Gotejjeken.1267

How do you come to the conclusion that I have no knowledge of dueling? I don't want to link more videos as it'll turn into an advertisement (as I only linked the one to show my stance); but I have plenty of duel footage--I just don't do it often as I think it is a waste of time. I'd rather actually roam and then find fights while getting participation instead of standing around south sentry for hours re-flipping it every so often to keep pips up. There's not much more I can say here without going in circles. Cele exists as a low intensity way to make effective builds, and at a risk of sounding too snarky, overcoming it is more 'git gud' than anything. But if I'm wrong, can someone make a cele core rev video dominating people or something?

Up to this point you've done nothing in this topic except what appears to be an attempt at fanboy/girl'ing---can you please provide something productive soon? Thanks. I think what may be confusing you is Ranger actually has to do mechanics as there are very little of the passive block/invuln/evade spam that other classes have access to. Also, what is confusing me still is this topic. Elementalist has 2 of the top 5 builds in your list, but you don't seem to have a topic on those forums discussing that. I mean if what you are really getting at is they are attempting to balance Druid into a condi DPS spec that doesn't rely on strict burst window or have a super high mechanical barrier for entry, then great--would be a nice change of pace. They need to get the main source of the rotation off CA form to do that though.

Oh no, how dare I anger the duelers... Dueling accomplishes what exactly? I know it's a hard concept for you and possibly other folks in this thread, but no one cares about dueling. Least of all anet. If they did, they would actually turn Obsidian Sanctum into a proper arena instead of having duelers take up random cap space at the southern regions of Alpine. Anyway, can cele be prominent there? Probably, as it allows you to create an effective build very quickly--which is why I called it 'low intensity'. It's like rifle mech was in sPvP earlier this year, super powerful at g1 and below, but g2 lost efficacy, and at g3 and up you never saw them as it is easy to counter. Cele is kinda the same way, if your 'duel bro' runs it and you beat them before, you should beat them now. If you don't and you blame the stat combination alone, that's again, like blaming your keyboard/controller for a loss. Yeah, that's essentially what I am getting at. It's also what some can't seem to grasp--balance is more than just a stat combination.

Before blowing a stunbreak with Lightning Reflexes just to go backward I'd look into the about face button. It used to be useful but not mandatory since we had Hornet Sting, but now it is more or less mandatory to reposition 'backward'.

Really? Because they agreed with my take: And also disagreed with your take of them only playing 'healer virtuoso': So, before you go throwing shade about someone 'sperging out' you may want to check your white knight card to ensure it is still valid and the person you are white knight'ing doesn't directly contradict you.

No...I mean I don't think cele had any bearing in any of those fights. Basically, I don't run cele, and all the fights in that montage are easy to follow save for the last since it was unfinished. Meaning the only fight there cele MAY have had a bearing on is the last, but I also admit I played poorly so I don't even know if it did there either. I can't even remember if I asked the person if they were cele or if I had just assumed and put the 'cele harb' sticker on the video, that's how little it actually mattered to me. Seriously though, when a condi mech or harb randomly melts me, I'm not blaming cele, because the builds themselves allow that even if they were running other condition damage stats. My point here is I think one of the reasons they haven't done anything about cele is it really is just a low intensity way to play WvW. At a certain point either player skill overshadows the cele and it ceases to matter. To prove 'cele is OP' there would have to be a way to prove two players are identical in skill and that one of them is using cele and the other isn't and that's why they lost--this is nearly impossible as it isn't Chess where we have some sort of ELO and can argue the efficacy of cele like it's a chess opening.

Yeah, actually I was just assuming the harb is cele as most people run it by default. Honestly, I made too many mistakes in that fight or I would've won, cele or not. But...as I predicted the 'it wasn't a good player but cele is OP' comes into play here. I don't think so--cele had no bearing on any of the fights except as mentioned in vid and here possibly the last one; which was more of a test than anything and I didn't feel like resetting into another 5 min duel. So, can cele outsustain my build? Absolutely, because Harb alone is a hard counter to it, so any comparisons here are kinda meaningless. If cele were a problem, the thief/wb duo at the beginning should have wrecked me--downstate kept that going far longer than cele would. Where are the mass influx of downstate is OP threads? We only have one active right now that I know of. Anyway, Druid having more AoE than before I don't understand unless you are now running some sort of power variant. The build I show and run got significantly worse as none of the trait changes benefit it in the least (Eclipse is still far too low in damage too).

Does anyone actually listen to Noody? Historically his takes are almost as bad as FASTCAR, just with slightly less obvious trolling. Lots of 'this build is unkillable' while showing dubious footage against players that may not share the same skill level. I honestly don't think it's possible to answer if cele is broken or not...for instance anyone can post a roaming video--here is one of me doing some outnumbered and some random 1v1, then a duel at the end where I stop it because this was right after the June patch which heavily altered Druid play, and so was more of a test fight than anything: Can anyone tell me if any of my opponenets were running cele? I can't tell, and don't really care. At the end of the day someone will say that I'm either more skilled than the opponents or that I'm running cele and that's why I won. For the latter, I'm running a Dire/Trailblazer mix here so that would be wrong. In fact, I'm running the same roaming build here I usually do, and this is after the removal of Ancient Seeds which people also said was OP. Meaning, this iteration of the build is about a magnitude harder to play than before, and arguably weaker due to loss of mass bleed damage from Ancient Seeds. So really, if someone like me can roam on a non-meta condi Druid, blaming builds / overtuned specs is one thing, but blaming cele gear seems like blaming losing on your equipment. Basically, if you lose and whine about cele it's almost as bad as losing and blaming your keyboard / controller.

