Guild Wars 2

dancingmonkey.4902:

I have official confirmation from Anet that my personal arena is my official dueling area for me.

…

WvW is my personal duelling area and i don’t even need official confirmation :p

Aeden.4837:

If you want have to have a great 1vs1 fight go to pvp, wvw isnt made for duels.

PvP isn’t made for duels too …

There is no official duelling area in the game. But duelling is fun for some players and therefore it is fine to duel wherever they want. Because having fun is the main reason to play a game, isn’kitten

The game has more skills which cause direct dmg than skills which inflict condis. So direct dmg is spammed even more. Why is this not a problem?

“Spam” is such an overused term and doesn’t make any sense most of the time. The real problem is all this passiv and unavoidable stuff, offensive and defensive -and this is not (only) a condi problem.

Maybe I should make a video of failed burst attempts too, i have enough footage ^^

The main problem are not even the used cooldowns, but the unreliability of tail swipe. It can be avoided easily by moving (cripple and chill does not help much and the build lacks immob) and sometimes the pet wastes all those nice dmg modifiers on autoattacks.

If somebody rly thinks, this build is op – just try it youself :p

Oneshotting players in WvW with drakes …
Not much skillfull play or fancy editing, just some “nice numbers”.

This is because it shows all dmg from one condition added together and not for each different skill, like it does with direct dmg.

Btw my death logs often shows direct dmg attacks. It just depends on my opponents of course and the majority i encounter in PvP are still playing power builds (and cele ele – which is not a condi build, but hybrid)

The best ways to deal with conditions are -condi duration runes/food and (aoe) condi cleanse.
And because both things are very common in large scale battles, all meta zergbuilds are power (and even most “non-meta-player” run powerbuilds in zergs, because those are so much better). There are no “condi blobs” in wvw. Unless you confuse a group of condi pu mesmer with a “blob” ^^

25,6k tail swipe on light golem without max vuln …

Too sad, those skills are not more reliable :/

Remorseless/Opening Strike ( +25% dmg and guaranteed crit) + Signet of the Wild ( +25% dmg) + Hilt Bash/MoC/Signet of the Hunt ( +50% dmg) + Sic Em ( +40% dmg) + some might and vuln stacks from SotP/Axe Auto etc. …
Drakes can crit for more than 24k with tail swipe.

Sarlack.4096:

The best thing about it is you can effectively set it up for the opening round of most fights, assuming of course they don’t manage to avoid that opening Hilt Bash.

You don’t have to land Hilt Bash (and you don’t need MoC) to get the dmg bonus for the pet. You can even precast HB into the air before a fight, the pet will get the “Attack of Opportunity” buff for 20 sec.

I’m currently running a similar build in WvW (MM/NM/BM with GS and A/D) and my drakes can easily oneshot glassy opponents (18-20k tailswipe is not rare, a zerk ele got hit for 24k ). It is far from op though, because tailswipe misses 99% against moving targets and sometimes the drake just wastes all those nice dmg modifiers on an autoattack (which still hits for 5-6k ^^).

What makes this worse, are those traits, that reduce duration of soft cc, making some players immune to this kind of conditions, unless their opponent invests heavily into condition duration. Which most condiuser will do anyway, but for some powerbuilds this can be a big problem.

In general I don’t mind having food in wvw, but +/- 40% condi duration is way to much and should be removed or heavily nerfed (about 10-15% would be ok i think).

4 eles need thief to win. Nerf thief pls!

manveruppd.7601:

I honestly think that the party size parameter combined with the MMR inflation for premades in the matchmaking are enough to ensure fair matches, even when it’s 5 soloers against a premade. Maybe the MMR inflation could be adjusted upwards a tiny touch, but I think it’s almost perfect. I know there’s a lot of complaints on here, but I think the majority of complaints are misguided: people mistaking a losing streak for unfair matchmaking when it’s in fact just the fact that they’ve been getting better opponents to make up for their previous winning streak, people thinking they’re fighting lots of premades when actually they’re not, and sometimes people just being arrogant and refusing to contemplate that they lost because they played badly. Evan jumping in with stats to shoot down every argument time and time again proves this.

You are right with your statement about the quality of premades. However, this is exactly the reason, why premade vs solo can’t be balanced. The “organistation” of a premade team is an unknown yet important factor, which can’t be considered by the matchmaking system.

