Balance Issues That Need To Be Discussed - Ranger Point Of View

Been awhile since I did this. Someone needs to do it because there is a lack of discussion in this forum lately from top tier players or at least players who are often against top tier players in final rounds of ATs and such. The lack of top tier input means that we are getting too much middle to lower tier input, which often injects a lot of misinformation concerning what is actually overperforming and what are l2p issues.

From a Ranger main standpoint, here are the balance issues that I notice, that I feel need attention:

Core Guardians - They can be dealt with on Ranger, Druid, or Soulbeast. However, despite people complaining about burn output, I would more complain about their sudden increase in chase potential. Lately, Core Guardians are able to stay on top of what are supposed to be some of the better mobility classes in the game. I'm not quite sure of exactly what changed and when it happened, but they definitely are moving faster than they did a year ago. Judge's Intervention & Sword 2 are one thing for bursting, but it is debatable if Core Guard should possess such direct mobility with run/walk speed.

Rune Of The Trapper Dragonhunter - Rangers are actually good at countering this build. I am not claiming that this build is OP, and I am not claiming that DH doesn't NEED the rune to be viable. What I am stating is that from a sheer design standpoint, this build is disgusting mechanically for all of the reasons I have already mentioned in my previous thread that linked a twitch video discussing Rune Of The Trapper. DH should be balanced around being a DH, not balanced around Rune Of The Trapper. It is my opinion that Rune Of The Trapper needs to be removed, not nerfed. There are too many reasons to list here as to why, it would be a thread of its own so I won't go too deep into this right now.

Power Heralds - Middle tiered Power Heralds just don't play their build to optimization and make it look like it's balanced. But in higher tiers Power Herald is in my opinion still one of the absolute strongest builds to play for every reason. Rangers can deal with it if a 1v1 begins when both players are aware of each other, but if the 1v1 begins with the Herald blindsiding the Ranger, the Herald will win 9 out of 10 times because its ability to stay glued to a target and deny its target of stealth even, makes it so the blindsided target cannot kite & recover. In my opinion, this class/build is still dealing too much damage considering all of the other utility it brings.

Renegades - Everything about current Renegade counters the hell out of power based Ranger builds. The only way to deal with Renegade is to go some kind of full condi or power/condi hybrid spec, and spam immobs & condis all over it. Bringing axe/axe or staff setups for reflects also helps. All in all it feels like Renegade is overperforming from the Ranger's perspective because it hard counters power based Ranger builds so hard, that it forces you to tweak specifically to deal with that 1 or 2 Renegades that's on the enemy team as if you were engaging them in a 1v1 tournament or something. If you don't, they'll get on you and counter you all game. This is largely because they have too much stacked damage mitigation vs. power damage, and it gets worse if they are near a support that can spam even more stacked damage mitigation vs. power. The other part is the long range taunt they have, which bugs the Ranger's main stun break, Lightning Reflexes. We could discuss if this build is broken or not, but imo a few things need to be changed on the principles of sheer design standpoint alone: The taunt needs to be nerfed/fixed, it's way too potent for all of the wrong reasons. And then the damage mitigation vs. power needs to be nerfed, it shouldn't be an ultra tank vs. power while also being a ranged attacker with currently one of the highest consistent DPS bursts.

Immob Druids - It's dumb. After the mega nerf patch that greatly reduced stab access & uptimes, reduced resistance uptimes ect ect, we have debatably too much hard & soft CC going on in the game. It makes the dynamic of team fights feel like you're in a traffic jam. Now with Immob Druids it exasperates this issue. I use these builds to counter enemy Renegades and to assist allied Trap DHs, and even I'm pointing out as a Ranger main that this build is bringing obnoxious game dynamic. It's not that it's OP, it's that it is overly obnoxious. Three or four years ago, the game's dynamic felt fluid in terms of movement and what not, but nowadays there is just too much mobility impairing madness going on. Arenanet needs to begin curbing these effects now after that mega nerf patch, both hard and soft CCs. I'd also like to point out that as an old Druid main, it bugs me that the only reason Druid is even usable right now, is for that Immob spam to assist Trap DHs and to entangle guys who get knocked back off nodes. I want Druid to be balanced around being a Druid, not being balanced around its Immob spam alone. Honestly, most of the problem is within the Jacaranda. It's the low CD on its F2 that puts the Ranger's immob frequency into a category of too much. The Jacaranda also has questionable damage output with it's Call Storm AoE pulsing on an 8s CD.