You may be surprised, 5-man groups can farm 3-4 times their size if the larger group is uncoordinated, and it almost always is outside EBG unless a keep is getting EWP'd. Boon sharing essentially makes small groups nigh unkillable without organization on the other side. Can see it time and time again when a small group wants to troll NC, people will feed forever (seen up to an hour before). As for downstate, I agree it shouldn't exist in WvW--it has more merit in sPvP (and obviously PvE). In WvW you have numbers advantage most times, and that should be enough not to need downstate; whereas PvP you have 5-man teams and so rezzing is very important there.

Or they make shortbow 1200 again. As it has everything you describe. Axe would be your short range at 900, Shortbow mid-range at 1200, and longbow long range at 1500--this used to be balanced perfectly but somehow has eluded the future devs for all this time.

We only have one in the top 5, which are the only ones that matter. That one also happens to revolve around using CA form other than what it was intended for and could be hard to do mechanics with. Don't worry, your precious mesmer is only ~1K DPS from the Druid.

So it's a good skill because Trapper runes exist? I can agree it has uses in group play, but much like everything else ranger it's too difficult to get full use out of in most cases and running Troll Unguent is better. I'd prefer it go back to the original and just pulse heals / cleanse more quickly, which is in fact what a lot of Rangers asked for when the trap change was made. It's also back when they had a chance to fix Entangle's bugginess and make it a trap, but they opted to just leave it as survival--which is a whole different discussion.

Condi Mech

Sure, you wouldn't need it at that moment, but it makes it a heck of a lot easier to blast then waiting for someone to trigger it and then blast. As if you are at 100% you'd need an ally to go in it or your pet to randomly set it off (I think your pet can trigger it) before you can do anything with the actual field. It being a trap also causes other issues like going invisible if you are using trapper runes and also trying to contest a point. I get Guard heal trap has this issue but it also has a defensive component of blinding enemy who walk through it, so it makes a lot more sense if you stealth while doing that. Either way, thankfully it isn't as stupid as We Heal as One! being reclassified to a command from a shout.

This actually would make a LOT more sense for Weapon Master training then unlocking all the various weapon combinations. Even if balancing issues were found they wouldn't be nearly as unpredictable as disassociating the spec weapon from the spec itself. As some can be subtle, like Greatsword. You could toggle either the kick or the throw after #4 block, and neither option would cause any issues whatsoever as it is pure sidegrade. Sword would be same way, as only thing to cause any sort of issue would be reverting the AA chain back to original sticky form--that seems a metric ton harder than a simple toggle. Having things like Hornet Sting, Monarch Leap, and Serpent Strike (the real one) back are just sidegrades, there was no uproar about them before and wouldn't be now. This also removes the issue where Hammer was never designed to have static selections and only does now as a deadline compromise. It's soulbeast all over again, but intead of being an excuse not to properly fix pets its an excuse to sell an expansion.

Interesting, however that seems like so much of an edge case it never even crossed my mind to test it as a theorycrafter let alone what I imagine the general populace is doing. As in, that is very akin to using Staff #3 into your pet to get reduced CD (by pet swapping at just the right time) -- sure its technically possible but you have to be pretty far down the mechanics hole to utilize it. I actually hate they balance around 100% boon uptime, because it creates pre-conceived expectations that are hard to meet. They used to have it right with Spotter specifically, as it was just the right amount of fury to allies to get a ranger in a party, but 100% uptime of fury wasn't pushed nearly as hard as quickness/alac uptime is now. Not to mention Spotter just happened and wasn't nearly as clunky as what we are discussing here for Let Loose. Let Loose implementation is the same stupid mistake as alac Druid being tied to CA form, you should NOT have to do mechanics to provide boons to your party. That's what things like Spirits are for--you put it down it provides boons and goes away. This spamming of CA and Unleashed ambushes to get secondary boons just wastes the intent of the actual skill (healing for CA and damage/CC for ambushes). The fixes are so easy that it really is scary they were missed by actual devs: You pulse alac to nearby allies while in CA form just like Spotter used to work You give quickness on Untamed whenever you Unleash Ranger, with appropriate ICD since the Unleash is 1s intervals (give it a ready icon like ambushes have) With these two changes you aren't wasting CA heals randomly to give alac, and you remove quickness from the ambush skill itself because you might not want to actually use your ambush at whatever point you are giving quickness.

I don't see how when this exists: Lesser Quickening Zephyr - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) Pet swap is 20s / 16s traited; Let Loose would actually be identical except you get might / fury in addition instead of superspeed. If the problem is it being shareable, reduce the shared quickness to 1-2s or something like they do with soulbeast stances. It's just part of the bad balancing for Ranger though--they did this same thing with Spotter to make it useless when it wasn't really super strong before considering all the other places you can get shared fury.

