Guild Wars 2

Thanks, Blinx. Looks like the hotfix in question has been decided upon, though. Hopefully some of these will be considerations for the future.

Allie Murdock.8152:

The fix that is coming is in consideration of the time that we had to complete it. We are planning to rework some things when we have more time, but felt this would be sufficient for now, considering the first Qualifying tournament is tomorrow.

Thanks for putting in the extra work required to get things in order for the tournament! I know class balance is a tough problem to solve, and that you guys are doing everything you can to make all sides happy.

Good call, I really like Temple and would have liked to see it in the PAX tourney rotation, but barring that, it’s a good idea for teams to get more practice on the maps that will be by keeping Temple out of the rotation for this week.

vicious.5683:

cymerdown.4103:

… I want more team comps to be viable than Guard Necro Ranger Thief X.

Guardians are in team comps since ever, they have the best bunkering capabilities. Are they OP because no team runs 0 guardians? Why I don’t see any nerfs to your own class if your purpose is to change the meta? Lets nerf guardians to make other bunkers viable. Lets nerf their area denial for example or make GM a M trait useful to your build to make your choices more interesting… This is ridiculous..

You are biased, propose some nerfs to guardian, that make other classes good choice for bunker too. Then I’ll take you seriously.

I’ve always thought the main reason that Guardians have always been the only viable midpoint bunker is their access to AoE stability, protection, and the most AoE cleansing. I think the long term solution for that is to give a bit more access to these things to the other midpoint bunker candidates like Warrior, Ele, and Engi, while cutting down a little bit of the Guardian’s. For example, I’ve said in the past that SYGs cool down could be increased to 40s and it would still be an excellent utility. I don’t think Guardian is so good it’s broken or anything, it’s just that other bunker classes need to be brought up to match the Guardian. That level of changes would be outside of the scope of this hot fix, though.

sas.6483:

Phantaram.1265:

…1200 range necros…

necromancers actually have a chance if the other team doensn’t coordinate right and I pop plague form as I see the damage start hitting, which has happened.

… so now 1200 range on staff is the problem?

… and plague form, the 3 minute cooldown elite skill that prevents you from getting melee trained for 20 seconds but doesn’t stop ranged or condition damage, and gives you a whopping 200 dps to melee range opponents?

Well alright then, I look forward to your next video. I suggest sitting on a point and popping plague form while having 3 or four CC warriors beating on you. Be sure to break from the video immediately after the 20 seconds are up so nobody sees what happens after plague form ends. You can call it “NECRO SURVIVABILITY SO OP” or something like that.

After the 20 seconds are up, the stupid CC warriors that stayed on point to attack your plague form while blinded will be dead to your 2 or 3 teammates that were slaughtering them as they tried to kill the survivable necro.

vicious.5683:

LOOOOOL!!! a Guardian trying to nerf Necros, this is hilarious!!! and extremely biased ofc.

Dhuumfire: if something is done to this trait, it should be moved to master or even adept tier. The reason is quite simple, we would have a 30 points trait worse than a 10 point trait in engis. This should never ever happen. It’d only claim bad design! bad design!

Terror: moving it to GM won’t be necessary if Dhuumfire is nerfed. No condi necro would ever take 30 points in Spite for an underwhelming trait. Terror was nerfed last patch, so no further nerfs are needed to Dhuumfire or Terror. Grow a pair, you are a guardian, the most solid class, ever wanted in pvp and if you get a counter (like the current condi necro) adapt, learn to play and stop crying for nerfs to other classes you don’t play or you don’t know widely.

This PAX tourney should be done with the current builds, i.e. no more nerfs no more buffs. This will teach Devs and players that necros are OK, and not OP like a lot of uninformed ppl like to say

I play Necro as well, and if you don’t think the class is overpowered tier 1 not close, then I just gotta say, you’re not playing it right. You will see at least 1, if not 2 Necros in over half the teams in this tournament, including both that make it to the finals, I could almost guarantee it. And actually, what I don’t like is that Necro makes Guardian MORE necessary, not less, because good luck winning a team fight without cleanses in the current meta. I don’t want to nerf Necro to the level of unplayability, I just want more team comps to be viable than Guard Necro Ranger Thief X.

dovrak.4376:

cymerdown.4103:

dovrak.4376:

Shadow return doesn’t break cc since 2 patches ago…..

You misread what I wrote. Currently, if you press Shadow Return while CCed, it will still teleport you back, it just won’t stun break. What I’m saying is I believe it should not be able to teleport you back while you’re stunned (it is grayed out like the rest of your skills).

Oh gotcha, similar to ele’s blink, doesn’t break cc anymore, but you can teleport right after. If we fix this we gotta fix every weapon whit similar behaviors, like mesmers staff backflip etc.

Maybe, although the Mesmer staff at least has a (short) cool down on it, less range, and they don’t have as many evades as sword dagger thief, so I’m not quite as concerned about it. But yeah, Phase Retreat is also pretty nice.

Amaterasu.6280:

snip

Thanks, Kuro! Good to see a high level thiefs opinion on it. Yeah, I honestly think that’s the biggest issue, not the amount of evades but the difficulty in punishing the non-evade frames with CC, there’s just not enough counterplay to it right now.

