Guild Wars 2

This coming from an “elite player” whose team runs two necros, two spirit rangers, and a guardian.

Sure, hit me up I want to put together a team of faceroll specs and call ourselves Team Cheese Squad

I know AoE is what you do to stop Spirit Rangers. The damage simultaneously drops the spirits, then you focus the elite, and then drop the ranger when they have nothing left.

I don’t want to play like that though. AoE is not challenging at all. I want to beat someone with skill, not spamming AoE from Necros, Engis, or spam evades with S/D.

When you have to target an area to beat one guy it’s complete garbage.

^^^^

/15 char

Warriors are not OP at all lol. 1v1 they can be incredible, but the utility is not going to be there without drastic changes.

How would I know anything about it if I didn’t know what it was or how to run it? You guys are amazing

- Pretending to leave a point then coming back in stealth to gib someone who thinks they’re safe.
- Using high ground to get easy attacks on a melee class, letting them get the high ground and shooting them, making them chase me in circles without getting hit.
- Interrupting heals and channels.
- Using snares in Earth to set up Burning Speed in Fire on D/D which any Ele can tell you is not easy to do if you’re new at it b/c of how the distance you have to travel is precise.
- Using updraft on people trying to jump over the houses to the clocktower on Kyhlo.
- Using knockbacks when they’re low at the treb to get an instant kill.
- Juking with savage leap on warrior across elevations to close gaps / exit
- Shadow Refuging when in stealth away from me so I can get them to chase if I know they suck, but only if I have a cooldown reduction on it.
- Stacking knockbacks after making Guardians waste their cooldowns on Engi, decapping a point they’re actively defending
- Waiting until people have wasted their dodges before unloading burst
- Immobilizing people right after they finish their dodge so it’s impossible to miss
- Stun locking a thief in stealth with mace shield on Warrior when I know where he is, usually gibbing him.

Some examples

You get a free cooldown when they die and you can use them while they live. You effectively get a great passive bonus, and two equally great active bonus for just casting a single utility x3.

It’s not hard to figure out when to use it. You use Quicksand and the chill when they get close and move away from them if you’re ranged. You blind them if you know they’re about to use something that hurts. If they’re attacking your nature renewal spirit you use your wolf to fear them, switch to another fear pet and do it again.

It is so mindless and easy compared to positioning, rotation understanding, use of CC, etc.

I’m not trolling I want those players to earn their place not ride a spec and get rewarded for doing hardly anything at all.

Celebratty.1632:

jmatb.6307:

Notice how you respond to a thief by actually doing something. You have to think and react. Quickly.

If you don’t that guy is going to tear your guts out and probably laugh at you.

I don’t care if people who don’t think believe Thieves are OP they are just easy targets and will never be a challenge in tPvP. That’s what hotjoins are for.

But back to the working for the same results, moving in and out of stealth to kill spirits while the AFK ranger spams burn fields and dances in circles, with no stun breaks, and then targeting the guy takes a lot longer than it should. A S/D thief can punk him, sure. They can steal every protection proc away from the guy and dodge their attacks that would stack burns if they didn’t.

But that’s the battle of cheesers and I hate playing that way. Evade spamming vs. AFK evade spamming passive spirit carry. Is that what this game is supposed to be about?

I don’t think you know what that word means…
And this game is entirely about evasion, whether you like this or not. If you don’t like it, this really is the wrong game for you to be playing.
You’re painting this like its so hard to fight a spirit ranger while they just sit there and get free glory. You have to kill him while gasp dodging out of his aoes, stealing his boons or dancing around killing his spirits? I seriously can’t tell what you’re complaining about here, the fact that you have to fight him a certain way because he’ll stomp you if you ignore his spirits, protection and aoes?

It. Requires. No. Skill

Sarcasm dude. When something is that easy to play you might as well be alt+tabbing and watching Hannah Montana

Notice how you respond to a thief by actually doing something. You have to think and react. Quickly.

