Guild Wars 2

I don’t PvE. Recently I created a duplicate Mesmer and Necro cause I wanted Norns. I show up as a Lvl 1 player.

But honestly, sticks and stones and all. Couldn’t care less if people abuse me. But then I’m also 33 years old and a blogger – I have practice dealing with abuse!

Dawdler.8521:

Archaon.9524:

The fact that they were probably trolling/sleeping/rom drunk (lol) or anything else doesn’t mean stuff like this should be allowed to happen anyway

How would you stop it from happening? Not allow people to play with their friends? Only allow 2 man groups? I bet 2 Orange Logo would still roflstomp against all pugs, if the rest are decent. What if you got 3 buddies that want to play? Let them queue in the 3-5 man premades onl… oh wait. Thats impossible. Because they could never find the remaining 2. Split premade queues? Queue as a 4 man only to find that no other 4 man teams are currently queueing… well, Anet would tell you that of course, you’d just be queueing forever.

Maybe we should only allow 5 mans in tournaments. Its not like sPvP need players anyway, pfff.

The mixed queue is a necessary evil IMO. Yeah you meet premades. Sometimes you win, sometimes you loose. Sometimes you meet Orange Logo, which I would think was awesome. The only way to truly test your skills is going up against those that are better.

You can stop it by asking pre-mades to go ranked. Even 2-man queues. People team up to win, and if they’re dedicated enough to find a friend, they’re serious enough to go ranked.

Ross Biddle.2367:

bhagwad.4281:

Evan Lesh.3295:

The longest streak I saw was 5. Not as bad as my record of 12
Funny enough, over the past 7 days you had the exact same number of Victories and Defeats (with some forfeits and byes thrown in). There was a suggestion thrown out a while ago to make players on losing streaks be put on the favored team if there is one.

Not a bad idea…I guess when you’re losing, even 5 matches seems like a lot!

10 mins average per match, 1 minute pre match wait, 25 minute queue time, yeah it can seem like a lot.

Well, not 25 mins q time. I get around 3-5 mins….

Still, I did lose a lot. As Evan said, the highest streak was 5 matches, but there were other losing streaks as well. That’s corrected over the past 2-3 days, but it wasn’t fun while it lasted!

Evan Lesh.3295:

The longest streak I saw was 5. Not as bad as my record of 12
Funny enough, over the past 7 days you had the exact same number of Victories and Defeats (with some forfeits and byes thrown in). There was a suggestion thrown out a while ago to make players on losing streaks be put on the favored team if there is one.

Not a bad idea…I guess when you’re losing, even 5 matches seems like a lot!

Archon.6480:

Yes, yes, of course. My favorite alternate strategy, when playing spvp, is to run straight to the point and cap it. I find that running to mid in the beginning and putting everything into winning that fight really throws the opponents off guard. This is especially effective when one player on the enemy team decides to avoid mid, for some odd reason.

On the other hand, it’s equally likely that someone on your team will decide to go far or something and then the 4v3 will be against you…

I guess the OP is talking about strategies that can be executed solo – like what you said about decapping a point after they’ve rotated out…

Dear Anet,

Last week I had a terrible time. In 2 days of playing, I must have won just 4 or 5 games. Loss, after loss after loss. I began to think I’m done for. That I’m finally revealed to be the terrible player I am deep inside and my confidence couldn’t sink any lower. I started expecting losses and I put down the rare win to pure fluke.

In the middle, I even changed my server from EU to NA to improve my ping times.

But finally, the nightmare ended and I started winning again. I’m neither a better, nor a worse player than I was last week…so what happened?

I know that the MMR system is supposed to maintain a 50% win ratio. But can you please at least try and make it a bit uniform? What am I supposed to feel flattered or something you made me lose for 2 days straight to balance out your MMRs? It’s not flattering, it’s not fun and it honestly made me question whether or not I should continue playing – how am I supposed to know if I’m losing due to being bad or because you’re balancing MMRs?

Dawdler.8521:

Either fight premades or wait 1h+ in queue, pick your poison. Anet cant magically invent more random players playing sPvP.

It’s the other way around. Team q and solo q were merged so that pre-mades didn’t have to wait too long. Solo play wait times are perfectly fine as is.

I personally like a necro for standing in the middle of a point and causing mayhem. With a mesmer, you’ll likely have to move around a bit, fight from the sides, stealth some etc. So it depends on what kind of playstyle you like.

I currently alternate between necro and mesmer depending on my mood. After the latest patch, I used to have trouble fighting mesmers on my necro. Then I learned a few tactics to go on the offensive and I can now survive against mesmers for a very long time. Killing them is a different story, one because the fights last so long that help usually comes from one team or the other, and second because mesmers can disengage nicely and necros have poor mobility.

I think I’ve killed a mesmer on my necro maybe once or twice 1v1 since the patch. Mesmers can also do cool stuff like blink around (great for mobility) and of course, stealth. There are some pretty nice builds by @ChaosArchangel for boon sharing that I enjoy as well.

Honestly, even 2-man teams can be devastating if played together in a certain way on certain maps.

Pre-mades should just do the polite thing and go ranked. Leave unranked alone.

Make sure you don’t:

1. Hit with a staff projectile that was already on its way before you stealthed
2. Don’t use a manipulation skill like blink that reflects projectiles

“Allies” includes you, so I would say yes. Unless the description says “other allies”, in which case it would mean it doesn’t heal you.

And I don’t think any healing occurs in DS outside of one GM trait…

UmbraNoctis.1907:

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.

I get what you’re saying. But a pre-made at the very least gets to decide its composition beforehand. And after all, people team up to improve their chances of winning. Depending on the map, even a single 2-man premade can be devastating. Like holding skyhammer where one comes to help the other asap. Or a mesmer teaming up with a teammate with portal.

I think a point penalty makes more sense because the MMR system only ensures a 50% win rate overall. I’m sure if Anet were to dig into its data, it would find that in general pre-mades win much more than 50% of the the time over soloers.

Based on that, it can give the pre-mades a point penalty depending on what the data says.

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!

Ok…what’s a break bar?

Yesterday I made a post about what to do after winning the mid fight. Today, I decided to document 10 matches of mine to see how many matches we win/lose if mid is held for most of the game:

Here are my findings of the last 10 games:

Map Mid Held ratio Outcome Notes

Foe 10/90 Loss Got mid, didn’t defend

Foe 20/80 Win Lord killed – otherwise lost (didn’t defend mid)

Foe 100/0 Win Easy win

Foe 100/0 Win Easy win

Kyhlo 50/50 Loss More or less equal match (421/500)

Forest 100/0 Win Easy win

Temple 70/30 Loss Didn’t get tranq or stillness

Kyhlo 100/0 Win Easy win

Kyhlo 0/100 Loss Bad loss

Foe 30/70 Loss Somewhat bad loss

Disclaimer: I’m well aware that this is a small sample size, so take that as you will. Second, correlation doesn’t equal causation. Meaning that merely holding mid doesn’t necessarily mean a win (just going by the data), but could also mean that the same factors which caused us to win, also allowed us to hold mid.