Updated Elixir R to 15%/pulse, since I honestly think that’s a pretty fair place to start. I really want to see it return to tournament play.

Loyo.8526:

The Terror change would hurt alot more builds than you think. A simple change to dhuumfire would be worth it. The normal condition build before dhuumfire has been completely gutted away in favor of ‘balancing’ the trait. That means 0/20/20/0/30 will not be available for those necros who want the stability or soul marks, ultimately crippling both sides of damage and survivability. The latter being the one things necros need. You add too much baggage to a build, and people stop even considering it. This is evident with Greater Marks. People simply wont take it anymore in most cases because the baggage is horrendous. Now imagine if you put the prime trait for Necromancer in a grandmaster. I can’t imagine how many people will jump ship from the class alltogether.

However, I welcome the other changes. They are annoying, but are fine balance wise.

Thanks! I think if you want Terror with the survivability, 0/30/20/0/20 would still be good, you just wouldn’t gain access to stability. With all the recent buffs, I’m sure there are viable condition builds that wouldn’t even use Terror, but if you want it, it makes sense to put the full 30 points into Curses to get it, since it is a very very good trait.

The Boz.2038:

Funny how you main Guardian, yet post no Guardian changes, but are too eager to destroy the literally only build that necromancers and rangers have right now. Here, let me go into greater detail.

Honestly, I’m not out to “destroy” any builds. I’m just trying to help fix some of the broken stuff before the tournament (and you can tell stuff is somewhat broken when a bunch of the players in said tournament are concerned enough to get on here and start threads about it). I didn’t post anything about Guardian because the one viable tournament spec for it is neither too strong nor absurdly weak at the moment, and isn’t in such a condition as to need hotfixing.

The Boz.2038:

cymerdown.4103:

• Enfeebling Blood and Weakening Shroud:

No. Wait, let me try that again. Hell no. Not until the Necromancer gets tons of aegis, protection, evasion, vigor, etc. If you think this is a good idea, you really need a reality check. Also, what ease of application? Long cast time, distinctive casting animation, long-ish cooldown, easily avoidable.

Enfeebling Blood is easy enough to see and avoid in a 1v1 situation, sure. But in the middle of a team fight it’s not really possible for 2-4 people to all avoid it, and then there’s also the trait. And then you epi the weakness. Now you begin to see the problem. Now that Necro has some good sustain in Spectral Armor and the buffed lifeforce pool, we can afford to see a bit less AoE Weakness application (I’ve got no problem with single-target Weakness, but Weakness is a very powerful debuff now, and any AoE applications of it have to be looked at very carefully), and thus hopefully revive some more viability in power builds.

The Boz.2038:

cymerdown.4103:

• Elixir R:

“This skill does what it’s supposed to do, and I don’t like that.” Yeah, because wasting a slot on a questionably effective ally/self-rez is always a good idea.

Actually, I’m trying to buff Elixir R from its current state, not nerf it. The fact is, since the stun break was removed from it, it can no longer be run in a lot of builds that used to make good use of it because then that build would have 0 stunbreaks — can’t exactly Toss Elixir R to save yourself when you’re dying to a backstab combo before you can even move. So yeah, let’s return the stun break to it but lower the amount that it resses for, so we can see more Engis returning to high level team comps!

The Boz.2038:

cymerdown.4103:

• Spirits:

“Rangers now still have an effective build, even after the last nerfs, and I don’t like that.” Moving right along…

Nah, I like Spirit Rangers — heck, my team has one. I just think the passives, especially the Burning procs, are a little too much in team fights at the moment, especially when you consider that the spirits can all proc each others’ passives when their active abilities are used. I think my pretty mild adjustment of 2 more seconds on the icd of the passives would reduce the burn spam to more manageable levels while keeping the spec very viable (like I said, it’s just a bit over the top at the moment, not insanely so).

The Boz.2038:

cymerdown.4103:

• Shadow Trap:

The duration isn’t the problem here, the range is. Reduce range to something like four thousand, otherwise the change has absolutely no effect.

Eh, 4k range is very short, not even enough to port from mid to near a side point on most maps, and let’s not forget about WvW. I mean, at some point, the duration becomes important, right? For example, if the duration was 10 seconds, nobody would use it. I think the magic number is probably somewhere between 60 and 90 seconds, I’m not exactly sure what it really is, so I went with 75.

Phantaram.1265:

All of these changes are very good in my opinion except for the thief ones. IMO something else should be changed about thieves.

Great notes overall though.

Thanks, Phant. What would you do about thief? Do you think my changes are too harsh, or don’t do enough?

dovrak.4376:

Shadow return doesn’t break cc since 2 patches ago…..

You misread what I wrote. Currently, if you press Shadow Return while CCed, it will still teleport you back, it just won’t stun break. What I’m saying is I believe it should not be able to teleport you back while you’re stunned (it is grayed out like the rest of your skills).

Yeah, they purposely left out certain combinations of stats on those amulets for balance reasons. Same reason you don’t see a Toughness, Vitality, Healing Power amulet (my dream bunker Guard amulet, lol).

Lordrosicky.5813:

This would be awesome. But also increase the cast time of elixr r to be in line with other resses. And reduce the health of the natures renewal spirit by 20%

For Elixir R, I think the instant cast on it would be ok if the res % is nerfed. It’s instant cast, but it takes time for it to have its effect. I think that’s balanced, but testing would help determine if that’s true.

