No counter play builds are worse than " Overpowered" builds ( Devs MUST read)

[Hex.8714]

There has always been builds more oppressive than the " meta OP" builds that could still be countered because there was room for counter play. And the problem with gw2 balance is that its always the meta builds that get nerfed, the ones that are the most effective in ATs and high level play instead of focusing on toxic builds that ruin the game.

Now what is counterplay? Its a very simple concept, counterplay involves being able to counter the enemy's most damaging/ dangerous skills while also being able to avoid their CC and be able to CC them and damage them reliably. Every class should be capable of doing such in a way that dosent revolve around rng or passive damage/defense application or insta cast spike from stealth ( this already got toned down, looking at 1 shot chrono and sic em soulbeast)/

Perfect example would be CI mesmer vs meta holo/rev. Even though rev and holo are objectively stronger builds, at least there is room for counterplay, you know how to avoid all their damage / CC/ burst and counter their defenses, but when a class can just passively apply damage through clones and confusion/ torment on top of being able to perma daze and perma immob passively though traits its when the whole gw2 pvp experience goes downhill for players and its also what makes people quit and not want to play the game.

Guild wars 2 has always struggled with balancing on high tier pvp vs normal ranked, and its not a question of what works vs " bad players" and what works at highest level of play, it becomes about counter play and toxicity and overall build usefulness. Its the same reason why Sic em soulbeast got nerfed, its not because SLB was overpoperfmoring in AT but because the build was toxic and lacked counterplay so at least arena net does still acknowledge toxic buiilds but there still more of them that need to be nerfed to make the pvp experience betterfor everyone and make it less toxic and have more counter play.

Im mainly looking at condi/CI mirage, condi thief, staff acro thief, bunker weaver and maybe some other builds that we haven't discovered yet since the balance patch hasent been out for that long yet but most of these builds have the same issue of excessive passive damage application or overtuned defensive kit that reduces the ability to counterplay since there isint enough room to punish or too much passive dmg.

TLDR: A strong build that has high damage and high sustain/mobility but that can be countered is much less problematic than a build that has just 1 of these strenghts but the way its applied has no counterplay. Exemple 1 shot chrono vs holo. Holo is 10x stronger than 1 shot chrono mesmer that got nerfed, but i would much rather fight a holo than get 100-0ed from stealth by a paper gimmick build.

It dosent mean meta builds dont need nerfing but it means the " gimmick " toxic lack of counterplay builds need to be looked at first, then tone down the meta builds by tweaking the numbers and make it less oppressive.

[JayAction.9056]

Bro you are dancing with words and half of what you are saying makes no sense.

1. Objectively Mes is stronger than everything in game
2. Mes has the highest damage in the game and the highest sustain in the game as well as having the largest PVP tool kit and game breaking “God Power” abilities
3. Rev?
4. Meta Rev is objectively stronger than Mes? Do you know what the word objective means? You completely misused the word.
5. Mes currently holds the top 3 spots of the leaderboard and I will put real money on it you won’t beat them with anything in the game. Especially Kronos.

[Hex.8714]

@JayAction.9056 said:Bro you are dancing with words and half of what you are saying makes no sense.

1. Objectively Mes is stronger than everything in game
2. Mes has the highest damage in the game and the highest sustain in the game as well as having the largest PVP tool kit and game breaking “God Power” abilities
3. Rev?
4. Meta Rev is objectively stronger than Mes? Do you know what the word objective means? You completely misused the word.
5. Mes currently holds the top 3 spots of the leaderboard and I will put real money on it you won’t beat them with anything in the game. Especially Kronos.

Thats the issue, they balance around ATs, and the meta in AT wont change, it will be FB, scourge, rev holo and SB/mirage for side nodes. yes technically even scourge is better than mesmer because of team fight potential thats the point I was trying to make. But scourge/rev can easely be countered but mesmer cannot . When paired with a support class like FB, a scourge or a rev is alot more useful than a mesmer, but mesmer is 10x more oppresive because of lack of counterplay.