Having said that, the relation between holding/defending mid and taking the game is pretty clear. Only 2 matches didn’t conform – Temple where the other team got tranq/stillness and Foefire where our team got lord at last minute.

So a request to those new to the game – if you get mid, stay to defend it. Don’t get greedy and try for far. Mid offers the most central position to quickly move from point to point as will as sometimes visual info (like in forest, you can see pretty much what’s happening where from mid).

If you lose mid, try and decap far as soon as you can and when the other team sends people to defend (hopefully most of their force), that’s when you try and retake mid.

At least that’s my analysis based on the data I’ve got so far.

hackks.3687:

You try again if you feel your team is capable of winning, and only lost the initial engagement out of poor luck or a preventable mistake.

You change plans if you got molly-whopped without putting up a fight.

Either way, take the information regarding the opposition you’ve gained from the initial fight and construct a strategy that exploits a discovered weakness or protects your exploited weakness. At the very least you should have an idea of who’s the squishiest DPS threat and who in your team if any is most capable at creating an opening to take them out and gain the early numbers advantage like you would for any team fight on on any point.

What you don’t do is spread out across 3 points and hope someone wins a fight before someone else loses theirs and the other team starts snowballing the rest of you off the map.

Edit:

Re: the significance of Mid Point – generally speaking centralized positions offer the most access to the rest of the map which offers the main advantage of shorter rotations and faster responses to enemy attacks – as well as potential vantage points for observing enemy movements. That being said, it’s generally the most heavily contested which brings a set of requirements for maintaining control. If your team comp doesn’t possess those requirements then an alternate approach is probably advisable. For instance, if the enemy team is firmly entrenched in the middle position then it makes more sense to attack a lesser guarded point which will force them to leave the mid point, shifting teammates to defend your attack. Then Mid becomes the lesser defended point and easier to retake. Essentially, winning the fight at a secondary point can offer a chance to take mid for yourself. This is what playing side points is all about – a less direct approach to taking mid.

Simply put: as a general rule Mid is always the best option. And since Conquest only requires that you hold two points longer than your team opponents, it does’t matter which second point you take (either home or far) – once you have mid, you have the luxury of having access to both – I typically opt for whichever’s easiest at that time.

That’s a great response. Thank you!

In general, what do you guys do when your team loses the mid fight? Do you go back, or do you try for far? Does it depend what class you’re on?

For every match I lose, I assume I could have made a difference if only I had done something else. Right now, if I see that everyone is dead at mid initial fight, I don’t want to add my body to that list, so I go far.

The problem with that is that you’re essentially ceding control of mid for the entire match. And holding mid gives you a vantage point allowing you to move quickly between points and also see what’s happening. But if they have people guarding in, you’re an idiot to try and take it.

So what do you guys generally do on which class? Assume solo q and no coordination with teammates…

One solution could be to introduce a penalty of say 50 points for ever additional team pre-made member compared to the other. So for example, 5 soloers vs a 5-man premade would start the match with 250 points… (In unranked of course).

The number can be adjusted based on statistical analysis of how the impact various types of premades have over soloers. Anet has mounds of data by now. I think a penalty system would encourage pre-mades to go ranked instead of camping in unranked.

Coxy.5269:

Run to far, decap. (Someone probably chasing after you, let them recap.) Place portal and run back to help mid. When the person chases you finishes the cap and runs to mid, use port for quick decap and then back through the portal.

Cap close at start. Place portal. Run to mid to help, use portal if anyone attempts to backcap.

Place portal by buffs 20s in advance on temple for instant buff grab and hopefully get them before the enemy arrives.

If you like using the treb in kyhlo, quick repairs.

On foefire, when you’re team is on ~320 points place portal on mid and go break down the door. Spam “[Portal Entre] at mid!!!” in team chat and drop when your team is at 350. Pray people come with you.

And lots of general rotations, leaving one at mid after initial teamfight, running home and helping, see people attack mid, use port etc. I’m sure others will provide suggestions.

Thanks. Let me see if I can learn to use these strats effectively.

I’d like some particular use cases for portal. For example, if I cap close, leave a portal, go far and cap it, portal has already run out by then and so it’s useless.

Today I tried portal again, but went the whole game without being able to find a use for it.

Can you give some specific strategies – like where and when do you drop it and what conditions do you wait for to use it?

I wanted to use an XP booster for PvP, so I opened an Enchanted Reward boost and saw this:

Yellow Rarity:

Experience Booster (20m): 50% experience in all game types
*50% PvP Reward Track Gain*
Up to +100% Bonus Experience for Kill Streaks

Are they joking? The booster only lasts for 20m? And the Enchanted Reward booster doesn’t even work for me in HotM, so I basically have to start it in PvE. Which means 5 mins waiting, plus 15m max for one game.

I can essentially just squeeze one – one – game out of this booster!

I can’t find any other PvP reward track boosters, so this must be it! Just a 20m window for one game, and that’s it.

Or is this a subtle way to nudge me towards hotjoin?

How useful do you guys find portal when queuing solo? Let’s assume that you and only you are going to use it and that you can’t coordinate with your teammates in any way. If you can, great – but let’s assume not.

What are some of the use case scenarios you can see with portal? And what do you feel about its benefits vis a vis some other skill you could have taken?

Just as an update, the build seems to be doing quite well. What’s funny is that people don’t seem to realize that I don’t shatter. I’ve got the following comments recently:

1. Sigh
2. Mesmer “skill”
3. Why does ever mesmer have to play the same cheap condi build? I know why…no skill!

Not bad for a “no shatter”/no pu/no interupt build

With DS 1 being so slow, and with all the CC, evades, invuls, blocks and reflects, I find I’m hardly ever able to get off some actual hits with the Death Shroud auto attack.

I have a choice between taking Curses and SR. Curses has so many “instant” effects, that I feel much more effective. Instant weakness application, instant condi transfers, instant bleeds etc. Whenever I theorycraft with soul reaping and think how much damage I can do with 50% critical chance in DS, I only have to play it for a match or two to see how little I actually get to use it.

Successfully getting off DS 4 in a team fight is a real miracle.

In this fast paced environment, everyone wants skills with low cast times, and evade frames. Does anyone else find DS 1 to be underwhelming?

