Burst meta too strong, sustained damage/healing in a weird spot

[Player.2475]

I've been switching classes a lot and trying different builds. Of these, I played many builds that can easily knock you to 0 hp within just a few hits (most flavors of warrior, guardian, thief, mesmer, engineer, power vindicator, power SB), and then builds that are supposed to deal decent damage but have better sustain (bleed/condi druid, catalyst, condi herald/vindicator).

The first group of builds can pretty much win most fights with enough skill, since if someone makes a mistake or runs out of evades/stun breaks, they can literally kill him in 2 hits. I'm not even talking about glass cannon builds here, but more of the meta builds that can easily deliver 10k+ damage in just a couple seconds, while still having access to decent mobility, sustain, and stun breaks.

The second group feels like it can only really expect to win against inexperienced players with PvE build. If they meet their own build type, they will never be able to deal enough damage to outdamage their sustain and can only get a kill if they waste their time for 15 minutes till the reinforcements arrive. If they meet the average meta WvW build, they are screwed, because sustain doesn't help you when two attacks can drop your hp to 0, even in groups. Their best burst damage is about as powerful as a single unboosted 8 cooldown skill of any of the stronger builds, and it can usually be completely negated by a single condi cleanse. Their sustained damage is barely higher than the sustain on one of the stronger builds. 

So, what to do? On one hand, it's annoying to spend 10 mins trying to kill someone and not get a kill, on the other hand, people are also tired of getting 1 shot.

[Junkpile.7439]

Glass kill glass, tank kill glass,  celestial kill everything and won't die.

[Player.2475]

7 minutes ago, Junkpile.7439 said:

Glass kill glass, tank kill glass,  celestial kill everything and won't die.

Tank sometimes kills glass, but glass can kill tank most of the time. Even with 2k+ toughness, you'll still take 13k crits from something like Gunflame or Fierce Blow. Tanks just have more in their skill to potentially block it. But a tank's 4k damage burst will just make a glass laugh.

[kash.9213]

I fill bags wandering around covering people and groups. I'm close to the basic Ritualist Specter build for pve stuff on my main template because it can stretch a little in the different scales that I'll be dragged through and that's not likely to one shot anyone. I treat everyone like a Break Bar boss that can one shot me regardless of what I see them rolling around with and I pack my gear and slots for that kind of moving fight. 

I don't feel like it's unfair that I'll struggle to drop someone if I can't walk them into dismantling themselves like I do with Break Bar bosses. That's my build choice and I'm cool with getting a few outlier kills that my build shouldn't get once in awhile. A lot of people on those burst builds will gas out if they don't know how to stagger things out adaptively and that's their build choice to work on over time. 

Maybe leave a little room in your gear and slots to try to punish and capitalize on those decisive "2 hits" you mentioned that they usually drop you with. That might be your broken Breakbar moment to jump on. 

[Kozumi.5816]

3 hours ago, Junkpile.7439 said:

Glass kill glass, tank kill glass,  celestial kill everything and won't die.

Somehow a worse version of the  holy trinity.

[Hotride.2187]

Sustain is out of control in wvw, its getting out of control even for zerg fights at this point. No, I don't agree with the topic and it has not been my experience, especially when roaming. I've also watched gvgs that take forever. And you used to die way easier in zerg fights than now.

Its pve at this point.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Hotride.2187

[Dawdler.8521]

BUT WONT SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CONDI?! 😱

[Sereath.1428]

Bruh, theres barely enough damage to punish Celestial builds sitting on protection and perpetual healing all fight.
But yes, lets nerf all damage again because of gunflame builds actually killing celestial players in less than 5 mins.

[connor.2180]

Before the days of low skill cap celestial infinite boon spamming builds doing all your defensive work for you, people actually had to use evades and blocks intelligently in order to compete with high burst damage builds. Every profession has the tools to deal with spike damage. 

[Dadnir.5038]

21 minutes ago, connor.2180 said:

Before the days of low skill cap celestial infinite boon spamming builds doing all your defensive work for you, people actually had to use evades and blocks intelligently in order to compete with high burst damage builds. Every profession has the tools to deal with spike damage. 

Unfortunately the access to those strategic tools greatly vary based on the professions so being able to tank damage instead of avoiding them still need to be a viable alternative.