If you don’t that guy is going to tear your guts out and probably laugh at you.

I don’t care if people who don’t think believe Thieves are OP they are just easy targets and will never be a challenge in tPvP. That’s what hotjoins are for.

But back to the working for the same results, moving in and out of stealth to kill spirits while the AFK ranger spams burn fields and dances in circles, with no stun breaks, and then targeting the guy takes a lot longer than it should. A S/D thief can punk him, sure. They can steal every protection proc away from the guy and dodge their attacks that would stack burns if they didn’t.

But that’s the battle of cheesers and I hate playing that way. Evade spamming vs. AFK evade spamming passive spirit carry. Is that what this game is supposed to be about?

Okay all you people that think you know thief and QQ that stealth is OP listen up.

Physics exist in this game. If someone black powders and stealths they did not just teleport across the map. They did not just get a distortion effect like Mesmers do. They simply took a step toward where they did heartseeker.

If you know that, then you know that attacking that area will do damage to them. Also, stealth sets up backstab and other types of attacks, so are you really going to stand still and give a thief exactly what they want, an immobile target ready to get crushed?

You’re better off running around in circles and typing out /say “TROLOL”. If you people really knew what you were doing you would already know how to kite and troll a thief using stealth.

Now if they take the 50% movement speed in stealth trait it won’t matter what you do because they get a speed boost from being in stealth, but they have to give up damage to do that so a lot of thieves pass on it. They can take signet of shadows, but again they’re passing up Assassin’s signet to get the crazy damage.

You counter stealth by thinking like they do. Where do they want to go? You AoE Shadow Refuge, Whirling Blade on Guardian, 100B on Warrior, Arcing Shot, using GS 5 on mesmers knocks them out of it and puts them in reveal, launching, knockbacks…

Its not that hard. If you played thief for more than a couple matches you’d know that.

Note: If you are playing against a good team they will know all of these things and if you are not careful they will train you, stealth or no stealth. Good players look for thieves coming out of stealth because they know he’s squishy. They save their CC for those moments. Sometimes about one second after I came out of stealth an ele updrafts me, which would be lethal if I didn’t shadow step out of it.

Shadow openers, again, are not that strong either. There are only three points on the map. Mid point is almost always where the action is. Forest teams like to cross, so it makes sense to wait a bit before going mid. Even if they dump all over one person at your home point, they prolly have 2 or 3 people against one, which favors you at mid if they were stupid enough to send their bunker there alone. Not being able to see the opponent is a very good way to start, but it’s not like these matches are over in 1 minute. A good team can regroup if they get punked off the bat.

lol just summoning spirits, healing, and weapon attacks are the laziest way to play i’ve seen on this game. There is no argument anybody can make otherwise.

Ele and Thief takes zero skill? They are the squishiest classes in the game if you aren’t on top of your game you will get slaughtered. They start with 10k health and have to actually press buttons to heal themselves, with an s.

A Thief and Ele, btw, have to work their butts off to get the same results as an AFK Ranger

thefantasticg.3984:

jmatb.6307:

At this point after 1400 tournament games and 3 champion class titles I am completely sick of passive benefits from traits and “skills” that give people an advantage by doing nothing but activate or not activate a skill.

I think traits need to be a series of active choices to choose from. More like Improvisation (steal recharges utilities) than Dagger Training (5% damage from daggers).

Signets, Spirits, Minions, and all other set and forget utilities ought to be reworked to be viable only in PvE.

I believe that the person who knows how to position, use active skills, and win through proper use of team work and tactics without riding passive bonuses ought to be the winner.

When two spirit rangers, two aoe spammers, and a guardian dominate matches that is complete garbage. They are not good players – they have lazy but strong builds.

I want active traits and utilities for every profession in PvP and all the passive junk put into PvE, where that kind of thing is needed to scale with enemy mobs.

Shove that thinking, that believing, and that wanting right back up your bum where it came from. My ranger has been nerfed enough in PVE and WvW because you and other Pvpers QQ’ing like jackwagons. That it is kitten ing me off that you QQ for nerfs like a Whiney bee with a bad itch instead of adapting and getting better. L2P or GTFO.

