Looking for reaction focused class

[Dirame.8521]

On 9/14/2023 at 9:16 AM, Rudens.3245 said:

Hi,

I find rotation based gameplay boring and loving mmos it's the bane of my existence in them.

Is there any class that has gameplay more focused on reactionary use of skill vs the rotation type?

I'm currently using elementalist but, even though it has much more skills to use and you can use them reactionary, most of the time it still distils to using rotation.

I mean more blocks/evades, counters, the class doesn't have to be high on damage or anything - if it's the worse in game, I don't care.

Is daredevil something that might be close to it or is there any else? 

Guardian. Core, Willbender or Firebrand. Very reactive gameplay for me.

[xellink.7568]

4 minutes ago, Dirame.8521 said:

Guardian. Core, Willbender or Firebrand. Very reactive gameplay for me.

Very high APM for willbender but it is very reactive too, but you also lose two utilities to generate the fire field and spin. For power it's still not too bad. 

Core guardian has the best versatility especially on hammer. While it's true that the dps cap is low, the build consistently achieves above average numbers with just autos and the utilities are freed up such that you have passive heals, two group stun breaks that you can rescue your team and also no cast time on virtues, making the gameplay very versatile, low APM and being able to carry mechanics.

Firebrand is the best for support, providing quick and heals and lots of utilities including group stun breaks. It is also decent in dps builds, invest in 1 espec and you can get 3 roles.

[AliamRationem.5172]

Quote

Your viper weaver example uses resustain from Water (which is part of what I was referring to, but it's healing after the fact) and otherwise from what I could see, just uses dodges and a disengage skill to have the opportunity to resustain. This is... not exactly outside of what pretty much any profession can do in terms of reactive play, since every profession has two dodges and most professions have a disengage. It's skillful, yes, but there are videos of every profession soloing the frog.

You said that ele relies on passive defense traits and utilities to survive.  The purpose of the example was to demonstrate that this is not the only way to play it.  Also, I didn't rotate to water primarily for resustain.  First, it wasn't necessary as I wouldn't have died without it.   I rotated to water to complete weave self and apply CC on the defiance bar.  This gave me access to comet + tailored victory, which wouldn't have been usable without rotating to water (and my other big CC was still on cooldown from the first defiance break).  The second time I used it to disengage as the boss pulled out his knife because I didn't have the endurance to dodge the imminent melee combo.

And not that it matters, but I don't think you'll find many videos of people soloing that boss in full glass melee builds.  Most of them use range because it makes this boss a joke and the ones who do the melee dance typically tank up because one stun-chain combo with the knife can 100-0 a build like this.  Which I think makes it a pretty good example of what you can do if you're the sort of player who enjoys employing active defense, positioning, and timing and why I think some ele builds make a great fit for that.

And just to be clear, I'm not saying guardian or other classes aren't a good pick for reactive gameplay.  I'm super jealous of skills like Advance!  I could do so much with that! I think it's more about how you build and use the available kit.  Some ele builds like the ones I play have a lot of that.  Others are more passive.

Edited September 17, 2023 by AliamRationem.5172

[Buran.3796]

On 9/16/2023 at 6:54 AM, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Bladesworn has a rotation.  For any practical sense, it is merely a suggestion.  Using Bladesworn well requires patience, knowledge, and foresight.  If you know the enemy patterns and where they spawn during events, you can kill entire groups of foes instantly.  Those two seconds can be quite the heavy time investment, so maximizing Bladesworn's potential is more about knowing when to engage Dragon Slash vs. when to stay mobile and attacking.  

   Another vote for power Bladesworn.

   The spec loads most of its damage and re-sustain in the Dragon burst attack; this means that you must known when a foe could interrupt or evade you so you need to anticipate that in advance, using Triggergurad (aegis), Flicker Step or stability. A poorly played Bladesworn goes terrible; a kenshin played Bladesworn looks and feels like an anime character, with huge numbers filling the screen.

   Thief and Willbender are also very rective, in the sense that if you play badly your cards your damage will suffer a lot, and they are less tanky/more exposed than other specs.

[Buran.3796]

On 9/16/2023 at 6:54 AM, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Bladesworn has a rotation.  For any practical sense, it is merely a suggestion.  Using Bladesworn well requires patience, knowledge, and foresight.  If you know the enemy patterns and where they spawn during events, you can kill entire groups of foes instantly.  Those two seconds can be quite the heavy time investment, so maximizing Bladesworn's potential is more about knowing when to engage Dragon Slash vs. when to stay mobile and attacking.  

   Another vote for power Bladesworn.

   The spec loads most of its damage and re-sustain in the Dragon burst attack; this means that you must known when a foe could interrupt or evade you so you need to anticipate that in advance, using Triggergurad (aegis), Flicker Step or stability. A poorly played Bladesworn goes terrible; a kenshin played Bladesworn looks and feels like an anime character, with huge numbers filling the screen.

