[PvP] Grace of the Lands

[Furious.6015]

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@EnderzShadow.2506 said:I would be interested in hearing Frosty explain his reasons for playing lb for pressure.

But who does that matter to? Does it help anyone climbing?You know what I would like? I would like to hear someone explain what builds work better at Lower levels of Gameplay and why.That would be relevant to the bulk of the PvP audience and not just the l33t.

In a few simple terms, longbow offers the following:

1. Damage
2. Stealth
3. CC

It is one of our best weapons, thus it is one of the strongest to carry with. Not to mention, the auto attack can be used far off point, thus making it easier to rotate to another point and keeps you relatively safer from the dangers of the fight.

It also has several synergies with traits and can be used in conjunction with pets to chain cc someone (off point preferably) in order to guarantee a decap or a follow up burst. Though, tying in pet attacks in combination with your player skills requires more advanced tactics which you said, was just for the "l33t," and thus does not generally apply to the "bulk of the PvP audience."

I hope that helped explain things a little better mate. If you wish to duel in game, send me a mail or whisper me when I'm online.

What sort of runes are you running on LB?I feel that staff mobility, cleanse and little bit of healing helps so much.Also, how do you generate celestial energy if you're running LB/S+WH? Just the WH regen isn't enough...

[shadowpass.4236]

@Furious.6015 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@EnderzShadow.2506 said:I would be interested in hearing Frosty explain his reasons for playing lb for pressure.

But who does that matter to? Does it help anyone climbing?You know what I would like? I would like to hear someone explain what builds work better at Lower levels of Gameplay and why.That would be relevant to the bulk of the PvP audience and not just the l33t.

In a few simple terms, longbow offers the following:

1. Damage
2. Stealth
3. CC

It is one of our best weapons, thus it is one of the strongest to carry with. Not to mention, the auto attack can be used far off point, thus making it easier to rotate to another point and keeps you relatively safer from the dangers of the fight.

It also has several synergies with traits and can be used in conjunction with pets to chain cc someone (off point preferably) in order to guarantee a decap or a follow up burst. Though, tying in pet attacks in combination with your player skills requires more advanced tactics which you said, was just for the "l33t," and thus does not generally apply to the "bulk of the PvP audience."

I hope that helped explain things a little better mate. If you wish to duel in game, send me a mail or whisper me when I'm online.

What sort of runes are you running on LB?I feel that staff mobility, cleanse and little bit of healing helps so much.Also, how do you generate celestial energy if you're running LB/S+WH? Just the WH regen isn't enough...

You mean sigils? Annulment/Energy or Annulment/Agility

Regeneration, Dolyak Signet, Natural Healing, and Signet of Renewal are all different ways to generate CA.

If used properly, you should enter CA for a second or two, pop your skills, then leave it. You'll be at 66% CA and it will be up again in 15 seconds when you need to use it.

[jcbroe.4329]

@EnderzShadow.2506 said:I would be interested in hearing Frosty explain his reasons for playing lb for pressure.

But who does that matter to? Does it help anyone climbing?You know what I would like? I would like to hear someone explain what builds work better at Lower levels of Gameplay and why.That would be relevant to the bulk of the PvP audience and not just the l33t.

I'll explain it in a different way than what has already been explained.

Metabattle, while not always up to date necessarily (Jebros UGO vods is an excellent place for the exposure to them), is a good place to get a sense of the meta.

Metagame is a poorly definitely concept in GW2 PvP. Some people have some sort of psychological problem with playing a build that gets defined as meta, so i feel it important to address. The meta tag is a combination of a trickle down effect from tournament builds, commonly observed builds at a competitive gameplay tier, and generally low-risk high-reward builds that can compete at top tier (generally, the concept is that if it can compete at a top tier, it can compete in every tier).

This typically means that these builds are designated to be able to maximize their potential at a specific role, which may not always align with gameplay goals.

Bunker Firebrand is a perfect example of this. It's one of the best builds in the game, and the entire meta is going to be shaped around it. But it doesn't work if you're on a team that doesn't rotate well or win fights. It needs a competent team of competitive players to support.

If your gameplay goal is to carry games and climb, then you're looking for a build with mobility that can secure decaps and push kills or +1s for momentum.

LB ends up being one of our best tools for carrying because of the decap potential and engagement range and etc. Paired with a mobility weapon like sword or staff that will double up as a defensive swap in fights and you get a setup that can achieve those combat roles you're looking for.

To avoid writing a novella, I think I'll stop here and let there be questions if need be lol.

[Pvt Frosty.6973]

@jcbroe.4329 said:

@EnderzShadow.2506 said:I would be interested in hearing Frosty explain his reasons for playing lb for pressure.

But who does that matter to? Does it help anyone climbing?You know what I would like? I would like to hear someone explain what builds work better at Lower levels of Gameplay and why.That would be relevant to the bulk of the PvP audience and not just the l33t.

I'll explain it in a different way than what has already been explained.

Metabattle, while not always up to date necessarily (Jebros UGO vods is an excellent place for the exposure to them), is a good place to get a sense of the meta.

