Straegen.2938

These are the toughest solo builds to win against IMO: Condi Mes, Boon Beast Blowup, Skill Reset DeadEye The most annoying build belongs to either Condi Mes or Perma Invis DE. Both of these builds should be deleted from the game along with Boon Beast.

Almost 9200 with 6k WvW hours. I mostly roam on a thief.

Theorycrafting is a major component of RPGs. The more reliant classes/builds become on certain "must-have" traits/skills, the less interesting a RPG becomes in the long term. This is why having Scourges and Firebrands so dominant for so long in the WvW meta helps create a stale game mode. Anet from day one should look at skills/traits that are overused and slowly reduced their effectiveness while increasing underused skills/trait effectiveness. This doesn't fix balance and the like but it enhances the long term enjoyment through diversity which in turn reduces general boredom or gameplay fatigue in a game.

Ballistas also dismount players with the Antiair Bolt.

Not every class is meant to fill every role in WvW. Thanks to rally, non-meta group builds particularly thieves and rangers are dead weight most of the time.

AoE and Ranged skills should be the weakest damagers of all skills not the strongest. Melee skills should be the big hitters. It makes zero sense that low risk ranged AoE out damages short range have to close the gap attacks.

As others noted, not roaming not even havoc. Skirmish group is a more accurate description.

This. While it is powerful in WvW, it can be avoided and kited. In PvP, that becomes a real issue due to the required proximity of the game mode. They should tone it down but not gut it in WvW.

Mounts changed WvW true but while some things are worse, many things are better. Getting players into fights faster is a good thing for a competitive game mode. I believe player knockdown skills should force a dismount. Aegis shouldn't work while mounted or at least make the dismount skill unblockable. Lastly sniff should mark stealthed players in the area. All fairly simple changes I suspect.

WvW achievements are some of the most difficult to attain in the game. This also makes their rewards all the more onerous. For those that did the grind, changing it now would be an insult. Oddly I find WvW the most friendly it has ever been to new players. The first few years were a one-shot horror show for anyone not able to suffer through the learning curve. People go on about how unbalanced WvW is today have zero idea what it was like the first two years. Most couldn't walk out of their spawn without getting murdered. That said the rally mechanic needs to die. It is the most unfriendly mechanism in WvW for new players. WvW is often an unpleasant beverage in a desert devoid of liquid. If there was a better version of this game mode in another game, it would be empty. Unfortunately the few variations of this game mode in other games is worse or extremely dated.

Old school roaming has fallen off partially due to a shrinking population and also due to mounts. With mounts, roaming far from a WP is often a death sentence because players can respond so quickly to swords on a camp and few roamers can escape a pack of players able to break combat and mount up while others keep the roamer in combat. Exactly. QQ are not roamers and it is difficult to even argue they are skirmish. Nothing wrong with running gank but don't confuse roamers (players that solo roam, scout, flip) with gankers (players that hunt in groups for other players exclusively typically using OP builds, numbers and comms to overwhelm).

Not sure how I am not being objective. I play WvW almost exclusively. I duel almost everyday on a variety of builds/classes against a variety. I roam pretty much every day. I am around 9k WvW levels with over 6k hours in WvW most of it from roaming so I have pretty much seen it all. Boon Beast has a stacking damage reduction dropping their incoming damage by 66% and making them immune to control condi. They block, invuln, stealth, multiple leaps, knockdowns and effectively have permanent regen, protection, fury, vigor, etc. Those are just the defensive highlights. Add on the absurd Rapid Fire which has a ridiculous range and an equally ridiculous cool down. The attack even lasts longer than a dodge so it takes two dodges to avoid it. Up close they have Maul. Slap on pets that do unattended knockdowns, Wordly Impact and more stealth access. The only serious nerf they have seen is stopping the unblockable on Rapid Fire which went on WAY too long. Even the learning curve on the class is one of the lowest in the game. Warriors are easy to kite and prone to interrupts so they have natural built in counters. Warriors are manageable both in duels and roaming. Rampage is a bit much but it doesn't have the impact in WvW as it does in sPvP. Boon Beast compared to Knockdown Warrior or Rifle Zerk... not even in the same league. Boon Beast will wreck a warrior in 1v1 and most other builds 99/100 given equal skill.

Warriors in small scale are mostly fine. Rampage is a minor issue but in WvW I don't find it terribly problematic. Why would they nerf classes/builds that are under performing just because some builds are over performing and need some nerfs? No reason to start nerfing elementalists, necros, etc in small scale just because Boon Beast has far too much sustain for a DPS build or Condi Mirage is able to drop a ridiculous amount of varied condi while chaining invulns, stealth, teleports, evasion.