   Thief and Willbender are also very rective, in the sense that if you play badly your cards your damage will suffer a lot, and they are less tanky/more exposed than other specs.

[draxynnic.3719]

14 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

You said that ele relies on passive defense traits and utilities to survive.  The purpose of the example was to demonstrate that this is not the only way to play it.  Also, I didn't rotate to water primarily for resustain.  First, it wasn't necessary as I wouldn't have died without it.   I rotated to water to complete weave self and apply CC on the defiance bar.  This gave me access to comet + tailored victory, which wouldn't have been usable without rotating to water (and my other big CC was still on cooldown from the first defiance break).  The second time I used it to disengage as the boss pulled out his knife because I didn't have the endurance to dodge the imminent melee combo.

And not that it matters, but I don't think you'll find many videos of people soloing that boss in full glass melee builds.  Most of them use range because it makes this boss a joke and the ones who do the melee dance typically tank up because one stun-chain combo with the knife can 100-0 a build like this.  Which I think makes it a pretty good example of what you can do if you're the sort of player who enjoys employing active defense, positioning, and timing and why I think some ele builds make a great fit for that.

And just to be clear, I'm not saying guardian or other classes aren't a good pick for reactive gameplay.  I'm super jealous of skills like Advance!  I could do so much with that! I think it's more about how you build and use the available kit.  Some ele builds like the ones I play have a lot of that.  Others are more passive.

I didn't say passive, I said boons and resustain. That's generally how elementalist manages to be so survivable in competitive modes - you usually have access to a fair amount of protection, traits that reduce damage on performing certain actions, auras that reduce the damage that you take either directly or indirectly, and the like. Thing is that most of these are fairly 'fire and forget' - you trigger the effect and you're covered for several seconds, you're not relying on single-hit blocks or precisely timed evades like some other professions do. The other side of elementalist survivability is that while it has a small health bar, it's very good at keeping that bar topped up with cleanses and healing (restoration signet giving you fairly high resustain, often having water skills to pump it up, and so on). But again, this isn't relying on split-second reactions, it's about repairing the damage after it has already landed.

Which is why elementalist has a reputation for being squishy in group PvE content - elementalist generally compensates for its low defensive stats by being good at being its own support (and yes, that applies to glass builds), but when there's a dedicated support, that matters a lot less while the low base health and armour does still matter.

But the amount of actual reactive play is on the level of other professions. You have your two dodges, and the odd evade and block. But elementalist access to this sort of thing is only around the baseline. Worse, elementalist mechanics often make it actively harder to react to stimuli. Tempests might be partway through an overload. Weavers might need two attunement shifts to be able to access a specific skill in the 3-5 slots, so they don't have it when they need it. Catalysts might not have their earth sphere when they need that aegis because they're consuming energy maintaining quickness, and they get punished for using their utility block if they're not in an earth sphere.

Look, I'm not saying elementalist has no reactive gameplay at all. This is Guild Wars 2 - everyone does. But in a comparative analysis, when giving advice to someone specifically looking for reactive gameplay? It's pretty low in the list, maybe even right on the bottom. Elementalist gameplay is typically about developing a rhythm, combining various skills and attunements together for synergies and triggering various effects - while you may need to alter that rhythm depending on circumstances, elementalist is generally not a profession where pressing precisely the right button at precisely the right time in response to a specific tell is critical. As opposed to things like daredevil reliance on evades, guardian aegis usage, warrior using Whirlwind Attack or Bull's Charge to evade an attack, and so on.

Addendum: You're citing using the water sword 2 disengage when out of endurance for dodges as an example of reactive play, and it's not wrong, but that's something most professions can do. Thief, ranger, mesmer, engineer, warrior, and revenant all have skills that can roll or teleport them back out of melee range in a pinch. You make a big deal about doing it fully melee, which other professions wouldn't do... because other professions would probably pull off that trick by swapping to a ranged weapon that has a disengage in order to avoid that hit. Elementalist sword is unusual in that it's a melee weapon with a disengage, but this isn't because elementalist is an incredibly reaction-focused class, it's because elementalist doesn't have weaponswap and therefore doesn't have the option to disengage by switching to staff for Burning Retreat, so instead they put a disengage on the attunement you're most likely to swap to when you need to back up and resustain.

Edited September 18, 2023 by draxynnic.3719
Added addendum

[AliamRationem.5172]

32 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I didn't say passive, I said boons and resustain. That's generally how elementalist manages to be so survivable in competitive modes - you usually have access to a fair amount of protection, traits that reduce damage on performing certain actions, auras that reduce the damage that you take either directly or indirectly, and the like. Thing is that most of these are fairly 'fire and forget' - you trigger the effect and you're covered for several seconds, you're not relying on single-hit blocks or precisely timed evades like some other professions do. The other side of elementalist survivability is that while it has a small health bar, it's very good at keeping that bar topped up with cleanses and healing (restoration signet giving you fairly high resustain, often having water skills to pump it up, and so on). But again, this isn't relying on split-second reactions, it's about repairing the damage after it has already landed.

