Megametzler.5729

Plat3 here. Strongest: Rev. Strong: FB+Scourge combo, Warrior, Holosmith. Composition dependant Fine or Strong: Soulbeasts. Fine: Mesmer, Scrapper. Buff needed: Ele, Thief. Generalizing a little of course, compositions can change a lot and make classes more or less viable. Builds too, I just felt I should mention Scrapper next to Holosmith. They usually get outrotatet or killed by Revs or Warriors. Adding some more condi builds could actually improve the Rev-situation. As everyone expected, mesmer nerfs have brought Rev out on top, but well...

This is false, Whenever me and a friend duo'd both as Revenants we kept getting double rev in the enemy team aswel. The moment we stopped doing that we'd never get double revenant in the enemy team anymore. The MM definitely mimicks your comp and tries to make the exact comp for the enemy team Yepp, you are right. It is probably not forced, but somewhat preferred by the matchmaker, see: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Matchmaking_Algorithm We don't know exactly how this score works though. It also unlikely you can change the other team's composition - except by forcing fewer of your classes in your own team. That necro thing is totally possible, that druid thing only when it comes to preventing him on your own team. Might be he meant that.

First: Sic' em! soulbeast is not OP indeed. It's kind of viable, like ele builds, but it gets hardcountered by some very dominant classes currently. Also, the problem is not the Sic' em! burst. It is the burst from extreme range and high mobility to disengage. The same was kind of valid for DE: You saw the burst, you dodged it, turned around - and the enemy is 1200+ far away (or stealthing for 10 seconds). Now there are some classes who can deal with this (thief, rev, mesmers) using ports, being quick and stuff. Others have basically no means to punish someone who just completely failed their burst. I am mainly speaking as an ele player here. This is why ranged burst is kind of problematic. Power mesmers, revs and thieves usually have to go into close combat for a full burst. Other classes have a medium range like FA ele. And then there are some classes who can fail their burst, turn around and literally walk away. That is not OP - especially not in times of the aforementioned strong counters -, but it is extremely frustrating for certain classes and compositions. This is why the build can work in ranked, but certainly not in mATs. I want to mention though: In times of insane AoE pressure (Scourge, Spellbreaker, Yolosmith), burst from close up has become a magnitude more risky than during core and even HoT. This is why thief has such a hard time, for example, getting eaten by randomly spammed AoEs. And it can make ranged burst necessary - it is a kind of powercreep, high close range AoE needs ranged burst as a means of applying burst at all. They should change both, or certain specs will counter others so hard they become unplayable (the condition/cleansing powercreep is exactly the same issue).

