Builds that bridge skill gap?

[Player.2475]

I mained thief for the longest time and thought I was a decent player, but now that I switched to playing different classes I realize how much the builds I was playing were actually holding my hand and made it way easier to survive and avoid bad situations no matter how many mistakes I did.

There's definitely some that I can roll over people without knowing wtf I'm doing, but I always also end up fighting people with similarly broken builds that either take no damage or chain blocks, evades and invulnerability while also having amazing mobility and the ability to kill you in a few hits.

 

I really don't like playing against those builds. I feel like it cheapens the experience of WvW when you can just roll your face across your keyboard and still survive, or get many kills.

Hell, right now I'm watching two guys in WvW go at it with neither of their HP dropping below 90% even though they're spamming stuns and dodges mildlessly. It's embarraassing that this is the state of the game.

 

Are there any builds out there that are so brainless, that even experienced players with meta builds struggle to kill them?

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by Player.2475
Corrected some ambiguous parts

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

40 minutes ago, Player.2475 said:

I mained thief for the longest time and thought I was a decent player, but now that I switched to playing different classes I realize how much the builds I was playing were actually holding my hand and made it way easier to survive and avoid bad situations no matter how many mistakes I did.

There's definitely some that I can roll over people without knowing wtf I'm doing, but I always also end up fighting people with similarly broken builds that either take no damage or chain blocks, evades and invulnerability while also having amazing mobility and the ability to kill you in a few hits.

 

I really don't like playing against those builds. I feel like it cheapens the experience of WvW when you can just roll your face across your keyboard and still survive, or get many kills.

Hell, right now I'm watching two guys in WvW go at it with neither of their HP dropping below 90% even though they're spamming stuns and dodges mildlessly. It's embarraassing that this is the state of the game.

 

Are there any builds out there that are so brainless, that even experienced players with non-meta builds can't kill them?

 

All of teef builds, Condi Harbinger, Condi Necromancer, Condi Druid, Condi Soulbeast, Condi Mirage, Condi Virtuoso, Condi Renegade, Condi Catalyst, Power Scrapper, Power Soulbeast, Power Vindicator.
Probably more, but these are the ones I've met in past week.

[Player.2475]

13 minutes ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

All of teef builds, Condi Harbinger, Condi Necromancer, Condi Druid, Condi Soulbeast, Condi Mirage, Condi Virtuoso, Condi Renegade, Condi Catalyst, Power Scrapper, Power Soulbeast, Power Vindicator.
Probably more, but these are the ones I've met in past week.

So, basically all the builds that are considered 'meta' 😪

[Greviathan.6107]

18 minutes ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

All of teef builds, Condi Harbinger, Condi Necromancer, Condi Druid, Condi Soulbeast, Condi Mirage, Condi Virtuoso, Condi Renegade, Condi Catalyst, Power Scrapper, Power Soulbeast, Power Vindicator.
Probably more, but these are the ones I've met in past week.

I think you forgot the willbender, it's currently the most popular (and by a lot) roaming class along with Catalysts in my experience.

However, let me make some corrections: Harb and Cata are generally in celestial, not condi, and i think Mirage too.

As for the Condi Necro instead, I don't see how it can be considered meta in roaming. I have rarely met them (Since I've started playing again, 1 month ago), and the fights have been pretty simple, sometimes just a little long and boring.

[ollbirtan.2915]

To each their own, I guess. Personally, I could never "git gud" at playing teef in WvW or sPvP. Actually, in sPvP I have like a 30% win ratio on teef which is embarrassing. Guardian, ele, and mesmer on the other hand, feel very rewarding and "fluid" to play for me. 

[Player.2475]

15 minutes ago, ollbirtan.2915 said:

To each their own, I guess. Personally, I could never "git gud" at playing teef in WvW or sPvP. Actually, in sPvP I have like a 30% win ratio on teef which is embarrassing. Guardian, ele, and mesmer on the other hand, feel very rewarding and "fluid" to play for me. 

sPvP has a few changes over WvW which make it a lot harder for classes like Thief and Elementalist to repeatedly disengage, get healed to full HP by being out of combat for 3 seconds and re-engage. You stay in combat for a few seconds for just taking fall damage, even if there's no enemies anywhere near you.

In WvW however, you can leave combat in a second if you put distance between you and your target. So, if you dodge through a thief's burst, or hit him once when he doesn't expect it, he'll be able to completely reset the fight in a matter of seconds. Bonus points if it's a Deadeye that can press 4 twice and get out of every fight on open terrain. So they tend to be a lot less successful in sPvP than in WvW because they can't just reset the fight 10 times per minute and kill you as soon as you make a mistake.

