Gotejjeken.1267

Ah ok, yeah it was more of a 'got lost in flow of conversation' mistake--initially I said virt because believe that's what OP was on about, but then later said vindi because we started talking about it. The tldr; there is I don't think engineer is weak atm and can beat either--holosmith in particular is super strong and I believe OP knows this. The problem is its only strong in pretty skilled hands, so it makes it look weak. It isn't for me though--mechanist...now that is a dumpster fire.

Need to give a reason for roaming back. Right now, there is no incentive to it--you can get more reward for just flipping the nearest camp and going afk. There needs to be a reason to repair, refresh siege, scout, etc. again. Most times I can't even get help with a north camp defense anymore, because there is no point--that should change. It's also been ages that you can call out south camp and have anyone do anything--it is literally the most useless camp. EBG is one part of the mode but the biggest because anyone can sit in a structure or in middle of friendly blob and 'press 1 for rewards'. That's not super engaging for those of us that like smaller battles. We just leave the mode and go to sPvP (which might be what they want...not sure?).

Even video 'proof' is useless, as what you think might be good or bad I probably don't, and vice versa. The evidence here is you quoting me out of the blue, btw. And the only reason you quoted me I suspect is I used 'rev cope' directly after the term evidenced. So we do have proof at present that certain rev mains are touchy 😂. Anyway, I expressed same opinion as OP that vindi has too much in the way of defense uptime, but also said that holo probably can beat vindi easily under the right conditions--and OP is clearly an engineer main, so I hadn't shown any bias when you quoted me.

Will trade the smoke field for the mass evade frames Vindi has access to. At this point though, you could take the smoke field away, and probably the entire pet and you two still get wrecked by ranger to come here asking for random nerfs 😂

Wait, are you saying this take is pointless: Because you didn't post video or screenshot evidence showing that engi can fight these classes? So then when you reply to me and told me to show evidence for this take: You really disagree with yourself by proxy as I didn't post "evidence"? I knew the sPvP forums were confusing but...lol

Well, they did remove shared anguish as part of upcoming patch and that's a core trait--so the pre-nerfs have begun. Out of curiosity, what other classes need to be brought up to ranger?

It is, because now you are doing it over topics lol

Yep, can't wait for the 'maces are busted beyond belif' Eddie topic in a week or so 😂

Add ele to this--good weaver or offensive tempest and you will die in seconds melee to them just from the condi spam they can output in-between defenses. Vindi's pretty strong at them moment too, evidenced by the amount of rev cope in the topic I made on it 😂. I'd think Holo can wreck Virt though; granted the holo has to be very skilled but the mechanics are there.

Wait...you're getting wrecked by glyph of the tides? 💀

Ah, quick review of your post history and seems you mainly do zerg play in WvW; all is a lot clearer now. Carry on.

I gotta ask, what kind of condi druids are you running into? Also, CA #5 is the only thing that gives stab on Druid and it doesn't care what you are spec'd as. Might as well say Druid doesn't use Shared Anguish which is...very wrong.

The one on metabattle? If so, that one is going to get you killed vs. condi bursts in outnumbered for starters. You also don't need to take ambidexterity because condi damage is already almost 2k with just trapper runes... Anyway, in that light, you can use Shortbow and Refined Toxins over Axe/Dagger and Shared Anguish in WvW if you still want to secure stomps using CA form instead of pet swap.

It's not the poison uptime, it's the methods in which you get it. Removing condi traits from WS line is sus to begin with, and now forcing alternate methods like runes and sigils is also bad. Usually in high sPvP (and many roamers in WvW) can tell if you run Shared Anguish by watching your pet swap. No on uses anything unless it's for particular builds--in this case, Shared Anguish is used the most by condi / roamer Druid and thus the biggest nerf to that. My whole point is I don't understand why they keep nerfing this Druid build every other balance stream and yet calling it 'some weird Druid build' as if they'd never seen it before.

These tell me g1 and below level. As you can't just dodge every CC due to current CC spam meta, and if you aren't using the trait then you are either blowing your CA form, stunbreak (in Dolyak) or elites to get stab, which isn't good. It really isn't good as all of those are obvious tells that enemy can just kite and then CC the hell out of you. Being forced to run offhand mace sucks as well, because if not running dual maces it isn't possible to get the 'grow large' buff that I know of, as can't build even 5 stacks of natures vengeance or whatever. For that reason, they also need to make Strider Strength apply to maces...that way you at least get your power bonus if you aren't running mace/mace and can't get natures vengeance. Oh, and the somewhat hidden nerf here is the pet gets stability when you swap as well. That is very, very important in competitive, because CC'ing the pet screws a ranger in so many different ways. Which always tends to happen on node, so most of your F2s are useless from random CC spam. Shared Anguish to GM is also bad bad, because you are locked out of WK that way. For most builds in competitive WK is by far the most important GM, especially with nerf to all our cleanses. I still stand on the fact that if not stability, then Carnivore needs protection on disable at the very least. Protection would make up for losing stability and coupled with the health steal allow you to still survive CC chains as long as you use your stunbreaks thoughtfully.