I’m not sure about the health of the Nature spirit, if it gets focus fired well, it can die quickly enough. It’s definitely a thought, but I’m not sure if the health on it enough is to be game-breaking. At least, I don’t think it’s bad enough to need a hotfix.

Manuhell.2759:

cymerdown.4103:

Engineer

• Elixir R: Increased the cooldown to 45 seconds. It is now an instant stun breaker. “Toss Elixir R” now revives 12% per pulse, down from 20%. Eliminating Elixir R as a stun breaker restricted Engineer builds to a severe degree, when all that was really needed was a reduction on its revive power so that (for instance) an Engineer can be finished in a 1v1 without having a very good chance to self-revive. Adjusting its revival power would keep its utility as a team res assist without making Engis as hard to finish in 1v1 and 2v2 situations.

You do realize that “having a very good chance of self-revive” is exactly the point of that skill?
It has got quite a long base cooldown – 120s, it targets quite a small area and you can already counter it via CC, poison (if it worked properly) and eventually using launches when the target is downed. Basically, instead of having a cast time and an instant effect, it has got an “instant” cast and an effect that takes some time.
And since the actual duration isn’t too long, you’ve also got to time its use wisely (too soon and it won’t last enough when you will be downed, too late and you’ll get downed before actually using it).
If after these drawbacks it doesn’t even have that “very good chance” when it correctly goes off, well, then it would be quite useless.
Especially since we already have a weak utility to compensate for it (just compare Elixir R with Signet of Agility). And even putting the stunbreak back (and thus increasing the cooldown) wouldn’t change too much – it would still be relatively weak for the effects it provides.

So maybe 15% is more appropriate. But anyway, even if it was weakened a bit such thakittens only utility was to help res a teammate and not yourself, it would still be valuable in tPvP. People run team res utilities all the time (Illusion of Life, Spirit of Nature, Warbanner), and none of those also break stun for you, so I’m sure there’s a middle line somewhere that can allow this utility to be run as the sole stunbreaker in those Engi builds but not have the toolbelt skill be too strong, as the devs deemed it was before the nerf.

The Boz.2038:

You play a thief, right?

“[AL]Mini Ken (Bunker Guardian) R60”

But I also play the other classes from time to time, and I understand all of their skills and trait lines.

I posted this in the thread about constructive necromancer feedback, but someone mentioned that it would be more appropriate to make a new thread about this, so here it goes. This is where you can post what you believe ArenaNet most needs to adjust before the qualifiers for the big PAX tournament. I’ll start off with my own suggestion.

Necromancer

• Dhuumfire: Renamed to “Cruel Punishment”, which reads, “100% chance to cause 2 stacks of Torment for 5 seconds on critical hit. (Cooldown: 10 seconds)” Currently, the addition of Burning damage on top of the other conditions a Necromancer can pump out, plus the long duration fears backed by Terror damage from the meta 30/20/0/0/20 spec mean that targets have little ability to avoid being “condi spiked”. This new access to Burning on top of the new condition Torment means that it has become very easy for Necromancers to overload a team’s condi cleanses in a teamfight due to the amount of condition diversity they have access to, especially when backed up by a second Necromancer or a condi Engineer/Ranger.

• Terror: Moved to Grandmaster tier. “Withering Precision” has been moved to Master tier. Let’s face it: even after the latest patch, Terror is still the strongest trait in the Curses line, and deserves to be at Grandmaster tier. Furthermore, the moving of this trait into Grandmaster makes it impossible to have Dhuumfire, Terror, and Master of Terror in the same build, and gives the Necromancer some very important decisions to make when building for condis. As it stands, it’s just too easy to put all the best condition traits together in the same build and achieve excellent DPS and long CCs with great sustainability — a very deadly combination.

Engineer

• Elixir R: Increased the cooldown to 45 seconds. It is now an instant stun breaker. “Toss Elixir R” now revives 15% per pulse, down from 20%. Eliminating Elixir R as a stun breaker restricted Engineer builds to a severe degree, when all that was really needed was a reduction on its revive power so that (for instance) an Engineer can be finished in a 1v1 without having a very good chance to self-revive. Adjusting its revival power would keep its utility as a team res assist without making Engis as hard to finish in 1v1 and 2v2 situations.

Ranger

• Spirits: All spirit passive abilities now have an internal cooldown of 12 seconds, up from 10 seconds. It’s no secret that Spirit Rangers are on the rise, and it’s largely because of the high amounts of Protection and Burning procs caused while being able to hold their own in most 1v1 situations, making for an optimal home point defender. I don’t believe this build is vastly overpowered, and certain builds (ones with good AoE cleave) can do very well against it. However, the large number of procs generated in a team fight situation is just too high at the moment and could use a small adjustment downward in power level.

Thief

• Shadow Trap: The maximum duration has been decreased to 75 seconds in sPvP, down from 120 seconds. Thieves still have good damage, but their current ubiquity in high level play mostly stems from their extremely high mobility. A well-played thief can feel like it’s everywhere at once, putting pressure on the enemy team’s home point while still being present elsewhere on the map, thanks to the recently-buffed Shadow Trap. While I can appreciate ArenaNet’s desire to make underused utilities more PvP-viable, this one was pushed a little too far. Reducing Shadow Trap’s duration would leave it still viable (similar to how the Mesmer Portal is still useful) while reducing the thief’s mobility to more reasonable levels.

