Cata is steamrolling mat in part because you eat each other alive on the forums.

[Vancho.8750]

55 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

I honestly have no idea why it even should be considered the worst elite skill engineer has access to. In my opinion, elixir x is worse.

The unblockable AoE CC is quite nice, especially since there are so many classes running around with blocks right now. The elite is also currently used on the meta tools holo build.

Idk I feel is way stronger then allot of stuff, maybe People prefer the Supply crate cause of the animation canceling bugmancy and it getting second chance of cc from the turret imob, mortar kit might be winning out cause of .being big AoE weapon kit and Elexir X is Rampage or Tornado which are probably one of the good elites that Warrior or Ele can take.
Any other profession would like to have Something like Prime Light beam even if it didn't do damage, a 40 second cd unblocable AOE CC is great how ever you look at it, when you look at the skills there aren't many Can opener skills with unblockable available and when there are they are not as accessible as PLB .

[Lucentfir.7430]

I'm just going to say it. Sterilizing the game of its options, via removal of many stats/sigils/runes was a mistake and balance has gone about whack-a-mole style of nerfing(this isn't to say things shouldn't be nerfed or balanced) can anyone say they were at all surprised how we got here? The entire cycle has been QQ Nerf Y is OP NERF-> It gets nerfed -> QQ Z now is OP do something about it -> it is nerfed -> X is now OP - so on and so forth. On top of that the game mode has devolved from thinking about your group composition and what you can do to counter a opposing team to a 'team game' but people want it to be balanced around 1v1s on a small node, and to keep defanging things that they have a problem with specifically. Then using a AT system that hardly anyone actually competes in except the usual suspects and then point to that as the defacto standard of what's balanced and what isn't(And to be honest anytime any profession is featured in a MAT, it's a ill omen for people that play those classes).

Then there's the people scratching their head "Uhmm it's just a population issue, and things would be better if we had more population"  then continues wondering why population keeps getting lower and continues to shrink, DUH the game would be better if it had more population as you'd get more rounded matches of skill level, but I don't think many thought it was worth staying after they get what they came for(legendary gear) and that's a telling sign. Then there's the case of builds that keep on getting orbital struck because of the woes of players how they think it's totally unfair how X gets to do this, but Y is balanced, meanwhile Y is busted af in certain areas they're overlooking and isn't seen because it isn't the most widely played atm, and Z is just waiting for its turn to get discovered and become the new X. 

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

11 hours ago, chromodynamix.2495 said:

Oh yeah 100%.  Lots of people here cannot assess balance holistically, they think this system of whack-a-mole making things worthless and making things broken is somehow healthy.

I agree on that. It is difficult, if not impossible to look at balance from an objective, factual point of view because it is inherently very personal to players and subjective in its conception and in how it is tweaked via balance patches. I think one should be sus of anyone who claims to know more about than anyone else about balance because they are all of them equally ignorant and blessed for being so.

11 hours ago, chromodynamix.2495 said:

I think otherwise because people are always complaining in any balance...

This too is true. This is why we will forever hate and despise the redditor.

11 hours ago, chromodynamix.2495 said:

and it's because builds are underpowered or overpowered and not balanced quickly.

But on the other hand I don't think this is actually what makes the redditors complain so much. I think that balance is meaningless on its own, and that PvP is deeply flawed from a more base, fundamental level. If PvP itself is bad then any amount of balance patches are just band-aid solutions at best, or yet another reason to infinitely complain at worst.

Shining up 💩still makes it 💩basically. I wish they'd give me a reason to play their PvP first before everyone starts losing their minds over how to balance it.

Note too that none of these redditors are ever happy. They cannot be pleased. They are more than willing talk about the game like they hate it one minute, and then they're obsessed with it the next.

[Leonidrex.5649]

OP is a 5Head.
we wouldnt complain about cata being broken if we just didnt nerf condi rev, condi rev would just be perpetually invulnerable all game as usual so you just slap 1 on each node and cata cant do kitten. this is how its ment to be.

[Kuma.1503]

I've never been that bothered by overperformers.

I play this game for fun, and whack-a-mole balance just leads to scenarios leads to scenarios like what we had from Feb 2020 - EOD launch. 

I really don't care if someone elses build is stronger, so long as the specs people get attached to don't get YEETed into the void for an indefinite time because one build became meta defining one time. 

Maybe they were a bit annoying to fight, but deleting them leads to scenarios down the road where something else becomes meta and we have fewer options to deal with it. The natural end point is metas where "Everything is balanced but there's just these 2-3 specs that are unbearably OP". 

And we foolishly try to nerf those 2-3 specs only for something else with no current answer to it to rise up because the would-be counters are overnerfed. And the cycle continues for years with the community thinking that "if we just tone down these OP specs nothing will rise up and take over this time"! We never learn our lesson. 

On top of that, getting attatched to a build only for it to get smiter's boon'ed is what causes people to quit the game. (Especially when they didn't deserve a nerf in the first place... *cough* Give scrapper quickness back *cough*)

Not saying all nerfs are bad, but over reliance on them, and over nerfing are a real issue in this game. Smiter's booning tends to have negative long term consequences despite getting rid of something people hate in the short term. 

 

On a more positive note. I can finally play Condi Mech in PvP/WvW again without being called a noob. Been enjoying that lately. People have some funny reactions when they realize they just gunned down by Jade from St. Farm. 

 

Edited February 1, 2023 by Kuma.1503

[UNOwen.7132]

On 1/31/2023 at 9:14 PM, Vancho.8750 said:

Well it is ublockable AoE ranged cc on low cd, closest skill to it is Chilled to the bone which does not do damage and is not unblockable and it is kinda go balls deep into the fight skill is probably picked over the rest of the elites on necro, Prime light beam might not be the best Engi elite but by comparison it is probably better than most elite skills on most professions by large margin.

What makes unblockable attacks (normally) strong is being able to be used on reaction to someone blocking to get them out of a block. Prime Light Beam has an insanely long 1.25 second cast time. Youre not gonna get that out of it. Its still way too easy to dodge too. Chilled to the bone has the advantage of being circular AoE, and ccing for longer, and even then I believe it is not used for similar reasons.

 

Hahahahaha, nooooo. Not even close. I can definitely think of worse elites in other classes. But even across classes, its bottom 50% at minimum, and I'd say bottom 25% more accurately. Most elite skills on most professions are miles better than PLB.

[Bazsi.2734]

I agree. Stop posting on the forums, you're confusing the poor devs. Nerf thief!

[Kodama.6453]

15 hours ago, Bazsi.2734 said:

I agree. Stop posting on the forums, you're confusing the poor devs. Nerf thief!

Don't worry, shadow meld is already on it's way to get melted.