In quite a few recent posts, some users have attempted to lazily shut down arguments by calling people “scrubs” and referencing this sirlin article: http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub. I’ve seen it being applied so often and so badly, that it’s time for me to demolish it – so you can quote this post whenever someone quotes the former link.

To start, we have to decide on one of two positions:

1. Do we play the game based on how it’s intended to be played by the game designers? Or..

2. Do we play the game “as is” without taking into considerations intended behavior, without bothering about what the developers wanted and what they think is right?

If you take the first position, then you must necessarily agree that any behavior/effect/damage whatever that goes against the judgment of the game designers is wrong. In this role, the game designers are essentially god – laying down not just the mechanics, but also morality. What the game designers intend is “right”. What they do not intend is “wrong”.

This means exploits are wrong because it’s not what the game designers intended. When GW2 was first released years ago, I remember there was an exploit allowing users to buy cultural weapons basically for free. Some users bought thousands of these weapons and were later banned. So here we have a situation where the game mechanics allowed you to do something, but where you refused to take advantage of it because god wouldn’t like it.

If however, you subscribe to (2), it means you treat the game world like the real world. There is no “higher authority”, you get away with whatever you can, because it gives you the best chance to succeed. If you belong to (2), you would have no problem taking advantage of the recent bug giving doors in WvW distortion and abusing any other mechanic you find. Because in your world, there is no god. In the real world, lobbying is a “bug” in the system. But since there is no god, there is no single authority to judge what is and isn’t a bug.

So decide – are you (1), or are you (2)? If you are (2), then if you take it too far, you will face the wrath of god and get your account banned. So (2) is actually a delusion. The game world is not the real world. The game world has a god who enforces rules and morality. So (1) is the only clear “real” situation. (2) is a fantasy.

In game world, god comes down at regular intervals and changes things around via “balance patches”. He makes His Will known by nerfing, buffing, or changing stuff. He’s essentially saying “My bad. I intended something else, and the current rules of the world do not further my goals”. Since this is god, it means that the previous mechanic was wrong, and the new one is correct.

Was the previous mechanic an exploit? The world “exploit” is used only for truly egregious mechanics that go against god. But in principle, every balance change is an “exploit” fix. But god is just and merciful. He won’t kill you unless you really kitten him off.

Bottom line: Every balance patch fixes an “exploit”. The question is only one of degree. Was it a huge exploit, or a tiny one? Tiny ones are called balances. Big ones are called fixes. But they are the same thing in principle.

Now coming to scrubs.

The Sirlin article linked at the beginning, assumes there is no god. That there are no balance patches. That all exploits are valid. In fact, if you don’t abuse an exploit, you are a “scrub” for artificially placing a limit on your ability to win.

Moreover, the article gives no explanations for its assumptions. It says for example:

_Who knows what objective the scrub has, but we know his objective is not truly to win. Yours is. Your objective is good and right and true, and let no one tell you otherwise. _

It tries to browbeat you into accepting the basic premise without providing any rational, that winning is the only thing that matters. That you have to use an exploit to achieve the “good and right and true” objective.

This is objectively false. God does not want us to use “any means necessary to win”. Now because god is merciful, he won’t cancel your account if you use a small OP mechanic deliberately. But if it’s big enough, he will.

The so called “scrub” is merely someone trying to get god to listen to their opinion of what is intended and what isn’t. The “scrub” is merely calling the attention of god to something they feel is wrong. In the real world, this would be naive. In the game world, there is a very real god who often listens via the prayers known as the “forum”.

And sometimes, god listens.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

bhagwad.4281:

Matty.1953:

bhagwad.4281:

Matty.1953:

To willfully neglect all of your profession mechanics means you’re relying on weapon and utility skills alone. Setting aside the implications of this in terms of survivability, this means all your damage comes from weapon skills — your damage is seriously telegraphed. There’s no way you’re killing a skilled player with that, I’m sorry.

Well to be fair, damage is supposed to be telegraphed in some way or the other. And it’s not as if shatters are not telegraphed. In fact, mesmer players are constantly telling other players to “learn2dodge” etc etc right?

Just… no. You can hide mesmers’ skill animations through blinking, portals and stealth. Shattering yourself within melee range is also an untelegraphed source of damage.

Also, saying that damage is supposed to telegraphed falls under ‘scrub’ territory.

Sigh. I’m getting tired of this “scrub” nonsense. It’s not a logical argument – just an attempt at ad-hominem.

Using this illogical name calling, any complaint about the game falls into “scrub territory”. Burning is too high? Oh, you’re placing an artificial constraint on how high burning should be. CS is too strong? Oh, you’re placing an artificial constraint on how often mesmers should stun.

Remember that this is a game with frequent balance patches. And that means, very often the complaints are valid because the damage or other mechanic was unintended.

I’ve seen this “scrub” argument used by people without thinking to shut down any valid discussion. It’s time to call people out on it.

Dude, you have repeatedly ignored my (and others) point that scrub thinking has nothing to do with dev balance, and keep bringing that tired old inaccurate point back in, but you’re still wrong!

Game balance is the domain of the devs, and that has zilch to do with being a scrub! That’s RossBiddle’s point, that your refusal to use shatters isn’t because you think shatters are cheap, or OP, or whatever, you simply enjoy a different style of play and are doing your best to come up with optimal ways to play it…and advocate for dev support if you find that you can’t.

• Devs changing balance isn’t scrub thinking any more than Congressmen changing the law is criminal thinking.
• Advocating for devs changing balance isn’t scrub thinking any more than voting for Congressmen who will change the law you don’t like is criminal thinking.

THEY ARE COMPLETELY SEPARATE

The only time scrub thinking interacts with balance changes or balance advocacy is when changes were made in response to scrubs, and not in response to real balance issues. Sirlin has another great article on that topic too if you look around his blog, but that’s a subsidiary issue. A dev making a change isn’t being a scrub unless he personally made the change because of his own scrub thinking.

So per your point, calling burning damage too high is NOT relevant to the use of the term scrub, because it’s advocacy for balance, not a refusal to play the game as it is.

Lastly, your repeated insistence that arguments are ad hominem falls prey to the same error you are declaiming.
“Who says ad hominem is a bad thing? It’s just a name, you can’t just go around calling things ad hominem and dismissing them outright!”
Your logic in this fight is internally inconsistent, without even needing to cite specific fallacies.

As far as ad hominem itself, it’s a common misuse of ad hominem to label any derogatory label as ad hominem. Ad hominem is only a fallacy if the label used is not relevant, not appropriately applied, or not indicative of true good/bad relative to the discussion at hand.