Tbh if they made WvW keep you in combat for as long as they do in sPvP, this sort of abuse  'mechanic' would be impossible and quite a few of these classes with high mobility would be a lot less oppressive.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

2 hours ago, Greviathan.6107 said:

I think you forgot the willbender, it's currently the most popular (and by a lot) roaming class along with Catalysts in my experience.

However, let me make some corrections: Harb and Cata are generally in celestial, not condi, and i think Mirage too.

As for the Condi Necro instead, I don't see how it can be considered meta in roaming. I have rarely met them (Since I've started playing again, 1 month ago), and the fights have been pretty simple, sometimes just a little long and boring.

True, forgot about Willyblenders, be it power or some condi meme, my bad, met too few to care.
Celestial or not, their main source of damage still comes from puking condies left and right, power damage is just bonus to that bs.
Condi Necro may not be meta in roaming, but for sure it's aids to fight against, so much condi and tankiness that you start question why you still play this game with this garbage not nerfed to the ground. You simply overwhelm enemy with condies while tanking everything enemy throws at you, if it's melee spec then kekw, better have kitten load of evades and cleanses.

[dead.7638]

Remove cele stats from wvw.   So much will be fixed.

[Hotride.2187]

Whenever I read something like that, I'm reminded of sentries. The way they just go for a shield bash in such a reliable way. You are in range? Shield bash.

You should not be looking for a build to carry you ("bridge  the skill gap"), you should be looking to improve. But if you can't be bothered to improve, I'm sure cele and condi will be a part of the build that you are looking for.

[Buran.3796]

4 hours ago, dead.7638 said:

Remove cele stats from wvw.   So much will be fixed.

  They removed almost every PvP rune which had any "effect" or meaningful use. They also removed every amulet with high defensive stats, cut the vit/thou in Crusader to 400/400 (is the only amulet with only 2800 stats points) and nerfed the sigils to death.

   Guess what? Now most of the builds in PvP run berserker amulet with Sanctuary rune: they are tankier tan ever while delivering good damage. So don't assume for a single second that removing celestial or trailblazer would make the next meta roaming builds less capable in terms of self sustain, damage output or in their ability to disangage.

[enkidu.5937]

23 hours ago, Player.2475 said:

Are there any builds out there that are so brainless, that even experienced players with non-meta builds can't kill them?

Just contact your local Anet Dev, they will patch you one 😉

[Riba.3271]

Ye, it is game of tanks. Twotapping people isn't a thing anymore.

 

Issue of course arises within WvW from not being able to damage people by large amount in 1 burst so their couple of dashes usually lead them to safety of objectives or allies. So finding fights where enemy must fight or they die is harder and harder. People with cheesy 1 shot engi/mirage builds might land some kills on noobs, but those builds aren't exactly action rich, just thoughtful.

 

Celestial is something you can overcome by timing almost all your abilities, but it will take such a long time that it isn't fun anymore. Add a roamer groups with 1 or 2 minstrel players in the mix, and damaging people feels like absolute garbage. Tickle contest.

 

Ah ye and I tanked 2 top 25 sPvP players with full minstrel willbender while contesting a camp. They gave up after 15 minutes. Of course the build can't kill anyone, but it should be able to survive 1 person even with brainless person piloting it. WvWs state is absolutely disgusting that such antifun is allowed to exist.

Edited February 12, 2023 by Riba.3271

[Player.2475]

On 2/11/2023 at 5:56 PM, dead.7638 said:

Remove cele stats from wvw.   So much will be fixed.

Cele stats aren't really the problem.

The problem is that there's just builds that compromise next to nothing in order to have it all.

The best performing specs offer a lot more sustain (or active mitigation), damage, stun breaks AND mobility combined than the off-meta builds (like the ones rated 'Good' or 3-4 stars on build sites). The strongest classes listed above can usually switch out cele stats, replace sigils and traits to play more defensively/offensively while still keeping most of their celestial potential, but the alternatives have to give up access to stun breaks, mobility, sustain entirely just to deal a bit more damage... or lose most of their damage just to get an extra 300 hp  per second and 10% damage reduction.
Celestial doesn't give you the ability to dash 2-3 times to instantly leave combat, or the damage modifiers that let you deal 10k dps with minimal damage stats.

Cele doesn't give you a spammable access to stealth, superspeed and stability.

Condi and boon spam is strong not because celestial stats make it 40% longer, but because there's classes that can kitten out every buff in the game and 20 stacks of condis every few seconds

[Silinsar.6298]

On 2/11/2023 at 11:55 AM, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

All of teef builds, Condi Harbinger, Condi Necromancer, Condi Druid, Condi Soulbeast, Condi Mirage, Condi Virtuoso, Condi Renegade, Condi Catalyst, Power Scrapper, Power Soulbeast, Power Vindicator.
Probably more, but these are the ones I've met in past week.