Small scale: Boon Beast and Condi Mirage need some nerfs. Holosmith invis duration is far too long. Deadeye stealth uptime is too much particularly with so little stealth counter play. Shiro, Surge of the Mists and Unrelenting Assault is too much damage and evasion with virtually no cast time so interrupts are pointless.A slight nerf to Deadly Ambition. Removal of Evasion food. Large scale needs more class/build variation. Scourge. Class is too meta defining.Firebrand. Class is too meta defining.

Gotta love Anet. They "tune" Scourge only to make one of the most meta dominant classes even stronger. The improved spike DPS on Scourge is causing even more players to run it.

This is the default and it really should change. There is no reason ANet cannot upend this concept. I would change all AoE skills to root a player while casting. This would open up far more counters in the current meta. Firebrands need a comprehensive overhaul so they aren't the entire backbone do-it-all of a zerg. That role should belong to multiple classes such as Warrior, Scrapper, etc. Diversity should make a large group stronger not weaker. Narrowly built parties in large scale combat should have inherent weaknesses. As it is now a group can role solely with two classes and wreck. They can almost get away with just Guardian variants in some cases. It has been this way for far too long.

The large scale meta has been dominated by these two classes for far too long. They were OP in the beginning and still OP today. It is stale and has become boring. No single set of classes should dominate the meta forever yet here we are some variant of Guardian and some variant of Necro... same crap in a different wrapper since pre-release. Firebrand and Scourge needs to get nerfed into the dirt for a while. Virtually every other class has seen balance patches that have completely eliminated them as a dominant force in the meta in one way or another (except mesmer but that is small scale). They have had their time. As a side note, the same is true for sigils and runes. There are several key upgrade components run on these meta builds that need to get knocked down a peg or twelve.

The jury is in... get caught and insta-ded. They do way too much spike damage now. The old design was easier to manage and it was horribly imbalanced. I really dislike that the vast majority of a zerg is comprised of two sub-classes.

Small scale: Pew Pew Rangers need to choose between high ranged kiting damage and defense. The multiple long range jumps, stealth, knockdowns, huge easy damage rotations, better ranged weapon pathing than any other class and an absurd amount of defense all at the same time is simply OP in small scale. Reduce the jumps and make them far more susceptible to immobilize particularly on high damage range builds.Dead Eyes with high stealth time need their mobility cut. Whoever thought stealth, big ranged damage, immobilize and mobility in one weapon-set was a good idea missed the balance class. It is difficult enough to close the gap on them then watch them stealth but add a massive spammable range jump that also removes condi in the mix and catching one is near impossible unless they screw upMirage... AoE, evasion, blocks, invuln, stealth, teleports and condi spam. There is virtually nothing in their kit they don't have access to. Personally I would leave all the defensive capability in and gut the condi damage. Mirage should be power based forcing them to constantly pressure a target rather than semi-passively apply condi.Large scale: My primary suggestion is to root casters of ranged AoE and ground targeted abilities. Rangers and to some extent eles already have to deal with this and so should most long range AoE casting skills. Every big hitting Scourge AoE should root their rears in place for the full cast time.

AoE and Ranged skills simply output too much damage with too much defensive capability compared to melee. Melee builds have to close on a target, stay extremely close to their target and deal with a massive amount of evasion, stealth, teleports, etc. Often by the time a melee build closes the gap they have run through a couple weapon and utility skills only to see their target vanish, teleport, etc. Melee builds should be the most mobile builds in the game bar none. Ranged players get auto-tracking and most have obscene amounts of escape/defense while being able to output similar or more damage than melee. AoE classes simply spam a rotation allowing them to pressure multiple opponents at the same time. Range needs to choose between defense and offense. Many builds in WvW (Pew Pew Soul Beast for example) have to make no trade offs for being near glass cannon damage while still maintaining excessive amounts of mobility, teleports, stun breaks, immob removal. AoE builds shouldn't be hitting as hard as melee builds ever. There needs to be more of a tradeoff between multiple target attacks and cleaving shots. Lastly stealth needs to trade the ability to vanish with mobility. These builds that have high stealth up time and high mobility need to be seriously adjusted.

poor mans IE guild

Doesn't work against melee or AoE. So malicious backstab, power mirage AoE, etc still land.

This. The final reward is 2.5g item, clovers, etc. I clean my characters storage maybe once a week.

Warclaw sniff should pop an AoE reveal and be on a 10s cool down. Holosmith/Scrapper with a ridiculously long stealth? Mesmer with near permanent evasion, invuln, block, stealth uptime and a huge teleport range? Perma-stealth Dead Eyes that crack for thunderous damage and gone an instant later? Soul Beasts that dink and dunk out of stealth at an absurd rate? None of these builds are fun to play against because stealth counter play is virtually no existent.