Flowki.7194

I was not specifically comparing hammer cata to SPB in terms of counters, but simply in terms of effort, becuase SPB is the topic (for us at-least), and hammer cata is a good comparison. But since you mentioned it, do you think SPB is hard enough to earn that counter? I most certainly don't, after playing both. Hammer cata does not have more defense vs CC, not even close, try it, check how long the stab lasts (nerfed), check how many combos you can do before jade is done.. yet you need that jade also for hp sustain, not just stab, and the stab is not on demand, its not reactive. Take for example your stab on stun, if they break the stun, they cannot counter-CC you, that is very reliable to allow you more pressure time. You need to try hammer to see how RNG the stab mostly is. Now try hammer cata vs other classes too, and you will see the same thing. SPB stab on stun is backloaded yes, but when you land CC it is a relaible anti-counter CC vs all specs (unless boon rip). I hope you follow what I mean here, it is very difficult to counter pressure SPBs with CC, unlike all other melee classes/specs, along with warriors that don't use that trait. In-fact I think that is the fundemental reason I dislike dueling warriors, that trait. You also have just as many blocks/counter and physical immune. You also have more CC, and if the enemy is CCd, they can't CC you, which definately counts as defense against CC. I played a core rev build for a while that revolved around CC, I undrstand very well how defensive CC is, and offensive at the same time. Hammer cata needs projectile defense becuase it has 0 mobility, yet, I would trade that projectile defense for a mobility button on one of the hammer attunements in a second. Projectile reflect is nothing if you can't capitalise on it, which hammer cata can't in a mobility crept meta. The only way around that mobility issue is to spec FA and TP, but at that point youre better off playing scepter cata. I also played a lot of scepter cata, and smart SPBs terrain/los kite you. Try to cap, they return to point and you have to get off it, start attackign, they go back to los kiting. They are not free kills at all, they are massive time wasters, which I dare say got even worse with staff.

Thats the horse before the cart, lock the MMR so people get more equal games across gold/silver, which also means supports don't get royally shafted by the DPS lottery, the rest would fix itself. Off-peaking would also stop over night, and the top 250 would also stop terrorizing unranked becuase they are too scared to play ranked until 3 in the morning, where they then terrorize low golds/silvers.

Its bladesworn with a pet. I was playing it for a little, but then realised how kitten it actually is, the weapon skill refresh for example, thats an elite skill on cata, just casually baked in for free. Btw what build was it? I was playing it with GS untamed, but never got around to testing it with sword/warhorn + quickdraw, which I assume still procs on maces?

I played a lot of support/hybrid, and would mark a thief that got on mid, so that team mates would attack to pressure it away, then I would put mark back to original target. This rarely worked, people either ignored the thief (especially DE), or they would chase it to god knows where after mark swap, so we lost pressure on point. In the end I just stopped marking thieves and pressured them off point/area myself, being some of the reason I played hybrid and never full support. Its a chaotic game that puts newbs in with more experianced players, all standing in AOE on point, or fighting 1M off point while its being capped. MMR.

I lost count how many games I played as hammer cata, and all of the things you just said apply to that spec one way or the other. It has more damage options, but a lot less CC/mobility. It is also a lot more complicated, so that all adds upto: A mechanically difficult spec that is easily kited = low effectiveness in a mobility crept meta. Yet, SPB is, and has for a long time.. been more represented, despite that on paper, hammer cata "was" the better spec (And only if you had p1+ skill on it). But now SPB is more effective than it was, for the same effort. Easy <check> Reliable <chech> Effective <check>. So who on earth would play something like hammer cata, and go up against specs like that on sides every game? Have you ever tried to play hamme cata vs an spb/druid? And have you ever tried to take a hammer cata into a group fight? You will recognise some flaws very similar to warrior, and then the mechanical level difficulty of how you self sustain, go and try it. I played SPB for long enough to make these claims, and I only had to duel a staff SPB once to see how busted its effort-sustain-reliability-effectiveness ratios are. Make it harder, or make it less effective.