• Infiltrator’s Strike: “Shadow Return” now cannot be used while feared or under a control effect. S/D Thieves are certainly strong (esp. in 1v1 and 2v2), but the most difficult part of dealing with them is that when you do land a well-timed CC while they aren’t evading, they are almost always able to teleport away, wait for the CC to end, and then teleport back. By removing their ability to Shadow Return away while CCed, you are able to punish the Thief at the ends of their evades more easily and thus land some damage on them at opportune moments.

KarlaGrey.5903:

I don’t think I’d call them insanely tanky (staged fights and opponents not paying attention to necro buffs don’t count), but yes, it’s true that the fotm remained pretty much intact, so it was only the pure condi builds that took a hit.
How ironic.

They’re pretty tanky when 2-3 people training you are unable to get through your Death Shroud HP while Spectral Armor + DS is up and thus have to switch targets (similar effect to going stealth or popping Endure Pain). And then you have a backup armor after that one.

Also I assume by “pure condi builds” you mean old meta condi builds (0 in Spite)? Because new meta builds are still “pure condi” in that they take all condi traits. In fact, I’d call the builds you’re referring to as “part condi, part tanky”, because you’re not spending any points in the tree that gives condition duration, and you have no access to the 2nd-most damaging condition (burning).

KarlaGrey.5903:

The issue is that condi specs aren’t as bursty as 30 30 x x x or 30 20 x x x specs are, which is why you invest more pts into traits that boost your survivability and utility skills (e.g. lf generation on marks, lower re on DS skills), as to fit the role of attrition.
I dare say the last patch actually hurt pure condi specs more than the fotm (either you gave up lower re on DS skills, which are a back-up set of necro utilities, or cond duration from scepter, or bigger and unblockable marks), and I doubt that was the idea behind it.
Higher recharges on DS skills matter far less on dhuumfire builds, because they’ll be in trouble either way if their spike doesn’t kill after they burned all their utilities and DS skills.
I can imagine that scenario would push even more builds into power line, and/or push necros back to low-tier class.

To be clear, the current fotm build and the previous build are very similar (and both are “pure condi specs”, not sure why you don’t believe they are aside from the fact that they use Carrion amulet). The main difference is that you lose 100 Condition Damage and your marks are a little smaller, but you gain 2 Spectral Armors, and both of them now make you insanely tanky for 8 seconds each. Condi DPS Necros are now stronger than they were before this latest patch, because they finally gained some good sustain but they still have much of the crazy DPS that they picked up in the 6/25 patch.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Yea, it was a typo.
If you wish to makeTerror a GM trait, then move Greater Marks back to adept level.
Condi specs are really worthless without both (marks are essentially also tied to the LF generation trait in SR).
In return, the SR fear duration trait could be moved back to GM level.

Not true; most Necros are now running 30/20/0/0/20. The bigger base size on the marks is considered large enough, and the unblockable part of the trait is considered to be not really worth the points.

True, but the fear duration trait isn’t nearly as strong as the other two GM traits in SR, so that doesn’t make as much sense as moving Terror up.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Your suggestion to move Terror to GM level kills off non-power specs too, such as my current 0 30 20 0 30 spec…so please stop picking on traits that not a single soul found problematikittenil the recent changes.

Moreover, shorther weakness duration from nec skills would then also call for slightly shorther recharges, or adjusted application (without half to 1 s delay on hit).

Lastly, you ought making a thread of your own for those suggestions.

Uh, 0/30/20/0/30 is 80 points, so I’ll assume you mean 0/20/20/0/30. I still maintain that Terror is the strongest trait in the Curses tree (easily), and is definitely worthy of being Grandmaster tier. They’ve been on a trend of relocating traits to appropriate tiers based on their strength (they did many such moves in the 6/25 patch), I’m just suggesting one more. If you want the strongest trait, you gotta pony up the points. I don’t see where the problem is with that — it should have been Grandmaster from the start.

Shorter duration on weakness is something that they addressed as part of the change to weakness in the 6/25 patch. I’m just saying that they need to adjust the skill and trait downward some more, because the amount of weakness application has really put a big hurt on power builds — just look at the current meta in top level PvP, very few power builds are viable now, and the main reason is the increased presence of Necromancers along with the new Weakness (the biggest problem of course not being that it’s 10s, but that it’s 10s AoE). I could agree on a small downward adjustment in the casting time of Enfeebling Blood — I always thought it was a bit too clunky.

Hey guys. I know this thread is supposed to only be about Necromancer, but Allie mentioned a possible hotfix before the tournament. Here are the patch notes that I would like to see implemented and believe would make the meta MUCH more healthy for the tournament. Keep in mind, these aren’t necessarily the only changes that I would like to see, just the important emergency ones before next weekend.