For example, necromancer only have limited access to dodge and a few source of blind to neutralize burst. If you consider that some professions can produce aegis, blind, invuln frame, generate vigor and have evade frames on weapon skills you should probably understand that being able to "tank" hits is thus needed in order to bridge the gap.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Dadnir.5038

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

This is why conditions existed in the first place, but players kept griping about condition damage being the single worst thing in the entire game for years  on end until it was overall reduced and more counters introduced. Now you have no viable counter to permanent Protection and high toughness.

 

Similarly with much increased access to cleanses you have no viable counter to healing since if you do manage to get poison on someone they'll just clean it off right away (unless you can spam it).

 

I don't know why players keep blaming Celestial for this. Lately the players on this forum always see everything backwards; they see the symptom as being the cause of the illness. In fact, it used to be extremely easy to get 100% boon duration even on damage builds before all the nerfs over the years (especially the one that  removed traitline stat bonuses), and self-generated boons actually used to be much stronger than now. Remember the old Might?

 

You're looking at the past with rose-tinted glasses and not realising the reason boons weren't such a problem back then is because they could actually be dealt with.

Edited May 19, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[KrHome.1920]

20 hours ago, Player.2475 said:

Tank sometimes kills glass, but glass can kill tank most of the time. Even with 2k+ toughness, you'll still take 13k crits from something like Gunflame or Fierce Blow. Tanks just have more in their skill to potentially block it. But a tank's 4k damage burst will just make a glass laugh.

There have always been specific skills in the game that are mandatory to dodge. The facetanking damage potential of soldier compared to bersekrer or even marauder is still huge. You can make a lot more mistakes before dying.

Examples:

Gunflame won't oneshot you. You can pop your block, your teleport, your heal etc. and the fight goes on.

Standing in damaging AOE won't wreck you within 2 seconds for the case that the visual clutter on screen is overwhelming  you.

A hybrid encounter (e.g. like celestial) basically becomes a condi encounter as you almost neutralize the direct damage part.

[oatsnjuices.1698]

They should lower cool downs so killing multiple players with less skill is possible.

[TheGrimm.5624]

On 5/18/2023 at 2:37 PM, Player.2475 said:

So, what to do? On one hand, it's annoying to spend 10 mins trying to kill someone and not get a kill, on the other hand, people are also tired of getting 1 shot.

Ah the back and fourth of a decade of the forums. Damage OP, Tanky OP, Condi OP, Cele OP, Boon OP, Sustain OP, Melee OP, Range OP, Zerg OP, Havoc OP, Roamers, if gankers OP else useless why not join the tag..., and burn the Mez and Teef at the stake because they float and therefor must be .....

Not sure you will get answers because truth is a three edged sword. The answer is depends on what variables actually came together in the sandbox at that moment of time.

Outside of that, happy reset all, may your bags be full tonight!

Edited May 19, 2023 by TheGrimm.5624
Friday thought

[asterix.9614]

Yes, we should all play cele stats. Meme build burst too stronk, I don't know how to counter glass cannon gunflame 🙄

Edited May 20, 2023 by asterix.9614

[Burnfall.9573]

21 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

Ah the back and fourth of a decade of the forums. Damage OP, Tanky OP, Condi OP, Cele OP, Boon OP, Sustain OP, Melee OP, Range OP, Zerg OP, Havoc OP, Roamers, if gankers OP else useless why not join the tag..., and burn the Mez and Teef at the stake because they float and therefor must be .....

Not sure you will get answers because truth is a three edged sword. The answer is depends on what variables actually came together in the sandbox at that moment of time.

Outside of that, happy reset all, may your bags be full tonight!

What we are witnessing now is the direct results of Anet continual, repetitive efforts in ignoring and mistreating The Community concerns.

"Deception is one of the quickest ways to gain little things and lose big things"

Edited May 20, 2023 by Burnfall.9573

[Xenesis.6389]

Surprised harbinger wasn't mentioned, for all the random times it's posted about being op. 😏

Anet balancing = Extreme boon spam cele tank specs vs 25 specs that can barely pull off either vs Extreme damage one shot power specs.

Guess who's gets the buffs, the extremes.