Weavers - Another case of "I don't know what exactly changed or when it happened" but this class has snuck right through the backdoor of the meta and reappeared as rather powerful. Of all the things that AREN'T being complained about in this forum right now, I have no idea why people aren't talking about Weaver. In higher tiered play during ATs or even against some higher rated players in ranked, Weavers win side nodes no argument. They are currently the only class that can 1v2 reliably and hold a node while doing it without needing to kite and jump around and LOS to survive. Even classes like Ranger, that are meant to decap a node with knockbacks, have a very difficult time even hitting the Weaver with those knockbacks through all of its projectile nullification and stability and all of the other defensive mechanisms it has. Simply put, it's bordering that point of another super bunker, like old Scrappers & Druids. Even the more DPS oriented variants of Weaver are just really strong, in terms of sustain and consistent DPS output. But what makes their DPS dangerous, is that their mobility is good enough to where they can stay on top of most builds 100% of the time if they have to, to make sure that person cannot kite & recover. Not only that, but it's also strong in team fights as well. I hear Spellbreakers tell me that they can deal with the Weavers and I'm sure some of them can, but Weaver in general is definitely overperforming lately vs. the very large majority of other build structures currently in use.

• One more thing on class balance: It was a bad idea to nerf Thief Shortbow 5 into 8 init. Not only was it a completely unnecessary nerf, but it pissed off a lot old Thief players and I've had a couple friends start to not play so often after that nerf.

Probably the more important things I have to say, are two things to point out about the general direction of where our patching is headed:

1. Too many classes/builds are becoming these multi-job role ace builds. What I mean is that 3 or 4 years ago a Thief was only good at +ing and decap, or a DH was only good at team fighting, or a support was only good as a support. Now in 2021, we've got classes that are suddenly nearly as fast as a Thief, while being a half support, while being a dominant team fighter, while also being one of the strongest side node 1v1s to encounter. Maybe some people like this direction that the patching is taking and that's fine. I however feel that it is dumbing down the flavor of the old original game dynamic that has kept us wanting to keep the playing the game to begin with. I want to point out that this is happening almost entirely due to mobility creep. Yes, I'm talking about mobility creep, not power creep.
2. Mobility Creep - What really is the difference between a good team fighter and a good 1v1 roamer? Well, what it mostly boils down to is rotational and disengage values. What makes a 1v1 roamer a good duelist or a good + is its ability to move places quickly and out rotate the slower more powerful team fighters, and to be able to leave bad situations from those slower more powerful team fight builds. But lately, we have things like Renegades moving around with Rune Of Speed and Dragonhunters stealthing like thieves and moving around maps with 10s of super speed + teleport effects. <- and this isn't even to mention the actual class enhancements that have been going on for a few years now. We keep getting these mobility buffs on various classes that add lower CD times for teleport & stealth effects, more access to stealth & super speed, a lot more access to swiftness., ect ect. Strange as it is, a lot of these buffs keep happening to the classes that were originally meant to be slower because they were more powerful in direct engagements, whilst a lot of mobility nerfs keep happening to classes that were originally meant to be the fast classes, like the recent Thief Shortbow 5 nerf, or Soulbeast Swoops going on much longer CD, or lowering Jaunt charges. Make what you want of this mobility creep, but in my opinion it has opened the doors to a plethora of new types of balance issues that we haven't really seen before. Balance issues that go deeply enough to where they disturb the classic 4 job role play and good dynamic it once had.

Devs dont listen to forum input anyway. Balance discussions happens in the "shadowmeetings" with cmc or on discord where for example our most famous EU mesmer has nothing better to do than crieng about teef 24/7 for month after month ... and actually got what he want.

As Sin said on one of his last streams.CMC do not really know how to balance the game and got input from players which are just not gud enough.

So feel free to give ur input in the shadowmeetings?

@Raiden The Beast.3016 said:

So feel free to give ur input in the shadowmeetings?

Well that's exactly why I do this.

Judging from the amount of people who I see use my exact words to describe a balance issue and how they feel about it, I know that people read these posts, and hopefully that includes the people in these shadowmeetings.