[Eurantien.4632]

Condi mesmer has counter play. Daze mantra does not. That's the problem. A game built around dodging animations has zero place for an instant cast daze. When paired with CI it becomes even more ridiculous.

Daze mantra must go.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

I stopped taking this post seriously as soon as I saw acro staff. Sry but it may annoy u but it has tons of counter play. It's very skill casting animations have frame the DD can easily punished in. Half of what I suspect u think has no counter play are builds that just annoy u lol as for acro staff its prob the very mechanics that it has which match the rogue archetype that are what's annoying u. So if acro staff lost the things that annoy u would it still resemble a rogue type class? Would it be effective or a free bag? Cuz staff acro sure as shit does not have a heavy presence right now in pvp or ever has really lol unless every class has same skills, mobility, damage on skills theres never going to be perfect balance and plus everyone playing the same archetype or build be boring as shit. All u can do in a game with multiple classes is design the skills and strengths of a class in best way that suites the archetype. Rogue for example a staple in mmo's is usually squishy bursty class that relies on mobility, evasiveness and underhanded type abilities to kill and survive, all the goodies that cause salt lol. Remove those things and the archetype crumbles, after all a effective rogue is a annoying rogue. I've never fought any thieves even DE's I couldn't counter. Mesmers same thing applies but that's not to say these types of classes cant be balanced to fall in line with others if a competent team was adjusting things. Look at warrior, a class that had low stability just gets cc'd than cleaved to death on the ground, they could find warrior annoying with low counter play. Theres annoying seemingly un counter able builds on every class depending on what class or build ur playing in this game. I'm not surprised mirage holds top 3 tho lol

[JayAction.9056]

@Hex.8714 said:

@JayAction.9056 said:Bro you are dancing with words and half of what you are saying makes no sense.

1. Objectively Mes is stronger than everything in game
2. Mes has the highest damage in the game and the highest sustain in the game as well as having the largest PVP tool kit and game breaking “God Power” abilities
3. Rev?
4. Meta Rev is objectively stronger than Mes? Do you know what the word objective means? You completely misused the word.
5. Mes currently holds the top 3 spots of the leaderboard and I will put real money on it you won’t beat them with anything in the game. Especially Kronos
   .

Thats the issue, they balance around ATs, and the meta in AT wont change, it will be FB, scourge, rev holo and SB/mirage for side nodes. yes technically even scourge is better than mesmer because of team fight potential thats the point I was trying to make. But scourge/rev can easely be countered but mesmer cannot . When paired with a support class like FB, a scourge or a rev is alot more useful than a mesmer, but mesmer is 10x more oppresive because of lack of counterplay.

You keep saying things are better than Mes but they are not.

Literally everything Rev does, a Mes does better. Damage, sustain, mobility, disengage, utility ... Mes does better than Rev in all of that and the numbers say it.

They don’t balance around AT.

[Hex.8714]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:I stopped taking this post seriously as soon as I saw acro staff. Sry but it may annoy u but it has tons of counter play. It's very skill casting animations have frame the DD can easily punished in. Half of what I suspect u think has no counter play are builds that just annoy u lol as for acro staff its prob the very mechanics that it has which match the rogue archetype that are what's annoying u. So if acro staff lost the things that annoy u would it still resemble a rogue type class? Would it be effective or a free bag? Cuz staff acro sure as kitten does not have a heavy presence right now in pvp or ever has really lol

I mean if being able to evade 20 times in a row seems to be balanced to you in a game thats based around evading / applying damage , you must be very delusional, A staff thief at 1600-1700 rating has to be ignored or else the team is wasting resources by 1v2ing the thief for an extended perioid of time while losing the rest of the map.

[Hex.8714]

@JayAction.9056 said:

@Hex.8714 said:

@JayAction.9056 said:Bro you are dancing with words and half of what you are saying makes no sense.

1. Objectively Mes is stronger than everything in game
2. Mes has the highest damage in the game and the highest sustain in the game as well as having the largest PVP tool kit and game breaking “God Power” abilities
3. Rev?
4. Meta Rev is objectively stronger than Mes? Do you know what the word objective means? You completely misused the word.
5. Mes currently holds the top 3 spots of the leaderboard and I will put real money on it you won’t beat them with anything in the game. Especially Kronos
   .