Necromancer

• Dhuumfire: Renamed to “Cruel Punishment”, which reads, “100% chance to cause 2 stacks of Torment for 5 seconds on critical hit. (Cooldown: 10 seconds)” Currently, the addition of Burning damage on top of the other conditions a Necromancer can pump out, plus the long duration fears backed by Terror damage from the meta 30/20/0/0/20 spec mean that targets have little ability to avoid being “condi spiked”. This new access to Burning on top of the new condition Torment means that it has become very easy for Necromancers to overload a team’s condi cleanses in a teamfight due to the amount of condition diversity they have access to, especially when backed up by a second Necromancer or a condi Engineer/Ranger.

• Terror: Moved to Grandmaster tier. “Withering Precision” has been moved to Master tier. Let’s face it: even after the latest patch, Terror is still the strongest trait in the Curses line, and deserves to be at Grandmaster tier. Furthermore, the moving of this trait into Grandmaster makes it impossible to have Dhuumfire, Terror, and Master of Terror in the same build, and gives the Necromancer some very important decisions to make when building for condis. As it stands, it’s just too easy to put all the best condition traits together in the same build and achieve excellent DPS and long CCs with great sustainability — a very deadly combination.

• Enfeebling Blood and Weakening Shroud: The weakness durations on this skill and trait are now 5 seconds, down from 10 seconds. Weakness has become a very strong condition as of the 6/25 patch, and has really cut down on the viability of most physical DPS builds. Weakness duration in general was reduced in that patch, but not enough on this skill and trait. 10 seconds of weakness AoE (before condition duration +%) is just way too long when considering its ease of application.

Engineer

• Elixir R: Increased the cooldown to 45 seconds. It is now an instant stun breaker. “Toss Elixir R” now revives 12% per pulse, down from 20%. Eliminating Elixir R as a stun breaker restricted Engineer builds to a severe degree, when all that was really needed was a reduction on its revive power so that (for instance) an Engineer can be finished in a 1v1 without having a very good chance to self-revive. Adjusting its revival power would keep its utility as a team res assist without making Engis as hard to finish in 1v1 and 2v2 situations.

Ranger

• Spirits: All spirit passive abilities now have an internal cooldown of 12 seconds, up from 10 seconds. It’s no secret that Spirit Rangers are on the rise, and it’s largely because of the high amounts of Protection and Burning procs caused while being able to hold their own in most 1v1 situations, making for an optimal home point defender. I don’t believe this build is vastly overpowered, and certain builds (ones with good AoE cleave) can do very well against it. However, the large number of procs generated in a team fight situation is just too high at the moment and could use a small adjustment downward in power level.

Thief

• Shadow Trap: The maximum duration has been decreased to 75 seconds, down from 120 seconds. Thieves still have good damage, but their current ubiquity in high level play mostly stems from their extremely high mobility. A well-played thief can feel like it’s everywhere at once, putting pressure on the enemy team’s home point while still being present elsewhere on the map, thanks to the recently-buffed Shadow Trap. While I can appreciate ArenaNet’s desire to make underused utilities more PvP-viable, this one was pushed a little too far. Reducing Shadow Trap’s duration would leave it still viable (similar to how the Mesmer Portal is still useful) while reducing the thief’s mobility to more reasonable levels.

• Infiltrator’s Strike: “Shadow Return” now cannot be used while feared or under a control effect. S/D Thieves are certainly strong, but the most difficult part of dealing with them is that when you do land a well-timed CC while they aren’t evading, they are almost always able to teleport away, wait for the CC to end, and then teleport back. By removing their ability to Shadow Return away while CCed, you are able to punish the Thief at the ends of their evades more easily and thus land some damage on them at opportune moments.

@OP, if you think that, my recommendation would be to just play more of the game, or watch some of the top teams play. In these teams, comps are very carefully constructed so that all important team aspects are covered, and by no means are the builds set up for solo play (unless the build is specifically meant for 1v1 fighting, such as far point engi). Coordination, build synergy, and communication wins games, simple as that.

Jumper.9482:

Funny, that reminds me of D/P Thief.
Before the Curse tournament it was like:
“Hey guys, group for Curse? I got this highly experimental build I think is going to end up to be really strong”
“Lol you only play thief. No. L2p mesmer or s/d ele.”
laughs at the idea of a Thief not playing D/P
…A month after patch
….Last minute signups:
Ostrich: “Hey, um we need a 5th and have no other options so I guess we’re stuck w/ you.”
Me: “Ok…” wrecks face
Everyone else: “OH GOD S/D THIEF SO OP EVERYONE GRAB THE NEAREST THIEF AND ROSTER HIM NOW”

If it were so painstakingly brainless, overpowered, and etc… why did it take only my actions to flip the meta 1 month after the patch?
From patch day 1 Necros have been completely dominating the scene with their 30/30/10 or 30/20/20.

You know, most players I group with still won’t even let me try to play D/P 10/30/0/0/30. “Just reroll mesmer or ele” they say.

Honestly, I don’t think s/d thief is that far above the curve; 1 or 2 small adjustments is all it probably needs. Reducing the range on inf strike/return would be reasonable, or making the return not usable when stunned. One or the other, not both. The build does have a ton of dodges, which I think is alright as long as you could more easily punish them when you catch them when they’re not evading, which is the problem with the current inf strike. And I totally agree with you on how tac strike and dancing dagger are vastly UP currently and need some lovin.

