Brasides.9360

I hear what you are saying about variety of purpose for the traits, and I do really like that not every trait is made to fit into the "highest DPS/support/heals" paradigm. It is really fun for me to look up the solo and open world builds that make more use of trait variety than the snowcrows benchmarks, and those more varied ones are often what I find myself using. For example, this is a really fun build using the "Fervent Force" trait now on the chopping block. Honestly it is kind of ridiculous how much of a one-character party this build is, and I had a feeling Anet would nerf it out of existence. This might be a bit off topic, but are there any fun playstyles that jump out to any of you folks which aren't slated to be nerfed down, or new builds you have in mind that might make use of the upcoming balance changes? I know we don't have numbers on a lot of these balance notes, just fishing for more fun builds to nerd out on. Bonus points if you have a link to a video or text description of how/why the build works or is interesting. On golem (no external boons or conditions - aka insanity): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KD-lFDhGcHA On legendary bounties: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pjFQ1oug2zs These are not my videos, but whoever this person is - you are awesome and an inspiration to newbies like me. Edit: rereading the quoted post I am glad to see someone else enjoys the arcane dodge and healing signet on ele, that is the kind of thing I just love using for multiple procs to sustain. It feels like you are almost breaking the game when you proc a passive like that, but it requires habit, the right build, and honestly ele needs all the sustain it can get since a single mistake can = downstate.

Hey thanks for the detailed response - it is good to hear from a player who has been around the game for a while that there are a lot of viable options to play the classes in the way I most enjoy: running encounters with fewer than recommended players or solo. I see that there are options currently to engage with theorycrafting, and enjoy doing that myself as a new players. I guess what is concerning to me is that most of the changes I see to the classes I've played (ele-sword weaver, ranger-untamed), are leaning in to traits that give a damage % increase (Ferocious Symbiosis) and away from those that rely on player actions to be effective (Fervent Force). Maybe not everyone feels this way , but the most fun part of theory crafting to me is finding ways traits can interact with one another, not to provide a flat % damage bonus buff that I need to keep up, but rather to change the way I use skills together with one another. And there is a lot of "increase all dmg by x % when you have stacks of y" in these notes. Catalyst: Empowering Auras Willbender: Lethal Tempo & Tyrant's Momentum Necromancer: Soul Barbs Untamed: Ferocious Symbiosis There might be more in the other classes but I am not familiar enough with them to say. On the other hand seeing that Firebrand is getting reworked to manage a class resource seems really interesting. I'm just a bit worried that there is more emphasis on the mechanics that give flat % dmg bonuses rather than rewarding a more interactive style of play.

Just to make sure, I did a sanity check by looking at the percentage of players who use untamed in raids/strikes/fractals. Strikes: 0.49% Fractals: 0.51% Raids: 0.42% So I guess their plan is to nerf untamed because it is too powerful? If it were powerful on things other than golem wouldn't these numbers be higher? Or is it just that a difficult class to play shouldn't be rewarded? Kind of seems like this is the reason they plan to nerf Fervent Force: because it has the highest numbers on golem, though it isn't dominating the meta. This looks like an example of exactly the opposite of the balance philosophy - improving a trait that just increases numbers (Ferocious Symbiosis) as opposed to an interactable one (Fervent Force) that needs to be actively managed to reach high effectiveness. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Yeah I made a ranger only because the builds around Fervent Force looked fun and engaging. Does it seem to anyone that they are actually developing counter to their philosophy? I could only really parse the changes to ele and ranger, but it seems like the direction they are actually taking in these dev notes is: high skill/apm ===> nerf low skill/amp ===> buff Would love to hear some counter-examples from more experienced players. This is just kind of disappointing to me and makes me want to look elsewhere for what I thought gw2 offered: an mmo that rewards complex gameplay.

+1 to this. I picked up a ranger only because I saw Fervent Force and was intrigued with the trait. Otherwise it seems like for PvE you are just lining up burst for soulbeast, which doesn't seem all that hard or engaging. Killing Fervent Force seems like it would be pretty well in line with the philosophy in practice I'm seeing in these notes, and the direction seems to be: high skill/apm builds ===> nerf low skill/apm builds ===> buff Is anyone else seeing a trend away from high engagement builds? Maybe someone with more experience as ranger can offer some counter examples, I'd love to see them.

Yep, giving up on sword weaver. In the livestream they said they were listening, but it doesn't look like they are listening. I'm a new player and seeing that stream gave me some hope that maybe this is an mmo with responsive development where the devs will listen to the pain points of players and steer development in line with the philosophy they lay out. Sadly does not seem to be the case. Maybe Ashes of Creation someday will be the game I've been waiting for, but as demonstrated here, it is not GW2.

It really makes it feel like they aren't listening. Welp, my sword weaver is going back into the only niche I could find for it: "Play this when you want to get better at other classes".

I'm a newer player using untamed. I'm curious if you or others see a lot of untamed in higher tier fractals/raids, because when I do t2-t3 fractals I have only ever seen 1 or 2 other untamed, and never a more experienced player getting all the juice out of it. I know it is top of the charts on the golem, but is it actually a popular choice in instanced PvE?

Nice to know I'm not alone here. There was no mechanical reason to play sword weaver. There is still no reason to play sword weaver (except that it is fun). The kicked dog remains a kicked dog. Why have an elite spec weapon when there is basically no reason to choose it over the scepter? Scepter has higher damage and more range - currently the only reason to play a sword is if you want to challenge yourself to survive on the least survivable PvE spec.

lol, when I first viewed this I had no idea what it was supposed to be. After learning a bunch and coming back it actually made me laugh out loud.

