Flowki.7194

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?

Well, thats where I agree, way to much AOE, and way to many abilities doing 3+ things at once. Utility/CC/Damage should be completely seperate, so that their is room for concious use (or lack of) which opens up the range of player skill, allowing more room for being outplayed. How do you outplay the likes of staff warrior or blade? when nion everything they press also gives sustain, which is also leached into ranger maces. Rev scepter is basically the same, just not that good, and specters scepter is also like that, so many mechanics baked into 3 buttons, its unreal.

You are the walking definition of denial. Drop your egotistical desire to be right, and re-read the posts.

In honesty the concept of Duo does not bother me, its just very badly implimented. The system should place 1 duo on each team as a complete rule of thumb, and it has to go on the player with the highest rating. People care about rating at top level, its unlikely a true plat is going to duo with anything less than another true plat with this change. This would solve so many issues, firstly, it means you as a plat solo, get a team plat duo, and an enemy plat duo, and all other solos are plat (one or two solos on each team could be G3, if you are all P1, but no wider MMR than that). Second, it stops plats having a true plat friend who is sand bagged as a low gold player, the average then puts them in a game with golds, despite them both being true plat.. that is horrible for the golds to deal with, and a great way to kill off a playerbase. With all similar skill levels, duos can't just abuse certain spec combos to carry, spec diversity would also incraese. With an overall cap on MMr range, it is also far less likely that plat duos can Q as mech engis etc, becuase at the higher locked MMR range, their is next to no chance of the game matching them with mechs anyway.

I played hammer cata for a while, across multiple itterations that were not bunker. Even the "bunker" build took considerable skill to do well on, which was my point, it is easier to make mistakes on hammer cata when your survival depends on comboing for the right aura at the right time (and stability), which requires full knowledge of every spec, and what current weapon they are using. That is even more difficult now, when almost all specs now have access to both ranged/melee damage, and enough mobility to jump between the 2 at a whim (they are all like power untamed, a nightmare to fight as hammer cata, go try). Hammer cata is the bench mark of a skill indexed side noder that requires high game knowledge to push a player off the point, something that is not required from the average druid/warrior, who are tanking TWO people <TWO> 2 <2>. Get it yet? There is no reason to mention condi cata as a spec.. it was a short lasting thing that was broken, and does not represent ele as a whole. Thats just like slating all of ranger across all of time becuase SLB was busted for a few month. Tempest is not just support, there have always been DPS or hybrid builds that did good damage, which where destroyed as specs, thanks to ANET sledge hammering scepter condi to deal with the monstrosity that was condi cata. They were not bunker builds, they were group fighting dps builds, which could top damage, the opposite of bunker. There were more than a hand full of power scepter and D/D specs that I mentioned, which you conveniently neglected. You then talk about weaver builds, which have been the least played of all over the last 2 year, its not my fault you're a weaver main and didn't realise their were plenty of "none bunker none support" cata/tempest builds.

There is no real chance of this happening though. Most of the specs spewing out toxic levels of CC or boons actually depend on them. Adding to that, a lot of the new weapons come with yet more "1 button does 3 different things". Ranger maces are the most funny in this way, sustain/utility/cc/dmg which refreshes X2 -dmg, so you can smash the same 4 buttons again; Bladesworne 2.0.