And a good matchmaking system should not force 50% winrate by giving you matches you can’t win (or the opposite). It should match you with and against players of similar “skilllevel”. Atm there is just a too big discrepance in the “experience” of players i get matched with and against.
I can remember a match, where both teams had known ESL player – my team lost, but was a very close and enjoyable game. Right after this i had two matches with players who doublecap empty points, loose 2vs1 and die to the creatures on forest.

And from my experience it does not necessarily match you against better players after a winning steak, but more often with worse players on your team.

bhagwad.4281:

How about we give pre-made matches a point penalty? I don’t know what number it should be – maybe 50 points for each additional pre-made member over the other team? So a 3-man that faces a 2-man team would only get a -50 point penalty. The other team starts with 50 points instead of 0.

Easy to implement and scalable. As to the exact number of points, that can be determined by statistical analysis of how much is needed to level the playing field. With thousands of games every day, it won’t be at all difficult to come up with point penalties for every possible combination of pre-mades vs soloers.

Of course, this would only be in unranked. Moreover, there would be no more need to separate team q and solo q!

There is already sort of a “MMR” penalty for premades. But the problem with premades is, that the game doesn’t know, how well organised the party is. Sometimes it is just some random players forming a group without any further organisation. Yesterday i played few matches (all solo), got matched with 4-man premades 2-times against soloers or 2-1-1-1 teams and lost both matches. And no, it was definitely not my fault. On the other hand i can remember a match where i could have gone afk and the rest of my team (4-man premade again) would have won the game alone against 2/3 or full 5 premade.
Premade partys add an unknown factor to the MMR- System, therefore it will never be balanced, regardless of whatever penalties a premade team gets.

Buggy forum is buggy …

Yes, PW is passive and pretty boring imo. I don’t like this trait much, and i don’t always use it, but the passive nature of this trait is exactly why it is so much stronger in most cases than QD or the MM grandmasters. Personal skill/fast reaction won’t save you against stealth/instant burst and unavoidable procs – all very common. Guess why almost everybody in pvp tournaments uses vampirism rune …

If a powerbuild hits you with enouh dmg once, it requires no further action either, except from stomping.

Oh and Trap ranger is so incredibly easy to counter. Once you know, it is a trapper, nobody with at least halfway decent condiremove should have much problems against one. Trap ranger is countered by kiting, AI, immob, cc, high burst … Just DON’T STAND IN THOSE TRAPS. There are way stronger condibuilds than trap ranger.

I can only remember 3 skills which prevent direct damage but not condiapplication: Endure Pain (60s cd), Signet of Stone (80s cd) and Protect Me (60s cd) (did i forget one?). All with much higher cooldown than most condicleansing skills. In addition to this protection and thoughness don’t affect condidmg.

Every other defensive mechanic works vs condis too. And on top of those there are condi removing skills (there is no way to remove direct dmg after you got hit), resistance, berserker stance and – condiduration runes and food. Overall there is not more defense against direct dmg than against condis.

Raven.9603:

• condi food
• burn stacking, on classes that can stack very high very quickly
• over abundance of cover conditions (perplexity, torment runes/sigils) without an increase in clearing.
• ridiculously low stat investment required. they need to do a better job at tying in crit and ferocity. condi builds have massively more defensive stats at the moment then their power counterparts.
• perplexity. there is a reason they dont let this in pvp. its too strong.

food – yes, 40% is way too much, for both the + and the – condi duration food

burn – imo mainly on cele ele a real problem, i have not much problems against condi guards, ranger, and engi – some skills (instantcasts/unavoidable procs/buggy fire rings) could need slight adjustments though

cover condis – usually i have no problem with removing the most dangerous condis on my ranger

stats – higher defense yes, but lower dmg output against everything with decent condiclear. Have you ever tried full sinister in wvw? Same defense as zerker, but significantly weaker unless the enemy has 0 condiremove and facetanks everything.
You have to sacrifice less defensive stats for high condidmg but on the other hand you have to sacrifice less offensive stats for defense against condis.

perplexity – i don’t have problems with this rune, and most condibuilds use other ones anyways. Many runes/sigils are not aviable in pvp without being even close to op.

sanctuary.1068:

Puck…

All im gonna say is

serphents strike – 6 sec poison
Throw torch – burning 6 sec
Bonfire – 3 sec burning
Poison volley – poison 4 sec
Crippling shot – bleed 6 sec
Entangle – bleeding & immobolize 8 sec and 1 sec
flame trap

You basically never run out of condition to throw. Oh and lets not forget the stun which can stun your foe until you can recast all your stuff again. Oh and the entagle so your target cant move while you wait for your stuff to be thrown at it again. Thats alot of conditions which not even necros can cast in such short time.