Metagame is a poorly definitely concept in GW2 PvP. Some people have some sort of psychological problem with playing a build that gets defined as meta, so i feel it important to address. The meta tag is a combination of a trickle down effect from tournament builds, commonly observed builds at a competitive gameplay tier, and generally low-risk high-reward builds that can compete at top tier (generally, the concept is that if it can compete at a top tier, it can compete in every tier).

This typically means that these builds are designated to be able to maximize their potential at a specific role, which may not always align with gameplay goals.

Bunker Firebrand is a perfect example of this. It's one of the best builds in the game, and the entire meta is going to be shaped around it. But it doesn't work if you're on a team that doesn't rotate well or win fights. It needs a competent team of competitive players to support.

If your gameplay goal is to carry games and climb, then you're looking for a build with mobility that can secure decaps and push kills or +1s for momentum.

LB ends up being one of our best tools for carrying because of the decap potential and engagement range and etc. Paired with a mobility weapon like sword or staff that will double up as a defensive swap in fights and you get a setup that can achieve those combat roles you're looking for.

To avoid writing a novella, I think I'll stop here and let there be questions if need be lol.

Adding a bit here:

The logic behind it is actually pretty straightfoward and only really requires two train of thoughts. as a basis of understanding, I am assuming that you would run the standard ws/nm/druid and the decision in question is whether to take longbow or staff to accompany sword/warhorn. staff is a purely defensive weapon with very little offensive application while longbow is a hybrid weapon leaning towards the offensive.

1) ranger has never been a straight up support class, it was always a hybrid support. focusing on defense too much reduces your impact as a hybrid support because you get stuck in fights with real supports (and at that point why not just play a real support yourself?)2) focusing mainly on support as druid (as you would be by running staff) relies on your allies to actually utilise druids support (i.e. stealth+superspeed) properly and even more than that, it relies on allies to put out the pressure. However, if you would run longbow, you offer more counterpressure (especially in the form of denying distance and to a degree stealth as a kiting tool). kiting is harder than doing damage in this game. by pressuring the enemy, you allow your allies to do their damage without having to kite or be pressured, this ends up paying off for me more often than not.

That said, I cannot offer you a "guide" for lower levels of gameplay, considering that I cannot offer any real insight into what people at those levels are capable of and what they arent. as such i can only suggest to play the most efficient build and focus on improving. In this light, staff is definitely better than longbow, because it offers more room for errors.

To get back to the topic at hand, the might from gotl is best in every druid build, no matter which you end up playing

I hope it helped somewhat ^^

[voltaicbore.8012]

To add to what jcbroe just added about LB pressure, it really is a fantastic weapon (despite its significant PvE underperformance). 1500 range is literally as long as it gets, and the only real offensive drawback is being careful not to shoot into reflects/blocks/transforms. The latter is not hard to avoid, as there are clear tells for every reflect and you always have plenty of non-projectile options to wait out the projectile hate.

All that said, I still prefer staff just because I find myself constantly defending a node my team owns, and it's a 1v2 or 1v3 situation. I'm decent at dodging around with the sword, but the staff 5 + staff 3 combo just helps me stay up that much longer between cooldowns, or until someone else can come to point.

[Furious.6015]

@jcbroe.4329 said:

@EnderzShadow.2506 said:I would be interested in hearing Frosty explain his reasons for playing lb for pressure.

But who does that matter to? Does it help anyone climbing?You know what I would like? I would like to hear someone explain what builds work better at Lower levels of Gameplay and why.That would be relevant to the bulk of the PvP audience and not just the l33t.

I'll explain it in a different way than what has already been explained.

Metabattle, while not always up to date necessarily (Jebros UGO vods is an excellent place for the exposure to them), is a good place to get a sense of the meta.

Metagame is a poorly definitely concept in GW2 PvP. Some people have some sort of psychological problem with playing a build that gets defined as meta, so i feel it important to address. The meta tag is a combination of a trickle down effect from tournament builds, commonly observed builds at a competitive gameplay tier, and generally low-risk high-reward builds that can compete at top tier (generally, the concept is that if it can compete at a top tier, it can compete in every tier).

This typically means that these builds are designated to be able to maximize their potential at a specific role, which may not always align with gameplay goals.

Bunker Firebrand is a perfect example of this. It's one of the best builds in the game, and the entire meta is going to be shaped around it. But it doesn't work if you're on a team that doesn't rotate well or win fights. It needs a competent team of competitive players to support.

If your gameplay goal is to carry games and climb, then you're looking for a build with mobility that can secure decaps and push kills or +1s for momentum.

LB ends up being one of our best tools for carrying because of the decap potential and engagement range and etc. Paired with a mobility weapon like sword or staff that will double up as a defensive swap in fights and you get a setup that can achieve those combat roles you're looking for.

To avoid writing a novella, I think I'll stop here and let there be questions if need be lol.

Fantastic posts, thanks a lot guys.

So running NM /WS druid with LB/Staff?I feel that with the prominence of scourge, it's SO hard to stay on points or anywhere near close by - bombing heals/cleanse via CA 1/2 for GOTL, LB toolkit and the staff toolkit seems pretty dope.I'm currently low plat my goal is to make top 250 this season. How would I fare in mid plat with this build?