On the other hand, Shadow Trap is pretty insane for map mobility even with the 120s CD. Not sure why your team values Mesmer or Ele higher considering how many points you can deny the enemy team over the course of the game via virtually free backcaps.

Omg, do this! It would be a perfect fit for Warriors and would be an excellent and flavorful way of giving them a unique role on a team.

Right, and they should be if they see a thief stealth. And if they time it right and the thief times the bs wrong, there should be a consequence, no? If reveal on evade is too much, starting with block would be a fine start. I agree that evade may be too much considering ranger and thief evade spam builds atm.

I’m not trying to nerf thief into the ground or anything. All I’m saying is that it makes zero sense. “I just blocked your close range, single target melee attack! No clue where you are, though.” That has never made any sense and never will, to the point where I was kinda mad the first time I found out that’s how the game worked. I personally would like to see a return to 3s reveal, but have block and evade apply reveal. It would make infinitely more sense that way. If thief needed more buffing after that, I’d be cool with it, let’s just get the game moving more towards sensible mechanics and valuable counter play options to stealth.

My Guardian, cutest NA

Agreed. “I just blocked his attack, but I have no idea where he is.” How does that make any sense whatsoever?

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We’ve taken Skyhammer out of the tournament rotation while we evaluate all of the feedback we’ve received over the last few days. The map may return to the rotation after we’ve made one (or more) adjustments to it.

I’m glad you’ve done the right thing and removed it from competitive play until the imbalance in usefulness of the various classes on it is addressed (right now Guardians, Engis, and Necros are king on the map). I think the following changes would make the map much more balanced and reduce the influence of pulls and pushes while not completely eliminating their usefulness:

• Make the cannon dodgeable
• Reduce or eliminate the glass panels in the cannon room (maybe just remove the first 2)
• Make the door to the cannon room not visible from the cannon room (perhaps by some sort of ceiling above that area) so that the cannon operator has less of an advantage (right now he can setup a knockback effect to go off right as the attacker enters the room)
• Move back or reduce the number of glass panels near A and C (right now it is too easy for instant pushbacks like the Guardian Shield 5 or Engineer Shield 4 to kill someone in a team fight)

Two main reasons why you could choose not to heal:

1. If you know you’re currently not the enemy team’s main target, you don’t necessarily need to heal immediately, and it may be more important to be putting DPS on your team’s main target. In a teamfight, it’s a race to down the first person, and sometimes that’s more important than healing yourself if you aren’t being targeted since healing takes a precious second or more out of your DPS rotation.

2. If the fight is likely to be over soon, it’s not that important to heal — just finish the fight, then wait for out of combat to heal you.

papaganoosh.7908:

Mimic the Wurm stone throw, teleport back up, win.

OMG……. so trying that

I think to remedy some of the CC related issues, just do the following things:

• Make the cannon dodgeable
• Remove some or all of the glass panels in the cannon room, and at A and C
• Eliminate invulnerability capping the cannon, and make attacks interrupt cannon use

This would slightly lessen the importance of controlling the cannon and reduce the amount of “cheese kills”, thus making CC builds less strong and other builds/classes more viable.

Ok, think about it this way. Pretend a pvp match is like a diving competition. Normal maps like Forest of Nifhel and Legacy of the Foefire are like grading the divers according to normal judging rules: may the best diver win. Skyhammer would be like telling the divers, “Ok, this time, we want you all to do the biggest belly-flop possible, and we’ll grade you on how loud the smack is when you hit the water.” That’s Skyhammer: one giant, fat, loud, wet belly-flop competition.

Nah, the map is ok, I just like making silly metaphors.

JETWING.2759:

One more WvW build.
Sniper are in my opinion the most cool build, but no way of run in PvP.

I’d have agreed with that statement before the last patch (6/25).

FluxWing.7318:

Why not use Banner of disipline, more precision and more crit damage, when you’re going all out to maximize your burst skill…

more swiftness and fury is never a bad thing either…

Because then you’d have to lose one of your 3 important utilities: your only condition removal, your easy source of adrenaline when you need it (and 220 precision passive), or your stunbreaker/stability.

Julius.1094:

Rifle Kill Shot doesn’t work in spvp. Only way to get it off is if the enemy is not looking at you, usually in team fights if you’re sneaky, in any 1v1s or 2v2s the long cast time and extremely obvious kneeling and aiming animation makes it VERY easy to dodge/block if you’re an experienced player. The few times I’ve gone up against rifle warriors in a situation where I can see them I found dodging it to be so easy it’s funny.

Also, the rifle auto attack sucks with zerker, the bleeds only tickle in a zerker’s build. Weapon needs to be redesigned so the autoattacks do higher dmg, cause invuln and lose the bleed. Meanwhile Kill Shot should do about 70% of it’s current damage but have the cast time shortened to 1 sec while the aiming animation should not involve kneeling but just aligning the sight to make dodging still quite doable but not silly easy. Until then if you want range go LB. And yeah about healing signet, it’s bad unless you got a lot of healing power, which no decent spvp warrior does, so it’s just another way of saying it’s bad for spvp period.

Oh ok, so you tried the build? And played it the way I recommended?

Ember.7906:

Hi Narcasis, just thought I’d post here and make a comment on those vids, being the engie (Myrrinah) that fought you in both situations.