Yea, poison so strong, for how much ticks it? 200? … And on top of this bleedings from a pet with 0 conditiondmg, definitely op.

Btw, necros can send condis back to the enemy on top of their own condis, so they will never have less condiapplication than their opponent. Necros basically hardcounter other condibuilds, if traited for conditransfer.

Yea, those burns from dhuumfire are so op …

Condi necro is strong in 1vs1, yes, especially with full ds. Not unkillable though (maybe i haven’t met a good one yet, idk). But necros are slow and easy to focus down, so in general not the best (solo) roaming class. I’m fine if a class/build is strong in some situations as long it has clear weaknesses. Which is the case for (condi) necro.

And even if condi necro is op, this is no reason to nerf every other condi and hybrid build. As i already wrote somewhere, if a specific build is is op, nerf those things that make it op, but not everything else.

How should condibuild ever kill something if you would be able to remove every single condition on you?
It is not necessary to remove every single condi to win against condibuilds. With my main build (power melee ranger) i use 3 survivalskills for condiremove (20, 32, 48 sec cd) and nothing else, no -condi duration food/rune. And i can deal with many condibuilds (if they kite/run away it is very hard to kill them, but usually they can’t kill me either). Of course i loose sometimes against condibuilds, just like i loose to some powerbuilds, and in both cases it is often due to mistakes of my own.
If you take even more condi remove and a longbow and are still struggeling against condis, then yes, there is something wrong, but most likely not with your enemy.

Condition builds are not in general superior than power builds, even in 1vs1. Sometimes condis are superior, sometimes power is better. It just depends on the specific builds of both opponents.
Nerfing (damaging) condis in general would nerf all condibuilds, making powerbuilds superior everywhere – the opposite of balance and build diversity.

If a build is op, just look a its traits and skills and nerf those things, that make the build op. Don’t nerf everything else.

The change to vulnerability affects mainly pve. In pvp most condibuilds don’t stack much vulnerability. And even if they would do so, protection would be still stronger (33% compared to max. 25%).
But the main reason, why i think buffing protection is a very bad idea: it would only buff classes/builds with high acess to this boon – many of them are already very powerful (cele ele, pu mesmer – just as example) – while other weaker classes/builds will be even worse.

Of course condis does not only deal dmg, however the dmg from those condis is the main difference between condi and powerbuilds. The non-damaging effects are the same for both types of builds.

It can crit. Dmg is still pretty meh.

If condis are cleansed and not reapplied immediately they deal (almost) zero dmg, so kiting benefits the dmg output for an condibuild even less. If you can’t cleanse or heal anymore and die to condis, while the enemy is only kiting, you would have probably died to direct dmg too, the only difference is, that an powerbuild doesn’t have to kite anymore, after it hits you in such a situation, because you are already downed.

In general condi application is not more passive than application of direct dmg (imo there is overall too much passive stuff – offensive and defensive – in the game, this is not only a condi issue), only the “execution” of the damage is different.

I don’t have problems with the dmg output from my enemys in wvw (both power and condi). My pet has sometimes though, but this is more an issue with ranger/petdesign, not a problem with dmg in general.

Sirendor.1394:

Passive play.

1. Apply condition
2. Kite
3. Enemy clears condition after x damage

Repeat until 3. isn’t longer possible because enemy is through his condi clears.

1. Apply direct dmg
2. Kite
3. Enemy heals

Repeat until 3. isn’t longer possible because enemy has no heals anymore …

I still encounter more power builds than condi builds. And I’m not even talking about zerg players and spvp, where power is clearly superior.

Protection is already a very powerful boon, no need to buff it (and at the same time it would buff classes/builds with high acess to protection – most of them don’t struggle against condis anyways).
Btw an “anti-condi boon” already exists -> resistance.

I can kill lvl 80 players with an upleveled ranger :P

Rangers are strong in 1vs1. However they aren’t that great for PvP/conquest at higher levels. And personal score says nothing about how valuable you were for the team.

