Fortus.6175

DPS Staff tempest

I think next patch is like 2 months from now, since the wvw focused one is like 2 weeks old Welp, guess I will have to work out my patience muscles.

Because you know that people are now frantically running those broken overtuned builds while they can, I'm not touching ranked till then. Already played 2 placement games (luckily won both) but it was almost nothing but rampage, holoS, mirages and a pinch of condi or dodge thieves, in just TWO games. I really hope it hits tomorrow (or today) because ranked is the bubonic plague and I aint getting close to it.

You joke, but the raid and amulet track sounds good to me!

I'm going to try to make this as concise as I can without making it too much of a wall of text, which I'm not fond of reading myself. Overall general mechanics outliers: Stealth: Very little feedback, very little counterplay, wont even display in combat log until they reappear. Blocking with aegis/blind/dodge doesnt reveal them until something finally lands damage or stealth runs out. Someone can teleport away, run around you in circles, go to high ground heal back up and drop back down and there isnt much you can do about it or even try to guess what they are really doing (Im looking at you holos specifically for this). Stealth itself in many videogames is the strength of the machanic itself, incertitude in combat in a game where everything can flip on its head in 1-2 secs is already QUITE STRONG of a mechanic itself. In Gw2 there is no punishment for it, no slow (in fact some get faster), no tradebacks, no a lot of room for counterplay unless you are a medium and can read into the opponent's mind. Whether you spend a long CD CC ability on an "educated guess", there is no rewards from it since virtually nothing but the debuff reveal can remove stealth (very limited or not existent for some classes, and application is situational like sick-em which requires a target........) , and even then you gave a way to remove the way of removing stealth to thieves. Some classes can drop you from 1500 range from stealth, with literally one shot, which can preceded by unblockable CC. No matter how good you are, if someone literally does 100% of your hp from stealth, 1500 range, there isnt much counterplay to that. Relevant picts: https://i.imgur.com/RT8nk87.jpg and https://i.imgur.com/7XieoAe.jpg (got more but dont want to clutter this). My advice, give it the modern-time-games treatment; invisibility =/= invincibility. Like WoW, OW, LoL, Destiny 2, etc... Damage and or CC, or a threshold of damage (based on %hp) reveals them. If they get too close, temporarily show them, if they are nearby you give a small visual cue (similar to how blind visual effects work?) so that we know that they are still around and they didnt just use that 8 secs long stealth to go to another point while you are standing around wondering where they are and what they are doing. Teleports need some rules: Right now Revs and thieves make necros/eles lives miserable with teleports that ignore LoS, verticality (except for funky spots in some maps, aka inconsistency). Eles have a hard time surviving anything that can teleport every few seconds to them while said attackers have neither LoS, or are not in the same "level floor" as them. A rev can teleport every 5 seconds (a thief has no CD), burst and repeat until you are dead or, if you are a condi class, you can try to get the attackers full of aids in between those shorts moments outside of their evade-frames/invuln, which might give you some breathing room. Sword #2 thieves basically are the bane of any squishy, no matter where you hide, where you climb, your positioning or awareness, they can virtually pop in and out with basically no CDs and engage at will. LoS needs to be respected, teleports that completely invalidate positioning shouldnt be so easy to come by and so spammable. Condition speccs need some look at: I have always played power classes, but recently I picked up a core condi guard and suddenly I was consistently in top 20-50 playing soloQ, while putting less than half the work or thought (https://i.imgur.com/Ph2BnLw.jpg, https://i.imgur.com/z73S7rt.jpg, got more but Im sure you got access to my account stats). I have no issues identifying the real mesmer (playing since beta) yet even when I know the real one, I'm often fighting the clones so that they arent stacking so many condis on me; it is oppressive, not fun and basically becomes a game of whether can you survive it or outrun it, and their access to stealth/teleports/CC makes it difficult to run away from them as well. Having overwhelming amounts of confusion and torment means that the only answer you have is either use a condi cleanse that can remove 4+ condis at once (since there are also quite a few convering condis to boot) or simply take your hands off the keyboard since if you move, damaged, if you cast a spell, damaged, I dont think it is healthy for a game where the answer is to NOT play the game, it's not fun, it's just frustrating. Some builds kill too quickly, some dont die: Ever been on the receiving end of a power mantra mesmer bursting you from 100 to 0 from stealth? Or what about a DE dropping you from 1500 range from stealth? Or a ranger with Maul + Worldly Impact + sick'em coming from stealth from using smokescale#2 + blast? Burst guardian teleporting from 1200, behind a wall where you literally cant see them, with focus 5 + smite condi + other instant or near instant abilities, or a freshair ele, etc etc... There needs to be some chance to fight back, dropping to 0 or near 0 %hp right at the beginning of the fight, with little to no warning isnt something I think is healthy for competitive games. Likewise, holos, scrappers, spellbreakers or warrior with GS, any thief build with shortbow, perma evade daredevil, condi mirage, condi thief, etcetc will either facetank/evade-spam/tug you around the point/teleport/stealth/dash away if you get them low, then they can either get away and/or heal back up and re-contest, or go hide behind LoS on the back of the point if 1 or 2 allies come to help purge them away from the point. Generally speaking dying on these speccs means the player messed up, or the opponent can match their mobility and/or sustain. This isnt about the dueling power, Im ok with rock/paper/scissor, I just dont think laser should be in the game if it basically has an answer to nearly everyone while the others are extremely specialized on 1 or 2 things. Clear strengths and weaknesses are needed: Take necros, eles and guardians for example. When you fight a necro, you know that if you ignore it, they will kill you, your team, your family, and pets, you know they cant really run away so once they are in, they are in to kill or die, same for guardians but more like either you kill them first or nobody dies. When you see an ele (non weaver) attune out of one element, or overload it, you know that they are completely locked out of those defensive/offensive skills for a while, it clearly displays it on the hud, you expect mostly healing and chill on water, tankiness and cripple/bleed on earth, crits/vuln and stuns on air, damage/burn and might on fire. A damage staff ele will blow up from anyone getting close to it, but you know they cant heal their team, nor provide boons/condi cleanses, likewise, a healing ele cant really harm you even if you let it free cast fire spells. When you look at a build you should be able to describe its strengths and weaknesses in less than 2 relatively short sentences. You cant use this method to describe a holo who can basically do nearly everything, and do it better than some specialized classes, or a spellbreaker/condi mesmer/condi thief who basically can take nearly all other builds in the game by themselves alone or in small skirmishes, but there are only a very, very small select few builds that can fight them back. Also, unblockable needs some shaving, thief sword #3 with dagger together with sword #2 means that neither positioning, blocks/aegis will save you from the no-CD CC and teleports tied with evade. Doing damage while evading/defending is just frustrating and give nearly no room for retaliation; perma evade/vault daredevil, or condi thief, condi mesmers with constant evades and stealth and blocks. Impactful abilities such as holo's Prime Light Bean shouldnt be 60 secs long, while being unblockable and can be cast at any time during the 6 secs of stealth with no punishment, and lets not forget about the easy and near constant access to quickness to make timing even harder to "predict", and if you get them to low hp? brghrlghrl and they are now back to near or full health again and have nearly all CDs back up. I want to fight the player, not he UI: Too many boons, too many condis, too many unique buffs (skill icons, some are quite important and animations can be lost in the sea of particles, and in some cases, there is little to no animation, like for example most teleports, or engi's rifle skills), too many inconsistencies. I want to know if I can CC them, but stability is buried between 3-5 other boons that are constantly shifting positions as they wear off or are reapplied, plus unique UI buffs that are too small to see in the heat of battle, specially if I dont have the person targeted. We have blue bars, instead of putting a .5 secs daze with 0 CD (thief #3 sword) on the same strength as a 2 secs situational stun (ele staff air #5), CC should be based on strength and have visual indicators under the health bars, and these blue bars would have lines that show "how much" CC they can take via black vertical lines (how most game display hp so that it is easy to tell at a glance) and how long until it goes away (small white line like a fuse under the blue line?), of course, different kind of CCs would affect this blue bar differently. We already have great visual clues for things like blind, stuns, daze, which you can tell you are afflicted with these without having to look at your UI. Burning should show somehow, and unlike blind, 1 burn stack with no condi damage shouldnt have the same visuals as 10 burn stacks with condi damage. It can get quite noisy with too many effects if you are; blinded, dazed, burning, tormented, confused, weakened, bleeding and vulnerable (condi mesmers can apply all of these at the same time in less than 2 secs), so we need some shaving on either amount or strength of certain boons and condis. Also, show hp values, a 11k hp ele with 1.8k toughness has the same sized healthbar as a 26khp necro, yet we all know it takes more damaging skills to get the later health bars down to 50% hp. There are quite a few more things but I would honestly be surprised if there is anyone who has made it past the first 3 paragraphs.....

I dont like to lie.

