Best class to 1v1 against Spellbreaker?

[Saharo.5381]

Most of my main classes are crappy match ups, what's an optimal switch?

[DoomNexus.5324]

@Saharo Gravewind.5120 said:Most of my main classes

Would you mind mentioning which ones are your main classes? A wild guess would be it's probably more a problem of your build choice or maybe lack of knowledge about spellbreaker. Always evade CCs, stay at a safe distance and poke and try to not waste stun breaks before the sb goes into Rampage for example.Spellbreaker also gets magnitudes easier when you kite and poke properly.

[Tycura.1982]

BoonbeastCondi MirageFire WeaverTerrormancer Core NecroCondi ThiefStatic Rifle Holo

As a war main I personally believe there's no unwinnable matchup. Just because you go those classes won't give you a free kill.

Boonbeast wins by outtankingCondi mirage wins by kiting and bleed spamFire Weaver wins by staying in close with primordial stance, GoEP, and lava skin.Terrormancer can keep spellbreaker locked down and rampage is free damage.Condi thief can easily kite warrior while dishing out free damageStatic Discharge can burst spellbreaker from range and break tether with high stab uptime.

[Koen.1327]

weaver, dps firebrand - both are at clear advantage vs spellbreaker on the nodeboth are also slow so you might outrotated and punished for it

condi mirage is also decent vs spellbreaker, but lack the ability to sustain a node or pressure the spellbreaker off a node - mirage can survive a +1 very well though so its a safe option

[Falan.1839]

Fire Weaver, Mirage, Core Nec, Core LB Ranger.

[rng.1024]

Anything really, if you survive Rampage it's the most balanced spec in the entire game. Just be catious of when to use your stunbreaks and don't rush it. If you can dodge/block/blind/evade their f1 you are at a huge advantage, so learn their animations and when a warrior usually goes for them.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@Tycura.1982 said:Condi Thief

Particularly ones that can lean on sword 2 kites. Losing fight there unless you leave or snare and they have no stunbreaks.

[Zephoid.4263]

The biggest way to beat wariors is knowing the animation tells. Almost every cc ability has a distinctive tell. Shield bash and throw boulder especially. While a lot of the rest of the abilities have high damage, a lot of them rely on their target being stationary or remaining in a small location (hence why dodging CC is so important).

While wars have a lot of invuln, they lack a lot of condi clear. After their invulns they have long CDs, meaning you can just run away or circle them while trying to keep your hp up until they have expended their invuln. Scourge, mirage, condi DD, and fb are all viable ways to throw out high condi pressure to force the invulns early.

[Saharo.5381]

@DoomNexus.5324 said:

@Saharo Gravewind.5120 said:Most of my main classes

Would you mind mentioning which ones are your main classes? A wild guess would be it's probably more a problem of your build choice or maybe lack of knowledge about spellbreaker. Always evade CCs, stay at a safe distance and poke and try to not waste stun breaks before the sb goes into Rampage for example.Spellbreaker also gets magnitudes easier when you kite and poke properly.

I've stuck to support FB most often recently cause meta but I also play power DH, Chrono and Scrapper.My main issue with going as guard is keeping distance and wasting stunbreaks. I hate using scepter (feels and looks super lame imo) but is that a better weapon choice over Sw/Sh for FB or LB for DH? I know most people hate LB, but the knockback is one of the few things that I've been able to successfully use to put some distance between us, and the range is helpful for other matchups. For FB, does having stab up even matter? I think it lures me into a false sense of security and ends up being ripped anyways.

Reworked Chrono is basically dead vs Spellbreaker imo, and with Scrapper I've had a few success with a bunky build and an offensive build, but usually ends in me having to run.

What I'm getting is try a condi build, something that can kite, and/or use stunbreaks and dodges very, very wisely.

[DoomNexus.5324]

@Saharo Gravewind.5120 said:

@DoomNexus.5324 said:

@Saharo Gravewind.5120 said:Most of my main classes

Would you mind mentioning which ones are your main classes? A wild guess would be it's probably more a problem of your build choice or maybe lack of knowledge about spellbreaker. Always evade CCs, stay at a safe distance and poke and try to not waste stun breaks before the sb goes into Rampage for example.Spellbreaker also gets magnitudes easier when you kite and poke properly.

I've stuck to support FB most often recently cause meta but I also play power DH, Chrono and Scrapper.My main issue with going as guard is keeping distance and wasting stunbreaks.I think your main issue here going into a 1v1 as support FB. Power DH and Chrono should in theory have a pretty decent change against Spellbreaker tho and depending on the exact Spellbreaker and Scrapper builds you should either be meant to win or at least stall the spellbreaker for ages, which would arguably be the main focus as side noder against another side noder anyway - not necessarily the kill tbh, since it's all about wasting time.