Scrub thinking is bad because it hides the true depth of play available in a game for reasons not relevant to the value of the game itself. That’s Sirlin’s point, that people who rise above scrub thinking are playing on a level beyond what a scrub can imagine, because the scrub locked themselves out of that level of play voluntarily.
But then the scrub declares their advocacy for this or that balance change, ignorant of the fact that it’s not in fact unbalanced.

True imbalance exists, but scrub thinking obscures where that imbalance really lies, because they refuse to operate at that level of play.

So we label people scrubs to invoke that entire, complex discussion, rather than having it AGAIN every. kitten. time.

The judge of what is and isn’t balanced is the prerogative of the devs and the devs alone. Hence, if anyone has the right to use the word “scrub”, it’s a dev because we have no way of knowing what is intended and what is unintended. A forum user utilizing “scrub” is meaningless.

I think I need to write a separate post about this.

And in this case, the ad-hominem fallacy is perfectly relevant because calling someone a “scrub” merely applies a label without explaining what that label is good or bad. It does nothing for the argument itself.

Calling for a nerf to burning CAN be a refusal to play the game as is. Because the game as is, has a burning damage value that some consider too high. What does “too high” mean? It means they think it’s unfair. And lots of people do not like to do things that are unfair. Hence, they are scrubs for not utilizing the best and most efficient means to win.

Mirmil.5074:

It seems you have a problem with a word “scrub” rather with the meaning behind it: well, lets look at the dictionary:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/scrub?s=t
it seems that the offending meaning would be “a small or insignificant person.” or “Sports. a player not belonging to the varsity or regular team; a player who is not first-string.” The origin comes from “low trees or shrubs collectively.”

So you are offended because someone has been called “a low tree”. Well, Sirlin who seems to coin this meaning to certain type of game players decided to use it and collective picked it up, same way calling someone “kitten”, “other word for donkey” or “pig” became offensive even if I don’t believe most people have anything against dogs, donkeys or pork. Would you feel better if Sirlin would call such players “banana”? Well, go ahead, start a petition a meme or something and propagate this change.

Beside me at least other 2 people already proven that such behavior matches the patter that Sirlin called “scrub”. Same as your behaviour matches pattern generally called “trolling”, even if it doesn’t have much to do with Scandinavian mythical forrest dwellers.

See, that’s the thing. Who decided that this word “scrub” was a bad thing? The problem lies in the word itself which is meant to shame people. This is not at all different from someone pointing to a woman and saying “You’re a girl” in a sneering voice. Has it proved anything beyond the fact that she’s a girl? No. Have you succeeded in trying to shame her and thereby render her opinions irrelevant? Probably.

These are all just basically variants of the ad-hominem argument. Logical fallacies that need to be rooted out mercilessly.

Matty.1953:

bhagwad.4281:

Matty.1953:

To willfully neglect all of your profession mechanics means you’re relying on weapon and utility skills alone. Setting aside the implications of this in terms of survivability, this means all your damage comes from weapon skills — your damage is seriously telegraphed. There’s no way you’re killing a skilled player with that, I’m sorry.

Well to be fair, damage is supposed to be telegraphed in some way or the other. And it’s not as if shatters are not telegraphed. In fact, mesmer players are constantly telling other players to “learn2dodge” etc etc right?

Just… no. You can hide mesmers’ skill animations through blinking, portals and stealth. Shattering yourself within melee range is also an untelegraphed source of damage.

Also, saying that damage is supposed to telegraphed falls under ‘scrub’ territory.

Sigh. I’m getting tired of this “scrub” nonsense. It’s not a logical argument – just an attempt at ad-hominem.

Using this illogical name calling, any complaint about the game falls into “scrub territory”. Burning is too high? Oh, you’re placing an artificial constraint on how high burning should be. CS is too strong? Oh, you’re placing an artificial constraint on how often mesmers should stun.

Remember that this is a game with frequent balance patches. And that means, very often the complaints are valid because the damage or other mechanic was unintended.

I’ve seen this “scrub” argument used by people without thinking to shut down any valid discussion. It’s time to call people out on it.

Carighan.6758:

I always had this funky idea for an elite nullfield where nothing can happen inside it apart from movement. Cannot apply any boons or conditions, cannot remove any boons or conditions, no damage is dealt, no healing is received.

One way to achieve this effect would be to first insta-kill anyone who enters it . Immediate 50k fall damage ftw!

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Bhagwad, I’ll give this build a spin this weekend and let ya know what I think.

Did you get the opportunity to try Chronomancer? Or more specifically Chronophantasma? I feel this is the single best trait for Phantasm builds atm, even if it is a pseudo-shatter trait. It allows you to micromanage your phantasms in a really interesting way and milk even more damage/utility from them via shatters.

@Alpha: I don’t think anet is against phantasm builds. I think (due to traits like Persistence of Memory and Chronophantasma) that they want people who play phantasm to still find rewards from shattering, but don’t know how to do that in a way that does t also boost shatter-heavy builds.

Haven’t gotten around to purchasing HoT yet… (I know, I know. It’s inevitable).

AlphatheWhite.9351:

bhagwad.4281:

To put this more clearly, the article defines a scrub. It does not say why being a scrub is a bad thing. It relies solely on the shaming power of the name itself which people might not like to be associated with. I mean, the entire tone of that article itself is not very conducive to logic.

My arguments about “scrubs” here has little to do with my personal feelings or my playstyle. I’m just pointing out logical fallacies where and when I see them. This one in particular I’ve seen a little too often the forums lacking real logic, and so I’ve taken it upon myself to bust it.

Sounds like you didn’t read the whole article.
It sure does say being a scrub is a bad thing.

Sirlin

I’ve never been to a tournament where there was a prize for the winner and another prize for the player who did many difficult moves. I’ve also never seen a prize for a player who played “in an innovative way.” (Though chess tournaments do sometimes have prizes for “brilliancies,” moves that are strokes of genius.) Many scrubs have strong ties to “innovation.” They say, “That guy didn’t do anything new, so he is no good.” Or “person X invented that technique and person Y just stole it.” Well, person Y might be one hundred times better than person X, but that doesn’t seem to matter to the scrub. When person Y wins the tournament and person X is a forgotten footnote, what will the scrub say? That person Y has “no skill” of course.

You can gain some standing in a gaming community by playing in an innovative way, but that should not be the ultimate goal. Innovation is merely one of many tools that may or may not help you reach victory. The goal is to play as excellently as possible. The goal is to win.

The point of the article is that scrub thinking is not playing to win, and you should play to win.

There we have it – that word should.. It requires more explanation. Why should you play only to win? I’m not saying you shouldn’t. I’m not taking a stand here at all in fact. The onus is on the author to prove his use of the word “should”, and he doesn’t do so.