Which is why elementalist has a reputation for being squishy in group PvE content - elementalist generally compensates for its low defensive stats by being good at being its own support (and yes, that applies to glass builds), but when there's a dedicated support, that matters a lot less while the low base health and armour does still matter.

But the amount of actual reactive play is on the level of other professions. You have your two dodges, and the odd evade and block. But elementalist access to this sort of thing is only around the baseline. Worse, elementalist mechanics often make it actively harder to react to stimuli. Tempests might be partway through an overload. Weavers might need two attunement shifts to be able to access a specific skill in the 3-5 slots, so they don't have it when they need it. Catalysts might not have their earth sphere when they need that aegis because they're consuming energy maintaining quickness, and they get punished for using their utility block if they're not in an earth sphere.

Look, I'm not saying elementalist has no reactive gameplay at all. This is Guild Wars 2 - everyone does. But in a comparative analysis, when giving advice to someone specifically looking for reactive gameplay? It's pretty low in the list, maybe even right on the bottom. Elementalist gameplay is typically about developing a rhythm, combining various skills and attunements together for synergies and triggering various effects - while you may need to alter that rhythm depending on circumstances, elementalist is generally not a profession where pressing precisely the right button at precisely the right time in response to a specific tell is critical. As opposed to things like daredevil reliance on evades, guardian aegis usage, warrior using Whirlwind Attack or Bull's Charge to evade an attack, and so on.

Addendum: You're citing using the water sword 2 disengage when out of endurance for dodges as an example of reactive play, and it's not wrong, but that's something most professions can do. Thief, ranger, mesmer, engineer, warrior, and revenant all have skills that can roll or teleport them back out of melee range in a pinch. You make a big deal about doing it fully melee, which other professions wouldn't do... because other professions would probably pull off that trick by swapping to a ranged weapon that has a disengage in order to avoid that hit. Elementalist sword is unusual in that it's a melee weapon with a disengage, but this isn't because elementalist is an incredibly reaction-focused class, it's because elementalist doesn't have weaponswap and therefore doesn't have the option to disengage by switching to staff for Burning Retreat, so instead they put a disengage on the attunement you're most likely to swap to when you need to back up and resustain.

Just to be clear, having access to 2 extra evades on your weapon kit is less reactive than nearly all other classes because they can...slot utilities that are reactive?  And elementalist can't?  I don't typically do so because it isn't necessary for PvE, but twist of fate?  I mean, you mentioned advance which just gives aegis twice.  This is a stunbreak + evade + super speed with 2 charges in a utility slot.  I guess I don't really see how you figure a spec like sword weaver is less reactive.  Tempest?  Sure.  I hate channeled skills in general and tempest overloads are the longest in the game.  That's why I play weaver instead and why I suggested it.  But hey, to each their own.  If you think it's bottom of the barrel I guess you do you.

[Matoro.9708]

I'll just throw out there that core engi is garbage but the tool belt is very nice. Makes me feel like I have a second skill bar I can use just for reacting to stuff. I cannot play any other class, I like it so much.

[draxynnic.3719]

5 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Just to be clear, having access to 2 extra evades on your weapon kit is less reactive than nearly all other classes because they can...slot utilities that are reactive?  And elementalist can't?  I don't typically do so because it isn't necessary for PvE, but twist of fate?  I mean, you mentioned advance which just gives aegis twice.  This is a stunbreak + evade + super speed with 2 charges in a utility slot.  I guess I don't really see how you figure a spec like sword weaver is less reactive.  Tempest?  Sure.  I hate channeled skills in general and tempest overloads are the longest in the game.  That's why I play weaver instead and why I suggested it.  But hey, to each their own.  If you think it's bottom of the barrel I guess you do you.

Yes, because most other professions can also get two or more evades, short term blocks, and other reactive skills out of their weapon skills, and can typically get at least one utility skill as well.  Running sword might well be the most reaction-focused elementalist build, but I'm pretty sure I could at least match it on anything except necromancer and engineer (and I'm not 100% sure I couldn't do it on those). And that's deliberately choosing a build that minimises the effect of some of the things that limit elementalist ability to act in a reactive matter, such as long channels and often having a high priority on rotations.

Edited September 18, 2023 by draxynnic.3719

[Raarsi.6798]

Most warrior stuff is pretty reactive gameplay.  Bladesworn and berserker are both pretty good, and spellbreaker is for if you feel like using more than one brain cell to play.