It follows you even when you port. You need to dodge, blind it or have stab.# Holo is not the biggest offender right now. It is great and there is a gap between it and several other less viable classes, but there are some being more annoying. Holo comes next. Yeah it follows if he releases awsd - which already alot of people don't know. Then it activates, leaving you a very slight delay which takes a split second to reach you where you can simply walk out of the incoming field. You can try it yourself, by having a friend fire it towards you and the walk away at the end of his cast. It's nothing new, alot of skills function like this and they've always countered ports. If you want to check it out Boyce does exactly this on several streams, also check out Jazz Man's guide on youtube against holosmith to see different ways it can be countered. What exactly is it that makes holo such a big offender in your opinion? The sustain with such an offensive amulet, the damage for such sustainy traitlines. But I said it is not the biggest offender right now. :smile: Thought you meant the projectile. But this skill is fine, I think. It simply sucks compared to Rampage for example. Sure the sustain is decent in a 1v1, but the damage doesn't really rack that much up until they get good might going which already takes alot more than f.ex a warrior needs to do. On top of that they have barely 16000 hp, leaving them extremely vulnerable to a +1 and they need to avoid conditon bombs like everyone else. Way I see it is people get caught in an immob/cc chain and believe holo is op - however the same goes f.ex Rampage where if you dodge the boulder you will in 9/10 cases be fine. The problem arises when people try to facetank holo and believe they should win, but the entire point of holo forge is for it to be a window of high pressure just like we saw with reaper, take away either core traitline and the sustain/damage ratio of holo becomes terrible. If you avoid key skills (Forge 3, Forge 5, elite) then it's east to see that holo doesn't really have that many tricks up it's sleeve. It's a high risk high reward type of play which I am in favour of, even in it's current tanky state. Again compare it to Defense Spellbreaker. I should mention I am maining Ele, so I have a different view on what needs balancing than - for example - Spellbreaker. :wink: I would rather see both brought down (Spellbreaker first) than Ele buffed to their levels. Cookie for you, way to few ele mains around! :) I don't know, once you get to terms with being squishier and how ele is supposed to be hazing enemies with frequent bursts, then the matchups aren't too bad. I for one love fighting warriors because it's a clean cut fight I can win as long as I don't proc their tether. I also realized what you run matters alot, I used to run with only 1 stunbreak and everything was hardmode, with tempest f.ex they are soo abundant with overloads. Another issue arose with the change to Arcane Fury where necro's can really get value from their corrupts constantly, which makes that matchup trickier. Also core guard before the nerf with their blocks and AoE, however not as bad as of right now. I actually believe all matchups to be fair, but I am a glasscannon so I expect to have little defence, but the burst is magnificent meaning I can swing the fight against anything except firebrands and scrappers. Also as an ele I've come to realise 90% of what decides the fights are what you do during dodges, as you need to think ahead constantly - which is why I enjoy playing it, however already there other professions have an easier time without even counting in power-differences.Sounds like we should share those cookies. :wink: Yeah, I don't believe ele is all that far behind viability. It is just that all its roles are filled better by other classes. And it's been like this since PoF (and before we were condemned to heal botting only). That's a shame, but at least we can feel unique. :tongue:

It follows you even when you port. You need to dodge, blind it or have stab.# Holo is not the biggest offender right now. It is great and there is a gap between it and several other less viable classes, but there are some being more annoying. Holo comes next. Yeah it follows if he releases awsd - which already alot of people don't know. Then it activates, leaving you a very slight delay which takes a split second to reach you where you can simply walk out of the incoming field. You can try it yourself, by having a friend fire it towards you and the walk away at the end of his cast. It's nothing new, alot of skills function like this and they've always countered ports. If you want to check it out Boyce does exactly this on several streams, also check out Jazz Man's guide on youtube against holosmith to see different ways it can be countered. What exactly is it that makes holo such a big offender in your opinion? The sustain with such an offensive amulet, the damage for such sustainy traitlines. But I said it is not the biggest offender right now. :smile: Thought you meant the projectile. But this skill is fine, I think. It simply sucks compared to Rampage for example. Sure the sustain is decent in a 1v1, but the damage doesn't really rack that much up until they get good might going which already takes alot more than f.ex a warrior needs to do. On top of that they have barely 16000 hp, leaving them extremely vulnerable to a +1 and they need to avoid conditon bombs like everyone else. Way I see it is people get caught in an immob/cc chain and believe holo is op - however the same goes f.ex Rampage where if you dodge the boulder you will in 9/10 cases be fine. The problem arises when people try to facetank holo and believe they should win, but the entire point of holo forge is for it to be a window of high pressure just like we saw with reaper, take away either core traitline and the sustain/damage ratio of holo becomes terrible. If you avoid key skills (Forge 3, Forge 5, elite) then it's east to see that holo doesn't really have that many tricks up it's sleeve. It's a high risk high reward type of play which I am in favour of, even in it's current tanky state. Again compare it to Defense Spellbreaker.I should mention I am maining Ele, so I have a different view on what needs balancing than - for example - Spellbreaker. :wink: I would rather see both brought down (Spellbreaker first) than Ele buffed to their levels.

It follows you even when you port. You need to dodge, blind it or have stab.# Holo is not the biggest offender right now. It is great and there is a gap between it and several other less viable classes, but there are some being more annoying. Holo comes next. Yeah it follows if he releases awsd - which already alot of people don't know. Then it activates, leaving you a very slight delay which takes a split second to reach you where you can simply walk out of the incoming field. You can try it yourself, by having a friend fire it towards you and the walk away at the end of his cast. It's nothing new, alot of skills function like this and they've always countered ports. If you want to check it out Boyce does exactly this on several streams, also check out Jazz Man's guide on youtube against holosmith to see different ways it can be countered. What exactly is it that makes holo such a big offender in your opinion?The sustain with such an offensive amulet, the damage for such sustainy traitlines. But I said it is not the biggest offender right now. :smile: Thought you meant the projectile. But this skill is fine, I think. It simply sucks compared to Rampage for example.