Look dude that is way beyond acceptable.

You just read the part about rangers and got mad, because you apparently didn’t read that I didn’t want anything touched in PvE or WvW. I don’t care about those and if Anet had any sense they’d balance those differently so that it didn’t shaft you when they make balance changes.

swiftpaw you’re providing nothing intelligent to the thread please leave.

thank you

Eles have to use their skills to get that sustain though. Rangers literally just cast their heal, take certain skills and traits, and dance around like ponies. They might as well have a unicorn pet so one of my friends’ names for her ranger makes sense

Valks ammy is pretty strong with anybody if you want sustain, I’ve done some builds on Engi and Warrior with it that end up doing pretty well

Did Warrior, Thief, and Engi. Only 25 more wins for Ele now.

I never really stuck to a single build more than about 10 or so matches. Almost all the wins are from solo queues too. I run with some friends at times, but when they’re not on and I’m on I’ll queue up.

I figure learning about the class is more important than copying and pasting other people’s builds.

Warrior did everything from Hammer to GS to Longbow, Axe/Mace, double Mace, and Rifle. That was my first one and I love Warrior to this day. Everything feels easier after you play warrior for a long time and earn everything you get. I have to admit I tried out Golraeder’s Axe/Mace Lyssa roamer setup for a lot of those wins, but then tried different things out after I realized I was just copying that spec and not really mastering warrior XD.

Engi ran some HGH but really liked Bombs, Flamethrower, and bunker builds. I love trolling on Engi, especially on Skyhammer XD. Turrets suck don’t run those unless you have ground targeting and put them out of reach like Xavian Johnson LOL.

Thief was the most important one to me because there is so much risk/reward on thief that teaches you so much about the game you wouldn’t know otherwise. Never ran S/D for more than a couple matches because I hate how easy it is. D/P and D/D were the weapons I usually ran w/ Longbow on Foefire and when I knew I would be in a lot of teamfights.

Ele i’ve done D/D most of the time, but I have to admit S/D after the 26th has been rofl hilarious at times and you get a bunch of sustain from water. I’ve done bunker with focus and ether renewal for a bit it was interesting. Staff is awful though you get trained so quickly people know what it will do if you let it.

Arguing semantics ftw…

swiftpaw.6397:

jmatb.6307:

Yeah Ranger keeps getting lazier and lazier. If they aren’t riding their pet, they’re riding spirits. Signets and traits remove conditions better than anyone without having to worry about it.

When you don’t have to use your utilities at all and other professions have to bring Lyssa runes or certain utilities just to survive long enough to contribute there’s a serious problem.

jmatb.6307:

These are the kinds of posts that make me wonder if people have played PvP to be honest.

Get 150 tpvp wins on a thief and tell me that it’s not much, much more difficult than a ranger.

These are the kinds of posts that make me wonder if people have played PvP to be honest. I know what the signets do. When you total it all up, where you have constant regen boon, regen from the signet, passive and active condi clearing, 20+ seconds of stability, passive effortless condi removal….

Yes, a signet Ranger is lackluster alone if you’re just looking at the utilities. The meta builds for Ranger at the moment tell a different story though.

It’s not about scrubs vs. elites I could care less about whether or not the top players get buffs or special treatment.

If they’re really that good they’ll stay good and for the vast majority of the case they have.

Balance is not going to be achieved perfectly that’s not possible. It is possible to prioritize active play vs. passive that’s a relatively easy fix compared to a total revamp of traits, attributes, etc.

Nobody who runs double necro or double spirit ranger have really beaten their opponent, they are getting carried by a spec.

Condis and AoE have to be limited

They talked about power creep in their post in 06/26 but when you see how AoE is getting stupider and stronger, and evade spamming is ruling the meta on both rangers and thieves, it just makes me angry.