Warrior in its current state should be hard capped in effectiveness (not the only one), and the fact that none of the specs really change the complexity of the overall warrior class speaks for itself. With most classes, they have at-least 1 spec that noticably ups the skill floor and ceiling from core, even firebrand does. Again answer my question, what is the fundemental differences between core warrior and staff SPB, and what is the increase in effectiveness? And then compare that difficulty and effectiveness of staff SPB to something like holo. Warrior should have an inroad, but you said it yourself, why would the current average staff SPB want to work twise as hard for the same reward? They are happy with easy and effective, no matter the cost to fair play and overall player retention. So what ever, same kitten different spec, players coping ever more on easier and easier specs that are more and more effective. Even the risk to reward is out the window now, look at DE.. effective HP; INFINATE, if you have a brain.

I don't think so either, why would most people not want warrior as it is. Rock counts as scissors if the enemy draws paper.. but it still counts as rock if they draw scissors. The joys of few buttons doing many things.

CD counting and all of that is general game sense, it benefits you to do it on any class/spec. I can partly agree with one thing, warrior having less CD's would makes them easier to predict, thats not good for the warrior, but it only plays into my argument.. make warrior more complex, helps them as much as it makes them less annoying to play against. I then flat out disagree with your statement on less buttons means "wiser choices" (essentially). What you are really getting at there is limitation, not difficulty. We can get into that more if you disagree. I do partly agree that if you only have 1 big hitter, you have to use it wisely, know when to not blast it into a block etc. However, that problem also exists for multiple lower damage hitters, where you have to land more to secure a kill, its really swings and roundabouts all in all. We could argue for hours over which virsion is more/less reliable, those are conversations of effectiveness. Using more abilitys adds complexity, and complexity possitively corrolates with difficulty in all domains, which inversely means simplicity implies lower difficulty, and again, difficulty and effectiveness are not the same construct. With that said, difficulty and reliability also correlate, easier normally means more consistant, however, more consistancy (of a low dmg ability) does not mean more effective, but it can. That now is the problem with Gw2. Specs are harder, making them less consistant and have X effectiveness. But you now also have specs like staff warrior, that are easier, consistant and also have X effectiveness. If you don't see that issue after this you never will, and we should just stop these talks. If you cap spec difficulty relative to spec effectiveness then three things result. 1: Effort is proportiantely and properly rewarded 2: If you are unhappy with warrior being capped at C, advocate for more complexity to up its cap. 3: If you want more reward, play a harder spec, HOWEVER.. if you lack the skill, you lack the reward PERFECT. Right now? jump on staff warrior, the easiest kitten in game and become a 1v2 monster? Absolute bs. We won't see eye to eye, becuase ive played all the classes and almost all the specs. I do not speak only as an ele, I speak collectively from the experiance of playing all specs, and if you read my posts, you will also see critisisms of both ele and rev mechincs/abilitys. Team wide mag? bs.. damage for doding? bs.. etc. Finally, let me put it in the perspective of core ele. If you play core it has 4 attunements, 1 weapon set, utility slots. It is reasonably effective if you take time to learn the abilitys. Now, step upto cata, its more effective, but its also a lot more complex, with jade/combo manedgement, double utility from the ultimate etc. To unlock that greater effectiveness you need to learn another curve, and despite the haters, its a steep curve. What is the step up from core warrior to staff SPB, and what is the effectiveness increase? I know kitten well there were plenty of plat level warriors stuck in gold, I faught many of them, I was playing core rev for a good while, and was in the same boat. That does not exlusively mean spec difficulty, as you need to also include spec effectiveness (I cannot comprehend why so many people do not see this difference). Or let me put it like this, if they buff condi mech numbers, and condi mechs are now getting into plat, are you going to pretend condi mech is hard? and they deserve to be in plat? Becuase in reality they are plat level players who chose a limited effectiveness spec (and it kitten well should be limited). It is not about what I want, its about what is right; Low effort = low reward. Would you like to work a job where you put in 100% to get payed, and the next guy puts in 50%, and still gets payed the same? It fundementally fks with peoples sense of fairness, and the only people who would ever defend it, obviously.. are the people putting in less work. Communism failed for many reasons, and that was one of them, the people putting in 100% stop trying (or in Gw2 case, gravitate to an easier spec for same effectiveness). Systems based on that principle spiral down into a provarbial shitbowl, until sombody finally realises its time to flush. People play game/map/modes that have barely changed in many games if the pvp mechanics are sound, if they are not, the playerbase dies, is sPVP thriving? obviously not, the MMR is now widening/salting the wounds, and the kitten is spinning even fater toward the flush.

