Saiyan.1704

We can talk about bad matchmaking, rating abuse, selling titles etc. all day.... tbh the thing that really hurt GW2 PvP long term was how much of a fail Stronghold was. Stronghold was SUPPOSED to be the new flagship PvP map but the Devs never listened to our suggestions, such as incorporating a type of equipment character progression, or anything else similar to a MOBA but GW2 style. But what we got was something that was less strategic than Conquest.

So there's decent metabuilds out there that you don't want to play on... and you're failing on the bad builds that you do play on, so much that you think the entire spec is worthless? After we're correcting you, you're backtracking by now calling WB a poorly designed spec? This is such a troll thread lol...

Virtue overlaping has been a huge headache for every WB build and in every gamemode to the point that this change was unavoidable. I am also perfectly fine with Restorative Virtues finally being good.

Anet releasing a pvp balance patch mid season to address an issue? Lol! Thanks for the chuckle. I'm going to show this to my very real nonimaginary gf so that she too can have a laugh.

Yeah I agree... and it wasnt just sagebrand build that were effected. I remember Arken maintaining top50 with a glass AH build utilizing Mantra of Truth. But it's nerf was absolutely ridiculous. It's not like we could just suddenly tack 300% worth of Weakness from somewhere to gain back the Weakness duration lost. Anets balancing decisions during this period was really really bad when it came to Guardian.

I can't say I agree, especially on the sPvP side of things and especially for Ranked sPvP. Furthermore I hear people say WB is meta and "works better" in WvW but since I don't play that mode I'll let some one else talk about that. First off WB dishes out a LOT of AoE damage when the getting gets good. Is it going to struggle with War/Cata/Vindi? Yes absolutely and so will 80% of other specs (hence the incoming nerfs) but believe me when I say that WB is extremely close to being a 5th pick meta class for AT comps. It is also a solid G3/Plat1 Rank spec. It's not going to be as OP as Cata/War/Vindi but we can run circles around those classes sometimes. I know I post a lot of meme builds lately for funzies but This Build basically carried me to Plat. I've been looking for a condi hybrid to take care of glass oneshot classes and this does exactly that. Willbender still needs buffs in areas that matter but it is far from being a worthless spec.

First off, you are not wrong... Anet literally posted a pole on who wanted class swapping prior to game start and something like.... 57% pvp players selected YES to that pole. It's utterly ridiculous (and bias) because this clearly causes multiple issues with matchmaking balance when it places classes and player efficiency to said class, on a given team. ESPECIALLY when sPvP population is as low as it is. (this post was before AT's were implemented and it was right before PvP Seasons as well. Matchmaking had to work twice as hard. This was seen when the Devs were altering Matchmaking Algorithms several times a week just to find the right sauce. 1v1/2v2/3v3's.... the official stance has been "We don't want to separate the PvP population". The irony 1.5years after this very old Dev post? They release a new PvP gamemode named Stronghold that only had 5% of what the playerbase asked for while also separating the pvp population (during this new gamemode release, premades of 5 vs solo/duo/trio comp Queue Times were at an all-time high). The fallacy here is that more individual, unique, players can queue for 1v1/2v2/3v3 game modes along side of a separate 5v6 game mode, like our current iteration of AT's. It's why most competitive (especially competitive) games have separated individual game modes. 1v1/2v2/3v3's don't cause higher queue times. What doesn't make sense is....this current system has had a HUGE on-going match manipulating process for the last few years. This current iteration has been the most abusive match manipulation in ALL of GW2 history.... for anyone who keeps track of GW2 PvP, this speaks volumes.

1.) Put GW2 on an SSD (solid state drive) as oppose to a HDD (hard disk drive) to launch the game quicker. For those who don't know, launching a game on an SSD is eons quicker than a game installed on an HDD. If your game is on an HDD, you may have to do a little research to see if your specific motherboard can supports an SSD. 2.) Upon immediately entering the game, exit the game by going into character select. You shouldn't crash if you are not in the map but do keep track of your in-game timer. Set a stopwatch or phone timer so you can enter right before match starts. 3.) If you are stuck in HotM, enter a random public pvp server. This should place you back into your game. (Things that didn't work for me) Not leaving your base... Not selecting/targeting any other player... Leaving your game minimized throughout the whole duration... (multiple crashes causes) immediately leaving your base while several players abuse the glitch =/...

FB is extremely awful in sPvP to the point that I wouldn't recommend it for new players or anyone, which is probably why Metabattle have old Firebrand builds lol. That said a new patch is coming out on Heart Day, Feb 14th. Firebrand will change so much that there will be new metabuilds for them. They will be better but I'm uncertain about their proficiency in sPvP. All Guard specs have builds that do decently in WvW and PvP both but I don't play WvW so, I can't really help you in that regard :3.

Ah I stand corrected, thanks for the explanation :3!

Hammer was never a defensive weapon. It was first a Burst weapon with the Virtues trait Glacial Heart at its core. That gave Hammer#2 nearly a 2k additional burst. It was so strong that it became meta for a given time in tournaments. That was 100% it's identity for a very long time until Anet gave it nerfs. You and I can both agree that Hammer is trying to rediscover it's identity as a weapon but the current changes to Hammer#3 barrier, Mighty Blow port and AA quicker attacks.... are purely QoL features that players have simply been asking about. Sure it's fun when fighting a Moose or getting beat down by a random NPC warrior in Heart of the Mists but it's not going to be a significant buff in competitive PvE/WvW/PvP by any stretch. Greatsword outshines hammer by a LOT so if you don't want to give hammer gameplay tools then what else should we give it? More barriers?