I wasn’t having a particularly great evening myself and in all honesty any other map in those situations would’ve had you as a victor. Both times I managed to get you were due to positional advantages which wouldn’t have been as important in other maps as those factors don’t exist (that is the collapsible tiles and falling off the edge).

Nevertheless it was a fun game and it was great having a chance to play against you in a tournament match and learn from better players to hopefully improve my game.

Choops.3710:

thanks for providing video evidence of the first time an engi’s ever said “thank god for my downstate”

That was pretty much my exact thought.

Don’t fluff Caed’s ego, he’s bad.

<3

Littlefeather.8623:

Every one mentions stability, but if you bring something up, bring up the CD/Uptime on it too.

It last 5 seconds people…with a 24 Second CD if your traited into shouts…

This map is not even about PvP, its about avoiding getting knocked down a hole…

Closer to 6.5s if fully traited into Virtues.

Also, take Hallowed Ground with CD reduction, and take X in Virtues.

Copenhagen.7015:

Looks fun, but Healing Signet isn’t very good with Zerker amulet. I only use it with a regen build. Adrenal Health, Healing Signet, and Banner regen are all very good when used together. I’d take Healing Surge.

If you actually play the build, I think you’ll find (at least I did) that Healing Signet’s actually sufficient in this build despite the Zerker ammy because of its defensive playstyle (snipe, kite, snipe, kite). You don’t typically get focused hard enough to the point where you need a better spike heal, and the times where you do, the better spike heal wouldn’t usually be enough of a difference to matter (also, might be obvious, but don’t heal yourself with the Signet until you would otherwise die if you didn’t). Play it for a while and see what you think.

Hey man, at least he can laugh at himself and post it publicly. Crazy stuff happens in late night yolo queue. Crazy. Stuff.

I think the most incredible thing in those videos is your masterful control of your facial expressions… even while laughing extremely hard, you manage to appear serenely calm… almost completely still. Amazing.

Jonwar.9205:

cymerdown.4103:

Jonwar.9205:

Send two ele’s? More likely one thief, one ele, or… well, just about anything really. If there’s one thing I can say about rifle warriors with absolute certainty it’s that I’ve yet to lose to one 1v1.

Pack a longbow, it does as much damage as a rifle in AoE fashion and with more built in utility.

First of all, I did say this isn’t a dueling build. Secondly, that’s not true, LB doesn’t do as much single-target damage as a Rifle. Volley in this build crits nearly all the time for quite a lot of damage. And being able to spike someone down with a single shot in a teamfight (before they get a chance to heal) is a very valuable thing in tourney.

As much single target burst damage? No. As much realistic damage over time? I would say yes.

My point was that as soon as somebody notices you you’re gone, I’m aware it’s not a 1v1 build, but other non-duel builds will wreck you just as easily. Also, the greatswords mobility suffers greatly from movement impairing conditions and you have nothing to really deal with that… so, it’s unlikely you’ll be successfully running away from anything other than guardians and mesmers.

Personally if I were to run a rifle, and wished to stay completely out of melee, I’d pick sword/horn. Not just for the 4 skill on the horn, but also for the ability to abuse the hell out of terrain with leaps.

Sword/Horn’s an option, but you don’t really need a ton more swiftness since you’ve already got 33 every 48. Vigor’s alright, but I think the Shield 5 generally better defensively, and the Shield 4 helps to set up Flurry (you won’t use it much, but it’s still nice to have the option). I personally believe Greatsword’s slightly better overall for the reasons I mentioned.

And I wouldn’t say as soon as someone notices you you’re gone, they first have to get close to you without taking too much damage, and having them overextend into you (which they will have to if your positioning is good) isn’t always a bad thing anyway. When you play it right and with a good team, you sort of exude this field of force of 1200 range, and people have to be very careful about entering that field or risk getting immob-ed and bursted by your team, or taking a bunch of rifle damage, or if they get distracted/CC’ed, eating a Kill Shot. I’ve been practicing the build and been having success with it in hotjoin (not that it says that much, I know), I’ll try to get some solo queue matches in with it tomorrow.

Also, you do have a way of dealing with slowing conditions — Signet of Stamina. Anyway just try the build! It’s pretty good, I swear!

If you put a Guardian on the cannon, he should bring Hallowed Ground with the 20% CD reduction trait. Another 13s of stab on a 64s CD means he can give himself stab through an entire Tornado.

Fenrir.5493:

I had a sniper build before this patch and it can be effective only if you rely on a group, because for a 1v1 fight is terrible, this build rely on others to do anything, you are going to be zerging and thats it, so much warriorish when you rely on sniping people that dont even know what happens.

It was fun for a while when i used it before patch but, nah, i want a true warrior class not this thing or an archer.

Right, I know sniper Warrior builds existed before, but the 5 Signet version I have here wasn’t possible until after the 6/25 patch, due to the change for Dolyak Signet and the changes to the Discipline trait line. The big difference is the increase in damage to Kill Shot due to Burst Mastery, and the ability to take that trait along side Destruction of the Empowered.

And I know this build won’t suit everyone’s playstyle. But maybe some will like it, so I posted it for those people to enjoy.

Jonwar.9205:

Send two ele’s? More likely one thief, one ele, or… well, just about anything really. If there’s one thing I can say about rifle warriors with absolute certainty it’s that I’ve yet to lose to one 1v1.