Which confirms exatly what I have been arguing around here for almost 2 year. If you buff easy specs to be too rewarding, wave good bye to healthy levels of class/spec diversity, and since the bandwaggon is getting easier and easier to jump on, well, 100-0 in a hearbeat 😜

You are doing that condescending thing again, speak plainly, I always do to you.

That is in general.. if you are talking about some power zerker build, those are (or were?) the exception, yet they are not suddenly harder to play becuase you sacrificed some brainded sustain for more damage. Those power zerker specs are far more risky, but obviously not consistantly rewarding enough to stop people dry humping blade or SPB.

Of the currently most played warrior specs? none. All warriors ever do is conflate general game sense with warrior specs to hide the fact the specs are low effort. The same with necros always defending how kitten the second life bar is with "we so squishy".

I have no problem at all with simplicity, but when its effectiveness isnt capped to compensate, then thats a blatent pandering to casual mentality, the every child is a winner bs that creates weak humans. Blade, SPB and Czerker have been good to very good over the last 2 years, and the 3 specs combined are basically the equivilent complexity of hammer cata or power untamed. For the low complexity relative to sustain/utility/dps output, Blade & Czerker should have been hard capped to D tier at best, and SPB at C. They are way over performing in effort/reward, not that they are the only ones. There are a number of god aweful low effort builds (like core condi thief) just festering in the woodwork, waiting to infest the game with yet more dumbledore level gameplay after some random unralted ANet change. I say this becuase I agree with you, Anet couldnt even redo core mechanics at this poin even if they wanted to, the problems are way too deep, based on the complete lack of defined role ethos "anything goes" that the game was based on. Great concept and a bold effort, but here are the rewards for litterally designing certain specs to be "noob friednly", respect the time of casuals.. spit in the face of regulars, or those who prefere complexity, etc. They can, and should buff and nerf directly in line with effort of the given class/spec. A decently capped MMR system would sort the rest of it out, easy specs would cap out around low gold, but they get to play each other + others on harder specs who are not as good (yet). Those who are good and on more complex specs go high gold/plat, around similar skill levels with similar spec difficulties allowing more room for spec based errors etc. But then, I get the feeling staff warriors getting to plat think they deserve to be there.

Well, there were plenty of examples across other mmorgs in how to make warrior an engaging skill based class, stance dancing, holding up shield to block with defiance bar, which would punish the warrior if exeeding X amount, and so on. The type of mechanics that make it engaging to play as, while offering counters and opening up room for warrior error. How do you kitten up on staff warrior?, seriosly, what type of mountkittenery do you have to do to die in under 30 seconds? Traditional SPB and blade were the same, simple to the point it takes HUGE error to die fast.

Well, I guess those posts were drowned out by the shear volume of "make stuns do damage again", "make warrior do damage again", "DAMAGEE". Huge sustain/utility on one weapon, damage on the other, and the class got no more difficult to play, wins all round. Not played the game for a little now, but I get the feeling its moving just a little closer to its denominator: Will it be warrior, necro or gaurdian?

I don't know how anybody can look at staff 3 and think thats not a problem, before anything else. But that has always been the issue with warrior, so much crammed into so few buttons. Easy and effective, thats always going to oprress overall spec representation. But hey, its warriors turn to shine (again) keep on justifying low effort high reward 😜

Despite the blatent bad mechanics design across multiple specs/weapons/classes, it was the MMR that made me quit, and ill just ghost the forums every now and then to see if they ever fix it. You can escape selfish team mates with a decent MMR range, as they will sink to low gold at best, and youd also escape the pathetic examples of gamers, AKA: P3 off peak duos.

Sounds like youve been reading only what you want to read then. Ive seen a number of posts asking for such a trade off. People are far less anoyed fighting something that does not target drop or evade every other second. Think about it.. thief and mesmer, the most annoying classes in the game, wonder why? The only thing that comes close on the opposite end of the spectrum is SPB, you can see it, but why bother getting into melee with it, becuase every other second you can't hit it. Thats also just as annoying, and only people playing thief/mesmer/spb tend to think its "fun".