🤭🤷‍♂️🍿

[TheGrimm.5624]

2 hours ago, Burnfall.9573 said:

What we are witnessing now is the direct results of Anet continual, repetitive efforts in ignoring and mistreating The Community concerns.

"Deception is one of the quickest ways to gain little things and lose big things"

The repetitive community concerns is what lead to the blanket 30% nerf to everyone versus adjusting outliers and dealing with boons and stacking. Tanks and sustain even said at the time that all the change was going to do was make them the next witch hunt versus its not needed. And here we are. Sorry call out the players for not seeing and stopping to think what they were asking for. It's easy to outraged, hard to be inspired. Details matter.

[Burnfall.9573]

Not too long ago, I had a dream that the Guild Wars 2 was going to plummet this year. That this year, will be the beginning stage of Guild Wars 2 death. 

I do not wish it, it was what I foresaw. 

-I wish the Anet Pioneers of Guild Wars were here to save the game-

As many others have known, they were not valued...they won't take the bait. 

It is all up to Anet now to either change the course of the Toxic state of the game to a healthy competitive experience or continue the course into fulfilling the Prophecy to the game demise.

"There are some people who will never see you as being good enough. That is their short-coming not yours."

Edited May 20, 2023 by Burnfall.9573

[Ashen.2907]

On 5/18/2023 at 11:37 AM, Player.2475 said:

I've been switching classes a lot and trying different builds. Of these, I played many builds that can easily knock you to 0 hp within just a few hits (most flavors of warrior, guardian, thief, mesmer, engineer, power vindicator, power SB), and then builds that are supposed to deal decent damage but have better sustain (bleed/condi druid, catalyst, condi herald/vindicator).

The first group of builds can pretty much win most fights with enough skill, since if someone makes a mistake or runs out of evades/stun breaks, they can literally kill him in 2 hits. I'm not even talking about glass cannon builds here, but more of the meta builds that can easily deliver 10k+ damage in just a couple seconds, while still having access to decent mobility, sustain, and stun breaks.

The second group feels like it can only really expect to win against inexperienced players with PvE build. If they meet their own build type, they will never be able to deal enough damage to outdamage their sustain and can only get a kill if they waste their time for 15 minutes till the reinforcements arrive. If they meet the average meta WvW build, they are screwed, because sustain doesn't help you when two attacks can drop your hp to 0, even in groups. Their best burst damage is about as powerful as a single unboosted 8 cooldown skill of any of the stronger builds, and it can usually be completely negated by a single condi cleanse. Their sustained damage is barely higher than the sustain on one of the stronger builds. 

So, what to do? On one hand, it's annoying to spend 10 mins trying to kill someone and not get a kill, on the other hand, people are also tired of getting 1 shot.

10k in just a couple of seconds is not a burst build. Condi high sustain builds manage more than 5k dps.

[TheGrimm.5624]

13 hours ago, Burnfall.9573 said:

Not too long ago, I had a dream that the Guild Wars 2 was going to plummet this year.

I think we have seen the fall of game about 124 times by now over the existence of the forum. Dawdler, does that track or am I mis-thinking it?

[Burnfall.9573]

26 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

I think we have seen the fall of game about 124 times by now over the existence of the forum. Dawdler, does that track or am I mis-thinking it?

This is real. 

Anet  was unable to fix the game.

[Dawdler.8521]

6 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

I think we have seen the fall of game about 124 times by now over the existence of the forum. Dawdler, does that track or am I mis-thinking it?

 Cant really tell, but it hasnt really been the same since Camelot Unchained released back in 2014 and killed WvW, thats for sure.

[TheGrimm.5624]

4 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

 Cant really tell, but it hasnt really been the same since Camelot Unchained released back in 2014 and killed WvW, thats for sure.

As a backer to CU yup got it in one.

[Thomas.2564]

I think the easiest solution to this, is adressing the "boon spam" situation in wvw atm. It's way to easy to get 25 stacks of might and having almost 100% protection/resolution uptime now or days. Then u add in the extra trait off's u get from certain boons, with certain traits. It's totally out of control. Let's take everyone favorit class atm forexample, harb. Pushes the god mode skill, and gets every single boon in the game, plus 25 stacks of.might then combined with cele gear 😵‍💫🤮

They need to seriously decrease boon duration overall in wvw.