I really really really would like to encourage you to keep playing and not getting too mixed up in the toxicity. :smile: You are not bad, you are new - and there is nothing wrong with that. Insults in the game are always awful, I hope you are also having good experiences and fun in PVP!

The real l2p issue is for an ele to lose to a ranger..the pewpew all like to cry about is only good as +1 (unless you find rangers of ROM level) , while the soulbeast does close to half the dmg of a warrior strength or rev sword burst,all the while the "non engi" mains forget about the quickness uptime and 25 might with which even forge skill 1 starts to deal huge dmg, not counting then all the sustain a holosmith has Despite all the l2p claims at the high end of pvp( AT monthly EU/NA) you find holosmiths/scrappers and certainly not soulbeast of any variant, it tells everything the real l2p issue There are several in Plat3. The issue with - especially Sic' em! - is that it gets basically hardcountered by revs. And those are quite popular indeed.

It follows you even when you port. You need to dodge, blind it or have stab.# Holo is not the biggest offender right now. It is great and there is a gap between it and several other less viable classes, but there are some being more annoying. Holo comes next.

About as funny as a Formula 1 driver making fun of people driving VW Polos after a race, yeah.

Yes, Soulbeast should get nerfs.Yes, several other builds as well.Yes, there will be minor adjustments.Yes, ele still forgotten.Yes, nerf teef.No, the situation will not change (significantly). On a constructive note: What was valid for DE, is also valid for Soulbeast. A build being able to burst this hard, should have to worry about not hitting their burst. Rev and thief need to go right into the action to burst and can be attacked accordingly. Bursting from 1500 range (or more), missing it and walking away without any fear is nothing that should exist. Yes, I do think GS is more or less fine. As long as Sic' em gets changed and the one-hit capabilities reduced. It's not that supressing, it's just cheap and annoying.

In both cases, that's a playerbase problem instead of the Meta itself. Specs can only "carry" one so far until they run into people who know how to handle them either with other meta builds or anti-meta setups. It doesnt help that among randoms there's often a lack of strategy or communication when it comes into playing into or adjusting rotations around certain matchups or comps. Even with a wide array of different specs or builds to choose from, be they meta or just viable (or even specialized to deal with certain cases) many just wont care to adapt or try to create counterplay when its easier to just pick one and roll with it for better or worse. Hell, most dont even care about winning, having quality games or rating since they'll still eventually get their pips/reward tracks/gold eventually. Of course metabattle is not Anets fault. Also back then, there were optimal builds at the top and it's probably natural that things evolve into sites like metabattle once there are more people playing the game. However, since HoT I noticed an increase in toxicity. That might be objectively incorrect, but from HoT on there were many builds just completely obsolete and unviable - something that before the addon was... well, at least less significant. So badish players playing good builds became better than goodish players playing off-meta builds. This surely was not the reasen for toxicity, but I believe it played a major part in it and could have partly be prevented by better balance (and still can).

You mean there was a time when the player base was worse? By far, in 2012/2013. Well, at least at this time players where willing to learn and try, now they are only willing to follow other steps/builds. I think it's enough to say that it's worse now. You're directly contradicting yourself. How does "following other steps/builds" not show a willingness to learn and try? That's exactly what learning and trying means.I guess he means many people just play builds from metabattle and get carried by those specs without knowing proper rotations, compositions and stuff.