Indeed, the very concept of scrub thinking is a frame around the idea that there is a higher level of play and counterplay that scrubs can never reach because they refuse to go there. The whole article is dedicated to this concept, that scrub thinking is an artificial limitation that is grounded in meaningless distinctions in the first place.

Seriously, you say you read the article, but you’re talking a lot like you didn’t.

Well, yes it says a bad thing but doesn’t (in my opinion), give logical reasons to show why. It relies on describing a set of behaviors and leaving it to the reader to assume. I mean it basically admits as much with this sentence for example:

“Who knows what objective the scrub has, but we know his objective is not truly to win. Yours is. Your objective is good and right and true, and let no one tell you otherwise. "

So the article is admitting it has no clue has to the motivations of the behavior, and at the same time it reinforces the reader’s belief that “your objective is good and right and true”. Note however, that no justification is given for this assertion. Words like “good”, “right”, and “true” need to be explained. Why is it good? Why is it right? Because these words are moral judgments by their very nature and not self evident facts. Never mind that “true” doesn’t even fit in here – is he trying to deny the existence of other motivations? We’ll never know.

I’ve read the article in quite a bit of depth. I just find it lacking in logical reasoning. Honestly, it looks like the author isn’t even trying. Sure, the shaming tone can work on lots of people, but it doesn’t hold water with those who know what makes an argument good and what doesn’t.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

bhagwad.4281:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

That’s scrub thinking.

Lastly, you’re making a rather irrelevant point about balance patches. We didn’t call the guy a scrub because he called for a nerf, we called him a scrub because he used scrub logic and confessed to scrub behavior.
Lots of people call for nerfs to PU, and we don’t call them scrubs…just wrong.

The scrubs aren’t the people advocating one way or another about balance patches.
They are the people who come in here declaring that mesmer is too boring to play now, or certain builds are so cheap you gotta be more mean to them than other people you beat, or who declare that they’ll never play such a “cheap build” because it’s unfair.
Scrubs don’t play to win because they handicap themselves for irrelevant reasons.

Heck, even choosing not to use PU condi for roaming doesn’t make you a scrub, because there are many reasons a person might choose something different. Choosing not to use PU condi because it’s too cheap, or because it’s unfair, though…that’s scrub thinking.

I have to say this again – calling someone a “scrub” means nothing. It’s not an argument. I get the feeling you’re using it only because “scrub” sounds bad.

Let’s have an experiment. Replace the word scrub with “Knight”. It’s just a terminology right? You can link to the definition of a Knight and point to that article explaining thins.

Now ask yourself – would you use the same way of calling people “Knights”? So you’d go:

“You sir, are a Knight”.

Response: “Why thank you!”

Do you see what I’m doing? Neither of the above are logical arguments – calling someone a scrub or a Knight. Yet you use one as an insult and you cannot use the other in the same way.

Moral of the story: Merely naming something is a logical fallacy. Ok, the behavior has a name. So what?

You already read the article that “scrub” is a reference to.
You made objections to the link, and I (and others) answered those objections.
This post you just made is now pretending once again that http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub doesn’t exist, or that it has no relevance.

In short, this post is meaningless because we already answered the concern that “scrub” isn’t an invocation of an argument.

If I cite “occam’s razor”, I don’t need to repeat the logic behind it. If I cite “murphy’s law”, I don’t need to repeat the concept. If I cite “scrub” in an environment where the referenced argument (the sirlin article) has been frequently cited before, I don’t need to repeat the logic.

This is particularly true when the post right before mine (made by Pyro) already included a skeleton of that same logic.

Edit: It seems at this point you are being willfully obtuse. I can’t imagine why you are forsaking fundamentals of argument here, maybe because you yourself feel indicted by the scrub accusation. I don’t know why you would though, your objections (which admittedly many think are ridiculous) to shattering have little to do with fair play, and everything to do with things you don’t enjoy doing…which we can’t indict you for, everytime you talk about it you’re admitting upfront that what you’re after is a playstyle you enjoy, not a playstyle that will win.

Occam’s razor is a logical line by itself. So when one invokes Occam’s razor, they’re referring to an established principle in science where all things being equal, the simplest explanation is the correct one. They key word here is “correct”. Occam’s razor is not just a description, but also a justification. It is a tool used to raise some arguments an discard others.

Referring to an article giving a name to a certain behavior does not do anything of the sort. At best, one is pointing to a definition, not a refutation, unlike Occam’s razor which is more than just naming.

To put this more clearly, the article defines a scrub. It does not say why being a scrub is a bad thing. It relies solely on the shaming power of the name itself which people might not like to be associated with. I mean, the entire tone of that article itself is not very conducive to logic.

My arguments about “scrubs” here has little to do with my personal feelings or my playstyle. I’m just pointing out logical fallacies where and when I see them. This one in particular I’ve seen a little too often the forums lacking real logic, and so I’ve taken it upon myself to bust it.

Iavra.8510:

Why even bother playing mesmer when you are actively playing against the class itself?

That’s an interesting point. The thing is, I’ve been playing a “no shatter” mesmer for 3 years – that’s a long time to get used to a style of play and investment in a character. If we had started out with the game we had today, I probably would have played a different class or maybe even enjoyed shattering. I don’t know at this point.

But after all this time, I can’t imagine playing a mesmer any other way. The latest patch fundamentally screwed over phantasm builds both directly and indirectly. Now I play on other classes as well, it’s just that mes has been my main for like ever.

Ross Biddle.2367:

bhagwad.4281:

Matty.1953:

To willfully neglect all of your profession mechanics means you’re relying on weapon and utility skills alone. Setting aside the implications of this in terms of survivability, this means all your damage comes from weapon skills — your damage is seriously telegraphed. There’s no way you’re killing a skilled player with that, I’m sorry.

Well to be fair, damage is supposed to be telegraphed in some way or the other. And it’s not as if shatters are not telegraphed. In fact, mesmer players are constantly telling other players to “learn2dodge” etc etc right?

Yeah, exactly. Just like backstab.

In fact Thieves have been telling players to learn2dodge for YEARS.

Exactly. And that is why people find it so cheesy. But to be fair, you can usually dodge a regular backstab if you’ve already engaged the thief. Otherwise for long stealth skills there are huge tells like circles on the ground giving you counterplay.

But this is not a thief thread – the point is that the GP was saying that the damage is telegraphed. I say working as intended no?

AlphatheWhite.9351:

That’s scrub thinking.

