Getting REAL sick of traits that encourage builds to stack CC.

I just fought a ele who did nothing but CC me and almost all the damage came from lightning rod. Why are you encouraging this type of "gameplay" anet?

Welcome to gw2, enjoy.

Tbh some classes are just a mess right now. What I mean is that mechanically, their designs have tipped way too much into random AoE effects that are either completely passive, or once actively used they last way too long. Eles are the worst offender right now. They currently spit out a completely inordinate amount of animation stacked effects that last way way too long, half of them completely passive, with no real telegraphs until AFTER the skills are used.

I mean, imagine that vs. what it looks like when a Spellbreaker fights a SD Thief as example. <- The animations on these classes make sense and the combat still flows like a game with mechanics that is worth playing.

@"Ovark.2514" said:I just fought a ele who did nothing but CC me and almost all the damage came from lightning rod. Why are you encouraging this type of "gameplay" anet?

Here is a guide on how to play Lightning Rod Weaver. Maybe you can learn some counter play from watching this. This guide go step by through build, how to use against different profession in PvP and show some game play. This builds weaknesses is with Berserker amulet there is no Vitality or Toughness attribute meaning this build is vulnerable for conditions (there are cleans in Water, then they have to plan ahead to get into that attunement) or anything that can prevent from using barriers to soak up damage before it hits HP. Go for a leeching build if possible as leeching can not be cleansed or prevented as it is not a condition that can be removed with cleanses or prevented by any other means.

Here is one sigil among three superior that leeches: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Draining

This build also need high precision to trigger Ferocity boosts. Look at boons and how often you see Fury from that you should be able to see what pattern there is for that player to attack. Weaver demand a lot of planning ahead to get into right attunement, so it is not easy to play. Air and Fire the offensive attunement, water and earth are the defensive one (at least for power). For condition you would want earth as there is most bleeds and fire for burn damage, water (chill) and air have blind (Sceptre - Blinding Flash).

If your goal is to get better against weaver then learn at least MH dagger, MH Sceptre and OH Focus skills as those are probably most common in PvP. OH Dagger might also be used for its TP in Ride Lighting which can hit 5 player when it lands.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_elementalist_skills

@ShadowCatz.8437 said:

@"Ovark.2514" said:I just fought a ele who did nothing but CC me and almost all the damage came from lightning rod. Why are you encouraging this type of "gameplay" anet?

I've been trying to pick up LR ele and this is precicely what I needed.

Can you see why I still hate the Stability change from duration to stacks? XD

Stunlocking is a really sucky thing to deal with in this game, the amount of CC that tends to get thrown at you in places often times greatly overwhelms the amount of stunbreaks and stability you can access.. and that varies greatly between classes too some having much less than others or requiring to great a sacrifice to work into your build.. such as sacrificing a few good utilities for just stunbreaks or in some cases even changing a whole traitline for the same thing.

This is why we need a better CC immunity phase after successfully using a stunbreak, i've argued for this many many times over the years.

Lightning rod is bad game design but CmC likes it so it's going nowhere. Enjoy 0 condi removal lightning rod weaver being the only power spec for elementalist until cantha I guess.

At the very least, they could remove the weakness from lightning rod.

Lightning rod should just do an electric discharge and inflict vuln.

Electric discharge should get a 2s weakness application and its vuln duration increased to 8s. Now LR does 7 stacks of vuln for 8s and 2s of weakness.

Might make fresh air op though

@ShadowCatz.8437 said:

@"Ovark.2514" said:I just fought a ele who did nothing but CC me and almost all the damage came from lightning rod. Why are you encouraging this type of "gameplay" anet?

Smash All The Buttons !!!!

You know things are bad when each new season I say to myself unironically "wow this is the meta I've ever seen in 20k games." It always feels true though.. I mean we have Every ele and every core necro + scourge playing the CC to win game; we have holos blinding and/or dazing + doing heavy damage on every dodge and being invulnerable out of forge (when they should be vulnerable); we have all guardians passively spamming large symbols on point and/or applying passive burns wherever they walk (even while invulnerable?!); we have mirages applying 20 stacks of both torment and confusion in 1 second while being invulnerable. Most players are using those builds atm, it's awful.

