrible skill vs competent players and only works in WvWvW where everything is a mess anyways.

SW/F is hardly worse. The bow and traps provide all the aoe you could ever want. SW2 is far more effective than GS3 since teleports actually bypass alot of things without a problem (test of faith, dragon’s maw, wells, walls, etc). SW3 is ranged and destroys projectiles. Focus provides 2 blinds + 3 blocks. That’s essentially 5 attacks blocked with one weapon. SW auto chain also always procs justice (doesn’t mean much on a power build, but still). Never mention symbols with a serious face, please. GS+Traps = nuclear bursting on golems/afk player. It doesn’t matter how many attacks are unblockable since, like all of the reveal theives are crying about, taking too many of them isn’t viable.

DH IS about control and I’ll definintely agree with you on that point, but your build is terrible and can’t accomplish much of that vs a compentent player. My build, for instance, packs 10.5s of immobilize, 2 knockdowns, 2 knock backs, 2 pulls and the LB ward ALL at 1200 range. THAT is control with very little counter play (impossible to lose 1v1 with this). Your build is based on a situational heal, 1 super telegraphed pull and an offhand that can only burst reliably every 60s. Most of your time will be spent on LB, but true shot is so easy to punish that it isn’t funny.

Metabattle is a site that takes competitive builds off of competitive players. Competitive players won’t run such an immobile build. BUNKERS don’t even sit on point all day, so how could you justify a DPSer chilling in place waiting for targets? JI is the BASELINE utility on practically every non-bunker guardian build. Its been this way since launch. Lets not argue on this, please.

Guardian is guardian. Guardian is designed to take hits and mitigate the damage. Playing guardian like ranger is like forcibly ramming the square into the circle slot. You can enjoy superior range AND facetank damage if need be. Why just fall back on the range only? If you’re hellbent on GS, JI must naturally occupy a slot on your bar in place of smite. Do your range pew pew and then, when the moment is right, teleport in and do even more damage.

Peel =/= mobility. You can peel well, but then what? Person leaps in and then back out of your traps and will probably have enough mobility left to catch up and melt you now that you’ve sacrificed a majority of your defense and are now helpless.

Hold on, let me edit your scenario of your DH vs my DH:

We bow. I CC you once, your trait stunbreaks you. I CC you again, you stunbreak with CoP. I CC you AGAIN and now you’re out of stunbreaks and blocks. You then die an easy death. If, for whatever reason, you manage to virtue block, my focus + shelter will be enough to outlast it with a block or two to spare while I STILL have my virtue block to keep me ahead, my own CoP and passive trait still haven’t been burned for the stunbreak. I have more HP, more damage, enough immob to keep you in place even AFTER you cleanse my own maw to punish your GS usage, stronger symbols (not that this matters much), higher run speed even while in combat and a minion to trigger your traps. I brought up P/P thief earlier to show you what a non-DH could do to your DH. A properly built DH will completely annihilate you.

I have much higher access to fury, mind you. 8s of fury every 10s to be exact. If we’re both dueling, shelter beats purification everytime since most of our fighting will be ranged. SW dps is far greater than GS since, again, simply walking out of the symbol is GG (also, I don’t use SW on this either :P).

By the way, I never once said I used JI on my DH. I just said JI and GS go together like peanut butter and jam. Maybe if you play DH like its a guardian subclass and not a super ranger, you’ll find out what really makes it OP instead of making this……..abomination.

DD =/= D/D. Daredevil not, dagger/dagger.

Thieves get hardcountered by a proper guard build. DD will ride your terrible build 24/7.

You quoted the elaboration. Guardian is known for his blocks. You try play to him like ranger, but he lacks the flexibility to move as well as ranger, so you’re a slower ranger with slightly better healing. There’s a reason why DPS guard was once meta for a while while DPS ranger never even got close enough to smell the blood of the comp battles.

I’ll elaborate further, if I must.

You’re using GS without JI. You can argue that you’ve got your virtue pull, but that works in two parts. You first have the spear, then the pull. If your target is at range (assuming they are which is why you’re using it) then them simply turning around and running will either break the tether or reduce the range of the pull, rendering it useless.

You can maybe rely on LB5, but hunters ward is generally a nonfactor in 1v1s.

All you have is dragons maw. One WW every 60s? Sounds legit.