I hate using scepter (feels and looks super lame imo) but is that a better weapon choice over Sw/Sh for FB or LB for DH? I know most people hate LB, but the knockback is one of the few things that I've been able to successfully use to put some distance between us, and the range is helpful for other matchups.Mh nah I think you're better off playing what makes you fun because you automatically play better if you like your playstyle. I for example don't reeeally like the playstyle of s/d core thief so I also don't play extremely well. S/P deadeye on the other hand is quite fun atm imo (with which I can also pretty easily 1v1 spellbreaker actually) and I even used to play p/p deadeye when the big scourge plague came to the mists and I performed extremely well. Was it meta? Hell no, I got constantly flamed for my build choice to the point where people just straight up afk-ed while we were already in a massive lead, arguing we can't win with me as p/p thief in the team ... Really. But I nonetheless managed to sit comfortably in plat2 with a complete off-meta build.And scepter isn't broken or anything anyway so I wouldn't swap, especially not with LB on DH. LB is actually pretty good, you just have to play a slightly different playstyle than without (obviously). However I'd suggest looking into Mace for Firebrand instead of Sword. Less damage/mobility but better support.But as I said, as FB you shouldn't go for 1v1s anyways. Rather play DH. Since Scrapper should most of the time just stall 1vX fights as long as possible (and you apparently want to 'win' the fight) and Chrono.. vReworked Chrono is basically dead vs Spellbreaker imo, and with Scrapper I've had a few success with a bunky build and an offensive build, but usually ends in me having to run.

What I'm getting is try a condi build, something that can kite, and/or use stunbreaks and dodges very, very wisely.

Then either play condi thief or condi mirage - even tho it got gutted, relatively speaking, it's still pretty good. I know someone who is still in the top100 /top50 with condi mirage. You could also try burn weaver, found it pretty nice to play and the burn output is ridiculous. Survivability is also not too shabby, in fact I found it way better than say thief.As far as kiting goes map knowledge and using the terrain/LoS is much more important than class choice actually. Pretty much every class has enough stunbreaks and dodges to their disposal to be able to deal with spellbreaker on 1v1. You just have to dodge Bull's Charge (which not every Spellbreaker uses so you might want to keep an eye out beforehand) and Shield Bash and then kite Rampage and you're pretty much good.If you get cc'd Spellbreaker almost 100% casts Hundred Blades as followup (because it roots them so they are forced to pull it off after a CC and it's their biggest dmg output) in which case you should definitely break the stun then, otherwise you should be pretty good saving the stunbreak and eating the damage.Also try to predict Full Counter. If hit successfully counter it they get Magebane Tether and it completely negates the attack so try to bait them with a decently large burst so they pop it and then just let them stand there until it's gone. Also learn the intervals in which they can use it (Adrenalin-gated).Since you also play engineer you could give Holo a shot, they have been extremely good for quite some time now and with the recent nerfs to basically every other good spec, they are even better since they didn't get touched at all while everyone else got worse.

[xp eke xp.6724]

if you dont care loosing a point: deadeye, mirrage (but play carreful!)if you want to win: freshair and kitteIf you want to do endless: weaver, scrapper or yourself play a spellbreaker ;)

Engie with elexir x can also play good around rampage (by using it himself or just moa the rampage)

All classes need ofc a little training, the easyest to play will be scrapper (means you survive at longest even with misstakes)

[Yannir.4132]

The thing with playing a Support Fb is that if you are alone at any point other than respawning, you are playing wrong. It's not a bunker or a sidenoder, you are supposed to support others in your team. Being alone is a waste of your toolkit. For example, staying behind to cap your home node after a victorious 2v2 is a massive mistake. You should be the one to move, and your teammates job to cap it. Same goes for all supports.

DH on the other hand should have a pretty decent match-up vs Spellbreaker but you have to be careful and precise to get it to work.

[Koen.1327]

@Yannir.4132 said:The thing with playing a Support Fb is that if you are alone at any point other than respawning, you are playing wrong. It's not a bunker or a sidenoder, you are supposed to support others in your team. Being alone is a waste of your toolkit. For example, staying behind to cap your home node after a victorious 2v2 is a massive mistake. You should be the one to move, and your teammates job to cap it. Same goes for all supports.