Lastly, you’re making a rather irrelevant point about balance patches. We didn’t call the guy a scrub because he called for a nerf, we called him a scrub because he used scrub logic and confessed to scrub behavior.
Lots of people call for nerfs to PU, and we don’t call them scrubs…just wrong.

The scrubs aren’t the people advocating one way or another about balance patches.
They are the people who come in here declaring that mesmer is too boring to play now, or certain builds are so cheap you gotta be more mean to them than other people you beat, or who declare that they’ll never play such a “cheap build” because it’s unfair.
Scrubs don’t play to win because they handicap themselves for irrelevant reasons.

Heck, even choosing not to use PU condi for roaming doesn’t make you a scrub, because there are many reasons a person might choose something different. Choosing not to use PU condi because it’s too cheap, or because it’s unfair, though…that’s scrub thinking.

I have to say this again – calling someone a “scrub” means nothing. It’s not an argument. I get the feeling you’re using it only because “scrub” sounds bad.

Let’s have an experiment. Replace the word scrub with “Knight”. It’s just a terminology right? You can link to the definition of a Knight and point to that article explaining thins.

Now ask yourself – would you use the same way of calling people “Knights”? So you’d go:

“You sir, are a Knight”.

Response: “Why thank you!”

Do you see what I’m doing? Neither of the above are logical arguments – calling someone a scrub or a Knight. Yet you use one as an insult and you cannot use the other in the same way.

Moral of the story: Merely naming something is a logical fallacy. Ok, the behavior has a name. So what?

Fay.2357:

bhagwad.4281:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

bhagwad.4281:

So if one calling another a “scrub”, they need to follow it up with why they think it’s a bad thing, and how their argument is a better one. Otherwise it’s just lazy thinking, hoping that the other person will feel ashamed merely on the basis of the stigma of the name itself. Which is irrational.

It was a specific followup to Pyro’s post explaining that very reasoning. I just took the trouble to put a name to it.

That said, the name itself is an invocation of the storied and now well-known Sirlin article about scrubs, and is far briefer than having to elaborate on all that myself.

I read that article. And it didn’t take into account balance patches which might end up validating the “scrub’s” point of view

Balance patches don’t validate the point of view of a scrub. Just because something is deemed ‘too strong’ by a balance team doesn’t mean that it wasn’t the optimal way to play at the time. Regardless of balance, knowingly handicapping yourself due to a contrived sense of fairness and honor in a game is being a scrub. There is no exception. Looking down on others for not being scrubs just means you’re doubling down on scrubbiness.

The “scrub” never complains that a certain method is not “optimal”. Only unfair. There is a difference. According to you, any mesmer who refused to give distortion to doors in WvW is a scrub am I right?

And you’re once again continuing the logical fallacy of merely naming something without providing an explanation of why it’s a bad thing. The article you reference does not refer to balance patches at all, which in my view completely negates it from an MMO point of view.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

bhagwad.4281:

So if one calling another a “scrub”, they need to follow it up with why they think it’s a bad thing, and how their argument is a better one. Otherwise it’s just lazy thinking, hoping that the other person will feel ashamed merely on the basis of the stigma of the name itself. Which is irrational.

It was a specific followup to Pyro’s post explaining that very reasoning. I just took the trouble to put a name to it.

That said, the name itself is an invocation of the storied and now well-known Sirlin article about scrubs, and is far briefer than having to elaborate on all that myself.

I read that article. And it didn’t take into account balance patches which might end up validating the “scrub’s” point of view

Fay.2357:

Carighan.6758:

baylock.1703:

Nop I have inspiration so endless supply of condi clense so they do not actually manage to deal eny damage to me but mesmers playing pu condi with dire gear what most do makes them really booring to fight with and i usealy cant be bothered so I just leave them if there is other ppl to fight on map , if there isent il take the 10 to 15 minutes what it takes to kill them. But imagine thiefs , warriors how hard will you conter these classes….. and playing pu condi is soooo passiv you could mind as well play it eyes shut…

Now ignoring that reading this made me want to gouge my eyes out, how is PU Condi cheap again? You beat it consistently with a power shatter built with inspiration?

So… stop being so cheap? Seems you’re playing quit the lame overpowered spec there. Bad players having to use OP specs, meh.

PU condie isn’t cheap of course. What baylock is demonstrating is merely a common phenomenon seen in games.

It’s very rare to see someone that consistently wins all the time feeling the need to denigrate or insult what their opponents do. There isn’t a need. The only statement that needs to be made is the one silently made by winning.

On the other hand, it’s quite common to see people that lose all the time creating insults and reasons as to why their opponents aren’t playing fair. Since they can’t make the silent statement of victory, they’re reduced to making the noisy statements of accusations.

Take from that what you will.

This isn’t always true. I always thought thieves were cheap even after painstakingly learning to play against them and win at least 50% of the time. Remember when you created your immortal mesmer build? Thieves were never a threat while playing that build – yet that didn’t stop me from considering them cheap.

Then after immortal mesmer got nerfed, I played the phantasm builds which were excellent against thieves. Yes, I remember losing some duels but those thieves played their kitten off and were really good. Nevertheless despite countering thieves most of the time, the repeated stealth mechanic was still cheap.

Finally, thieves are absolutely 0 threat to me on my weakness and well necro. Pretty much impossible to kill me. But they repeated stealthing is still cheap.

If we ever have a hard counter to PU mesmer, PU will still be cheap.

Finally, to address the “scrub” accusation that I keep hearing here. Two things:

1. Anet constantly balances and nerfs stuff. When they do that, it means the damage (for example) was not intended to be that high. So when people were complaining about mantra recharge being broken, they were right. Anet ended up nerfing mantras. So if someone got called a “scrub” for refusing to take advantage of what was clearly an unintended effect (Anet even called it a bug), then they were right to do so!

In short, the accusation of being a scrub is only sustainable if the mechanic in question does not get nerfed. If it does, it’s simply an example of a player refusing to profit unfairly. Like when Anet recently removed the bug of doors getting distortion from the mesmer, if someone refused to exploit that, you can hardly call them a scrub.

Every nerf is at some level addressing a bug – either in the game design, or a bug in the calculations of the balance team for what is acceptable and what is not.

2. Calling someone a “scrub” and leaving it at that is a logical fallacy closely related to the ad-hominem. You’re merely labeling someone while counting on the supposed offensive power of the name alone to somehow make your point. It’s like pointing at someone and saying “Oh, you drink coffee. You coffee drinker!” By itself, it provides no support for your arguments, nor does it logically counter the arguments of someone else.

So if one calling another a “scrub”, they need to follow it up with why they think it’s a bad thing, and how their argument is a better one. Otherwise it’s just lazy thinking, hoping that the other person will feel ashamed merely on the basis of the stigma of the name itself. Which is irrational.