@"Ovark.2514" said:You know things are bad when each new season I say to myself unironically "wow this is the meta I've ever seen in 20k games." It always feels true though.. I mean we have Every ele and every core necro + scourge playing the CC to win game; we have holos blinding and/or dazing + doing heavy damage on every dodge and being invulnerable out of forge (when they should be vulnerable); we have all guardians passively spamming large symbols on point and/or applying passive burns wherever they walk (even while invulnerable?!); we have mirages applying 20 stacks of both torment and confusion in 1 second while being invulnerable. Most players are using those builds atm, it's awful.

Mirage 20 stacks of torment? Man, it would take me like 4-5 secs to do that with axe in PvE, LMAO. Guardian symbols, I know they tickle for like 200 damage per sec or so. Those mender FB surely owning. Sadly none of guardian damage builds are viable at all in P2+, but burn meme guardian builds strongly own the lower tiers.

But yeah... sPvP is currently CC spam. It is unplayable.

@Ovark.2514 said:we have mirages applying 20 stacks of both torment and confusion in 1 second while being invulnerable. Most players are using those builds atm, it's awful.

I dare you to open arcdps and play 5 matches while having self skills tab open.

You will see confusion and burning doing the most damage, not torment.

@Tayga.3192 said:

@"Ovark.2514" said:we have mirages applying 20 stacks of both torment and confusion in 1 second while being invulnerable. Most players are using those builds atm, it's awful.

Depends. Axe still does more torment damage, than anything else. But axe in sPvP is garbage. Staff and scepter, ya fire and confusion.

The problem with statements: "we have mirages applying 20 stacks of both torment and confusion in 1" is that they are diliberitly false. You need to cast skill 2 twice then ambush to even get like 12-13 stacks in PvE. You probably need a full AA chain on top to get 20 stacks. That is like 3-4 secs. Again, in PvE. Same as 20 stacks of burn from guardian. This will only happen if the target does not move and does not cleanse... I guess that is who the sPvP devs are tailoring for. This how we got here...

@otto.5684 said:But axe in sPvP is garbage.

Axe/pistol + sword/torch is the meta btw.

@Tayga.3192 said:

@otto.5684 said:But axe in sPvP is garbage.

Is Mesmer even meta? I do not play sPvP much but barely see mesmers when I do. Everyone is now playing necro. Like 4 every fricking game.

@otto.5684 said:Is Mesmer even meta?

No, but axe and sword are the best weapons you can use on mesmer right now.

Lighting rod is literally the only thing that can deal damage is such manner, every other class that CC spam you are wasting skills and this is why you should never stunbreak right away knowing you could make your skills worth more than they could normally be. Also the changes to CC not doing damage was a huge buff to stability and honestly needs to remain that way, the only ever acceptable change would be raw original damage that can't do crits. Add the exception to EE being overtuned as hell, removing the crit and either daze or blind should be the solution.

@Teratus.2859 said:Can you see why I still hate the Stability change from duration to stacks? XD

Stunlocking is a really sucky thing to deal with in this game, the amount of CC that tends to get thrown at you in places often times greatly overwhelms the amount of stunbreaks and stability you can access.. and that varies greatly between classes too some having much less than others or requiring to great a sacrifice to work into your build.. such as sacrificing a few good utilities for just stunbreaks or in some cases even changing a whole traitline for the same thing.

This is why we need a better CC immunity phase after successfully using a stunbreak, i've argued for this many many times over the years.

That statement makes no sense, there were always this much CC in the game and it was doing actual damage in the past too. With the newer changes you can actually let people faceroll CC's on you and then use an utility to the best case possible to capitalize on the bad decision your opponent is doing because they have nothing left to control you with. Team fights are the exception but they're also where classes that have the most stability that exceed at it, most of these are also heavies which are meant to be front liners.

So coming from the perspective of an ele main I might have a biased opinion, but lightning rod is actually my favorite trait in the game. In any game I play, nothing is more satisfying than disabling an opponent and doing a bunch of damage in the process. For some perspective, I've been trying to make a LR ele work since its icd was removed around the launch of HoT in both pve and pvp. Tried it with tempest at the time, but I didn't find it as effective or engaging as I wanted it to. When weaver was added, however, I finally found a build that suited my playstyle and has kept me engaged with the game in both pve and pvp ever since.

