Is there some secret to being unkillable?

[SponTen.1267]

I'm quite new to PvP, so I'm Silver 3 and feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Not my issue though, since I'm learning a lot every game.

My issue is that every couple matches, I come across foes who just seem to be completely unkillable. Sometimes they'll just stand there and tank 2-3 of us, and they're not always even evading or blocking. Doesn't seem to be dependent on my class or theirs; I've seen a huge variety of matchups with all classes where their health barely moves despite us dropping everything on them.

So is there some secret to this? I'd understand if they were blocking, evading, invul, and juking, but often it just looks like they're standing there somehow not taking any damage. Last game for me it was a Harbinger, which I understand aren't that tanky, yet they were able to tank me, a teammate, and Svanir.

How is this possible, especially in Silver? Shouldn't these players be as bad as me?

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

There's a couple of factors that could be leading to this that arent just class imbalance, and silver rank doesn't ensure every player you fight will also be silver.

 

What class/amulet are you using? What traits? 

[shion.2084]

At one point this season I was G2 and in a match with a duo of top 10 ers.  (Resilienca , and his duo).  I recognized them cause O play them typically when I’m top 100, but with the population so low and folks playing queue dodge there’s some awful match ups.  
 

So it’s very likely the astounding players are not silver tier.    When I hit a stupid loss streak (like go down to G2, I have games where I wipe two or three folks like they’re standing still and I play a different build that is riskier.  When I am in up tier matches there are people who do that to me and I might as well take my hands off the keyboard.   So if your curious, add them as a friend and see their rank… note they could also just be on a lose streak too… though silver is a bit far to fall for a good player
 

 

[Spellhunter.9675]

1 hour ago, SponTen.1267 said:

So is there some secret to this? I'd understand if they were blocking, evading, invul, and juking, but often it just looks like they're standing there somehow not taking any damage. Last game for me it was a Harbinger, which I understand aren't that tanky, yet they were able to tank me, a teammate, and Svanir.

There are many possible factors. For example:

- current harbinger meta build (and necro in general) has a lot of weakness sources which is greatly decreases damage for power builds;

- harbinger usually runs this trait https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Corrupter's_Fervor which gives it stacking toughness and protection boon;

- necro has utility skill Corrosive Poison Cloud (CPC) which blocks projectiles and is really hard to see. So if you was trying to hit him with something like ranger long bow your attacks just won't hit him;

- necro also can use Well of Darkness which spams blind on you, so your attacks will miss;

- in addition harbinger has heal from it's spec mechanic Blight and may have additional constant heal from blood magic or curse trait lines.

I probably missed half of things it can do, but even if you combine some of what I mention + people in low tiers aren't good at doing proper burst damage (don't be offended by this please) you can see how it is able to tank couple of players.

 

[Dopamine.6324]

also remember that since pvp only have handful of ppl playing it, it could be that in your silver lobby you got legendary player thanks to amazing matchmaking system so for him 1v3 is just another day

[Gotejjeken.1267]

You'll know a higher tier player by positioning. If they are unkillable due to terrain, then probably tier difference. 

That is, lower tier players are not usually aware of points or positioning so either beeline it onto a point and die or ignore them; good players hover around or near them as needed, using the entire map like a jumping puzzle.  

That said, only 'immortal' builds I've seen lately are top tier defense spellbreakers. 

Though I was able to chase one who claimed to be 1800 ELO off a point a few times on my Druid (with a good bit of effort).  Again, they just used terrain to kite and come back to point, which not a lot can be done as at that point have to rotate or get a +1 to avoid point loss from stalling.  

That's actually my tip for you OP.  If you can't kill something, out-rotate it.    

Edited December 28, 2022 by Gotejjeken.1267

[SponTen.1267]

2 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

There's a couple of factors that could be leading to this that arent just class imbalance, and silver rank doesn't ensure every player you fight will also be silver.

 

What class/amulet are you using? What traits? 

But surely most of them will be around my skill level, right?

At the time I was playing this exact build. But it's not dependent on my build, because I switch around a lot and it can happen in any game. In fact, in most games there will be some sort of team fight where I just cannot do any damage to anyone, or they seem to have crazy heals. I guess that's mostly down to support, which I get, but I don't get it when they're solo.

2 hours ago, shion.2084 said:

At one point this season I was G2 and in a match with a duo of top 10 ers.  (Resilienca , and his duo).  I recognized them cause O play them typically when I’m top 100, but with the population so low and folks playing queue dodge there’s some awful match ups.  
 