Thats the issue, they balance around ATs, and the meta in AT wont change, it will be FB, scourge, rev holo and SB/mirage for side nodes. yes technically even scourge is better than mesmer because of team fight potential thats the point I was trying to make. But scourge/rev can easely be countered but mesmer cannot . When paired with a support class like FB, a scourge or a rev is alot more useful than a mesmer, but mesmer is 10x more oppresive because of lack of counterplay.

You keep saying things are better than Mes but they are not.

Literally everything Rev does, a Mes does better. Damage, sustain, mobility, disengage, utility ... Mes does better than Rev in all of that and the numbers say it.

They don’t balance around AT.

If that was the case then scourge would not be played at all as a class, since it has no sustain/ moblity and all it has is damage and team fight presence. Rev, scourge and holo are all better than mesmer at team fighting when paired with a support, hence why they are meta builds and have the most presence in ATs.

[JayAction.9056]

@Hex.8714 said:

@JayAction.9056 said:

@Hex.8714 said:

@JayAction.9056 said:Bro you are dancing with words and half of what you are saying makes no sense.

1. Objectively Mes is stronger than everything in game
2. Mes has the highest damage in the game and the highest sustain in the game as well as having the largest PVP tool kit and game breaking “God Power” abilities
3. Rev?
4. Meta Rev is objectively stronger than Mes? Do you know what the word objective means? You completely misused the word.
5. Mes currently holds the top 3 spots of the leaderboard and I will put real money on it you won’t beat them with anything in the game. Especially Kronos
   .

Thats the issue, they balance around ATs, and the meta in AT wont change, it will be FB, scourge, rev holo and SB/mirage for side nodes. yes technically even scourge is better than mesmer because of team fight potential thats the point I was trying to make. But scourge/rev can easely be countered but mesmer cannot . When paired with a support class like FB, a scourge or a rev is alot more useful than a mesmer, but mesmer is 10x more oppresive because of lack of counterplay.

You keep saying things are better than Mes but they are not.

Literally everything Rev does, a Mes does better. Damage, sustain, mobility, disengage, utility ... Mes does better than Rev in all of that and the numbers say it.

They don’t balance around AT.

If that was the case then scourge would not be played at all as a class, since it has no sustain/ moblity and all it has is damage and team fight presence. Rev, scourge and holo are all better than mesmer at team fighting when paired with a support, hence why they are meta builds and have the most presence in ATs.

ATs matter for all of nothing and outside of the top 2 teams most people in ATs are trash.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@Hex.8714 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:I stopped taking this post seriously as soon as I saw acro staff. Sry but it may annoy u but it has tons of counter play. It's very skill casting animations have frame the DD can easily punished in. Half of what I suspect u think has no counter play are builds that just annoy u lol as for acro staff its prob the very mechanics that it has which match the rogue archetype that are what's annoying u. So if acro staff lost the things that annoy u would it still resemble a rogue type class? Would it be effective or a free bag? Cuz staff acro sure as kitten does not have a heavy presence right now in pvp or ever has really lol

I mean if being able to evade 20 times in a row seems to be balanced to you in a game thats based around evading / applying damage , you must be very delusional, A staff thief at 1600-1700 rating has to be ignored or else the team is wasting resources by 1v2ing the thief for an extended perioid of time while losing the rest of the map.

Again that's a learning issue on ur part part of the evade rotation is vault and bound which both have frames at end of the skills that the thief can be punished and since it's a thief that usually means dead type punished. No one talks about acro staff in pvp cuz it's a crap duel build compared to other classes, worse +1 and decap build compared to s/d, hell even s/d is a better dueler than acro staff lmao only time acro staff is ok at best is in wvw zerg bombing and that's only compared to other thief builds not classes

[Hex.8714]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Hex.8714 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:I stopped taking this post seriously as soon as I saw acro staff. Sry but it may annoy u but it has tons of counter play. It's very skill casting animations have frame the DD can easily punished in. Half of what I suspect u think has no counter play are builds that just annoy u lol as for acro staff its prob the very mechanics that it has which match the rogue archetype that are what's annoying u. So if acro staff lost the things that annoy u would it still resemble a rogue type class? Would it be effective or a free bag? Cuz staff acro sure as kitten does not have a heavy presence right now in pvp or ever has really lol

I mean if being able to evade 20 times in a row seems to be balanced to you in a game thats based around evading / applying damage , you must be very delusional, A staff thief at 1600-1700 rating has to be ignored or else the team is wasting resources by 1v2ing the thief for an extended perioid of time while losing the rest of the map.