That being said, I understand that being cc-locked can be an unengaging playstyle to fight against. Being a grandmaster trait, however, I feel that lightning rod should remain as powerful as it is because the choice should help define a build. I don't think the problem people have with the trait actually comes from lightning rod itself, but from the way certain skills are designed on mh dagger (including weaver dual skills) and focus that allow for too many ccs to be chained so quickly.

As an example, let's compare lightning rod variants using d/f and sw/d. Using d/f gives a weaver access to:

• Shocking Aura (20 s cd): passive 1 s stun on enemy hit
• Transmute Lightning (8 s cd): aoe 1 s stun on 1/2 s cast
• Gale (32 s cd): 900 range, unblockable, 4 s stun on 3/4 s cast
• Mud Slide (20 s cd): 450 range, 2 s knockdown on 1 s cast
• Katabatic Wind (18 s cd): aoe 1 1/2 s daze on 1/2 s cast
• Comet (25 s cd): 900 range, aoe, 2 s daze on 3/4 s cast

Meanwhile, a sw/d weaver has access to:

• Polaric Leap (12 s cd): 600 range, 1/4 s daze on 1/2 s cast
• Updraft (32 s cd): aoe 200 launch w/ 1 s delay on cc
• Earthquake (30 s cd): aoe 2 s knockdown on 3/4 s cast
• Gale Strike (20 s cd): 3-target, 1 1/4 s float on 3/4 s cast

Just looking at these effects alone, it's clear that d/f weaver has access to 2 more disables, as well as multiple powerful ccs with quicker animations, longer range, shorter cooldowns, and even an unblockable effect. Skills like shocking aura/transmute lightning, gale, and katabatic wind can be difficult to avoid and/or are easy to chain together repeatedly with their lower cast times, cooldowns, and by using a skill like unravel to burst another player with these effects.

Using sw/d, which happens to be my preferred variant, I actually feel that lightning rod is well-tuned. Even though polaric leap is difficult to avoid, the other 3 ccs have longer cast times, cooldowns, and very easy to read animations. Gale strike's wind up is very easy to avoid, the delay on updraft arguably makes the skill too weak, and earthquake is easy to spot. The nature of these animations also makes it very difficult to land multiple in a quick burst. And because there are only 4 ccs on an average cd of 23.5 s, it allows for more counterplay by dodging key animations. A LR weaver using sw/d will find themselves out of options quickly if they do not manage to land those 4 key skills, but will be rewarded greatly if all of them hit.

If anet wants to rein in the effects of lightning rod, I actually think they should be looking at limiting access to ccs on dagger and focus (or removing a weaver's access to one of those weapons altogether), or at the very least making them easier to read and harder to chain. I think the addition of 2 addtional ccs to mh dagger with dual skills has only served to tip a build that can be extemely satisfying but very punishing to play into a build that can promote un-fun gameplay.

As a separate note, tornado also needs to be reexamined because as it stands, it's too powerful when combined with LR.

there's simply too much daze. Also the interruption is rlly punishing more classes than others, for example daze interrupts a herald's facets, does send it in low cd BUT he is still paying the upkeep for no effects and burning energy! I think there should be less soft CC in general, it's too spammy! Everyone daze nowadays. And ye, shocking aura should just be removed from game. Or make the aura last 1 second, no more.
And look at traits like Shivers of Dread: whenevere you apply chill, you also inflict fear.... REALLY? ok want to have some other free cc?? There's any skill you have that is not a CC? Does i have to dodge everything?Next trait: whenever opponent click you or tab target on your character, he gets dazed for 3 seconds, and if he was using a skill he gets knocked down while feared too.

@Tempest.8479 said:So coming from the perspective of an ele main I might have a biased opinion, but lightning rod is actually my favorite trait in the game. In any game I play, nothing is more satisfying than disabling an opponent and doing a bunch of damage in the process.

That's fine, but it's too powerful for how passive it is.

And upon that, this large amount of random passive CC that's going on, makes the game feel bad to play man.