Neither of those require timing or promote teamwork. It’s making one person either able to attack three or four simultaneously with great effect, or taking the risk out of the playstyle they’re going for.

Aphoticrain.8420:

jmatb.6307:

Phantaram.1265:

Completely agree with this. The perfect example of something that is nearly the complete opposite of being active is spirit ranger. Spam 1 on your shortbow and if they get close just activate all spirits! You’ve now played this class to near optimization grats. Skill needs to be a more emphasized part of the game. And if simple builds are to stay in, they shouldn’t be the strongest builds.

Yeah Ranger keeps getting lazier and lazier. If they aren’t riding their pet, they’re riding spirits. Signets and traits remove conditions better than anyone without having to worry about it.

When you don’t have to use your utilities at all and other professions have to bring Lyssa runes or certain utilities just to survive long enough to contribute there’s a serious problem.

Why yes rangers must be lazy for attempting and using builds that work or stand a chance in 1v1 and group settings. Balthazar forbid we are actually able to do or beat anything. Instead we should clearly just all use the pig pet and be forced to fight with whatever it drops in order to keep the fight “active” enough.

While we have a nice CD removal if traited for it, it still works on a cooldown so if your just spamming conditions at the start like confetti then I think its perfectly reasonable that it can be removed.

In terms of spirits. Kill them, then the ranger.

And I would disagree with the not using of utilities. Passive utilities have an active and have times when the active is useful at the cost of the passive (accept when traited on an ele) and I find it unlikely that most people running signets or spirits/minions and not using the utilities are succeeding on a regular basis.

Hyperbole much?

I never said Rangers need to be nerfed into oblivion. I just want them and any other spec that relies on passive bonuses to actually earn their productivity by using their utilities and weapons skillfully.

I can respect Rangers who run traps or power builds. They have to actually time their skills and utilities. They aren’t going to survive if they don’t.

But when you get empathic bond that requires no effort, signets that require little effort, and spirits that require almost no effort, and you can play better, because of the spec, than entire professions played by skilled players using a single target strategy that is complete garbage.

AR and all types of bonuses like that are the problem.

You don’t have to be skilled against a pressure build when you have AR up. You just fight, save your heal for when you’re low, and heal up right when it procs.

That’s ridiculous and lazy. If you get condition immunity you have to earn that, or use it like Warriors have to with Berserkers stance on a 60s cooldown.

I think the best place to start is to take this whole 4 different team strategy with living world and apply it to balancing.

PvE players scream from the rooftops about Warriors being OP for dungeons. WvW encourages mass group play. PvP, i think, ought to be about single target play with combo fields from AoE that you execute finishers in for that extra boost.

If the game is balanced by people dedicated to that side of the game, then it will make more sense to people who play it more often, especially now that PvP is becoming bigger.

Ya and some of the kitteny ones troll you after that and I have to admit I snap at them. I want to see those guys on a thief and spawn camp them when they troll on an EZ mode spec.

PvP is not ever going to be remotely similar to PvE.

This is the truth that all MMOs must realize. Human players make entirely different decisions than AIs with barely any of the last letter.

Anybody who queues up into PvP needs to know that it is different from the beginning. This is what Anet had to realize in GW and will eventually realize in GW2.

You don’t babysit players to get competitive play. You push them to be better and they rise to the challenge…

- Passive bonus traits and utilities are babysitting. Set and forget needs to go. When a Spirit Ranger isn’t using any utilities at all and competing with a D/D ele that is working their butt off, using snares, switching to fire attunement when they can get a burning speed window, and loses while they are not using cooldowns its complete garbage.

- Damaging AoE on short cooldowns is also garbage. AoE ought to be about combo fields and having your team execute them not spamming damage on multiple people, which is always more effective than skillful single target focus fire. This would immediately improve the skill level of PvP overnight.

- Vitality needs to be of use as an attribute. It’s supposed to be our hedge against conditions, but the attribute just barely keeps you alive a couple seconds longer. Maybe Vit can reduce incoming condi dmg. Maybe it can reduce duration. Anything is better than just raising health and sacrificing Healing, Toughness, and offensive attributes that kill faster or extend the fight.