Except ele. I am sad, angry and satisfied all at the same time. No, that also goes for ele. You seem to have a different definition of being "madly in love" then... He said they in love with underplayed things and ignore relevant things, which is exactly what they did with ele (e.g. tempest buffs and d/d changes). But... you know those (very very few) changes did nothing at all and definitely not required 80% of their effort? More like 0.1%?That's the entire point, the exact problem that falan was talking about. If things like this were 80% of changes then it clearly required 80% of effort. The fact that their total effort is super low is irrelevant to that point. Like buffing Cleansing wave's base healing by 20%. Nois. Took me 5 seconds to change the value, if my database is slow.Maybe I understod his words differently, but: Ele got nothing. Like, basically absolutely nothing. For 1.5 years. "Wash the pain away clears one condition" was the biggest PVP change we had since then. Ele's balance change list has been among the shortest for the same time. It very obviously is not only not worked on, it doesn't need changes according to Anet. Who got reworks meanwhile? Deadeye, mesmer, scrapper, now berserker... they do put in a lot of effort. Often on specs not needing them. But never on ele. Noone there even plays ele at this point, a lot of us believe. And there certainly is not many changes nor the slightest bit of love.

Except ele. I am sad, angry and satisfied all at the same time. No, that also goes for ele. You seem to have a different definition of being "madly in love" then... He said they in love with underplayed things and ignore relevant things, which is exactly what they did with ele (e.g. tempest buffs and d/d changes).But... you know those (very very few) changes did nothing at all and definitely not required 80% of their effort? More like 0.1%? Like buffing Cleansing wave's base healing by 20%. Nois. Took me 5 seconds to change the value, if my database is slow.

Except ele. I am sad, angry and satisfied all at the same time. No, that also goes for ele.You seem to have a different definition of being "madly in love" then...

Except ele. I am sad, angry and satisfied all at the same time.

I do agree Consume plasma is the best stolen skill (by far probably). I do not think it makes thief overpowered though. I would like to see the stolen skills brought more in line (the stolen skill from ele is as weak as the class lol). Please rather nerf Consume plasma instead of buffing the others. Only do this when all those other meta builds get nerfed too, thief doesn't need nerfs.

You can start with core D/D, which has some kind of similarish aspects. :wink: It's both close combat, relies on combos and quick attunement switching and stuff. Weaver will need some getting used to because of the double attunement, the dual skills and the not-instand availability of the offhand skills though. D/D is fine for the story too and you can maybe use a lot of the equipment if you go for zerker/marauder/maybe grieving stats. For WvW, it is quite tough, but you could switch to staff easily, core is more or less fine there too. Tempest doesn't really help with weaver though. Fun too, but very different gameplay-wise. Well, which is mainly the "stay in one attunement for a long time to get overloads, which are again quite long channels". :tongue:

There was no "not" in my sentence?^^ Otherwise I don't know what you are complaining about... while slightly disagreeing about the importance of dodges between classes, we all think there should be alternatives to chaos and instead of reducing the amount of (class-mechanic-wise important) dodges of mirage. Like having to choose between "dodge while stunned" or "better ambush attacks". But all this does not take a new portal into account. If this would come, mirage would (and should) not see buffs, because of portal being incredibly powerful. Work-arounds like Quadox mentioned could work, but would require more changes from Anets side. It would be nice though, because then again mesmer would have to make choices.

I said 2 evades, not 2 skills. Actually you said "evade skills", since we're nitpicking. :wink: Warrior also is not quite fine in my opinion - I still think they should change lots of scaling numbers. Lower sustain for demo amulet, higher healing with mender. But that's also nitpicky, since we agree on the basis. Other specs are more overtuned, you're right. I do think condi mirage should have access to vigor outside of chaos, yes. I do think vigor on ele is fine. I do not agree with ele not needing meaningful evade frames, not at all, it needs those evades for its healing to work in the first place.