I don't dislike the theory behind CMC's initial balance patches and was excited for it to become better the more balance patches were rolled out. Unfortunately I think this is currently the worst state the balance was ever in. Maybe on par with the Mesmer perma daze bullshit but even then it was pretty much only this build that was busted af.Even Scourge+Firebrand meta was more enjoyable than this imho.

Also I've noticed an increase in speed buff runes in meta builds as well as more mobility skills in almost every build's kit, while the "community" continues to demand mobility nerfs for roamer classes. So I support your observations, I've made the same.I'm a bit torn on what balance should be achieved tho. On one hand I'm usually all for balancing according to the highest level of play and the top 1% who master their stuff typically know best and I just have to learn my stuff better to git gud.. However in the case of GW2 I don't really think that this is the best idea tbh..

First, the population is really not large anymore and the "top 1%" are just a couple guys.. Nowhere near enough to equalize strong/unjustified opinions and due to the rock-paper-scissor type of gw2 class system I can only assume that perceived balance is always a matter of "strong opinion".. Especially condi builds suffer from this the most imho. I HATE condi builds in sPvP, both to play against them and to play them myself. But I think this only comes from someone who usually plays builds with poor cleansing options. I still think that condi bursts (especially burn) should be toned down a lot but that's a different topic.

Second, ATs and high tier sPvP is just SO SOOOO incredibly underrepresented. With only 2 or 3 ATs per day someone can realistically participate in it just doesn't cut the corner imho. Anet is all for casual fun and casuals only, so I'd assume that they balance for the vast majority in the game mode aka Gold-level. But no, in gold you are pretty much only zerged down by burn every match and that's it.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

1. Too many classes/builds are becoming these multi-job role ace builds. What I mean is that 3 or 4 years ago a Thief was only good at +ing and decap, or a DH was only good at team fighting, or a support was only good as a support. Now in 2021, we've got classes that are suddenly nearly as fast as a Thief, while being a half support, while being a dominant team fighter, while also being one of the strongest side node 1v1s to encounter.(...) Balance issues that go deeply enough to where they disturb the classic 4 job role play and good dynamic it once had.

I fully agree and I think this heads in the wrong direction. At this point I'd even prefer if Anet creates categories for elite specs or something..Like.. Duelist, Brawler, Support, Bunker, Roamer, whatever and Anet should focus on balancing them accordingly. Every class can still bring their own mechanics into the mix and how they achieve the goal of this spec. Otherwise I'm afraid that Anet will equalize every class and every elite spec to a point where we play the same build with a different flavor.. We had such a good rock-paper-scissor system but now everything gets multipurposed.. I wouldn't mind this if we had competitive/ranked team deathmatches like 3v3 or something but in a 5v5 Conquest, the counter-system REALLY shines imo.. Supported by a (separate) full team queue and I'm back in again. (and yes I'm aware that separate full team queues would take horribly long to match people together and aid wintraders but.... I'd take that every day over the clown fiesta we had to struggle with the last couple years.. at least in <plat2 elo.. plat 2 is where things start to get better but hm..)

@"Raiden The Beast.3016" said:Devs dont listen to forum input anyway. Balance discussions happens in the "shadowmeetings" with cmc or on discord where for example our most famous EU mesmer has nothing better to do than crieng about teef 24/7 for month after month ... and actually got what he want.

As Sin said on one of his last streams.CMC do not really know how to balance the game and got input from players which are just not gud enough.

So feel free to give ur input in the shadowmeetings?

It's an extremely good thing the forum get ignored for great part...majority of people posting are completely out of depth and suggest things out of made up "game design experience" . I'd rather leave the balance in the hands of the people who actually designed the professions rather than listening to self proclamed MMO gurus who know very little to nothing outside the only profession they can play

This is what players should strive for...before starting to ask for nerfs left and right....it may give you a clue about the game in general...so as to avoid being ridiculued

These days the term "TOp tier" get thrown around without much substance to back up anything.....

Tbh the problem with weavers is the problem with ele in general. Every time it starts to deal decent dps it gets gutted for one reason for another.

Burn Weaver? GuttedLightning rod? GuttedFresh Air? GuttedArcane skills? LOL

Being a super bunker is one of the few things weaver has left, and even that got a signficant tone-down when Anet nerfed sword, twist of fate, and removed stability on stances. Why bother building for damage if Anet is going to nerf it into the floor? Just pump those resources into being as tanky as you possibly can.