Hey another pvp player welcoming me into the community by telling me I'm trash! What a guy!

Hey this whole post is awesome! Thank you so much for the great response. A lot of suggestions I can act on there about using the tools at the ele's disposal to deal with my salty tears. I think it makes a lot of sense to use earth shield in this context - it is something I'm going to have to practice getting comfortable with. I'm going to practice my projectile uptime until it comes more naturally and can I somewhat fluidly use projectile reflect or the air 4 skill while switching to being offensive and then back to putting up projectile reflect. At this point getting projectile reflect uptime to near 100% on weaver takes all my attention and it ends up leaving me a sitting duck to anybody melee in the area since I'm completely distracted by watching my own cooldowns or running back to the other earth shield. Otherwise the projectile reflect drops and I get cc'd again. For now I'll head into Auric Basin and practice on the Bristlebacks there until I can kill a few at once just using projectile reflect, should be a fun training exercise. Also I think we might be playing forum tag across a couple threads with this right now, lol. Its great to hear a positive voice out here - so much toxicity around pvp discussions! You go out on a limb to ask for help and ppl just tell you you're trash, so I really appreciate your good vibes and lets me know not everyone in PvP space is a goblin :) Though I may have invited it while posting in a fit of pique after a run of bad matches with mech the other day. Keep up the good vibes! If there aren't a few lights in the darkness then a lot of nice ppl will get driven away and the pvp scene will either shrink or just be 100% toxic goblin land. tbh with most other new players I talk to, when I mention trying pvp they say they think it has a really toxic environment and have zero interest trying it. And to be fair I really can't blame them. Instead I just invite them for friendly duels in custom arenas. Like the ppl who made that mechanist build. Sooooooooo Evil. They made a build specifically about stomping newbies is the most humiliating way! "On silver this build destroys, annihilates and humiliates people." I mean come on! I'm slowly being converted from a person who likes pvp b/c it is a fun and challenging game mode to one who just wants to find and destroy these dastardly devils who stomp on the eggs of newly formed gw2 players before they can hatch into fun-loving pvp companions.

Hey that is a very kind offer! I could certainly use some tips, and am starting to learn all the things I need to improve on. Actually I made a list of all the things I need to learn and improve on but it is just so abominably long that I don't want to burden anyone with it, haha. To be honest I don't know if it would help or hurt to try out another elite spec, since I've never touched tempest and don't really have any experience with support professions. I ended up making a reddit post on this topic, and another kind stranger took a lot of time to respond in detail with both specific examples and a good overview of the general pvp concepts I might want to focus on. If you have anything to add to that or want to throw in your 2 cents I'd love to hear it. The gist was to learn to use Line of Sight, make good use of ele air and earth focus 4, and learn how to take the initiative in engaging or disengaging to re-sustain and get back cooldowns with line of sight. Also a more high level idea I'd like to pay more attention to, which is setting the pace of the fight, placing yourself in an advantageous position at the start of the fight, and trying to make the enemy respond to your actions instead of getting stuck responding to them. Also I actually found the build I think I'm fighting - at least I think so? The website says it is up to date, but I remember hearing shortly after I started playing in early October that they nerfed the engi auto-attack in PvP, so maybe this isn't correct. In any case this is most likely the build. A couple noteworthy quotes from the build and reviews: This is the entire overview: And from the comment section:

Yes this is helpful, I'm going to do my best to work on projectile reflect uptime and timing, and how to effectively burst. Do you have any suggestions for working around immobilize? I have found that when I try to get close, especially in team fights, there are a couple conditions on me so that when I try to condi cleanse with "Smothering Flames" by swapping into fire attunement (or double attuning), the immobilize is still there and I am easily gunned down. Would you suggest running earth shield for this kind of thing? I've recently been using Stone Resonance and Twist of Fate for defense and Primordial Stance for offense - I guess I could give up one of the defensives but then it is a lot easier to get cc'd into the ground by knockdowns or pushes. The mechs I've fought had a lot of cc and I don't know their animations, so I often find myself repeatedly cc'd or immobilized when I try to get in close. Are these knockdowns and pushes blocked by projectile reflect or the air 4 projectile block? Or would you recommend trying to use the focus earth 5 invuln somewhat offensively instead of saving it for the "oh crap" moments? I'm very happy for you that you do not run into many mechs, and I wish that my experience were similar. However, you're just not going to convince me that my eyes are lying to me when I see mechs all over the place every time I try getting into PvP. Very occasionally I'll have a game where the mech is useless, doesn't pay attention to rotation, and just wanders around getting 3v1'd. But this is by far the exception, as are games with no mech present.

Yeah these are definitely things I'm working on, and are helpful suggestions on what to focus on learning better and building into muscle memory so I can appropriately respond with pressure or sustain when it is required. But to say this... it is just not true in my experience. At the silver levels, Mech dominates. It dominates so hard that every silver pvp player I've talked with shares the experience of hating mech, not enjoying playing against them, and when we see 2 mechs on the other team we just know, "This is going to be one of those games." Because every single time, literally every time there are 2 mechs on my side or the enemy side, that side wins. Honestly it has gotten so bad that when I see someone playing mech I don't want to be friends with that person.