Okay, I do not know why, but you really want to discuss this. Not sure whether you are trying to point out that ele is fine balancing-wise...? Or just comparing S/D weaver with condi mirage? I do not yet know what your point is, if you could specify, I could answer more specifically. :wink: I do not think it needs a redesign. A lot of ele players disagree and wish for the weirdest stuff - giving weapon swap, choose only 2 attunements and stuff - but we all know this is not going to happen. And, to be honest, that would just dumb down ele as a whole. You are kind of right with "add reliable damage to existing sustain", but you are also not. S/D weaver works, because it focusses on sustain while lacking damage. FA ele works because it has damage but no sustain. Tempest works because is has few damage, but lots of support. All those roles are okay when just looking at ele specs and the theoretical aim - of deciding between roles and speccing for them. The problem is: Holosmith, warrior, soulbeast and (not so much anymore indeed) condi mirage can do all that - just with significantly more damage. Huge AoEs, short-CD stuns, bursts... this is the problem. So you either change all those to scale a lot more with the chosen amulet (healing power especially) or you buff ele to their level. This is why I keep saying "relative buffs". For S/D ele I also do not think much is needed to make it a little more competitive while probably not meta: Just increase some ranges in dual skills and let it cast some skills backwards again, so it can at least kite a little bit. FA weaver is more difficult, tempest just needs some personal stab for overloads to be not completely pointless. The fact that skills can be used also for offense is not really a disadvantage, is it? When an ele switches into water and uses sword 2, you can sit back, wait it out and have a view around, because he basically cannot attack in that attunement (depending on the second, of course). For any class, when they dodge, you know you can prepare your burst for afterwards. How do you heal up to 100%? With water combo, which only works every 12 seconds? (Yes, I know the CD is lower, but unless you camp the attunement a little, you can only swap every 4 seconds.) You can heal up if you evade the follow up damage. By running around, by dodging, by whatever means. Not by standing there with your huge pile of health and tankiness, a warrior can kill an ele in 2 seconds if he has not stunbreak or protection up. Also which barrier do you mean? Bolstered Elements which activates once every 70s (!)? Tallking about reliability here, heh? Elemental refreshment is another source which scales with the aforementioned dual skill range increase - because right now, several of those are damn hard to land in melee (Natural Frenzy...). It also gives 600ish barrier which is about a quarter of a warrior AA hit, maximum of every 4s (again, because of attunement swap). You are right about the "mirage has to evade more skills, because of lesse regen". But it has those means. And it used to have damage like the other overtuned specs mentioned above. Not so much anymore indeed. The situation was incredibly different before the patch with 1s Mirage cloak and short CD Illusionary Ambush. As I said before, I totally agree the nerfs were harsh. Also counting ToF as 2 skills is weird. It is the only stunbreak S/D weaver has and has a recharge time of 50s (!). You always always need one of those or Lightning Flash for +1 scenarios. Otherwise you are dead against a rev. Quite instantly assuming equal skill level.

So, how do you consider the vigor amount of your main profession, taking into account mirage relies on dodges to survive and to do damage, and ele doesn't? Well, S/D weaver basically doesn't have vigor...? Except some random 3s procs when being hit in water with a 10s ICD? Tempest is different of course, giving AoE vigor on auras. Also, how does mirage rely more on dodges to survive than ele? PvP Elementalist throughout the history of GW2 have always been defined by their capability to completely resustain damage through self healing in ways PvP mesmers just don't. Even the current Chronobunk that won the EUMAT, which is a top tier survivable build with blocks and invulnerabilities and protection just can't heal from near death to full as quickly and as many times mid fight as any meta elementalist build have been able to. That's their point, that active mitigation means more to mesmers because they have far less self healing capacity. That's typically the class asymmetry between the light armors. Mesmers avoid a lot, Elementalists heal a lot, Necromancers are bullet sponges through pure health pool. I don't think it's weird to describe that as a fundamental philosophy Arenanet has for the professions. + So, how do you consider the vigor amount of your main profession, taking into account mirage relies on dodges to survive and to do damage, and ele doesn't? Well, S/D weaver basically doesn't have vigor...? Except some random 3s procs when being hit in water with a 10s ICD? Tempest is different of course, giving AoE vigor on auras. Also, how does mirage rely more on dodges to survive than ele? What Mort said.To add to that s/d weaver has a lot more evades on weapon skills than mirage. And you've the arcane vigor trait if you choose it.On tempest you've the vigor trait which you referred too. So, considering this do you think ele vigor is okay too, needs a buffs, needs a nerf? How did we end up discussing vigor...? Anyway. 1) I do think ele needs (relative) buffs, but I wouldn't add vigor. I want more reliable damage. 2) I will not talk about tempest vigor, because... yaah, that's absolutely off-topic. 3) Mesmer has distortion, blocks, stealth, teleports. Just buying time for kiting, mesmer is quite powerful. S/D ele can't even attack from range... 4) Concerning importance of dodges: If you don't dodge key skills, you are dead - with mesmer as much as with ele. Only difference: Ele dodges can be baited while mirage's... well, can be avoided (due to still existing mirage cloak during stuns). I know baiting dodges and fake casting is much less important today, because what the heck, just cast the skill, it's going off CD quicker than endurance regeneration anyways lol, but it is a disadvantage. So you could view it quite differently: Ele needs impactful dodges (or evade skills) to be able to make use of the healing at all. Healing power only helps over time. Mesmer - especially mirage - has evade skills, more vigor and distortion for avoiding bursts. My conclusion for mirage:I would have been happy if condi mirage could have kept more vigor outside of chaos. Instead deciding between offensive dodges via ambushes for clones or defensive ones like dodging during CCs. But I guess reducing vigor was the easy way out. My conclusion for weaver:Please don't buff it by adding vigor. My conclusion for portal:@Quadox.7834 might be onto something, but again I fear it would make another build hard to balance (power +1?). I would welcome a test on this, having a look on the idea for a season. That would require actual balancing effort though and willingness to revert things in time - or test servers.