Part of this issue stems from the fact that Ele needs vitality and/or toughness/healing power in order to survive with it's low hp pool. It just doesn't have the damage to opt for a "I kill you or you kill me" kind of playstyle.

If Anet wants to change that, they need to re-evaluate what ele even is.

Is it supposed to have low vitality, but high sustain to compensate? If so, weavers being sustain lords is working as intended.Do they want to push it down the glass canon route? Low vitality, low sustain, top tier dps. Then they need to give ele the damage to compensate for how frail it is. And they can start by turning staff into a workable ranged weapon so that they're not forced to get up in your face with their 11k hp.Do they want ele to be a jack of all trades? That's fine too, but that requires the dev team to have even the tiniest inkling of what they're doing with it. Celestial amulet was the perfect tool to enable an all-rounder build, but that was deemed unsuitable for pvp.

tl;dr Ele is a class without direction. The less dev attention they get the better, because every time the class does get mentioned in the patch notes, it's to butcher what little the class has left.

-Rant of a salty ex-ele main.

@"Kuma.1503" said:Tbh the problem with weavers is the problem with ele in general. Every time it starts to deal decent dps it gets gutted for one reason for another.

Burn Weaver? GuttedLightning rod? GuttedFresh Air? GuttedArcane skills? LOL

Being a super bunker is one of the few things weaver has left, and even that got a signficant tone-down when Anet nerfed sword, twist of fate, and removed stability on stances. Why bother building for damage if Anet is going to nerf it into the floor? Just pump those resources into being as tanky as you possibly can.

Part of this issue stems from the fact that Ele needs vitality and/or toughness/healing power in order to survive with it's low hp pool. It just doesn't have the damage to opt for a "I kill you or you kill me" kind of playstyle.

If Anet wants to change that, they need to re-evaluate what ele even is.

Is it supposed to have low vitality, but high sustain to compensate? If so, weavers being sustain lords is working as intended.Do they want to push it down the glass canon route? Low vitality, low sustain, top tier dps. Then they need to give ele the damage to compensate for how frail it is. And they can start by turning staff into a workable ranged weapon so that they're not forced to get up in your face with their 11k hp.Do they want ele to be a jack of all trades? That's fine too, but that requires the dev team to have even the tiniest inkling of what they're doing with it. Celestial amulet was the perfect tool to enable an all-rounder build, but that was deemed unsuitable for pvp.

tl;dr Ele is a class without direction. The less dev attention they get the better, because every time the class does get mentioned in the patch notes, it's to butcher what little the class has left.

-Rant of a salty ex-ele main.

I'm not even a fan of ele and I'll say you're right. Removing celestial amulet was wrong.

@Terrorhuz.4695 said:

@"Kuma.1503" said:Tbh the problem with weavers is the problem with ele in general. Every time it starts to deal decent dps it gets gutted for one reason for another.

Burn Weaver? GuttedLightning rod? GuttedFresh Air? GuttedArcane skills? LOL

Being a super bunker is one of the few things weaver has left, and even that got a signficant tone-down when Anet nerfed sword, twist of fate, and removed stability on stances. Why bother building for damage if Anet is going to nerf it into the floor? Just pump those resources into being as tanky as you possibly can.

Part of this issue stems from the fact that Ele

needs

vitality and/or toughness/healing power in order to survive with it's low hp pool. It just doesn't have the damage to opt for a "I kill you or you kill me" kind of playstyle.

If Anet wants to change that, they need to re-evaluate what ele even is.

Is it supposed to have low vitality, but high sustain to compensate? If so, weavers being sustain lords is working as intended.Do they want to push it down the glass canon route? Low vitality, low sustain, top tier dps. Then they need to give ele the damage to compensate for how frail it is. And they can start by turning staff into a workable ranged weapon so that they're not forced to get up in your face with their 11k hp.Do they want ele to be a jack of all trades? That's fine too, but that requires the dev team to have even the tiniest inkling of what they're doing with it. Celestial amulet was the perfect tool to enable an all-rounder build, but that was deemed unsuitable for pvp.

tl;dr

Ele is a class without direction. The less dev attention they get the better, because every time the class does get mentioned in the patch notes, it's to butcher what little the class has left.

-Rant of a salty ex-ele main.

Cele amulet was terrible for ele for quite a while though. They simply nerfed all the wrong spots when they tried to deal with fire weaver. Weaver is definitely in a worse spot than with fire weaver (luckily) and worse than the old water version. It can have solid sustain of course, but the damage has been nerfed significantly and there simply is incredibly low stab uptime/stunbreak capability.