Eurantien.4632:

I think the best 1 v 1er on point is s/a gs ranger. Can’t do as well in a team fight as d/d ele though.

Pets die to fast against burning/cleave even in 1vs1. And without the pet, a (melee) ranger isn’t strong anymore.

I have no problems at killing most condi thiefs or trapper ranger with my full melee power ranger as long they try to kill me and don’t just run away. PU Mesmer is definitely a different story …
But this has nothing to do with condis.

zinkz.7045:

Then there is ease of application, as a generalisation condie damage is easier to apply than power damage, necro is a fine example compare how easy it is to apply condies with scepter to trying to burst someone with a dagger.

Yea it is so hard for power necro to spam 1 in deathshroud and deal 3-4k dmg per hit + dmg from unavoidable procs (chill of death, fire, air) …
Btw if you die to scepter only you are definitely doing something wrong.

Of course condis can be applied easily, but this is the same for direct dmg. But not every single condi will kill you, just like you won’t die to every single power attack, that hits you.

GROMIT.7829:

1- You can dodge any channeled high damage ability from a power build, you cannot dodge most abilities that apply conditions.
2- Conditions are reapplied very very quickly and easily in comparison to the equivelant channeled high damage abilities which as stated above are easily dodged/evaded.
3- Most power builds have to be very glassy to to make the damage worth it Vs a full Dire/Rabid condi build that has no element of risk in it’s stats.

None of this statements is true.

1. Lots of condi abilities are telegraphed and can be dodged/avoided just like power attacks. On the other hand, some power builds rely on instant/stealth burst and/or passive procs, just like some condi builds. On both sides there is some stuff, that could need adjustments.

2. In general there is no difference in how often or easy condi or power dmg can be applied. Both types of dmg can be applied with autoattacks, instant/low telegraphed/low cd skills, passive/unavoidable stuff, or skills with high telegraph and/or cooldown.

3. It is true, that the “average” condi build has higher defensive stats than the “average” powerbuild. But a) not every power build (not even the most imo) is full zerk, and some condi player use sinister, and b) survability is not only dependent on vitality and thoughness, but even more on traits/abilities and the time it takes to kill the opponent. Some condi builds (not all ofc) have to give up more defensive traits/skills than a power build (for example trapper ranger – it might be the other way arround for some other classes though). And the most important: power builds have still better burst than condi builds and therefore can kill stuff faster, unless the opponent has zero condi remove and facetanks everything.

Btw, i’m solo roaming in WvW for about a year now (with power builds mostly) and haven’t found this “condi meta” yet. Most (about 60-70% i guess) of my opponents were/are playing power builds.

Oh and +1 to removing the +/- condi duration food. 40% is way too much.

Extreme.8350:

Mesmer is never faceroll ranger is. terrifying howl + rapid fire
do the same as we do with 6 buttons

Mesmer can use fear and rapidfire when pressing 6 buttons? Sounds like a weird bug to me :p

Outnumbering the enemy is never risky oder hard. Your nerf would change nothing in this regard. And some other classes are way better at +1ing fights, so why complain about rangers?

No. At least not in a 1vs1/dueling scenario (also depends on the build of course). Lots of CC, protection, weakness, high sustained dmg + stealthtracking rapid fire, SoS, … counters thief pretty well. Rangers are not unbeatable by good thiefs, but definitely not easy opponents for them.

xDudisx.5914:

If you observe the patch notes from the last 2 years, you will see ranger is one of the class which got the most buffs.

Numbers of buffs and nerfs are completely irrelevant. All what count, are the consequences of these changes. Did the buffs gave ranger a spot in the pvp meta? No! Destroyed the nerfs all (at “high lvl pvp”) competitive builds? Yes!

Rangers (at least with some builds) counter thiefs pretty well, at least in an 1vs1/duel. But this doesn’t make rangers op. They lack in other scenarios.

Dmg is not all what counts. And you don’t have to go full zerk with lb.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

With the things that did change for the better, it has made these types of builds viable for roaming while Power LB has lost out with the patch.

Full melee was viable for roaming prepatch too. Actually all those mentioned in the first post have played or at least tried full melee before the patch. It might be stronger now due to better burst potential, but some other builds/classes got massive buffs too.
And LB/x is not weaker than prepatch, even compared to most other classes, and still superior to full melee in many cases.