So it’s very likely the astounding players are not silver tier.    When I hit a stupid loss streak (like go down to G2, I have games where I wipe two or three folks like they’re standing still and I play a different build that is riskier.  When I am in up tier matches there are people who do that to me and I might as well take my hands off the keyboard.   So if your curious, add them as a friend and see their rank… note they could also just be on a lose streak too… though silver is a bit far to fall for a good player
 

 

Hm I've heard something about this. I'm not good and I know that, and that's fine, but it's just frustrating being matched with players wayyyy out of my league.

43 minutes ago, Spellhunter.9675 said:

There are many possible factors. For example:

- current harbinger meta build (and necro in general) has a lot of weakness sources which is greatly decreases damage for power builds;

- harbinger usually runs this trait https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Corrupter's_Fervor which gives it stacking toughness and protection boon;

- necro has utility skill Corrosive Poison Cloud (CPC) which blocks projectiles and is really hard to see. So if you was trying to hit him with something like ranger long bow your attacks just won't hit him;

- necro also can use Well of Darkness which spams blind on you, so your attacks will miss;

- in addition harbinger has heal from it's spec mechanic Blight and may have additional constant heal from blood magic or curse trait lines.

I probably missed half of things it can do, but even if you combine some of what I mention + people in low tiers aren't good at doing proper burst damage (don't be offended by this please) you can see how it is able to tank couple of players.

 

THANK YOU, that's all super helpful, and I'm not offended at all lol. This is exactly the kind of explanation I was looking for in this instance. I'm almost certain I wasn't blinded, and I'm pretty sure my hits were landing, so it sounds like Corrupter's Fervor + Blight health regen. Maybe Weakness on me too.

There are lots of Mesmers that seem to avoid a lot of damage too, but I'm guessing that's because I'm targetting their clones and not them directly.

32 minutes ago, Dopamine.6324 said:

also remember that since pvp only have handful of ppl playing it, it could be that in your silver lobby you got legendary player thanks to amazing matchmaking system so for him 1v3 is just another day

Ugh that's so annoying. I heard that this can happen to reduce queue times or something? This game mode is SO MUCH FUN though when things are balanced, so I really hope ANet put some resources into encouraging PvP to up the numbers. PvE is so bland after playing PvP, cause PvE is all just permanent every boon and just watching for boss tells.

Maybe upping rewards for Unranked would help? I feel like there should be some sort of Unranked pip reward track, and the Ranked one should be buffed a bit. Even if you're top-tier and win all your games, you're still kind of capped to just a few gold per hour, which seems kinda crazy. Would be nice to be able to target farm mats and stuff for Legendaries too.

26 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

You'll know a higher tier player by positioning. If they are unkillable due to terrain, then probably tier difference. 

That is, lower tier players are not usually aware of points or positioning so either beeline it onto a point and die or ignore them; good players hover around or near them as needed, using the entire map like a jumping puzzle.  

That said, only 'immortal' builds I've seen lately are top tier defense spellbreakers. 

Though I was able to chase one who claimed to be 1800 ELO off a point a few times on my Druid (with a good bit of effort).  Again, they just used terrain to kite and come back to point, which not a lot can be done as at that point have to rotate or get a +1 to avoid point loss from stalling.  

That's actually my tip for you OP.  If you can't kill something, out-rotate it.    

They weren't using the terrain in this case. I'm bad, but I know when I'm being juked; in this case though, they were just standing still and tanking all my hits.

Yeah I'm trying to focus more on rotating, and it's been working out better for sure. But I still find that in a lot of my games, there's either an individual or a few people on the opposite team who are just unkillable and can always hold nodes or chase me if I try to out-rotate.

But I appreciate the advice; I wish someone had told me to focus more on rotation when I started lol. Took me way too long to realise.

[shion.2084]

If your dealing specifically with harbinger and it’s toughness then I’d recommend a class with CC as harbs are generallly susceptible to it with few stun breaks, and one of their typical two makes them port to their worm.

 

Toughness is bypassed by condi, so condi builds can overwhelm them.  If your going power then cc and vuln apply.   Usually you want to soften them up from range a bit first and ensure you have 2 stun breaks when you seriously engage.  Also a reflect to bounce back the projectile torment.

 

[shion.2084]

5 minutes ago, shion.2084 said:

If your dealing specifically with harbinger and it’s toughness then I’d recommend a class with CC as harbs are generallly susceptible to it with few stun breaks, and one of their typical two makes them port to their worm.

 

Toughness is bypassed by condi, so condi builds can overwhelm them.  If your going power then cc and vuln apply.   Usually you want to soften them up from range a bit first and ensure you have 2 stun breaks when you seriously engage.  Also a reflect to bounce back the projectile torment.