I would like to see this problematic build OP describes especially with that stab spam. Is someone trolling power builds with earth? :lol:

Apart from ele, I agree with some - power rev being a sleeper meta build, overshadowed by its own renegade variant. Burn DHs being problematic. Some issues with rangers, i.e. immob spam -, disagree with some others - core guard's incredible speed? But it is good to have discussions.

@Megametzler.5729 said:

@Terrorhuz.4695 said:

@"Kuma.1503" said:Tbh the problem with weavers is the problem with ele in general. Every time it starts to deal decent dps it gets gutted for one reason for another.

Burn Weaver? GuttedLightning rod? GuttedFresh Air? GuttedArcane skills? LOL

Being a super bunker is one of the few things weaver has left, and even that got a signficant tone-down when Anet nerfed sword, twist of fate, and removed stability on stances. Why bother building for damage if Anet is going to nerf it into the floor? Just pump those resources into being as tanky as you possibly can.

Part of this issue stems from the fact that Ele

needs

vitality and/or toughness/healing power in order to survive with it's low hp pool. It just doesn't have the damage to opt for a "I kill you or you kill me" kind of playstyle.

If Anet wants to change that, they need to re-evaluate what ele even is.

Is it supposed to have low vitality, but high sustain to compensate? If so, weavers being sustain lords is working as intended.Do they want to push it down the glass canon route? Low vitality, low sustain, top tier dps. Then they need to give ele the damage to compensate for how frail it is. And they can start by turning staff into a workable ranged weapon so that they're not forced to get up in your face with their 11k hp.Do they want ele to be a jack of all trades? That's fine too, but that requires the dev team to have even the tiniest inkling of what they're doing with it. Celestial amulet was the perfect tool to enable an all-rounder build, but that was deemed unsuitable for pvp.

tl;dr

Ele is a class without direction. The less dev attention they get the better, because every time the class does get mentioned in the patch notes, it's to butcher what little the class has left.

-Rant of a salty ex-ele main.

Oh I'm sure today's MAT will display Weaver. At least in NA I know it will.

I logged in late and missed the MAT, otherwise I would have streamed it myself. I'll try to find someone who has good Weaver footage and I'll post it up.

It looks like he didn't stream the MAT, but here is some recent footage of Grimjack regardless:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/883179165

And keep in mind this guy isn't even running the bunker version. Grimjack actually has DPS but still sustains well vs. multiple opponents.

Weaver on both winning and runner-up teams, on both EU and NA. But naaah..... it's not viable rite?

@Ragnar.4257 said:Weaver on both winning and runner-up teams, on both EU and NA. But naaah..... it's not viable rite?

I think the problem is people want LR Weaver to be meta not fireweaver which is very boring.

Having played a class that was nerfed to oblivion (mesmer) in PVP, I have to say that the devs need to take "nerf this" threads with a grain of salt and focus on win rates and matchups as it relates to some metric for measuring skill (maybe player actions per minute in combat). I feel like if they just listen to you, you might be asking for nerfs to make your class "top" with no viable counter. Which is what i feel MOST nerf this threads are. I will say guardian, both core and DH seemed to be kind of ridiculous while I was trying to wrap up ascension. I hope I can come back to PVP, I'm waiting on matchmaker changes that are announced and more griefers/botters being banned. I think the last straw for me was someone who was cheating saying "enjoy your free legendaries" in chat like it wasn't a big deal. Honey, 1) my time is precious, so getting progress at 1/3rd the rate I could is little consolation. 2) I was working on ascension, namely the wins portion and so all they did was force me into more matches than I'd like to play. and 3) If it's all "free" why bother cheating? What an entitled attitude to have like you deserve things faster than everyone else. That's why i really want them to base pips per match mostly on PVP rank and then when they catch cheaters, nerf their rank to hell and freeze rank gain for at least 6 months (o yeah and keep F2P out of ranked, the cost for cheating is too low). And you're still rewarded for winning in this system, you gain rank faster, hence more pips. You just lose it all if you're a kitten.

Also am I the only one who realizes most of the best classes in PVP are the ones with the highest HP pools by default (guardian being the exception, but it has auto-blocks which work as effective HP)? that's my issue with 'glass cannon' classes being built into the game. Eventually enough people with better survivability complain and then there's no point to being one.