DH on the other hand should have a pretty decent match-up vs Spellbreaker but you have to be careful and precise to get it to work.

elaborate please why you send the slowest class to rotate instead of thief, scourge, rev who have high dmg to pwn the rest of the map

[Yannir.4132]

@Koen.1327 said:

@Yannir.4132 said:The thing with playing a Support Fb is that if you are alone at any point other than respawning, you are playing wrong. It's not a bunker or a sidenoder, you are supposed to

support

others in your team. Being alone is a waste of your toolkit. For example, staying behind to cap your home node after a victorious 2v2 is a massive mistake. You should be the one to move, and your teammates job to cap it. Same goes for all supports.

DH on the other hand should have a pretty decent match-up vs Spellbreaker but you have to be careful and precise to get it to work.

elaborate please why you send the slowest class to rotate instead of thief, scourge, rev who have high dmg to pwn the rest of the map

That's precisely why. The others can catch up, a Firebrand is a snail, forever behind on fights if you don't let it rotate 1st. You render the Firebrand useless by outrotating it, doesn't matter if it's a friendly or an enemy Firebrand.

[Lighter.5631]

poison thief, easy.i've not face a single warrior who i can't 1v1 on poison thief with ease yetit literally hard counters spellbreaker meta build

[Saharo.5381]

@Yannir.4132 said:The thing with playing a Support Fb is that if you are alone at any point other than respawning, you are playing wrong. It's not a bunker or a sidenoder, you are supposed to support others in your team. Being alone is a waste of your toolkit. For example, staying behind to cap your home node after a victorious 2v2 is a massive mistake. You should be the one to move, and your teammates job to cap it. Same goes for all supports.

DH on the other hand should have a pretty decent match-up vs Spellbreaker but you have to be careful and precise to get it to work.

I know how to play support FB, I'd love to be glued to a necro/anyone else at all times but it doesn't always work out like that. When I do get left by myself or have to go cap/decap home, the one class that I pretty much always encounter and get railed on by is Spellbreaker.

[Saharo.5381]

@DoomNexus.5324 said:I think your main issue here going into a 1v1 as support FB. Power DH and Chrono should in theory have a pretty decent change against Spellbreaker tho and depending on the exact Spellbreaker and Scrapper builds you should either be meant to win or at least stall the spellbreaker for ages, which would arguably be the main focus as side noder against another side noder anyway - not necessarily the kill tbh, since it's all about wasting time.

As FB I don't initiate fights against Spellbreakers, they usually come to me while I'm capping home waiting for my team to respawn. I try to hold off until help comes, but is it better to just give up the cap and try to run? Regardless of what class I'm on I find that like 50% of the time help doesn't come, so I might as well have a class that can actually kill Spellbreakers since they appear so often.

I think part of what frustrates me is that a few seasons back I would be able to pick up the kill on Chrono and Scrap, but now it's a lot harder and I probably don't enter fights with the right mindset.

@DoomNexus.5324 said:Mh nah I think you're better off playing what makes you fun because you automatically play better if you like your playstyle. I for example don't reeeally like the playstyle of s/d core thief so I also don't play extremely well. S/P deadeye on the other hand is quite fun atm imo (with which I can also pretty easily 1v1 spellbreaker actually) and I even used to play p/p deadeye when the big scourge plague came to the mists and I performed extremely well. Was it meta? Hell no, I got constantly flamed for my build choice to the point where people just straight up afk-ed while we were already in a massive lead, arguing we can't win with me as p/p thief in the team ... Really. But I nonetheless managed to sit comfortably in plat2 with a complete off-meta build.

I've been working on leveling up a thief and learning the mechanics before trying it in PVP, S/D feels kind of lackluster. P/P is the funnest set imo, thought I would have to give it up for PVP, but I'll give it a few shots when I get there.

@DoomNexus.5324 said:And scepter isn't broken or anything anyway so I wouldn't swap, especially not with LB on DH. LB is actually pretty good, you just have to play a slightly different playstyle than without (obviously). However I'd suggest looking into Mace for Firebrand instead of Sword. Less damage/mobility but better support.But as I said, as FB you shouldn't go for 1v1s anyways. Rather play DH. Since Scrapper should most of the time just stall 1vX fights as long as possible (and you apparently want to 'win' the fight) and Chrono.. v

I'll give mace a few tries, but I think I might save the Firebranding for when I can duoqueue with a Scourge or something.

@DoomNexus.5324 said:Also try to predict Full Counter. If hit successfully counter it they get Magebane Tether and it completely negates the attack so try to bait them with a decently large burst so they pop it and then just let them stand there until it's gone. Also learn the intervals in which they can use it (Adrenalin-gated).

Does Full Counter still have that visual bug? Thanks for name dropping move rotations, I only knew some of them but I'll try to go look up animations.