 

 

against a harb you could try a ranger.  A tools or nades holo (requires some skill), I’m sure a warrior Spell Breaker can likely cope.  Condi classes.  I play scrapper, so you can use elix gun, blast gyro, shredder gyro, mortar and hammer.   You pepper with mortar, get closer while triggering blast and shredder, hit with function gyro, do rocket leap in it, then hit thunderclap, acid bomb.

 

that kind of repeated stun, vuln apply, while having passive shredder damage.   No harb really face tanks that without sweating

[noiwk.2760]

yes play 1 of the meta builds. . spell breaker condi/hammer  or choro bunker  and spam invun>block>invun  constnatly. . 

[Cuks.8241]

Learn to watch your target boons and condies. Also knowledge about other classes and their usual defensive cooldowns. 

Its a huge difference when you are attacking someone with full boons, available CDs and no condies like vulnerability on them. 

Depending on your build sometimes your best choice is to just rotate away or stall a node. 

Focus fire with your team. Call targets, you have a shortcut for that. Probably the largest factor in low rated games, team that focuses opponents wins. 

[oscuro.9720]

In addition to what everyone else said, they don’t need to be constantly dodging/blocking/invuln. You only need to use your dodge, block, etc. for the important skills that need to be avoided, and there’s a certain amount everyone can eat or heal through. 
For example, if you are a hammer spell and they dodge or stab through your CC, you likely won’t be hitting them with many impactful skills, meaning their healing will probably outpace your damage output, since hammer is pretty loaded into stun combos. There’s a chance that hammer shock+dagger could kill them, but if they mitigate all CC that’s unlikely.
By avoiding a handful of skills, you’ve taken away 40-80% of the opponents potential damage (it varies). It’s easier to do this vs some classes and more difficult vs others, and much easier to do this vs lower skill players since their skill usage is usually predictable, their combos are slow giving ample time to react, etc. 

[freakcoco.4287]

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Matchmaking_Algorithm

 

 

Quick answer, the most import factor of mm is time and profession ( that have equal weight with rank ).

 

 

Edited December 29, 2022 by freakcoco.4287

[Peter.3901]

Pick spellbreaker, thats it.

[Khalisto.5780]

The secret is q dodging ppl that would get you a fair march and be matched against ppl that are 2, 3, ..., 600 lower than you 

[Eugchriss.2046]

3 hours ago, Khalisto.5780 said:

The secret is q dodging ppl that would get you a fair march and be matched against ppl that are 2, 3, ..., 600 lower than you 

This is actual "secret". Ask the top 50 and they will tell you the exact same thing.

[Spellhunter.9675]

2 hours ago, Eugchriss.2046 said:

This is actual "secret". Ask the top 50 and they will tell you the exact same thing.

The secret is to learn to play at first. You can dodge players as much as you want but if you can't carry 3-4 gold/silver players on your shoulders all this shady stuff won't help you. And the only proper way to improve is to play against better players.

[Okhu.7948]

Being good at the game helps.

[Razor.6392]

Play the new mesmer spec, catalyst or spellbreaker.

[Jagdtiger.2517]

I doubt you're facing plat players if you're a silver. I'm in high gold right now and my matches have been generally well balanced unless I'm playing at weird hours. If you're facing a harbinger and you're not doing any damage, it may be because they have weakness on you. Weakness massively reduces the damage you deal so you need to cleanse it. Harbinger can spam out weakness without really trying so even if he was another silver player if he just uses his skills he'll have weakness on you. 

[Avatar.3568]

On 12/28/2022 at 9:39 AM, SponTen.1267 said:

At the time I was playing this exact build. But it's not dependent on my build, because I switch around a lot and it can happen in any game. In fact, in most games there will be some sort of team fight where I just cannot do any damage to anyone, or they seem to have crazy heals. I guess that's mostly down to support, which I get, but I don't get it when they're solo.

Hm I've heard something about this. I'm not good and I know that, and that's fine, but it's just frustrating being matched with players wayyyy out of my league.

 

You build Lacks DMG and Sustain, If you want to kill enemys you should Go on a Berserker Rune, Other wise some matchups are Just endless, If you want to stay on a more defense way, Play demolisher, the extra toughness helps to survive big bursts and you May have less health but With the extra toughness your health Pool gets more effective and its easier to resustain to full life.

 

Also small little Note, you should use at wilderness survival 1 3 2 instead of 1 2 2, stability in petswap is massiv

[Shao.7236]

Keep your eyes out for Weakness, it is one of the primary thing that screws any new players. Waiting it out is 100% better than wasting any skills while it's effective.

If there's constant weakness on you. You might be lacking in cleanses. View it the same as fighting normal condition damage. Stack it up on yourself best you can then clear the chunk off.