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:It looks like he didn't stream the MAT, but here is some recent footage of Grimjack regardless:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/883179165

And keep in mind this guy isn't even running the bunker version. Grimjack actually has DPS but still sustains well vs. multiple opponents.

I saw him on the usual fire weaver which has one skill giving stab - Lava Skin - and on LR build.

@Ragnar.4257 said:Weaver on both winning and runner-up teams, on both EU and NA. But naaah..... it's not viable rite?

I am still curious about the build. Mind sharing a link to a video who streamed it?

€: Nevermind, found it.

@Firebeard.1746 said:Also am I the only one who realizes most of the best classes in PVP are the ones with the highest HP pools by default (guardian being the exception, but it has auto-blocks which work as effective HP)? that's my issue with 'glass cannon' classes being built into the game. Eventually enough people with better survivability complain and then there's no point to being one.

?????

The only classes with the highest HP pool are warrior and necro.

Neither of them are considered top-tier currently (aside from Healbreaker build, but not as a dps/sidenoder).

I rly think about the Balance many Times and I must say it here. The actually Balance is all in all one of the best and one of the worst ever at the same time. Let me explain:

The good Things that happen:

• Power damage nerfs for about 33% (where rly mutch needed cause of too many oneshot options ingame)
• Heal skills get down nerfed too
• The cc =0,01 damage thing (it slowed down the matches so this was the right way to go)
• even conditions get nerfed (not enough but thats another point)
• Granates nerf (yes it nerfs core Engis as well but they where ways too Powerfull so it was needed)-Stealth nerf to Shadow Arts (This was so needed ...... highest mobility plus perma stealth is never a good idea.... as well as mutch stealth from spaming trabs)

Bad things that happen:

• automatic defence traitlines get 300 sec CD (hell i hate that they do this ... yes on some points it was needed but for real they let my core warrior die and do a shit to fix it)
• conditions arent enough nerfed ( they deal hard damage ... sometimes even more direct damage than Power (fire could sometimes doing 3k damage per second as an alone condition and that is ways too mutch for at least one Condition art while there are still some more). Maybe bring in the still exist stat Expertise. This will lead condition Damage Builds in two ways played: The one with defence stats "Power/Vitality/Expertise" , will end up in a damage over time/ The one with more aggressive stats "Power/Condition Damage/Expertise", will end up in a burst damage playstyle while beeing a bit more squish.
• Renegate (yes .... those whole spec hast too mutch of everything.... it could deal 4k damage with sevensshot on a condition weapon while being played on a heal amulet, and this amulet made this build tanky as hell at the same time)
• Trapper rune (simple ccing condition trabs plus stealth for using them is simply Bad game Design ..... do a CD on the stealth of this rune or simply Remove it from game)

Bad things that happen (Personal things)

• all in all the "design" of Berserker is Bad af pvp wise... you not only get a 300 less thougness debuff while your in Berserker Mode ... you also cant stack the Adrenalin heal thing .... so it ends und that you are less defence in and out of the Berserker Mode
• nerf all weapon skills for 33% and even more (big meme axe eviscrate from 3.0 to 2.0 Was ways too mutch) plus remove the cc's Power damage to near 0 let Power warrior be played like a class that is nerfed to its own identity.
• Mobility nerfs to thief core skills to basicly nerf daredevil as e-spec/ shortbow 5 and Signet of movement (you could better left daredevil with 2 dodges, Buff energy gain from daredevil skills and maybe buff some core thief skills like sword skills and backstab)

P.S. my English is Bad af by I hope you understand my points. Plus as you could maybe see I am warrior Main so the Personal things are basicly for warrior only

Most of these builds aren't nearly as bad for the game as you make them out to be, and are instead issues with mechanics.

For instance, DH trapper is more of a problem with stealth. Because DH has a oneshot that is unblockable and unevadeable, the addition of stealth means that this build effectively has an uninterruptible, invisible, unblockable, unevadeable, instant one-shot. This would be far less of a problem if A: stealth was reveal on cast, instead of hit, and B: Anet toned up the ICD of how quickly an unevadeable CC can CC someone again ( They should not be able to instantly Re-CC someone who stunbreaks out of them ). Both of these are mechanics issues that have been problematic for years.