So, how do you consider the vigor amount of your main profession, taking into account mirage relies on dodges to survive and to do damage, and ele doesn't? Well, S/D weaver basically doesn't have vigor...? Except some random 3s procs when being hit in water with a 10s ICD? Tempest is different of course, giving AoE vigor on auras. Also, how does mirage rely more on dodges to survive than ele?

I am an ele main. Tell me more about nerfs, please, I would love to hear your stories. Do you not remember condi chrono in HoT? Which was only meta due to portal and severly lacked fighting capabilities? Do we really want these times back? What do you mean? Concerning what? I am an ele main. Tell me more about nerfs, please, I would love to hear your stories. Do you not remember condi chrono in HoT? Which was only meta due to portal and severly lacked fighting capabilities? Do we really want these times back? That isnt true even . The only time chrono been 'trash' at fighting others its before pof release they nerfed it and just because pof was coming I believe.Also its pretty same situation for mirage now. Scepter is dumb-carry stick for everything mesmer plays and chaos traitline (you couldnt play without chaos because you were pretty easy to kill without protection/vigor but now its mandatory, wooo!) Take it away and we will see what is left Maybe I overexaggerated a little. :wink: But condi chrono was still meta right before PoF while kind of lacking in many other fields - mainly due to portal. It supplied superior mobility for teams and allowed huge map rotations, so to make it not completely OP, mesmer had to be nerfed to be not even in pure fighting capabilities (condi lacking in damage, power in survivability - again, relatively speaking). The choice has been for a while: Either give portal to others, nerf portal or nerf mesmer all around, because it's single utility skill is just incredibly powerful. Choose one. (And yes, again, I think the nerfs were harsh.) I am absolutely with you on chaos/scepter changes. I think we agree on the condi mirage nerfs not addressing the right issues (even worse, often nerfs to power mesmer) and the need for an overhaul. I.e. make sword 2 great again instead of scepter 2. They trashed vigor and left it 3/10 while others 5/10 and effortlessly ride on perma vigor while we had to invest into it THREE traits to get vigor ,I dont have to tell you how crucial vigor for mirage right ? Just to nerf mirage they decided would be nice to nerf core and sw2 and still suicidal 8 hits (while dealing close to no damage) into retal on bunch of ppl still there when pistol whip was 'fixed' .Not like my rant is going to change anythning anywayWell, lots of vigor was just powercreeped indeed. Mirage has an okay amount of vigor - you have to think about it when to use it. Stuff like perma-vigor thief is indeed just stupid. Also hate the sword 2 treatment, absolutely. Lots of nerfs were general mesmer, even chrono or core nerfs, while the problem was condi mirage. The combination, and only this combination. But we all know by now that they seem to balance in weird directions ("we dont like evade spam, so we increase CDs on ele. Hey, lets give daggerstorm 4s evade lol"). :wink: