Reflect Reflect,Block,Reflect,Block.

[Zyreva.1078]

Give every class and especially necro, rev and guard as much mobility and stealth as thief, so they can solo roam better. No? Well, guess not everything needs to do equally well at every aspect of the game then. Considering how strong (and sometimes obnoxious) LB ranger and rifle DE (as well as other projectile based builds) are outside of organised blobbing, i guess projectile hate is fine. Just gotta get the right build for the right job.

[Jski.6180]

I am all for making blocks and ranged block/reflect have a split in effect. Say making a block / aegis a melee block only and ranged blocks/reflect the only means of stopping ranged attks. It would not fix every thing but it would take out some ranged blocking effects.

I am not sure if anet can even do this though but adding in a cap to line blocks/reflect would be nice to much like lines but with attks. Once you hit that cap the effect stops working but the field effect stays

[Zyreva.1078]

Aren't numbers favored enough already? Do we really have to add more and more caps to punish those few who try to fight outnumbered? Because those are who get hit the most by all sorts of target caps.

[Zikory.6871]

Has anyone tried to stack barrages like a comped group does with their damage? Did you realize its dumb because you can't CC from 1500 range and any closer you'd just get wkey'd?

 

All I'm imagining is a ranger trying to solo barrage a booned up group...It's not really different for any other individual class. 

[Shiyo.3578]

12 hours ago, Zikory.6871 said:

and any closer you'd just get wkey'd?

I actually run into gigantic zergs solo 24/7 then survive because every class has so much survivability and mobility you have to intentionally kill yourself to die in this game.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

3 hours ago, Shiyo.3578 said:

I actually run into gigantic zergs solo 24/7 then survive because every class has so much survivability and mobility you have to intentionally kill yourself to die in this game.

Or get yanked by some random lag or invisible aoe that ticks for 5k.
But yea, I've seen Teefs Vault spamming into enemy zergs without getting hit...

[GoldenPants.1870]

On 12/28/2021 at 2:36 AM, Justine.6351 said:

So would warrior's shield block just expire early if he is getting pounded by rangers then?

I think if it is a personal block, like shield wall, rev staff 3 etc, it should remain as is, but reflects in particular, such as wall of reflect, or aoe projectile hates such as scrapper barriers should either 1. Not be allowed to protect unlimited targets, maybe make the first 5-10 people that attack into the projectile hate has the projectiles reflected/destroyed, rest goes through. Or have it only able to absorb/reflect a limited number of projectiles, 25-50 or something, idk.

[kash.9213]

8 hours ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

Or get yanked by some random lag or invisible aoe that ticks for 5k.
But yea, I've seen Teefs Vault spamming into enemy zergs without getting hit...

Vaulter will gas out because they can't actually spam anything, but can stagger resources. It's the Leap in other players Fields that's keeping them up or they're just flipping a couple of times before they blink out, but you can do the same with any Dagger MH build and have better utilility. 

Agree though, things can be going great until another player get's their hero moment on you or the server decides to make a sacrifice out of you so that others may live. 

[Infusion.7149]

Kind of offtopic but needs to be said:
Using a dagger in a largescale fight is semi-pointless unless your entire existence is to gank single players that are low. I've been hit by 10K Vaults before in minstrel's, never have I thought to myself "backstab / heartseeker would hurt more". Vault hits 5 people, dagger auto hits only one and doesn't have evade frame if you run d/p unlike Vault.

Vault is 1.82 coefficient with 0.5s evade frame and 600 range, hits 5 targets and is a leap (use it in smoke for stealth) https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vault

There's also the evade interaction with Bounding Dodger.

Weakening Charge hits 3 targets and has 1.35 coefficient with 450 range. It's lower value unless you are facing a low number of targets. In terms of initiative it costs 3 instead of 5 of Vault, but if you hit 3 targets instead of 5 and for less damage it means  less outgoing damage per initiative.

The only time heartseeker exceeds vault is if you have a single target less than 25% health (2.0 coefficient) as dagger doesn't have the staff power bonus and has 1K weapon strength instead of 1.1K of staff meaning a heartseeker is 1.81 coefficient on staff and only hits one person.

Backstab? That's 1.8 coefficient even if you hit from behind , if you adjust for weapon strength then you are looking at the equivalent of 1.63 on staff and it doesn't work if you are revealed by a guard or watchtower tactic for example. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Backstab   , https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Malicious_Backstab

Edited December 29, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[coro.3176]

A picture is worth a thousand words. A video is worth 24 thousand words per second. Behold.

 

kitten's ridiculous. Between the tempest auras, the scrapper / guardian bubbles, various other projectile destruction like Swirling Winds, and the mesmer skills, it's just a massive pain to try and use projectiles in any kind of medium sized or larger fight.

With all the hate, you'd think projectile skills would be insanely powerful if you ever do manage to land one, but no. They're often even weaker than their non-projectile alternatives.

Honestly, in this clip if I'd just swapped to a flamethrower build and ran around pressing 1 1 1 1 1, I'd be doing 10x as much damage. That's dumb.

Edited December 29, 2021 by coro.3176

[Ferus.3165]

On 12/28/2021 at 2:36 AM, Justine.6351 said:

So would warrior's shield block just expire early if he is getting pounded by rangers then?

that could be a solution as unblockable buffs work the same way and this would affect ranger greatsword aswell. Or this change could only affect blocks that don't require the user to channel the ability for the whole duration. Or it could only affect aoe blocks because here you have the actual problem that a single player can shield an entire squad with a single ability and a handful of players can shield a squad forever which in turn nullifies every projectile ability completely .

In my personal opinion blocks/reflects that only shield a single target are far less of a problem and should not be nerfed (like warrior shield block). But at the end we can only give ideas here and anet devs have to decide if a change is worth it or not.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Ferus.3165

[Infusion.7149]

2 hours ago, coro.3176 said:

A picture is worth a thousand words. A video is worth 24 thousand words per second. Behold.

 

kitten's ridiculous. Between the tempest auras, the scrapper / guardian bubbles, various other projectile destruction like Swirling Winds, and the mesmer skills, it's just a massive pain to try and use projectiles in any kind of medium sized or larger fight.

With all the hate, you'd think projectile skills would be insanely powerful if you ever do manage to land one, but no. They're often even weaker than their non-projectile alternatives.

Honestly, in this clip if I'd just swapped to a flamethrower build and ran around pressing 1 1 1 1 1, I'd be doing 10x as much damage. That's dumb.

Tempest's magnetic aura is on 30s cooldown on staff, even chained together that is 8s out of 30s so less than a third uptime since it is 4s duration. That is overload earth is 20s cooldown and isn't reset with fresh air (and requires aurashare), magnetic aura on sand swell is 30s cooldown (and requires aurashare), "aftershock" 30s cooldown and not part of meta build.
4/20+4/30+4/30= 46% uptime. In a large group scenario because it is not a ground targeted reflect it only affects 5 players.

Firebrand's reflect is primarily on Valiant Bulwark which is 5s and 5.25s cooldown in Tome of Courage (due to Loremaster) which itself has a 60+ cooldown. People running Wall of Reflection are at a disadvantage because you lose cleanses/stab (why would you do this)/healing.

Winds of disenchantment was an ally one else it would be a black bubble, anyone who plays WVW often would know this. It's also 90s cooldown and doesn't reflect.

Feedback bubble is quite rare even though it is seen on your video. It is 32s cooldown and didn't seem to have any major impact there , especially when you consider it lasts 6s total.

You're running med kit and a shield so either you're playing memes or you're a support scrapper. Projectiles would not be a primary way of dealing damage unless running grenades and roaming.

I actually paid attention to the projectiles I reflected while on guardian and by far the most common was fireball (ele staff) and grenade (which people shouldn't run in largescale).


---
edit so as not to spam thread


I hope you realize that even weakening charge is better on average than anything on dagger right now. Initiative is 3 on both Weakening Charge and Heartseeker and if you need stealth for backstab and positioning chances are you won't have a flanking bonus. That isn't even counting staff power bonus from staff master or endurance return.

It's not "just running the numbers" as I have played staff daredevil in WVW.

3 minutes ago, kash.9213 said:

You can take bounding dodger with mh dagger also, but have better utility for the core of those fights, especially with SA. You can go ahead and run the numbers while everyone else in the fight is actually playing and plotting. Staff and Vault is fun and you can still snipe with it if you need to but you're not going to spam Vault and your utility bar will have to pick up the slack, unless you're just cleaning up after your zerg.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, coro.3176 said:

A picture is worth a thousand words. A video is worth 24 thousand words per second. Behold.

 

kitten's ridiculous. Between the tempest auras, the scrapper / guardian bubbles, various other projectile destruction like Swirling Winds, and the mesmer skills, it's just a massive pain to try and use projectiles in any kind of medium sized or larger fight.

With all the hate, you'd think projectile skills would be insanely powerful if you ever do manage to land one, but no. They're often even weaker than their non-projectile alternatives.

Honestly, in this clip if I'd just swapped to a flamethrower build and ran around pressing 1 1 1 1 1, I'd be doing 10x as much damage. That's dumb.

Yes, you brought a condi engie to a boonball fight. Gratz, you played yourself.

But even if we assume your side could have been more effective, the presumably triple minstrels healbots (2x firebrand + scrapper) and permaboons still make the argument of reflects look pretty lame.

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

On 12/25/2021 at 11:37 PM, Caedmon.6798 said:

Tone down the projectile hate,the projectile block/reflect share spamm so projectile based spec aka De's,or any Ranger spec etc can actually  have a viable role in WvW "BloB' fights. Theres too much of it,period. Hence the entire has been Aoe spamm for years and rangers never wanted.

learn to not fire your pew pew like a bot and leave us alone with pointless requests.

[kash.9213]

3 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Kind of offtopic but needs to be said:
Using a dagger in a largescale fight is semi-pointless unless your entire existence is to gank single players that are low. I've been hit by 10K Vaults before in minstrel's, never have I thought to myself "backstab / heartseeker would hurt more". Vault hits 5 people, dagger auto hits only one and doesn't have evade frame if you run d/p unlike Vault.

Vault is 1.82 coefficient with 0.5s evade frame and 600 range, hits 5 targets and is a leap (use it in smoke for stealth) https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vault

There's also the evade interaction with Bounding Dodger.

Weakening Charge hits 3 targets and has 1.35 coefficient with 450 range. It's lower value unless you are facing a low number of targets. In terms of initiative it costs 3 instead of 5 of Vault, but if you hit 3 targets instead of 5 and for less damage it means  less outgoing damage per initiative.

The only time heartseeker exceeds vault is if you have a single target less than 25% health (2.0 coefficient) as dagger doesn't have the staff power bonus and has 1K weapon strength instead of 1.1K of staff meaning a heartseeker is 1.81 coefficient on staff and only hits one person.

Backstab? That's 1.8 coefficient even if you hit from behind , if you adjust for weapon strength then you are looking at the equivalent of 1.63 on staff and it doesn't work if you are revealed by a guard or watchtower tactic for example. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Backstab   , https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Malicious_Backstab

You can take bounding dodger with mh dagger also, but have better utility for the core of those fights, especially with SA. You can go ahead and run the numbers while everyone else in the fight is actually playing and plotting. Staff and Vault is fun and you can still snipe with it if you need to but you're not going to spam Vault and your utility bar will have to pick up the slack, unless you're just cleaning up after your zerg.

[coro.3176]

5 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Tempest's magnetic aura is on 30s cooldown on staff, even chained together that is 8s out of 30s so less than a third uptime since it is 4s duration. That is overload earth is 20s cooldown and isn't reset with fresh air (and requires aurashare), magnetic aura on sand swell is 30s cooldown, "aftershock" 30s cooldown and not part of meta build.
4/20+4/30+4/30= 46% uptime. In a large group scenario because it is not a ground targeted reflect it only affects 5 players.
 

The problem is that anti-projectile skills stack additively, and you don't need very many before it's near impossible to use projectiles at all. Suppose you have two players giving 46% uptime and they properly rotate. Now projectile skills only have a 8% window to land skills. Meanwhile non-projectile skills can still be used 100% of the time. Why hate on projectiles so badly?

 

13 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

You're running med kit and a shield so either you're playing memes or you're a support scrapper. Projectiles would not be a primary way of dealing damage unless running grenades and roaming.

You assume the conclusion. It's only "memes" because there's so much projectile hate. It's for this reason that all mainhand pistol attacks are useless here. 1,2, and 3 are all projectiles. Take away the insane amount of anti-projectile skills, and it would be fine - maybe not optimal, but playable. Currently it's not, and for a completely arbitrary reason: projectiles have hate, non-projectiles don't.

 

15 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Yes, you brought a condi engie to a boonball fight. Gratz, you played yourself.

Again, assumes the conclusion. It's only bad because the game unfairly hates on condi and on projectiles. It would be better if projectile and non-projectile skills were more balanced.

[Infusion.7149]

9 minutes ago, coro.3176 said:

The problem is that anti-projectile skills stack additively, and you don't need very many before it's near impossible to use projectiles at all. Suppose you have two players giving 46% uptime and they properly rotate. Now projectile skills only have a 8% window to land skills. Meanwhile non-projectile skills can still be used 100% of the time. Why hate on projectiles so badly?

 

You assume the conclusion. It's only "memes" because there's so much projectile hate. It's for this reason that all mainhand pistol attacks are useless here. 1,2, and 3 are all projectiles. Take away the insane amount of anti-projectile skills, and it would be fine - maybe not optimal, but playable. Currently it's not, and for a completely arbitrary reason: projectiles have hate, non-projectiles don't.

 

Again, assumes the conclusion. It's only bad because the game unfairly hates on condi and on projectiles. It would be better if projectile and non-projectile skills were more balanced.

If they're running two aurashare tempests in a subgroup (since magnetic aura affects 5) they're also doing garbage damage.
If you want to say Valiant Bulwark needs nerfs fine, but to suggest that magnetic aura is some super powerful effect when even meta build doesn't run aftershock I would have to disagree.

Hammer revenants which are part of the meta also have projectile auto and as I stated above staff ele's fireball is also projectile.

Also it's memes not because it's projectile. It's memes because pistol mainhand without any followup damage won't kill anyone not afk. On your bar you had grenade kit and toolkit so you could have just used toolkit when dealing with reflects ; because grenades don't use PVP balance in WVW anyone without a reflect probably would have half their HP chunked off from grenade barrage (which you did manage to land but they resustained and that had nothing to do with reflect).

Edited December 29, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[coro.3176]

Just now, Infusion.7149 said:

If they're running two aurashare tempests in a subgroup (since magnetic aura affects 5) they're also doing garbage damage.
If you want to say Valiant Bulwark needs nerfs fine, but to suggest that magnetic aura is some super powerful effect when even meta build doesn't run aftershock I would have to disagree.

Hammer revenants which are part of the meta also have projectile auto and as I stated above staff ele's fireball is also projectile.

 

They don't need to run two though. Even just one is already cutting the incoming projectile attack window by half. Then any scrapper is likely to have defense field, then bulwark, and you've got a really hard time getting those projectiles in.

 

Again, why hate projectiles specifically? Non-projectile attacks have none of these weaknesses. Hammer rev and staff ele are good because they *also* have huge hits from non-projectile attacks. If they only had projectiles, they would be much much weaker.

[coro.3176]

9 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Hammer revenants which are part of the meta also have projectile auto and as I stated above staff ele's fireball is also projectile.

Hammer revs would not be meta if not for their non-projectile skills. Ditto Ele. There's a reason why Ranger is shut out of zerg fighting. It's projectile hate. End the prejudice!

 

[Infusion.7149]

5 minutes ago, coro.3176 said:

 

They don't need to run two though. Even just one is already cutting the incoming projectile attack window by half. Then any scrapper is likely to have defense field, then bulwark, and you've got a really hard time getting those projectiles in.

 

Again, why hate projectiles specifically? Non-projectile attacks have none of these weaknesses. Hammer rev and staff ele are good because they *also* have huge hits from non-projectile attacks. If they only had projectiles, they would be much much weaker.

Are you saying DPS scrapper runs bulwark gyro? Someone running bulwark gyro is likely to implode if they aren't support, I've imploded even on full  minstrel due to party members eating damage. Any support scrapper would be outhealing any condi build relying on pistols regardless.

Projectiles have the weakness of reflect because they generally have faster travel time and have tracking. Try hitting with CoR or meteor compared to say Rapid Fire or Three Round Burst.

[joneirikb.7506]

It's really just because the entire combat system was built/balanced/designed around 5 man groups. And thus doesn't scale well above. As we've seen in so many other things in WvW.

The problem is that changing how it works, either:

1. Needs a whole new rework of the entire mechanics (and probably many others at the same time), and would be the single largest change to gw2 combat since launch), and that's expensive and lots of work, which doesn't bring "content" that the majority of players care about enough to drop cash in the gemstore.
2. Or, make a quick hack (like most typical suggestions you find on the forums) that will just break the same mechanics somewhere or everywhere else in the game. Like reduce all duration to half, and suddenly people in pvp and pve will complain the skills are useless. Heck, roamers or havoc as well.

At this point, it's just how the game is, I wouldn't expect it to ever change. And it has nothing to do with ANet favouring one or the other type of gameplay, they just realise that trying to change this is a landmine they don't want to step on, because it will break too many things.

[coro.3176]

4 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Are you saying DPS scrapper runs bulwark gyro? Someone running bulwark gyro is likely to implode if they aren't support, I've imploded even on full  minstrel due to party members eating damage. Any support scrapper would be outhealing any condi build relying on pistols regardless.

Projectiles have the weakness of reflect because they generally have faster travel time and have tracking. Try hitting with CoR or meteor compared to say Rapid Fire or Three Round Burst.

Some do run it just for the anti-projectile + stability in the toolbelt skill. It's that good. Plus, the gyro is situationally useful for some barrier when not under heavy pressure. What I'm trying to get across is that there's TONS of projectile hate in the game that gets shared by the entire group. One bubble blocks projectiles from ALL opposing players for its duration. Chain some of these skills well, and you have near 100% anti-projectile.

 

I don't think projectile tracking makes up for the amount of hate. Why was scourge meta so long? It was the huge AoE that couldn't be blocked by walls or reflects. CoR is about as fast as engineer pistol or rifle shots, and it smacks, hard.

Edited December 29, 2021 by coro.3176

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

11 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Are you saying DPS scrapper runs bulwark gyro? Someone running bulwark gyro is likely to implode if they aren't support, I've imploded even on full  minstrel due to party members eating damage. Any support scrapper would be outhealing any condi build relying on pistols regardless.

Projectiles have the weakness of reflect because they generally have faster travel time and have tracking. Try hitting with CoR or meteor compared to say Rapid Fire or Three Round Burst.

bulwark is quite situational - against low dmg groups that rely heavily on CC it does really well, basiclly when the swap to elexir gun makes no sense bc not the raw dmg kills your group.

ah, small edit: DONT run dps scrapper.... heal scrapper is a backbone in any squad, while dps variant is just not worht the slot :S

__

 

i think condis overall are just too strong. their dmg ticks too high, especially on mobile or very bulky builds (which condis naturally will run)...

heal scrappers are just the natural counter to all the random glasscannons. must not be nerfed, game would be unplayable. its yet not easy to outheal random pepega dps glasscannons + trebs, catas, cannons, mortars and acs... 😛

_________

 

old wvw without elite specs was just way more small group pirateshipping, but afaik still lead by a bigger group leader, if i understood that right. the old supports been not as potent, but equally smaller been the damage output.

 

with all the new classes, u cannot go back to this anyways. and the large-group system is good. same as the basic battle system.

 

just a ton of skills and classes are not very balanced. especially all the weirdo glasscannons aren't a good thing to have. and removing retaliation was another pretty bad decision by the "balance" team, it just made everything worse. especially since all we got for it was the pretty bad boon "resolution". :S

Edited December 29, 2021 by kamikharzeeh.8016

[coro.3176]

10 hours ago, GoldenPants.1870 said:

I think if it is a personal block, like shield wall, rev staff 3 etc, it should remain as is, but reflects in particular, such as wall of reflect, or aoe projectile hates such as scrapper barriers should either 1. Not be allowed to protect unlimited targets, maybe make the first 5-10 people that attack into the projectile hate has the projectiles reflected/destroyed, rest goes through. Or have it only able to absorb/reflect a limited number of projectiles, 25-50 or something, idk.

This would actually solve the problem. The main trouble in larger fights is that a single player's skill (eg. Defense Field) can cover for a huge group of players.

If it only covered that player's 5-person group, or better, only themselves, it would be much more fair.

[Dawdler.8521]

24 minutes ago, coro.3176 said:

Again, assumes the conclusion. It's only bad because the game unfairly hates on condi and on projectiles. It would be better if projectile and non-projectile skills were more balanced.

What you wish for doesnt change how the game currently is. Its kitten in in these situations - your weapons are too slow. Hell a single well played ele in a 1 on 1 is usually an impossible target, let alone one supported by multiple healbots. It does has a few tricks up its sleave. Most notable in this situation if an enemy downs, you need to be fast with invouln stomp or tons of stab/your own reflects/protection/etc. You literally have a second to react. Just a single enemy stomped can turn the fight because either they loose healing or they loose pretty much all their damage. But you dont have elixir s which is the strongest utility you can bring to this type of fight. So yeah. Played one long enough to know that. It doesnt really matter how good your are with it otherwise.

This is more a matter of just stacking skills which apply for everything. There should be diminishing returns for stacking in general. Or more personal skills, less passive 5 man AoE. I miss the old field blastin' days.