So this is the weaver bunker build, more or less. I am actually playing a more offensive variant myself.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAw2lZweYSsImJOSXbvfA-z5YXGZWA9mAOPA

Indeed higher uptime of stability due to Stone Resonance. Apart from that, it is the usual fire weaver build just with some more defensive runes/sigills (or was it Rune of the Forge? Well, details). I think, with mender's this becomes even more one-trick pony'y, because even less damage but even more healing/barrier.

However, it has zero decap capabilities and very low chase potential paired with low damage even on sage amulet. Even disengage potential is low without the teleport. It really is a full bunker and I wonder if a bunker core guard or a scrapper wouldn't have done the same?

Should we delete mender's amulet?! :lol:

Hahahaha core guard having mobility. Good one buddy.

I assume you're talking about the retreat speedrunes combo, in which case more than half the classes still disengages it.

Since when were all other professions balanced around a Ranger?

@"Ragnar.4257" said:Weaver on both winning and runner-up teams, on both EU and NA. But naaah..... it's not viable rite?

I'm not sure what anyone is meant to take away from this.

"The playrate/winrate of weaver in high level play is > 0"

Putting aside the fact that one tournament is not an ample sample size, this tells us nothing about the context of the win. If all top teams play weaver, regardless of how good or bad it is there is a 100% chance that the top team will have a weaver on it.

@Kuma.1503 said:

@"Ragnar.4257" said:Weaver on both winning and runner-up teams, on both EU and NA. But naaah..... it's not viable rite?

Mmmmk, but you just need to watch some of the matches, as well as actively play the game right now, to see that weaver has a winning matchup into most 1v1's at the moment (if constrained to a node) , and at worst it stalemates.

Just watch a few games and you'll see weavers farming everything from renegades to druids to DHs.

I'm not saying weaver is super-OP and needs to be hard-nerfed. But if you're seriously contending that it isn't up-to-par at the moment, you're disconnected from reality.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:Enough with the philosophical moral forum g3 assumption standpoints.

Too many of you guys repost the same stuff every day over and over, with no real rhyme or reason other than making statements like this:

@"Firebeard.1746" said:devs need to take "nerf this" threads with a grain of salt and focus on win rates and matchups as it relates to some metric for measuring skill (maybe player actions per minute in combat). I feel like if they just listen to you, you might be asking for nerfs to make your class "top" with no viable counter. Which is what i feel MOST nerf this threads are.

@"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:Here we go again...The wheel turns, and the cycle continues.

Here's a question. What do people think is a perfectly balanced game. When do you think we will ever reach a point where nobody has a complaint about any class or build ever?

Does anyone apply logic to anything or is everything all based on irrational and biased view points?

• As if not a single player ever existed who was attempting to non-biasedly give proper feedback.
• As if every player posting in the forum was a villain trying to get everyone nerfed except their own class.
• As if GW2 was already balanced and it were irrational for the consumer base to give feedback on that balance. lol that's funny.

My only request is for two things

1. That people making claims for nerfs take on the burden of proof and provide reasonable evidence for why the build they want nerfed should be nerfed. Ideally consisting of more than simply listing off the builds stregnths in a vaccum and glossing over it's downsides. I would love to have discussions about matchups. Teamcomps the build works best in, teamcomps that work best against said build. Strategies that the build employs to win vs class specific strategies that can be used against it.
2. That players be willing to engage others in an intellectually honest way rather than deflecting with statements like "you're just defending your class" or "X player is higher rank than you and he says it's true so it must be true".

I'd love for the pvp forums to be a place for people to discuss pvp strategies, and share their knowledge with other players.

It would be great if instead of posting a thread titled

" Ranger is op and needs shaves" that someone might post the thread "Best counter to ranger?" or "How to counerplay sic em?" But perhaps I'm being too idealistic?

I must say, as someone who quit around October, partially because the PvP was so lame. Coming back, things are better imo. I think I prefer this Meta to the previous one over the summer months. So I'll give some credit there. From what I've seen so far, guardian is a little overturned, but less so than people say. Was laughing when I tried to res a down mid and a single guards condi bomb killed our whole team. It was a facepalm moment, but not a moment I thought, damn that's OP. It's burst DPs is a but too high, but otherwise, I didn't find it bad. I'd remove a few stacks of burning from the initial rotation and call it a day.

Tldr: Meta is pretty decent place, maybe remove a few burn stacks from guardian opener.