Pack a longbow, it does as much damage as a rifle in AoE fashion and with more built in utility.

First of all, I did say this isn’t a dueling build. Secondly, that’s not true, LB doesn’t do as much single-target damage as a Rifle. Volley in this build crits nearly all the time for quite a lot of damage. And being able to spike someone down with a single shot in a teamfight (before they get a chance to heal) is a very valuable thing in tourney.

YuiRS.8129:

I’m using Dolyak’s and Adrenal Heal. I’m not even close to being a tank. You need healing shouts and soldier’s stuff to be survivable to any respectable degree. In this build, you just put a thin layer or cotton on your glass jaw.

Then don’t try to be survivable, be ranged.

zone.1073:

The damage of Kill Shot is equal to an Eviscerate, but from a distance.

Rifle is fine until your ar’se gets trained by two enemy eles who jump on top of your face and won’t let go until you’re dead.

So, 2 of them chasing 1 of me around the map off point for a while? Sounds good to me.

The Problem:

Tired of running into melee range, just to have that lovely red target put above your head and getting trained down by 3 or more haters? Necros stripping your Stability and ruining your day before you can say “Hundred Blades”? Mesmers turning you into a bird, yanking you all over the map and exploding clones on you like it’s the Fourth of July?

The Solution:

BOOM HEADSHOT

The Build: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-s70g;1NKFP0b4NL-60;9;5T-9T;106A;10;057AI-V4;2G3G3G3G35Bb

(Sword/Shield is also an option, trading a bit of mobility for a more flexible melee setup and an extra usable Burst skill. The rest of the build remains the same, just put a Sigil of Fire on the Sword and a Sigil of Force/Bloodlust on the Shield.)

How to Play:

This ain’t your grandma’s Warrior build, where you’d be getting into the thick of the action. In fact, the sneakier you can be, the better. You might say, “Who wants to be sneaky, I a’int no Thief!” Well, after landing a few surprise 1-hit Kill Shots on said Thieves, you might change your mind! The goal with this build is to come up to a team fight, pick out a squishy, mid-health target, and Kill Shot them. Try to approach teamfights after they’ve already begun and from a blind spot or inconspicuous direction so you have a good chance of not being seen as you spike the target down. The “Furious” trait and your Signet of Fury ensure that you have easy access to Adrenaline whenever you need it (use Signet of Fury off CD when combat’s over for a good opener in the next fight), and Kill Shot has a mere 7s CD with this build. Additionally, with Fury on and 4 Signets off CD, you have a staggering 85% crit rate, so Kill Shot has an incredibly high chance of 1-shotting glass cannon targets. The “Crack Shot” trait allows you to put good body pressure at a safe range in case the enemy team tries to revive your poor target. With “Leg Specialist”, you have one of the few long-range Immobilizes in the game, allowing you to assist your team with setting up bursts without compromising your position.

With all of this talk about the Rifle, what’s the Greatsword for? Well, at some point the enemy will catch onto why their teammates are suddenly dropping like flies, and the Greatsword will ensure they have a tough time catching up with you. If get low on health, or if landing a Kill Shot in one teamfight becomes difficult, you can always swap to Greatsword and gain excellent mobility to move to another part of the map. With enough assistance from teammates, it can be difficult for enemies to catch up with you and take you down as long as you use positioning and distance to your advantage. Lastly, if you find yourself in melee range and are looking for some body cleave, Stability + Hundred Blades offers some of the best in the game.

Ok, ok, this sounds good and all, but good lord, why 5 Signets?

Well, actually, 4 of the Signets fit perfectly into the build. The clear worst of the bunch is Healing Signet, but if you think about it, this is one of the few builds possible for Warrior where Healing Signet isn’t the biggest sacrifice in the world, since it has a very defensive playstyle, so a better burst heal isn’t quite as needed. Rarely will you be getting yourself into the thick of the action since your damage from range is already very, very good. It’s possible to run this build without Healing Signet, but you are giving up the passive 40 Precision to do it. I find that when you’re able to constantly keep yourself on the edge of the battlefield and use positioning and spacing well, it’s not completely necessary to have a better heal than Healing Signet, and I prefer to have the extra crit chance. But, try it out for yourself! The rest of the Signets work fine for the build, now that Dolyak Signet is instant and a stun breaker.

Weaknesses:

With “Leg Specialist” and the rifle knockback, you do have some defense against Thieves, but otherwise they can be a bit tough to deal with if they know what they’re doing (Sword/Shield tends to work a bit better against Thieves). Also, the build works the best on maps where there are good ranged perches available, such as Forest of Nifhel and Battle of Kyloh. Also, this is not intended as a dueling build, so avoid situations where you would go up against a build well-suited for dueling 1v1. As long as you stay very aware of your surroundings and play defensively when being targeted, you can do very well in teamfights and take heat off your other DPS.

Give me feedback!

Given that my bunker Guardian is needed, I never really get a chance to try my theorycrafted builds in tournament, but in hotjoins it’s worked pretty well (unless I get trained endlessly around the map by people who hate getting Kill Shotted XD). My hope is that more Warriors will try this build out and let me know how well it’s worked for them. Happy headshots!