- Traits that give % boosts to cooldowns, damage, are always going to be better than active benefits. That’s why they need to be removed and replaced with more active choices like Improvisation or Cleansing Ire. I’m all for trimming the fat on traits, especially in PvP. I’d rather have a few awesome choices that have tradeoffs than a giant mess of useless junk.

Phantaram.1265:

Completely agree with this. The perfect example of something that is nearly the complete opposite of being active is spirit ranger. Spam 1 on your shortbow and if they get close just activate all spirits! You’ve now played this class to near optimization grats. Skill needs to be a more emphasized part of the game. And if simple builds are to stay in, they shouldn’t be the strongest builds.

Yeah Ranger keeps getting lazier and lazier. If they aren’t riding their pet, they’re riding spirits. Signets and traits remove conditions better than anyone without having to worry about it.

When you don’t have to use your utilities at all and other professions have to bring Lyssa runes or certain utilities just to survive long enough to contribute there’s a serious problem.

random dodgers will waste their endurance though and good players pounce on them

I think eliminating passive crap from PvP will instantly make the game more polarized between good and bad players, which favors people who actually earn their production

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The biggest problem with healing is that healing isn’t guaranteed. It can be interrupted, controlled over, burst down, and degraded by poison.

EDIT: Also, vitality gives a better starting investment for every class that isn’t a necromancer. That includes warriors, too.

Something I do hate is that in sPVP there’s no way to achieve a golden ratio, when armor = HP/10. The best way to build for durability is undoubtedly to gain vitality until your HP is roughly 10x your armor, then increase them at the same rate. For some classes like the thief and guardian, it is nigh impossible to reach the golden ratio. For other classes like the Warrior or the engineer, it is fairly easy to reach the golden ratio. The necromancer starts out at the golden ratio… lucky ducks.

You can have health = 10 (armor) pretty easily on every class in PvP, but the question though is whether or not it works.

Here’s an example of that:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmgbxR5gjDAEFvYyQhIhUeMDO2A-ToAA2CmIuRdj7GzNSvseN+Y2A

The armor is terrible against burst, but if you see Mesmers and Thieves on their team then switching to Arcane Shield is a good idea. Necros and Engis keep Cleansing Fire.

Maybe vitality needs to do more than just add health to be useful in PvP.

The trick though is what else it could do without screwing the game up.

Blood Red thank you for contributing something thoughtful.

The problem with replenishment though is that you can do so much to people that disrupts that “sustain” as a Necromancer. They can fear you, poison them, stack more than enough condis to outpace any regen you put on yourself, and take away your endurance with weakness.

That extra 5 to 6k HP isn’t useless at all.

You have a bright future in all of your endeavors sir

sorrow.2364:

Fenrir.5493:

Very MATURE try of a necro to not get nerfed, but i have to tell you that the devs already stated that they are going to tone them down.

The OP does not play Necro. Just check his post history and you’ll clearly see he plays warrior.
Your point is completely invalid and you just look like a moron.

I don’t post actively on the forums. I’m too busy, you know, playing the game. I have Champion Legionnaire, Shadow, Genius, and am about 30 games away from Magus. If you want screenshots I’ll send them to anyone.

Again, like the other child who posted, if you have nothing productive to add just leave please.

DXIEdge.2789:

jmatb.6307:

I wasn’t clear my bad. I was talking about point defense, not Ele Burst.

Ah well in that case, no….same issue unfortunately

The best reason to run a bunker Ele is the heals. It adds heals/rezes/team support. If you become selfish might as well run a more effective back point bunker. Believe me we tried. Now I play ranger :p

ATM, dps Ele is the only viable build. Ultima have up on bunker Ele of all people O.o

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmgbyxzgjDAEFnYyQhIjUeMDO2A-ToAA1CmIuRdj7GzNSvseN+Y2A

I use this pretty effectively against Necros, Mesmers, Engis, and Thieves. Taking 8 seconds off the cooldown for cleansing wave and frost aura makes a big difference. I switch Cleansing Fire for Arcane Shield if they have Necros.