Matty.1953:

To willfully neglect all of your profession mechanics means you’re relying on weapon and utility skills alone. Setting aside the implications of this in terms of survivability, this means all your damage comes from weapon skills — your damage is seriously telegraphed. There’s no way you’re killing a skilled player with that, I’m sorry.

Well to be fair, damage is supposed to be telegraphed in some way or the other. And it’s not as if shatters are not telegraphed. In fact, mesmer players are constantly telling other players to “learn2dodge” etc etc right?

No, not really. Talking is way too intimate and personal for me. Chat is as far as I’m willing to go. I would never enjoy talking to random strangers.

Besides, implementing VoIP is a whole new ballgame in terms for server infrastructure, software, expertise etc…It’s not trivial and I don’t know if Anet has the capabilities to do it…

Fay.2357:

Good luck reflecting mirror blade…

It’s unblockable.

Ouch. That sucks .

AlphatheWhite.9351:

bhagwad.4281:

Unfortunately I had to give up Chaos for two reasons:

1. No good GM traits. They’re all either shatter, PU, or interrupts
2. Duelist’s Discipline’s requires interrupts to work. We don’t interrupt in this build

What does Duelist’s Discipline have to do with Chaos?

Since I can’t rely on Duelists’s discipline to lower the CD of my pistol skills, I need CD reduction from another source – namely the illusions line. Since I have to take dueling and inspiration, the inclusion of illusions means I can’t take chaos

Yeah, I should have made that more clear!

Shaogin.2679:

bhagwad.4281:

Shaogin.2679:

Israel.7056:

Shaogin.2679:

No thanks. Solo Queue was just a glorified hotjoin. This is a team game. If you can’t make the effort to form a team for whatever reason, you should be at a disadvantage against those that did put in the work and effort to get a team together.

What you should instead petition for is 1v1, 2v2, or 3v3 arenas if you’re looking to show off your individual skill. 5v5 matches are not the place for that.

1.) solo queue was a team game just like team queue was. The teams were just randomly formed in solo queue.

2.) it doesn’t follow that because the game is designed as a team contest that premade teams should be given an unfair advantage against randomly formed ones. It’s possible to match random teams against other random teams and premade teams against other premade teams.

3.) you seem to categorize a 2s or 3s arena team as “not a team.” Why?

1) Hotjoin is also a team game. But much like Solo Queue, it amounted to a bunch of random people running around doing their own thing.

2) This system makes an attempt to match teams against other teams. The problem here is the lack of population in sPvP. Splitting the queues would cause much higher queue times for the pre-made teams, made evident by the fact that solo players are already being matched against them because there is no other team in the queue for them to play against. Causing all of this just because solo players don’t like losing to a pre-made team and can’t be bothered to make their own team is just silly and anet isn’t going to take that route.

3) I never stated 2v2 or 3v3 arenas are not team games. Solo Queue players would however be more fitting there due to a single player having a much larger impact on the outcome of the game, thus granting a player a better chance at showing off their individual skills. Not to mention players have been asking for this since launch. I personally could care less.

Hotjoin is not a team game since you can switch teams, leave matches, and join in the middle.

It’s a match between two teams. Your personal feelings nor the player’s abuse of mechanics changes the fact it is a team game.

What abuse of mechanics? These are intended mechanics! It cannot be a “team game” if you can just switch teams in the middle because then you have no shared goal with your team members. The goal is not to win, but to amass personal points. There is no team. Merely sharing the same color does not make a team.

If hotjoin players could attack their own color, they would! It’s only the rules of Anet that prevent them from doing so…

Not so for unranked/ranked q.

Calling hotjoin a “team game” is like calling the human population of the “Walking Dead” series a “team”. It’s every man for himself.

Again – this is how hotjoin is supposed to be. There is literally 0 “team play” in hotjoin. Why? Because a team has shared goals. Players in hotjoin have no shared goals.

Since I love mesmer so much, I decided to give yet another try on my old build. Two recent changes have made it a bit more viable:

1. The slight nerfing of shatter mesmer
2. The buff to the scepter (well, bug fix actually)

Sc+pistol/sw+focus

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-R3SFc;0VPk41y6cVF71;9;4TVW;0056236048;4Usl6S;1jwmAjwmA0s

This build has none of the following:

1. No PU
2. No shatters
3. No interrupts

Unfortunately I had to give up Chaos for two reasons:

1. No good GM traits. They’re all either shatter, PU, or interrupts
2. Duelist’s Discipline’s requires interrupts to work. We don’t interrupt in this build

In place of Chaos, we have to take illusions for the lower CDs on phant skills. This comes with two awesome unexpected bonuses:

1. We get scepter speed increase
2. We get to increase confusion duration from scepter

Playstyle:

The scepter #3 skill hits like a laser. I try and get it off twice for each swap to sc/pistal since the CD is just below 10 sec. I mean wow – with it, I’ve been able to down many, many classes. It’s just so fast that people don’t even realize it’s on them. I’ve seen thieves autoattack themselves to death in seconds. I’ve even seen normally tanky eles just die with this one skill alone.

We got lots of reflects with our focus. I can use this against shatter mesmers opening with mirror blade. (P.S. Just learned that mirror blade is unblockable/unreflectable, so that’s out…) But we also get a lot of damage surprisingly from focus #5. For some reason, illusionary lead has become less smooth since the patch so I have to work extra hard at pulling it off. But the idea is to immobilize your opponent inside a warden. Lots of bleeds, and he hits nicely.

(Here’s where I miss my "10% of toughness gets converted into condi damage from the Chaos line) :‘( . With that, I could maybe swap out undead runes for traveler’s since I feel so slooooooow….

Undead runes give us surprising condi damage, especially since we have decent toughness that also gets converted.

One other side benefit. Evading gives a phantasmal defender with retaliation. That means if you then get a lot of hits, the opponent will get plenty of retaliation on himself. Useful against guardians…sometimes half the screen is covered with yellow retaliation damage markers.

Still playing around with some traits, but I find it fun. At least I’m able to play mesmer without shattering, stealthing, or interrupting.

Actually one big reason for me building this way is to deal with high lag. I have a ping rate of around 340ms which means I can’t afford to be glass and I can basically never interrupt anything on purpose. This build just allows me to go through my rotations without really thinking too much and it’s quite effective.

Just like before

Shaogin.2679:

Israel.7056:

Shaogin.2679:

No thanks. Solo Queue was just a glorified hotjoin. This is a team game. If you can’t make the effort to form a team for whatever reason, you should be at a disadvantage against those that did put in the work and effort to get a team together.