You mean Judges out to... another trap combo or just away? In your scenario all the traps are used, so it's not like you're going to land another traps traps traps on anybody after your initial Judges port with hammer. That and Guard as a whole could really use that escape card on ALL of our specs assuming you can even land a very-melee-oriented Banish, then quickly target some one else on the map for a quick port away within that 3 second window. (this would be awesome btw) If Banish has a port on hit, it would obviously be on a short timer. Not like you can keep a free port for 30 seconds. A 3 second free port to use for Mighty Blow or anything, is all you need.

Make Banish a port option after landing a hit... don't just put it on Mighty Blow.

Bruh, amongst all the classes do you know how many 1v1's a Guard can successfully win 3 out of 3 times competitively? It's less than zero but also not more than zero. That said I wouldn't mind a 1v1 mini season because it will finally be soloQ only lol

Ah yes. A video game version of Tiger King... "A top AT player just got caught selling titles and deliberately throwing games has now been banned" (the player)

It used to be that using the last Mantra actually saved you in clutch scenarios. It was the difference between a Good Firebrand player and a Great Firebrand player.

(sPvP talk) Mantra's were balanced around their 3rd stronger cast but that was removed without buffing the entire mantra as a whole... this (along with cd changes and quickness changes) was the nail in the coffin for Firebrand. A prime example is Mantra of Solice. It's the worse heal in sPvP...to the point where players thought it was bugged lol. Nope it's just ridiculously BAD. Weighty Terms: Slow and 1 page recharged on last charge (no internal CD) For sPvP this is going to be an awesome addition. This will allow Firebrands to run full mantras without feeling that there's something better. It will still be a stretch to say Firebrand will be anywhere near meta in the sPvP scene but Sagebrand may finally be a contender to bunker core support guard.

That's the whole point of the beast mechanic... if you change it then there isn't any counterplay and it becomes a worthless mechanic. If players can't count enemies on their minimap or can't control their urges to immediately go after beast when it spawns... then you deserve to get it stolen. Period. We dont need these map mechanics to be dumbed down for unskilled/unaware players.

I strongly disagree, at least for every gamemode that isn't AT. Capricorn favors which ever team that is... simply put, better. If you lose the first team vs team Bell rumble then the odds of winning the next Bell is extremely slim and that map is all about willing Bell. When you know your team is struggling on Bell there's very little counterplay you can do to change that 25/50/75 point scenario. Try getting stuck with two thieves/mesmer/ranger vs war/engi/guard. The latter team comp has a much higher chance of winning bell, even IF they manage to full cap side nodes during Bell captures. Temple of the Silent Storm has very strong map mechanics as well but there's two of them-- You could get any single buff on that map and have it make a world of difference for your team. Likewise, if you can't win Tranquility you can at least pre-emptively send people on side node for an immediate decap. So rotations can play a huge factor even if you have a comp that can't team vs team. @Justforvisit.3709Spirit of Niflhel's beast map mechanic literally requires map awareness so you don't get the beast stolen.... the players who go after beast immediately the moment they appear on the map, are the same players who QQ about it getting stolen... when confronted their excuse is always the same. "it's 25 points!! I HAVE to get it and fast!!!" facepalm Every veteran player knows when and when not to kill the beasts... and it's almost never when the beasts immediately spawn.

Why is it that when ever there's this... major balance problem... that it's almost always 3 or 4+ Ele meta builds within the same AT team? When we had a 3man Willbender issue on an mAT team or a 5man specter comp within an mAT team, they were nerfed so darn fast that I barely remember them being a thing to begin with. But when Ele was already meta and receives significant buffs to an already strong class, it feels like we endured 3 full seasons of it. If this thread could be summed up in a single sentence, I would say there's a veil of biasness with this class in its history in that when things are broken this class really makes it apparent.

Glacial Heart trait (virtues) damage change was a huge mistake imo... (2020 change 0.5 damage coefficient to 0.1) Hammer used to deal additional damages when Glacial Heart actually bursted upwards of 900+ aoe, giving hammer an overall strong burst when you needed it. The burst was so useful that Hammer was considered meta.. eons ago. They reduced the damage of Glacial Heart's burst.. so much that Hammer has been out of commission ever since that change. It's really as simple as that. We have been asking for Hammer to do more ever since that nerf. All that said "Quicker hammer Auto Attacks" is 100% a quality of life item that we've been asking for, pretty much since release. Same for the awkward Banish which is excellent by nature, but wasn't practical when you couldn't reach the very target you wanted to banish :3 These are excellent QoL changes but I would really like to see more changed to our traits such as Glacial Heart (virtues) increasing hammer damage by (thinking conservatively) 10% at the very least. Or increase damage to Zeal at the cost of a team oriented stunbreak & cleanses in Virtues.

Unscathed Contender: Reduced strike damage increase while under the effects of aegis from 20% to 7%. This trait now grants an additional 7% strike damage increase while you are above 90% health. It's been a couple days and i'm trying to wrap my head around this change.... because it's a HUGE damage reduction to ALL Guard builds, with Willbender and Dragonhunter effected the most. I can understand why they would want to remove damage from Virtues completely considering half the time you can't distinguish which treeline between Zeal and Virtues does more damage but... why not relocate that damage loss from Virtues into Zeal instead? Am I the only one who thinks Zeal could use some love especially when the damage nerf of Unscathed Contender effects all builds?

You hear that boys just run Ele to counter Ele.

willbender heal broke plex halp

...I can't stand casting Rushing Justice on some one who stealths right after I cast it only to lunge forward off a cliff because it doesn't home onto people (notably a thief) like how 99% of other channeling/cast skills do. Like how our Torch#4 and Focus#4 works when a person shadowsteps or enters stealth. On that note... when is Torch#4 going to automatically track players by falling above them, just like Ele's Dragon's Tooth of Death?