Velron.3729:

jmatb.6307:

You could try reading the fifth paragraph again the everyone bit was about necros not the healing power builds ^^

If you’re implying you run higher HP has it worked for you, assuming you bring good cleanses?

Every time I have experimented with running significantly more vitality than normal (meaning trading my toughness for it) I have had poor results. Conditions still just eat through it with the limited condition removal available (without going into a spec I think is trash just to have removal) and I become exponentially more vulnerable to burst and lose sustain in longer fights.

If they have a burst player on their team of course they are going to have their way with a low toughness target. I have never said trading vit for toughness is the way to go, or that we need to go all out with vitality.

For example, what if we used Wurm runes, which give 6% crit damage and 3% more damage, instead of more power? What if on our bunkers we used Soldiers with clerics jewel and Dwayna runes with 2 Monk if you use Signet of Restoration on Ele?

I’m just thinking that Toughness and Vit are more important than Toughness and Healing Power, now that conditions are so brutal.

Fenrir.5493:

jmatb.6307:

That was mature lol

You want mature responses?, post mature content, like recognize that there is no stat that reduces condition damage, then we can talk about mature.

Very MATURE try of a necro to not get nerfed, but i have to tell you that the devs already stated that they are going to tone them down.

If you don’t have anything productive to add then please stop posting. You are just wasting yours and anyone who reads your posts’ time.

I wasn’t clear my bad. I was talking about point defense, not Ele Burst.

That was mature lol. Also looked up some of your other posts Fenrir you provide almost nothing productive to the forums so you might need to take your own “advice” lol.

If I’m missing something by questioning the strategies we’ve been using for a long time when they’re not working against one class, potentially one dude in a 5v5 match, then what does that make people who are not? lol

Also, let’s say you put 300 healing power into traits and add another 160 from runes, and put a cleric’s jewel on a soldiers amulet. Now you have about 600 healing power and much higher health, which seems a lot better than trying to roll with 13k health against a Necro.

You could try reading the fifth paragraph again the everyone bit was about necros not the healing power builds ^^

If you’re implying you run higher HP has it worked for you, assuming you bring good cleanses?

It gives the cushion you need to keep fighting. If you have both cleanse and Vitality then that 3 seconds you describe becomes 10. I think 10 seconds matter in this game. >.>

I get the impression that Anet is looking at our “metagame” and seeing that we have ignored Vitality as an attribute pretty much since launch.

Necros’ condis are absolutely wrecking people, sure, but is it because they’re overpowered or because we are ignoring the attribute that reduces conditions’ effectiveness?

Do we have any conditions or effects that reduce the health pool? No. There is no deep wound in GW2 and health can only be reduced by damaging.

Do we have conditions that reduce healing power? Yes. You can interrupt heals, poison reduces their effectiveness to 66%, and they the attribute does nothing to help against conditions.

So why do people want 1200 healing power and barely above their minimum health against a class that can bypass that strategy entirely that everyone and their poodle is bringing to organized matches at the moment?

(Clarification: most bunker guardian and ele builds utilize their healing power, which scales very well with those classes, and have been mainstays in pvp for months. I thought this was well known and a given, but it seems it’s news to some people LOL)

I think we’re missing the value of having that cushion of health we can use to keep putting pressure on Necromancers. What do you think? Have you tried that?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vitality

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vitality

If people stack more of this nearly every single issue described becomes less of a problem.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vitality

Tornado, Armor of Earth, the trait for 50% activation, Arcane Shield blocks CC, Signet of Earth, Water, Glyph of Elemental Power, Focus Air 4, Earth 4, Water 5, among others…

a longer cooldown on the cannon would help

invuln abilities block the shot entirely, like endure pain, mist form, etc.