Most of what you call condi is played as hybrid / cele bruiser. It's a bit misleading, because depending on how much condition removal you have and what you fight, condis aren't the problem.

 

On 2/11/2023 at 12:08 PM, Player.2475 said:

So, basically all the builds that are considered 'meta' 😪

You basically asked for the meta.

[Mikhael.2391]

On 2/11/2023 at 10:09 AM, Player.2475 said:

I mained thief for the longest time and thought I was a decent player, but now that I switched to playing different classes I

 

Are there any builds out there that are so brainless, that even experienced players with non-meta builds can't kill them?

 

The biggest problem is most classes survive for ever and still do wayyy too much damage so its low skill low risk high reward, I m so bored of game forcing me to play meta to be on pair with others that I just go meme for fun and not in the most kitten by far spec, meme core guardian one shot is how every high dps class build should be high risk high reward, if i fail well, probably will loose against same lvl of skill players or even less skill due to whatever broken class mechanic they have.

Example I posted today:

 

This being said, ANET does not care. balance could be done in a small scale that would not ruin the spam of 1 on key board while following leader like lemmings.

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by Mikhael.2391

[andrewlcl.8176]

1 hour ago, Mikhael.2391 said:

...core guardian one shot is how every high dps class build should be high risk high reward...

 

The trouble is, Anet's idea of high risk/high reward is a Willbender that wombo combos someone, or escapes like Jackie Chan if it fails.

 

Core guard one-shot is high risk, not even high reward. It is largely ineffective in many roaming scenarios because it doesn't consistently pull that sort of damage as in your videos. We need 1) element of surprise against an almost asleep target and, 2) target that's built about as well as a snowflake.

 

It's laughably fun sometimes (and kudos to using it), but let's not make it look more effective than it really is.

[pierwola.9602]

5 hours ago, Mikhael.2391 said:

The biggest problem is most classes survive for ever and still do wayyy too much damage so its low skill low risk high reward, I m so bored of game forcing me to play meta to be on pair with others that I just go meme for fun and not in the most kitten by far spec, core guardian one shot is how every high dps class build should be high risk high reward, if i fail well, probably will loose against same lvl of skill players or even less skill due to whatever broken class mechanic they have.

Example I posted today:

 

This being said, ANET does not care. balance could be done in a small scale that would not ruin the spam of 1 on key board while following leader like lemmings.

 

Your whole build is basically built around instant targeted teleport, one of the most broken s..... in the game.

[Sahne.6950]

On 2/11/2023 at 11:09 AM, Player.2475 said:

Are there any builds out there that are so brainless, that even experienced players with non-meta builds can't kill them?

I am 100% sure that this is the strongest build that you can play for WvW roaming.

It was pretty ridicilous for a long time... and just a few weeks ago, Anet DOUBLED the healingscaling on Tempests sustaintrait... because..... reasons..... we now add the"sceptre rEwoRk" ontop.... and there we have it! A bunker that will burst you in seconds.

The elementalist nerfs that are coming soon dont affect this builds at all. They are reducing some powercoeffs... but this is condi xD

 

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAs2lZwaYasLGJOyPntdA-z1IY1oh/MiVC0rCQyzyWTbAA-w

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by Sahne.6950

[Gotejjeken.1267]

On 2/11/2023 at 5:09 AM, Player.2475 said:

I mained thief for the longest time and thought I was a decent player, but now that I switched to playing different classes I realize how much the builds I was playing were actually holding my hand and made it way easier to survive and avoid bad situations no matter how many mistakes I did.

...

 I always also end up fighting people with similarly broken builds that either take no damage or chain blocks, evades and invulnerability while also having amazing mobility and the ability to kill you in a few hits.

...

I really don't like playing against those builds.

...

Are there any builds out there that are so brainless, that even experienced players with non-meta builds can't kill them?

 

 

Does this break down to:

- Played meta builds

- Fight other people on meta builds

- Don't like other people on meta builds

- Question whether some meta build is so strong a good player on non-meta can't kill them

Just trying to understand this.  Because none of it really has to do with bridging any skill gap--if someone is more skilled than you, you will lose no matter if you are on meta or not.  Provided they actually try and stay engaged that is.  

[Sahne.6950]

4 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

 

Does this break down to:

- Played meta builds

- Fight other people on meta builds

- Don't like other people on meta builds

- Question whether some meta build is so strong a good player on non-meta can't kill them

Just trying to understand this.  Because none of it really has to do with bridging any skill gap--if someone is more skilled than you, you will lose no matter if you are on meta or not.  Provided they actually try and stay engaged that is.  

i think what he wants is one of those " please carry me daddy" builds, with overtuned sustain and still a wagonload of damage.