What you should instead petition for is 1v1, 2v2, or 3v3 arenas if you’re looking to show off your individual skill. 5v5 matches are not the place for that.

1.) solo queue was a team game just like team queue was. The teams were just randomly formed in solo queue.

2.) it doesn’t follow that because the game is designed as a team contest that premade teams should be given an unfair advantage against randomly formed ones. It’s possible to match random teams against other random teams and premade teams against other premade teams.

3.) you seem to categorize a 2s or 3s arena team as “not a team.” Why?

1) Hotjoin is also a team game. But much like Solo Queue, it amounted to a bunch of random people running around doing their own thing.

2) This system makes an attempt to match teams against other teams. The problem here is the lack of population in sPvP. Splitting the queues would cause much higher queue times for the pre-made teams, made evident by the fact that solo players are already being matched against them because there is no other team in the queue for them to play against. Causing all of this just because solo players don’t like losing to a pre-made team and can’t be bothered to make their own team is just silly and anet isn’t going to take that route.

3) I never stated 2v2 or 3v3 arenas are not team games. Solo Queue players would however be more fitting there due to a single player having a much larger impact on the outcome of the game, thus granting a player a better chance at showing off their individual skills. Not to mention players have been asking for this since launch. I personally could care less.

Hotjoin is not a team game since you can switch teams, leave matches, and join in the middle.

Shaogin.2679:

No thanks. Solo Queue was just a glorified hotjoin. This is a team game. If you can’t make the effort to form a team for whatever reason, you should be at a disadvantage against those that did put in the work and effort to get a team together.

What you should instead petition for is 1v1, 2v2, or 3v3 arenas if you’re looking to show off your individual skill. 5v5 matches are not the place for that.

Solo players are in a team too. Saying “this is a team game” means nothing. OP is not asking for dueling or 1v1 balance or something.

Also, saying “people put in the effort to form a team” also means nothing. Because at this point, it’s just like cheating if you go up against soloers. The fact that other games have solo queues means something. It means that it is bad design to have premades fight against those who are in a team but not in premades.

So once again, in case I haven’t made it clear – “Soloers are team players too. They are just not premades”. Team =/= premades.

I’ve been championing this issue for over a year. Higher MMR players need better rewards – not just because of q times, but because they face harder matches. Blindingly obvious.

Remember guys…downing someone is not a win. Just “hoping for the best” by cleaving them isn’t enough. There’s no point having three guys downed and not finishing even one of them. Why? Because if even one of your teammates dies, those 3 will rise like the phoenix and you’re screwed.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen someone just dancing all over a downed target instead of biting the bullet and stomping. This is specially notable when the downed person is an ele, a mesmer, or a thief. People are afraid to commit because they know these 3 classes have an escape.

But…there’s no shortcut – sorry! Unless you know for a fact that your other skills will finish the guy off, please take some time out, stomp, bait out the escape skill, and stomp again.

Of course, circumstances might dictate otherwise. But I’ve seen many situations when it’s perfectly reasonable to initiate a stomp…only to have people just play around hoping someone else will do the dirty work.

Don’t be that guy. Don’t be a downer. Be a stomper!

Vydahr.4285:

nearlight.3064:

Vydahr.4285:

nearlight.3064:

Sagat.3285:

Azure.8670:

I still think minion mancer is superior to signet but what do I know

You are not the only one, only AI issues are holding MM back but cele signet is kind of overrated there is an even thread in PvP section saying it better than cele ele.

Yeah I am starting to see that cele signets is overrated. Mainly because, while it is amazing in 1v1s, it really isn’t that strong in teamfights since necro is so easy to focus. Due to that I’ve switched to a soldier’s variation of the build that uses blood magic instead of curses, although curses could might still be better since death perception lets you proc the curses proc traits.. hmmmm…

Yeah.. I’ve never really been into minion builds, but I do think that tanky power builds that are bruiser-esque in design and focus are our strongest choices, which MM technically classifies as, I just like the mightstacking and utility of signets for now.

Try a Soldier SR/BM/S Spectral Well build. That’ll give you a fair bit of durability and plenty of bruising power. I’ve been running one that I really like and unless my team kittens itself for some Grenth forsaken reason, it does really well, including in team fights (plenty of AoE and enough focus with dagger aa that you take down players too)

I see the advantage to using wells (protection) but I prefer signets. Other than that and utility based trait choices the builds we came up with are probably pretty similar.

It’s also a fair bit of damage in a large AoE. In a team fight where there’s more going on, you’re going to be hitting two or three (or more) people for somewhere around 6k damage, which is not fun for light armor classes, and not exactly negligible on heavy armor. And that’s base. If you make full bloodlust stacks, it bumps it to 7k (non-critting, mind.) And at 20 might stacks, the two damage wells will hit fro about 8500 damage over six seconds. To up to five targets. That can turn a team fight pretty well if timed right.

The build I use that I get those numbers from: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhZakjGapxaaw2G4wxBuQBbzAoFmFxJUF0zIOeWA-TZRBwAbOEA02focZgFnAAAPBAA

I run pretty much the same setup. But I keep switching between curses and sour reaping. I really like the weakness uptime and the condi transfer signet. But I can’t deny that SR really shines too – choices, choices.

Also, I take the cele ammy. If I use soldier’s like you do, won’t I lose a lot of crits and ferocity?

But then, your focus is more bunkery and mine is both bunker + damage….

SkiTz.4590:

bhagwad.4281:

I don’t think anyone minds that eles never die. The problem is that they can kill you while doing it.

With great sustain comes great loss of DPS.

At least that’s how it should work. Tough or impossible to kill? No problem! Just remember that you won’t do much damage. Wanna be able to apply huge stacks of burning constantly for super high DPS? Hey, no issues – just realize that you’re going to be easy to kill.

The problem with eles is that they can do both of these. Either one is fine. Both together is not fine.

They can die. Their weakness is limited access to stability (just armor of earth really)
stunlock them and power/condi burst them the second they leave water attunement.
Its hard but to say its impossible to beat a dd ele is laughable. Ya really high skilled players like the ones you see in tourneys are tough to beat 1v1… but they could be tough to beat with ANY CLASS…

It’s a matter of indivual skill. Yes the DD Cele ele is a very strong build, one of the strongest, but I’ve downed SOO MANY bad DD cele eles because its not as easy as it looks.
It does require a bit of a skill to master and get good at.

btw, cele signet necro beats dd ele 1v1 pretty handidly

It’s a question of degree. Obviously every build can be killed. The question is about whether or not the survival power is too high for the possible DPS. Or is the DPS too high for the survival capability.

There is a ratio. Now just because the DD can die doesn’t mean the ratio is balanced.