Half the time I have no idea if these topics are for PvE or competitive--but I'll just give a competitive viewpoint as to why this isn't a good idea. Essentially, it's simplistic, but also why Hammer just doesn't work on anything but Untamed. By having 2 as your Unleashed Ranger you lose cripple and barrier access and by having 4 as Unleashed Ranger you lose a LOT of useful conditions for the sake of damage. Same with 3 as Unleashed pet, you lose a blind, and 5 as unleashed pet you lose a lot of damage for a KD (which you have numerous other ways to get). The way they made it you need both sides, at least in competitive. The #3 skill is the easiest use case to see this--if your opponent has stability, you don't want the daze and if they don't have it, you may want either the blind or the daze depending on situation (double dazes into unleashed ranger #2 or just go with the blind + damage and boon removal). Removing unleash would also remove the only unique mechanic Untamed has, as you can easily apply full pet control to the other specs. Losing the ambushes would hurt a LOT in competitive as they are all generally pretty useful. As for the 'three competitive specs' thing, Soulbeast literally is PvE DPS and Druid PvE Support; you can use both in competitive, but neither was designed for it like Untamed. Untamed has no use case in PvE, especially now that Fervent Force is gone.

It took me more than a few tries to even understand what's being asked here. I think the topic is about Enhancing Impact? If so, you get quickness on disable when ranger is unleashed, and stability on disable when pet is unleashed. For hammer, this means you will get only stability as only unleashed pet #3 and #5 are disables. To get quickness you'd have to use other CC's a ranger has, as Hammer itself has no CC's on the unleashed ranger side. The other way to get quickness is Let Loose, but I don't even think anet at this point knows how the hell it works. As an aside, I actually never looked at Let Loose trait until just now because initially I thought that's what the topic was about, but apparently you only actually get quickness on unleash in PvE?! I don't even want to go back to the Twitch VoD and see if there is a reason for that as there can be no justifiable reason for that.

Zero you say...

What kind of third-world non-attachment having vacuum... Almost, he created Sim City and Rollercoaster Tycoon then started falling off with Sims and finally fell off with Spore. Considering how Spore was designed and played he might as well be in-charge of e-specs 😃

Sure, but all of it points to a studio without a compass. Sticking with Ranger--Druid staff was designed in similar manner to Untamed hammer, but less egregiously so you can decouple it easier. Meaning, at start the staff was designed around the control aspect of Druid something of which it still has way more of than any other Ranger spec. These weapons were simply never designed to be used outside the elite. Sure, you get 'happy accidents' like MH dagger that have a few positive options because it really relates in no way to soulbeast (even the dagger trait itself is core). Which is also probably why soulbeast is the weakest of the specs in terms of uniqueness because it just exists more out of matter of convenience of removing the pet. Anyway, the short version is tying unique effects to weapons based on elite is probably way out of the scope of not only the games original intent but also the capabilities of the current direction / staffing.

Probably wouldn't link videos to the dude who created Spore--the best counter-argument to your 'hetroization = good' argument. Choices are only good if they are meaningful. Most of them were not in Spore, and at present, Weapon Master training by and large doesn't provide meaningful choices, it provides choices that will inevitably yield unintended consequences which may or may not be interesting in a positive or negative way. This is what I believe OP is referring to prior to topic getting derailed into pretentious mathematical concepts. Essentially, opening up all the choices inevitably creates a path where one thing is most efficient. You then are forced to go down that path in majority of content unless you specifically have a group which understands you taking choices that are less than optimal. Going back to the broom vs. vacuum choice brought up here, Weapon Master is like that but if you were to be cleaning as part of a job. You have choice of broom vs. vacuum, but in majority of cases vacuum is faster and thus you are bound to a single choice or risk being dismissed. As GW2 is an MMO, we cannot ignore this same reality--only the best choices are the ones you must use or be dismissed from most groups. Adding spurious options is pure marketing.

I think you run into the 'Untamed' problem here--where Hammer does two different things depending on state. It's confusing to remember and the game really isn't balanced for that kind of flexibility. When they decoupled Hammer from Untamed, we see what happened; it doesn't make things better but instead you lose the intent of the weapon and also half your skills at any given time, because the weapon was so heavily tied to the spec mechanic (unleashing). This pattern would continue for other classes, and only get worse if we begin to micromanage different effects for a weapon based on what spec is using it. Not only is that balance impossible, but it also makes it nearly impossible to play against competitively as there are far too many variables to remember and react to.

Elite specs were supposed to fill a role, however somewhere along the way anet forgot this and just started slowly phasing them out to the point they are just different mechanics. Getting rid of them IS possible; all they would have to do is do what they are doing with runes--just add a slot for your preferred mechanic of choice. Then just get rid of the individual traitlines and merge them all into the core ones and / or make them 'normal' and allow you to take more than one. This of course would probably be an untenable balance nightmare--but the whole weaponmaster training isn't far off. Once you remove the weapon from their intended role you start introducing a lot of variables that are less than desirable.