The condi is just not good enough for cata from what I tried (does not make up for sustain hit compared to power cata or condi tempest). The only good thing left on cata after all the stab nerfs etc is the elite, which allows double power burst. Even then, core is not far behind with expolsion. Tempest with Pistol/dagger is a better option becuase of the extra sustain, mobility/cc, which allows more chance to escape +1, or to catch up to people, and you still have 2 easy options for projectile reflect (aftershock/earth overload). Ele condi is also horrendously easy to cleanse. One of the tactics I use to do was to load them up with fire ticks, go into earth, apply bleed <aftershock immob> then use fire sig and instantly overload (trait for faster overload). The earth overload reduces cleanse chance while overloading, and the aftershock can keep some specs in place so you can land the overload immob (far from reliable though). As soon as the overload ends, earth CC and go into water using the condi there. If they break CC wait out stab, then updraft, go back on fire and load them up with fire ticks. Pretty much repeat. Even with all that landing perfectly, pistol still kinde sucks. Many specs will remove your awesome 2 damage types just with weapon swaps, let alone concious cleanses. And then, there are multiple specs that have easy poison access and better condi spam <they will remove more condi than you can remove +poison spam>. It's also a pistol, which has an obvious additional downside. The weapon sucks for power, and to be perfectly frank, even core condi rev is better than ele pistol condi, core rev has far more utility, its condi is not near as easy to passivly cleanse, it has poison access on mace, far more stab access, and far more CC access which procs additional poison uptime. Tempest does what? pew pew with a spud gun ;[. If you enjoy it play it ofc, but genuinely, ele condi still sucks after scepter nerf. A lot of core builds (even thief) are just flat out better, mostly due to poison spam and multiple condi types, which make them harder to cleanse/outheal.

You had some oblivious team mates I agree, but your actions based on frustration of how things should be going (I fully get that, been there), were not lining up with how things were actually going, you walked into, and stayed in that 3v1. The MMR is a complete mess, but a roaming dps can at-least rotate, which gives you a chance of winning. As full support or a group fight build depending more on teamwork, rotating is not possible, and they are even worse builds to play as. All in all, the MMR range is now too wide, Gw2 sPVP is absolute trash.. and thats before class and spec mechanics/weapon issues etc.

I agree, tempest has the easiest sustain out of all ele specs at current, but it is built on the foundations of a support, so it is a lot more fitting to compare it to other support specs and their hyrbid/dps specs. Staff tempest is not an easy support, it is a kiting support, I've played core gaurd and all possible rev support specs. Core gaurd and rev pure support specs have ALOT more "toe to toe" mechanics, which in ways, is more forgiving. Core gaurd is mechanically easier than both tempest and rev. Unfortunately most other support specs are completely unviable as full support, so I can't comment on them. But as far as my experiance goes, full support core gaurd is the easiest, and its a close tie on staff tempest/rev full support (I won't give 1000 word essay on why, it just is). Tempest as a DPS on scepter or d/d is a whole other thing, becuase we can now compare that to all the other "support builds" that are bad at full support, yet good as a dps. So now we are comparing dps support tempest with dps support rev, druid, and specter (core dps gaurd doesnt really exist, but ive seen it, and its not hard, just not very effective). I've played them all, and its this: Specter is the easiest, so bloated with scepter 3, tempest is very similar in mechanical difficulty to druid, but vindi/core rev are harder (demon+vent etc). Tempest on power is no more difficult mechanically, but more punishing with lower sustain, so that doesnt make it "more difficult". Druid is not "easy" on a mechanical level (unlike say bladesworne), but its sustain is so good that being semi compitant makes it the current most rewarding, being why their is a druid on every far, almost every game, not a tempest. Power weaver is no more difficult to play than scepter cata, and certainly not harder to play than hammer cata. The thing about power weaver is the attunement swap CDs lock you out of instant access to X off hand if the situation suddenly changes (say +1 for example). Weaver is highly unrelaible in dynamic fights, and that is not the same as difficulty, it is simply limited through badly implimented mechanics that have the reverse intended effect. The condi weaver sustain of not so long ago was even easier sustain than tempest. However, in relation to other specs, all of ele specs have a moderate to high skill floor depending on the spec (this is where somebody says condi cata). Obviously things like power untamed, herald, vindi, power mirage, and holo, also have moderate to high entry level skill floors. Rev also has a high skill ceiling, I flat out disagree with your statements in the other thread, it has both CD and energy to manedge. Any thief understands that learning curve (low risk of stealth aside), yet the rev also has 1 or 2 extra legend panels to contend with. Power vindi/heralds are just like power cata/weavers etc.. 9/10 are going to melt in under 20 seconds, but people only ever remember and complain about that 1 that was good. High threat WB's are a dime a dozen, we all know why. There are only about 5 specs with specific weapon sets that have both a moderate to high skill floor, and a high skill ceiling, while not being completely broken in risk/reward (obviosuly that last part rules DD/DE thief out). They all vary in current effectiveness (hammer cata compared to holo for example). Ontop of that, some are high skill floor but have toxic af mechanics, such as power mirage daze spam, which in turm makes jump trades almost completely one sided, which erodes its skill ceiling. Many of the other specs and some entire classes have rediculously low skill floors, and have been made increasingly more effective; pretty much all of current popular warrior, necro and gaurd specs. If you can't see it now you never will. Anet has systamatically nerfed the effectiveness of some more complex specs AND buffed the effectiveness of some less complex specs. Proof, title thread, and that 9/10 rangers that are not druid.. are SLB, the laymen power untamed. - When power cata was meta, no average cata required a 2v1 to kill, ever (especially not hammer). That is why ele was better in meta than this current low effort high sustain bs. Just going back 1 year, any power cata requiring a 2v1, was a plat player being MMR'd with low golds, same with power untamed. They were rare.