[Kageseigi.2150]

@Saharo Gravewind.5120 said:I've been working on leveling up a thief and learning the mechanics before trying it in PVP, S/D feels kind of lackluster. P/P is the funnest set imo, thought I would have to give it up for PVP, but I'll give it a few shots when I get there.

Be forewarned, as a Thief in PvP, you're playing a completely different game than everyone else. It's mainly about map awareness, score awareness, and team coordination.

The general rule is that you do not 1v1. There are exceptions, of course. If you know you have a favorable matchup that you are very confident that you can kill quickly (either due to build or skill), and if you don't need to be somewhere else at the moment, it may be beneficial to fight. You may be able to harass a rotating enemy enough to draw them away from a teamfight on-point, keeping that fight in your team's favor.

But there are times when 1v1 is called for even if you know it's going to go badly... for example, when you're up 495-480, and you have only one control point compared to the enemy's two... and no one else on your team is around to defend your point. In that case, do your very best to stay on your control point and not die... getting downed is ok, but not dying. You HAVE to keep the other team from decapping your point or there's no way you'll win.

While Pistol/Pistol may not have great success at high level play in PvP, you can still have lots of fun with it... especially if you build right, and make combat a secondary priority to your rotating. Most of my experience was on Dagger/Pistol from years ago, but I switched over to Pistol/Pistol a few seasons ago, and rode it all the way to Platinum. Unfortunately, it got nerfed since then, so it may not be as easy to do these days. However, I played my P/P Thief as though I was playing D/P. Nearly everything was the same except that I didn't have to get into the melee danger-zone to do damage. And it did more damage than my Dagger ever could.

Poison P/P could really put down Warriors.Power P/P would eat Necros for breakfast.Fun times! :-D

[ChillyKoti.1928]

I used to have some nice success in 1v1 duel as a classic Medi--trapper DH.

Tough as soon as the Warrior has one ally, I'll probably lose.

[Yannir.4132]

@Saharo Gravewind.5120 said:As FB I don't initiate fights against Spellbreakers, they usually come to me while I'm capping home waiting for my team to respawn. I try to hold off until help comes, but is it better to just give up the cap and try to run? Regardless of what class I'm on I find that like 50% of the time help doesn't come, so I might as well have a class that can actually kill Spellbreakers since they appear so often.

In that sitution I'd just give the cap up and go directly to your respawning allies.People probably see you fighting that Spellbreaker on point and think you are okay there when you are not, and go for another node instead(if they aren't just auto-running to mid). Giving up the node is a signal to your teammates to do something about it.

[DoomNexus.5324]

@Yannir.4132 said:

@Saharo Gravewind.5120 said:As FB I don't initiate fights against Spellbreakers, they usually come to me while I'm capping home waiting for my team to respawn. I try to hold off until help comes, but is it better to just give up the cap and try to run? Regardless of what class I'm on I find that like 50% of the time help doesn't come, so I might as well have a class that can actually kill Spellbreakers since they appear so often.

In that sitution I'd just give the cap up and go directly to your respawning allies.People probably see you fighting that Spellbreaker on point and think you are okay there when you are not, and go for another node instead(if they aren't just auto-running to mid). Giving up the node is a signal to your teammates to do something about it.

Exactly what I was thinking. Of course you might get some retards as team mates who then flame you for leaving the node but ehh..In this case I'd suggest holding on to the point (ideally capped but if it gets decapped it's not too bad either. just don't let them cap it) and leave as soon as you (are either afraid of dying or) see your team mates coming out of the spawn. Because Xv1-ing a spellbreaker is in general a pretty bad idea especially considering you've probably just completely lost map control (since your mates were on cooldown and the enemy probably captures mid and far by now and you are already defending close alone), since the entire point of a side noder is to waste as much time from as many enemies as possible.If you really want that point defended/capped you could also ping your node, most of the time people will then come by.Just don't spam the pings as it starts to get annoying pretty quickly imo and a lot of people (me including) are getting pissed when someone's constantly pinging stuff.

And as for p/p thief: You can still play it but it doesn't work in every matchup. If your enemy team has a lot of range dps or projectile blocks/reflects you will perform pretty poorly. However, if you can sneak up and gank into a team fight you can actually melt everyone pretty fast, especially scourges and firebrands. Just be aware of any panic reflects and stuff.And if you decide to play thief I'd actually recommend primarily using shortbow against spellbreaker since you can maintain quite some distance and dodge stuff like Bull's Charge, Shield Bash and the.. ehh Greatsword#3 pretty well while you can also can deal a lot of damage with shortbow#2. People tend to underestimate how well you can perform with shortbow since it often gets narrowed down to just shortbow#5 for mobility.