Basically, your alternative weapon set is useless against a competent player.

Two utilities focused on condi cleansing. I’m assuming you took smite for the healing as well, but the issue is that the medi heals only kept medi guard standing because of the blocks of which you have none.

Test of faith can be dodged out of and then waited out. Now, you’re stuck relying on purification to keep you standing. The moment they escape your maw, the fight is over. If they’re ranged, you’re stuck relying on super telegraphed true shots while they most likely have faster abilities. I’ll give you a very entertaining example. P/P thief, for instance, without DD (DD would be overkill) would quite literally ride you like a rented mule. 1 headshot for every 1 true shot. 1 initiative per second meaning that they’d regen headshot every time you have true shot come off CD. So what are you stuck doing with your mediocre build? You use your only block, but the thief has now either LOSed you or dropped a black powder + SB barrage to blast stealth. Your shield is down, you’re out of defenses, your telegraphed attacks are all either dodged or interrupted and now you’re essentially sitting there eating unload after unload (which does nearly 10k damage assuming scholar and zerk amulet, but realistically, they’re hitting 8ks because marauder). You die in 3 unloads. They die in 3 true shots assuming air/fire proc. They’re more mobile than you are and are capable of interrupting everything you can throw out. Also, god help you if they catch you with basilisk venom and your stun breaks are out. Then it’s literally insta kill from there since you don’t have your virtues available a second time around because of no RF.

^this is without DD, may I remind you. With DD, you have 0 chance of landing any attack at all, even with the virtue chain.

^^also, a mesmer or reaper would most likely dump on this so hard once they realize where your gaps are.

The reason why ranger GS/LB works is because they’re far more flexible in terms of movement and far more diverse in terms of skill set.

If you’re feeling skeptical about all of this, I don’t blame you. Feel free to add me in game as I’ll more than gladly duel you.

1. If he isn’t holding the point then it either isn’t 1v1 or you’re the one trying to hold it. If you’re trying to hold it, how’s about giving him a warm welcome and engaging before he arrives on point? He has three choices at this point.

Drop all traps where he’s at (dumb option).

Use his blocks/virtue leap to rush as quickly as he can.

Run like a kitten.

2. For the sake of argument, let’s assume foefire, since nifhel home and far are literally hell for a ranged spec (impossible to hit your target before he reaches the point unless you run out to meet him, but you’d be away from your precious traps).

If he spreads his traps out, their effect is suddenly diminished. Test of faith needs to be on point to punish kiting him once you get there. If he has procession of blades, maw will be a must, so theyre forever stuck together. The other two traps are worthless. There isn’t a single home/far point in the game that isn’t elevated and we all know how nicely GW2 treats range when there’s some sort of elevation, so that takes a good part of him softening you up from range out of the equation.

Honestly, I don’t know of any competitive build that only relies on dodges for defense, but if you’re telling me you don’t have a single stack of stability, a stunbreak, a block, a blind, a reflect, stealth, or a teleport, your build is extremely deficient and needs reworking. You dodge out of traps and resist the pull with w.e defensive tool you’ve got. Now, assuming he hasn’t been sitting on the point alone for a whole minute, he stuck relying on super telegraphed true shot spam. I’m assuming the DH isn’t an idiot, so he would most likely aim his symbol on his feet to give him the vigor he needs to dodge you and deter your advance. Hunters ward is a nonfactor 1v1. His blinding arrow deals negligible damage and is only a threat if you’re blocking (but you should simply assume he intends to knock you back if he’s closing the god forsaken gap between you while wielding a LB). If you decide to block right in front of him (assuming this is a bug that needs to be fixed) you deserve to die until the thing is fixed.

If he’s using GS, he doesn’t have focus. No focus, no SoW. No focus, no ray of blinding. I’d choose sw/f over GS any day if I was forced to pick between the two. If he doesn’t have JI, its GGWP since you really shouldnt be getting hit with WW without him either holding you in place with maw or teleporting. You could discuss GS5, but that’s incredibly slow, telegraphed and bugged.

Assuming he just arrived to the point, you have nearly 30s to down him after you’ve triggered the first round of traps. If he has a second round, your team hasn’t been pressuring him hard enough.

If he jumps in late during a team fight and nukes you guys, then that’s that. If a thief or mes burst you when you’re low from 1200 range+ are you also going to call OP?