Compared to what? You are also the same guy saying power rev is easy, compared to what?

I was playing hammer rev at that time, and I was also playing condi/support before and after that time. Both here, and in-game, by rev mains and non-rev mains, it was laughed at, as was all of my condi vent builds (despite vent being the most powerful rev legend). The playerbase is just a bandwaggon, if it isn't meta it must be trash, if it isn't being used by a top streamer, its trash. The power co's on hammer are huge, capable of 12k+ crits (with invuln stacks), I said that multiple times even back then. Nobody listened becuase it isn't meta, now that it gets more use, people die to it, complaints. However, like I keep saying, doing damage with hammer is not reliable, it is very terrain (buggy) and range dependent, easy to dodge (try it youll see). Its CC is also very broadacast and impossible to land in moving fights. Now, compare that to other power specs, like current weaver, mirage, SLB, Scrapper, hollo, they all have far superior CC and damage application, and can all pump out the same or more damage in a similar time frame. So people need to be consistant in their nerf calls.. if you want to nerf hammer vindi, then it makes even more sense to also nerf a lot of the other power builds, that are flat out better in dmg/cc application. I think most of the problem with rev is psychological. Somebody looks at a condi or hammer rev, thinks the win is in the bag, then get their face melted off becuase they don't know how to play against it. This was freequent even when I played core condi rev on vent/demon, the amount of plat players stroling over like it was a free win, then dying or having to run away, completely underesitimating the CC/sustain/dmg output. The same with hammer, people rushing into melee range thinking that suddenly counters the weapon, when in reality it actually makes the hammer skills harder to dodge.

What ever the issues with thief are, I just find it ironically amusing that DE/DD specs have some of the lowest HP pools in the game, yet also take 1st and 2nd place as the lowest risk specs in game. Its quite marvellous when you think about it.

I agree, with WB you always have to check for stab and blocks within a sea of boon spam before CC/dps. Vindi for the most part, if you hit it between dodges it will get CCd or take heavy damage. You can essentially counter pressure a vindi within the first 10 second with timing, but you can't really counter pressure a WB, so I don't understand the vindi hate atm. Most of it seems to be hammer, it has high yet broadcast burst combos, but is not commonly used. If a few things line up and hit, its easily 25k dmg in a few seconds. Still, power mirage does heavy dmg while also spamming daze, already spoke about WB. Specs like DE, not as high spike burst but GL counter pressuring a spec that gets stealth on every dodge, along with a stealth combo on primary weapon+utility. SPB is similar, very difficult to counterpressure if contesting point, when it gets stab-counter-blocks, which essentially ends up like a DE that you can see, but not reliably hit/cc. SLB does a kitten ton of track+lock on/evade damage and stealth jump. Vindi, hit it between dodges, it can be locked down, as that is the case, then why should it do anything less than high damage given the other spec examples. Or plainly put, it can be counter pressured by any spec in melee range, which is where it does the most reliable dmg, but lets also make it do low damage? Who would ever play it then?