Obviously not condi cata. FA is neccersary across many power specs, no mobility would otherwise make it unplayable in a lot of cases; Comparable to DD/DE thief with no stealth, or holo with no blocks. Just look at hammer cata, 0 mobility, everything can kite it, not suprisngly almost nobody plays it, despite it pumping out high damage. Thats a load of rubbish. There were power and condi dps builds (before condi cata bs) for both scepter tempest and scepter cata. There were some d/d duel builds, and hammer cata was also a lot more viable 6-12 month ago, as the game was not massively mobility/bunker creeped. Support tempest was the most represented at that time (is it much suprise it was also the most forgiving ele spec?) while cata was meta, but hard and punishing enough that they were not massively represented at all (EU), aside from the echo chamber of the top 5% of plats.. who would have us beleive cata was easy to play and at 100% rep. Thats all echo chaber bias bs, I know plenty of good players who tried power cata, and stopped playing it days later becuase it was too much of a headache to do well on. The rune and relic changes impacted ele more than most classes, lowering its already low HP pool, then the scepter nerf, stab nerf. Then the all specs weapon update, and now new weapons (ele didn't benefit much from any of that), then buffs to some other specs along the way. So now its at the point where specs that take half as much effort are as good, or better than any ele spec. The proof is in representations, its druid/warriors on sides, not hammer catas, its WB/SLB/Holo roamers, not scepter cata, its core gaurd support, not tempest. The only thing that seems to get any representation now is a nion meme 1 shot weaver build, which players would probably have been laughed at for playing 12 month ago, thats how far ele fell (rightly or wrongly so). Game doesnt benefit when some of the most difficult specs in the game (hammer cata) or being outclassed by some of the eaiest (insert multiple current side noders). How do you draw mistakes from such specs when they have fool proof mechanics baked into them, just like they did with the monstrosity cata signit build "how to do kitten damage/area denial with 0 effort"; gw2 theme. So again, this is the meta you all voted for, low skill side noding, and a scoruge+DH+core gaurd face tanking for days on mid.

Stab should be shared only by support, and things like SPB should be some of the very few specs that can CC, and are braught along to coordinate with dps burst, CC the healer at the right time, or peel etc. Instead, you have multiple specs that do it all = death of coordinated attacks. 10 players randomly spamming CC/dps in a race to see which red circle dies first. Its truly bottom of the barrel gameplay, no defined roles in that way.

Maybe not, but on the other hand the most fun duels ive ever had were against core engis. I also liked fighting holos around g3/p1 level, holos above that are pure god mode, its no longe fun when you have 0 chance.

Just about every ele spec has access to projectile denial and immunes, its border line ironic for you to complain about hammer vindi projectile denial/dmg when you have similar denial, and pheonix 8-12k crits, which is not massively broadcast either. Tempest of all is complete projectile shutdown, even on dps builds. To reach that level of projectile denial on rev you have to play vent dome, which eats energy, and does not work well with dps power builds. Go and play it, you will also realise how cumbersome it is to do damage with. The damage co's are high, but again, hammer/gs-5 are highly broadcast, its a lot more reliable to land burst as ele when the enemy know how eaither spec works. Dragontooth is easily dodged, but pheonix/trident are not near as obvious unless at high range 1v1, and both do heavy multi target dmg. You also have superspeed-swiftness nion on demand with FA, rev does not have that, but makes up in other ways, such as more dodge/evade. What would you rather have? I sure as hell miss superspeed on demand when playing rev, so easily took for granted. Power rev is quite different to ele mechanically, but they are both quite similar in terms of effort and punishment for mistakes, and both can't attack while immune/blocking (like so many other specs can) youre shitting on the wrong class becuase you don't know how 1 weapon works. You would be more correct to compare hammer vindi with holo, is holo a problem?

I remember when I said ele at top of meta was the best thing for the game, becuase the specs were hard and punishing enough that any random couldnt just get on them and deny area. But now here we are.. specs that punish so little, the average player requirs a 2v1 to kill <30 seconds. You fkers deserve this meta 😜

Telegraphing should scale with damage, but on the other hand I see no excuse for any ability doing over 6k in 1 hit, but there are many, and some doing double that. CC doesnt exactly need telegraphing, but the problem is the shear amount of CC (soft/hard) along with eye watering power damage/condi bombs. Gw2 is a fking mess of a game. There are builds now that are doing it all, decent mobility, decent sustain, decent damage, decent CC, decent boon access <the demi-god era>

Duo MMR should go on highest rated player. MMR range needs hard locked, plat 3-2 should never be in games with golds, and gold 3-2 should never be in the same game as silvers. I played on and off-peak all the time, and getting players like Boyce in the same game, multiple games in a row, while I was at G1>3, was far from rare. I genuinely think 80% of the people currently running around with plat badges are G3 at best, if surrounded by equal skilled dps/support. Their ratings are inflated from duo/off peak abusing the kitten poor MMR range, and farming players with 2/3 of their skill. Shameless playerbase. If anything, its deminished returns at current. The more people that try to duo/Q dodge, the harder it is for said people to que dodge AKA they are meeting players of similar skill levels and being put in place, G3.