I think he has a brainfart.... what he tried to say was:

 

Are there any builds out there that are so brainless, that even experienced players with non-meta builds can't kill?

So i gave him the ChadTempest. This should seal the deal.

Edited February 13, 2023 by Sahne.6950

[Aeolus.3615]

6 hours ago, Mikhael.2391 said:

(snip)

 

This being said, ANET does not care. balance could be done in a small scale that would not ruin the spam of 1 on key board while following leader like lemmings.

 

Anet is more towards force players to behave like lemings, that way they can screw balance since meta is mass zerg and ktrain.

[Mikhael.2391]

2 hours ago, pierwola.9602 said:

Your whole build is basically built around instant targeted teleport, one of the most broken s..... in the game.

I hope ur kidding about THIS meme build on CORE guardian being broken where unkillable classes existe with the same outburst and wayyy more survival and mobility.

[Player.2475]

1 hour ago, Sahne.6950 said:

i think what he wants is one of those " please carry me daddy" builds, with overtuned sustain and still a wagonload of damage.

I think he has a brainfart.... what he tried to say was:

 

Are there any builds out there that are so brainless, that even experienced players with non-meta builds can't kill?

So i gave him the ChadTempest. This should seal the deal.

This guy gets it.

Yes, I've seen these people tank 7 people at the same time and still down people with phoenix + dragon's tooth. 🐵 Definitely part of the 'problem' I'm describing.

[Player.2475]

7 hours ago, Mikhael.2391 said:

The biggest problem is most classes survive for ever and still do wayyy too much damage so its low skill low risk high reward, I m so bored of game forcing me to play meta to be on pair with others that I just go meme for fun and not in the most kitten by far spec, core guardian one shot is how every high dps class build should be high risk high reward, if i fail well, probably will loose against same lvl of skill players or even less skill due to whatever broken class mechanic they have.

 

 

I saw you yesterday! I'm so glad that we're on the same team LOL

But seriously, how are you even supposed to be able to react to that sort of 20k damage burst if you don't see it coming other than staying on your mount 24/7? You don't even have the time to process what happened without checking the combat log.

[Gehenna.3625]

I agree that there's not enough trade off for prioritizing defense or offense. That's mainly because there are many more elements that make up your defenses or offensive capability. Runes, boons, class mechanics are the sort of thing I'm talking about.

But additionally I would like to offer another viewpoint on this topic.

One of the main issues that makes WvW so unbalanced is player skill. No, let me rephrase that, it's how much player skill matters. Now, I do believe that player skill should be rewarded with better results and higher numbers if you will. However, how big of a difference it makes is where the issue lies. That's why boonballs are so annoying and impossible to fight with random groups, because, in my view, boons are way too powerful and make way too much of a difference. Boons should be worth it, but not make you almost invincible. 

The issue with celestial gear is also that you don't need a lot of concentration to make boons 100% effective. I believe that an FB only needs about 50% duration from concentration to be able to upkeep quickness 100% of the time. That should be 100% or close to it. And instantly this will make celestial gear a lot less interesting.

GW2 is all about 100% upkeep of boons and that's its weakness as well. I'm not going to spend much time on why I see 100% upkeep as ridiculous because it just creates a new baseline that you need to maintain as a chore. But what I want to talk about more is that that new baseline is way too high and both on the defensive end and the offensive end. And a second, much higher baseline makes an incredible imbalance.

And what this also does, is create a situation where the slightest change can have a major effect on classes, making class balancing all the more precarious. And to minimize that, imo, Anet has to make boons only half as effective, for example. Still enough to make it worth it but not so much that you become an invincible boonball.

It also means that when you have a boonball of 15 players that you can laugh at a random group of 25 and thrash them. Remember, there is a limit per map on the amount of players and this means that when a server has to bring 30+ players to deal with a group of 15 players that is too much of a difference.

Player skill should be rewarded but not as much as it does now. It trivializes any opposition and when you're a group of better players it takes away all the challenge and that's a problem. People get used to that and enjoy thrashing larger groups of enemy players just because they can. Do note that not every server is as organized as the other so for players on the other end it's a discouraging experience altogether. Both things should not be.

But for all intents and purposes I feel that boons are way too powerful and the fact that they can be maintained 100% of the time makes it even worse. There shouldn't be two baselines in WvW but if there must be, then lower the higher baseline. I don't see Anet doing anything about it though. Boons are kinda the baby that they're most proud of and they will not give up on that no matter the cost I fear.