This isnt about whether it is overtuned or not, but rather the playstyle you have to fight agaisnt. Pretty simple, not really fun to be bursted out of stealth, 1500 range, from high, unportable ground (not valid path MVP), and after finally reaching them somehow and or applying Revealed, they just roll away and take Revealed away (which is already pretty hard to come by), and repeat the whole thing. And all of this burst is done upfront, 17k shots (i have pictures to prove it) and of course initiated by unblockable CC. Now, nobody finds dying fun, but at least give a fighting chance.

I have been playing a core warrior build which has sent me consistently to top 100 at prime times. Gotta say I'm loving these changes (as an ele, it makes me cry though).

Sure, in PvE and WvW it might not be a big deal since in PvE most people were taking the stability trait or you dont need to get from point A to B all that fast, or there is plenty of swiftness to go around. In PvP though, this has been a HUGE nerf to support tempests, who now have little to no access to swiftness if we take the trait that applies regen to shouts.It wasnt like tempest eles were OP to begin with, so "shifting" an integral part of overloads to an optional trait that heavily competes with other, was not a good move. Anet, when we asked for the master passive trait to be less overwhelming, we ask to ADD to it, not remove and replace. Honestly, I know see myself to either take traveler or be even slower than I was as a staff support. Please reconsider the change and revert the swiftness back to the passive IN ADDITION to its current functionality.

Sure, in PvE and WvW it might not be a big deal since in PvE most people were taking the stability trait or you dont need to get from point A to B all that fast, or there is plenty of swiftness to go around. In PvP though, this has been a HUGE nerf to support tempests, who now have little to no access to swiftness if we take the trait that applies regen to shouts.It wasnt like tempest eles were OP to begin with, so "shifting" an integral part of overloads to an optional trait that heavily competes with other, was not a good move. Anet, when we asked for the master passive trait to be less overwhelming, we ask to ADD to it, not remove and replace. Honestly, I know see myself to either take traveler or be even slower than I was as a staff support. Please reconsider the change and revert the swiftness back to the passive IN ADDITION to its current functionality.

You must be playing necro then. But that aside, yes, SpB is still overtuned.

It is ok, it is on the table, along with: It is all coming along.... eventually, probably after GW4 or Guild Wars Mobile Wars. Just you wait, it is on /#TheTable

Yeah, it is not like thiefs have the most mobility out of all other classes in the game already.Access to the most teleports that ignore LoS . Teleports that ignore verticality and dont even need targets.Access to the most stealth in the game.Access to the most spammable unblockable attack Sw/D #3 which also prioritizes rejuvenation and protection, and ignores any blocks/aegis, and Sw #2 to get close and get out while ignoring LoS to boot.Access to the only ability in the game that prioritizes stability AND steals it, AND is an unblockable teleport that ignores LoS to boot, AND can share it with everyone around.Being meta since Beta and have been an ever present class in nearly all AT and other tournaments and esport teams we have had since day 1.A class able to hit 32k damage with 1 ability https://imgur.com/7XieoAe Totally the worst class by far and the only redeemable thing they have is that they are not eles. Yup.

This is why I never queue in Heart of the Mists. I usually do so sitting down in a relaxing spot in Divinity's Reach. I often do it in a secret spot in The Groove, but sometimes i want to practice my rotation, or tweak my build a bit, or try different variants of the build while I wait for my 5-6 minutes queue to end, there seem to be so few eles playing at my rank that the game seems to have a hard time putting one on the other team, and I dont want to queue on another class so I can get in faster because i would rather be stuck in a 4.5 vs 4.5 than in a 4.5 v 5 (funnily enough, I often see the ele on the enemy team just INSTANTLY switch to another class, I have an SSD so Im usually the first one in the lobby, I can tell when their icon appear and then immediately disappear as quickly, and soon enough, bam, another class). But yeah, I wish I could at the very least change build stuff in PvE, maybe give me some practice bots in the main cities (like in WoW) which I can beat senseless while I wait.

I think the place is really nice with new QoL stuff, however it has the same one issue that made me avoid that place like a plague if I could help it (shame I can only change my build inside there) and it is that it is so darn depressing and eerie and dead and creepy and..... Look, I understand it is the "afterlife", but the whole concept of afterlife is that it is LIFE afterLIFE, not death afterdeath! Bring colors, maybe pieces of the Grove that Ventari "summons" so that dead sylvari can find their place, or something magical like that, not everything have to be 255 shades of grey and blue. (it doesnt help the sour/salty mood many players already have when getting out of their matches)