Well, i’m not an expert for mesmer but what about something like this?
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAsfRlknhG1YZawINwtGLnGk5O22MIDwCCa5Iae4A-TpghwAwLDAY/BA

I admit, it lacks a little bit in the cc department, but overall it has all mentioned stuff.

Or
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAsfRlknhG1YZawGNwtGLnGEaE6+3JDwCCa5Iae4A-TpghwAwLDAY/BA

Yea it doesn’t has those boons from PU, but still more defensive stuff than most classes.

Extreme.8350:

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Pls show me a ranger build with bla bla bla

If you are so bad you cant even figure that out im not gonna waste my time

Why am I not surprised?

Btw i never said, mesmer is completely overpowered and should be nerfed to the ground. I’m not even complaining about their current state. But claiming, “ranger is the same” ist just stupid.

Oh and about portal – just give me one rangers utility that is worth to give up things like blink, decoy or those mantras.

Pls show me a ranger build with instant/stealth burst, instant cc, instant stealth, invuln, boon remove (to counter stability/protection), teleports, protection, regen, aegis, blinds, condi remove, …

Btw you are really calling a class, that has probably the most acess to defensiv mechanics (is there even anything not aviable for mesmer?) glassy?

I didn’t say, reflections are necessary for a mesmer to deal with lb rangers. They just can trait for it, if rangers were actually a problem.

Btw i don’t think, something like a PU mesmer (power or condi doesn’t matter) with some condi remove can be hard countered by anything in WvW atm. Except for stealthtraps. Which does not mean, they are completely unkillable. Just not “hard countered”, only outplayed.

Relying on a boon against a class that can strip boons, doesn’t seem very usefull …
And a mesmer can trait for lots of reflection, which pretty much hardcounters longbow.

blitzkrieg.2451:

In wvw it’s 80% build / 20% raw skill , in pvp it’s 40% build/60% raw skill roughly due to lack of amulets/food/guard buffs that don’t even come close to the stats you have in wvw.

This is nonsense. Yea, you can have better stats and such in WvW, but guess what, the enemies have them too. So you could even say, WvW requires more skill, because the enemy can have better gear/food/buffs/whatever than you (this would be nonsense too of course).

WvW players are not more reliant on build/stats/food/etc than PvP players are reliant on build/team comp/rotation. I would even say, the opposite is the case.

And saying, the best PvPer would destroy the best WvWers is just a wild guess, because nobody knows, who are the “best” WvW players. There is no “official” measurement of individual skill in WvW, but this doesn’t necessarily mean, the players are less skilled. And no, i highly doubt, the best known WvW players are the most skilled ones, they are just known, because they stream/make videos.

Are there lots of noobs in WvW? Yes. Is the same true for PvP. Yes, definitely! (just remember, hotjoin is part of PvP).

The towerguards did probably more dmg than you :p (Edit: Probably talking about Khylo, and not about WvW, so not tower guards, sry. Treb should have killed pets though and without pets you can only kill afk ppl or really really bad ones with a cleric build.)

And condi builds will counter this build pretty hard.

philheat.3956:

Dunno, if used properly is also an anti stealth skill and cd is really low + instant effect. And you need to reswitch target.

Try to compare it with revenant taunt, there is a huge difference in casting time (incredibile telegraphated revenant taunt) and you don’t need to reswitch target. And you need to have a target to use it (pet aoe effects don’t need target).

Honestly on ranger pet, it seems a little op in comparison.

Everything seems op in comparison to (current) revenant. And if you don’t want to target the rev, you will have to reswitch target too.

evilapprentice.6379:

[…]
Taunt fits into this the exact same way – every other CC effect in the game allows you to choose your target for using stunbreakers/instant skills, Taunt shouldn’t be a Super CC in this regard (especially since Taunt already is a unique and potentially very powerful CC effect)

You can break taunt with every stunbreaker. This is a big difference to unbreakable cc.
Targeting something else makes you able to attack something else, even without breaking the cc, at least for some classes. It is the meaning of taunt to prevent exactly this.

Btw. try autoattacking something with rangers sword while targeting something else :p

Is taunt better than some other cc effekts? Yes. Is stun better than daze and launch better than knockback? Does this make those cc effects unbalanced?