Imagine the popular dynamic and feel that a game like Street Fighter has, which is why the franchise has survived for two decades now. Now imagine if they made a new edition where every time a player struck another player, the player who landed the strike would be stunned and punished for it. It would dumb down the original speed and dynamic of play that made the game fun to begin with. It may be interesting to add ACTIVE stuns into the game which were difficult to use and land, but random passive stuns that just happen when a person touches that player, is simply a mechanic that dumbs the speed & dynamic of the game, as well as that feeling of satisfaction that a gamer gets when they are offensively outplaying someone. Random passive stuns actually completely remove that feel.

It makes the game feel bad man. Like it's in an alpha state and hasn't received feedback yet on what to fix.

This shocking aura share & flashbang trend of passive CC play needs to go away and not come back ever again. I'd really like to point out that I am not saying anything is OP. I'm saying that it just makes the game feel like garbage to play. It's bad mechanical design from the very bottom to very top.

Shocking aura is completely broken. "Just sheath your weapon when it's up" is NOT a counter when it can have 66% uptime. So you're telling me I should go afk 66% of the time PvPing if a tempest is around?

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Tempest.8479 said:So coming from the perspective of an ele main I might have a biased opinion, but lightning rod is actually my favorite trait in the game. In any game I play, nothing is more satisfying than disabling an opponent and doing a bunch of damage in the process.

But lightning rod isn't a passive trait. By its very design, it requires the active use of a disabling effect to trigger damage and weakness. The problems you're describing, which I addressed in the rest of my post, are actually the same ones I want to see addressed.

The passive procs of cc are only applicable to a skill like shocking aura, which I agree is a problem. All of the active cc chaining that's available to a d/f LR weaver is what I'd also like to see toned down, rather than nerfing or deleting LR. Mechanically, LR isn't flawed because it's just adding an additional effect to certain skills. It's effectively Terror for cc's in that just like that trait requires a necro to successfully fear a target to trigger a damage component, an ele needs to successfully land a skill that applies a certain effect (ideally one that is easy to read and more difficult to chain), to be rewarded with a bonus effect(s). In order to use LR effectively, an ele still needs to know how to land their skills in all but one instance.

When you talk about passive cc and random stuns, you're talking about a design flaw with skills that can trigger those particular effects rather than the bonus effects themselves. After all, LR doesn't add any new cc's to an ele's arsenal. It only enhances the ones it does have. If access to quick, chainable cc was reduced on d/f weaver, then LR would be less annoying and un-fun to play against.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Tbh some classes are just a mess right now. What I mean is that mechanically, their designs have tipped way too much into random AoE effects that are either completely passive, or once actively used they last way too long. Eles are the worst offender right now. They currently spit out a completely inordinate amount of animation stacked effects that last way way too long, half of them completely passive, with no real telegraphs until AFTER the skills are used.

I mean, imagine that vs. what it looks like when a Spellbreaker fights a SD Thief as example. <- The animations on these classes make sense and the combat still flows like a game with mechanics that is worth playing.

Holos has very deffined skills but ppl still dislike it

@wevh.2903 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Tbh some classes are just a mess right now. What I mean is that mechanically, their designs have tipped way too much into random AoE effects that are either completely passive, or once actively used they last way too long. Eles are the worst offender right now. They currently spit out a completely inordinate amount of animation stacked effects that last way way too long, half of them completely passive, with no real telegraphs until AFTER the skills are used.

I mean, imagine that vs. what it looks like when a Spellbreaker fights a SD Thief as example. <- The animations on these classes make sense and the combat still flows like a game with mechanics that is worth playing.

@wevh.2903 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Tbh some classes are just a mess right now. What I mean is that mechanically, their designs have tipped way too much into random AoE effects that are either completely passive, or once actively used they last way too long. Eles are the worst offender right now. They currently spit out a completely inordinate amount of animation stacked effects that last way way too long, half of them completely passive, with no real telegraphs until AFTER the skills are used.

I mean, imagine that vs. what it looks like when a Spellbreaker fights a SD Thief as example. <- The animations on these classes make sense and the combat still flows like a game with mechanics that is worth playing.

It was originally due to shockwave CC being waaaay too big for how it worked. It was OP.

Now it's because it has passive hard and soft CC for dodge rolling. It's too much.

Take away Flashbang and the class is fine.