Demon Queen has nothing to do with Refined Toxins though. All Demon Queen does is make your poison go from 33% to 50% reduction, and you get poison on disable. The only spec with a lot of usable disables is Druid--so Druid would benefit the most from Demon Queen. Refined toxins gave you constant poison application every 5 seconds (outside of sPvP) as long as you are above 75% health. That makes it better for bursts (like with shortbow 2) as you are getting up to 2 more stacks of poison on each strike every 5 sec (2 if you are soulbeast and merged). I also wouldn't say there is a ton of poison uptime unless you are running shortbow and doom sigil (and/or Vaas relic). Doom in particular helped take shared anguish instead of refined toxins so you got stability on pet swap as well as the poison application on weapon swap. That was a pretty big lynchpin of condi druid in all competitive modes as it bypasses the 15s ICD of refined toxin in sPVP. Now refined toxins is gone and it was replaced with pure damage trait, so direct nerf to condi Druid there. Removing the stab from shared anguish is a double nerf, as CA #5 is pathetic and on a 20s recharge in sPvP. Now for condi Druid you'd have to take new Empathic Bond major, which is still a net nerf because of what they did to healing spring. As now standing in the spring for full duration and swapping pets gives you 7 condi clears as opposed to 10 just standing in the spring now. This is why the lifesteal on disable has to be good, otherwise I don't even know if power Druid is salvable in competitive. I surely don't think condi Druid will be able to be played much in competitive after this, as the condi clear nerf and stab loss are just direct nerfs to an already weak spec.

Just going to make DBL lords even more ridiculous then they currently are.

In true 'corrupt a wish fashion', when anet IP Dishoner's someone we end up with 'Notorious Naru'

It nullifies all damage types AFAIK as even condis require a hit to proc. OP might as well be asking for everyone to have three dodges though with a topic like this

The post above yours answers your question I have no real horse in the power vs. full cele WB race, other than from my perspective it fits into the same mold in that it is problematic as WvW is 50% PvE with the stats, traits, consumables, etc. Basically, I see it opposite to Grimm in that WvW is the training ground for sPvP, not the other way around. Most don't last long in sPvP as broken mechanics like food and cele carry keep them in WvW and feeling competitive enough ganking noobs and getting rewards. It's also not as if they entirely ignore everything--they cherry pick. As in, look at mesmer--while it may be overperforming, they just nuke it with little real explanation. They will not touch harbinger or willbender though, with equally little explanation as to why. They just buff those because they like to--like 'we'll try out heaven's palm having evades and instant KO because, reasons' type thing.

It was all unranked. The vindi I fought that was decent there was named 'Torment Nuker'; unsure if it's someone in this topic or not--but was off hours when lot of decent people are playing unranked (in NA at least). I know I've faced grimjack and a few other top 10 players in unranked as well around this time. Granted I don't use my ranked build in unranked and instead use a lot of test builds, so admittedly that probably adds a bit to it. I still believe Vindicator is pretty strong in the right hands though and do see a lot of them in g3+ games in NA as mentioned.

Because you don't need to? It's the most efficient mix and match gear set possible, considering you do need both defense/offense to survive if you aren't in the middle of a blob. Also, all those 'pure X builds' you mention fit into an amulet system btw. Hmm...I wonder:

This doesn't actually answer anything. How is cele not a 'wheelchair meta'? You can mix and match your 30 toons for 30 hours, and I can come in on cele and blow up any one of them...how is this good balance? What part of PvE? As endgame PvE (instanced content) you aren't ignoring any traits other than the ones that are useless in all modes anyway. Things are seperated into qDPS, aDPS, pDPS, cDPS, Support...etc. You actually have to find uses for traits and skills in order to complete content. In WvW? If roaming, ignore everything, slap on cele and copy/paste metabattle build. Or if you are zerging, just ignore everything--slap on minstrel or whatever for your role, and press '1'. They nerf strips so heavily there is no counterplay anymore, it's all kiting and blob size. I don't understand this either. Go to the sPvP forums and look--you'll see complaint topics about classes, but its always about actual skills and traits. Rarely do you get complaining about relics, but the rest of it is pure balance complaints. There is an actual reason they removed cele from PvP. I do wonder how much of this pushback is because of the legendary grind? As amulet system would remove a big part of that (the stat swapping) and leave only the visuals. It seems that because of the time investment, most don't want that to change. But my question is, what's the point when you only need cele for 90% of the mode?

So, you want more stunlock spam? Now with health gain added to it? Well okay then.... Big brained right there.