vcxxx.3159

You got lucky that they decided to camp mid. Im not saying I've never won a game against these comps, but I regularly run into situations where theres a spellbreaker on home (which takes 3 to kill), a druid on far (which takes 3 to kill), and a shield/ invuln abusing mes on mid (which takes 2 to kill). Blocking and spamming evade should prevent point capture because these mechanics are honestly super toxic.

I honestly think there should be punishing mechanic added to the game that gives you 25 stacks of vulnerability after blocking and reduces endurance regen to 0 after evading.

Playing against 2 bunkers and a support essentially makes the match a -3v5. When it takes 3 people to take out a bunker and 2 people to take out a support. I came back to this game in November after a five year break and came to terms with the block spam and evade spam essentially tuning my build to deal with it. But as a condi mesmer theres nothing I can do against spellbreakers or druids when every skill they use cleanses. And what was anet thinking giving support mesmers an 8 second block and 8 seconds of invuln? Its just not fun to play against. The weapon proficiency mastery has allowed certain classes to become unkillable while simultaneously letting them take half your health with one skill. It seems like every class has this mechanic while they're evading during a burst which is unacceptable. Idk if I'm just jaded from weekend queueing because my normal 80-90% winrate plummets to 25% but I'm seriously considering shelving this game. Rewards are asinine during loss streaks making gameplay extremely discouraging. Something really needs to be done about all these builds with baked in condi clear and stability with weapons and utilities that spam block, evade, and invuln. Its not fun to play against and basically guarentees imbalance. One bunker essentially makes the game a 2v4, two bunkers make it a -1v3, and a support make it a -3v2. Finally, their playstyle is just so god kitten toxic. They'll get 3 people on them and just run in circles around a point LOSing and full healing while the rest of their team has an easy 2v4 to ransack the map. It's literally troll behavior.

Update: Shortly after writing this thread I changed to PU Shatter Mes (which just so happens to be rated Great on metabattle) and did ok for a while. I climbed up to 1350 until I went on two consecutive 7 loss streaks (I was playing on the weekend). So I changed my approach, here's a little backstory: I've been grinding PVE for a month or so to build HOPE and trying to get weapon mastery achievements so I started using axe. I was pretty amazed when the axe 3 skill was criting mobs for 8k and thought it might work in PVP. Needless to say, it didn't, but I tweaked the build again and again until I found a reliable condi Mirage build. I'm using Axe/ Pistol + Scepter/ Sword and it's really fun to play. I use the swashbuckler's amulet, rune of the traveler, and agony and torment runes. With the PU build I was basically trading wins but with this condi/ power build I'm winning around 70-80% of the time. I use the dodge rolls offensively with the Scepter to get additional Torment stacks and the disengage targeting from Axe 3 is pretty useful for survival. I still run into issues with Dragon Hunters if I get targeted by their F1 and pulled into traps. Especially if they get me before I can spawn a clone to trigger the traps. Also, the Ele's magnetic shield can really mess up my rotation if the whole team gets the buff. The build in general works really well in the meta because it doesn't rely on a massive 1 time burst to bring enemies down. The condi pressure is pretty good even though I'm only utilizing 500 condi damage and if I can get the whole team to suffer from Torment and Bleeds it usually causes them to panic and wipe. Even if an enemy is utilizing lots of condi clear, the majority of the damage comes from shatters and Axe/ Scepter 3. My only gripe is the shadowstep from the axe is a little wonky. It doesn't work as well as Sword 3 imo.

I've been playing sPVP since 2014 and just came back after a four year break. I've played nearly every core build really well. My main has always been Mesmer with around 5,000 games, and every other class around 500-1000 games. I was very enamored by the combat system in this game coming from WoW due to the dodge roll and being able to move while casting. I thought that was really cool. Like I said earlier I've played basically every Power/ Condi/ Bunker variation for every class. I thought that was really neat how the different weapons could result in different play-styles. There was a point between 2014-2016 where I was pretty infamous as a dueling Mesmer and had people inviting me to join their ESL teams. I used to be in a guild that did 5-mans on comms and we'd win pretty much 90% of the time. But things have really seemed to change. When I logged in a few days ago I tried my dueling build that facilitated my fame and it didn't go well (Domination/ Dueling/ Illusions - Sword/ Pistol, Scepter/ Sword. Berserker Amulet/ Rune of the Traveler). Nowadays it seems like every class has access to AOE bursts, blocks, and invulnerability. I feel like this started with Dragon Hunter being able to 1-shot people with traps and has permeated to all classes now. Condi pressure is insane now too. I've had multiple deaths where I check the log and it's literally 16,000 damage from burning or bleeds but it doesn't even tick, it's like instant death. I also think 11,000 damage from a single DH trap should be mentioned here too. It just doesn't make sense to me honestly. AOE attacks should, by their nature, be less powerful with the advantage that they hit 5 players. Direct damage attacks don't even seem to register with the proliferation of every class having blocks and invuln. I got roflstomped trying to play power necro yesterday so I'm trying my old AH shout guard build today but I've gotten instakilled doing that too. I've noticed that people don't generally target (or fight on point) and I'm wondering if that's a symptom of every class just being able to burst people with AOEs. What happened to minion mancers and DD celes? What happened to turret and kit engis? Why do people AFK when they see me playing power core mes? Are core builds completely irrelevant?