Again that's a learning issue on ur part part of the evade rotation is vault and bound which both have frames at end of the skills that the thief can be punished and since it's a thief that usually means dead type punished. No one talks about acro staff in pvp cuz it's a kitten duel build compared to other classes, worse +1 and decap build compared to s/d, hell even s/d is a better dueler than acro staff lmao only time acro staff is ok at best is in wvw zerg bombing and that's only compared to other thief builds not classes

only bad staff thieves use vault to evade. Im not gonna argue with a silver player. Good thieves use Debilitating arc. Since you clearly have no idea how to play staff thief or whats its capable of im not going to reply any further.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@Hex.8714 said:

@JayAction.9056 said:

@Hex.8714 said:

@JayAction.9056 said:Bro you are dancing with words and half of what you are saying makes no sense.

1. Objectively Mes is stronger than everything in game
2. Mes has the highest damage in the game and the highest sustain in the game as well as having the largest PVP tool kit and game breaking “God Power” abilities
3. Rev?
4. Meta Rev is objectively stronger than Mes? Do you know what the word objective means? You completely misused the word.
5. Mes currently holds the top 3 spots of the leaderboard and I will put real money on it you won’t beat them with anything in the game. Especially Kronos
   .

Thats the issue, they balance around ATs, and the meta in AT wont change, it will be FB, scourge, rev holo and SB/mirage for side nodes. yes technically even scourge is better than mesmer because of team fight potential thats the point I was trying to make. But scourge/rev can easely be countered but mesmer cannot . When paired with a support class like FB, a scourge or a rev is alot more useful than a mesmer, but mesmer is 10x more oppresive because of lack of counterplay.

You keep saying things are better than Mes but they are not.

Literally everything Rev does, a Mes does better. Damage, sustain, mobility, disengage, utility ... Mes does better than Rev in all of that and the numbers say it.

They don’t balance around AT.

If that was the case then scourge would not be played at all as a class, since it has no sustain/ moblity and all it has is damage and team fight presence. Rev, scourge and holo are all better than mesmer at team fighting when paired with a support, hence why they are meta builds and have the most presence in ATs.

First of all the guy didnt say mesmer was better than a DUO of classes namely the fb/scourge and who knows maybe 2 mirages would/could beat the super duo lol plus remember ur talking about a balance team that literal wrote in a patch that they considered reaper fine due to the popularity of play it saw in matches so not based on its skills etc and how it performs in line with other classes but by its popularity lmao if reaper was universally known as the worst pvp class I'd still see high play cuz the theme and flavor has always been popular lol regardless as its effectiveness it's always top or near top of the favored class lists. Definitely not an aspect to dictate how well a class is balanced, if they couldnt understand that donno what ur expecting from them lol

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@Hex.8714 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Hex.8714 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:I stopped taking this post seriously as soon as I saw acro staff. Sry but it may annoy u but it has tons of counter play. It's very skill casting animations have frame the DD can easily punished in. Half of what I suspect u think has no counter play are builds that just annoy u lol as for acro staff its prob the very mechanics that it has which match the rogue archetype that are what's annoying u. So if acro staff lost the things that annoy u would it still resemble a rogue type class? Would it be effective or a free bag? Cuz staff acro sure as kitten does not have a heavy presence right now in pvp or ever has really lol

I mean if being able to evade 20 times in a row seems to be balanced to you in a game thats based around evading / applying damage , you must be very delusional, A staff thief at 1600-1700 rating has to be ignored or else the team is wasting resources by 1v2ing the thief for an extended perioid of time while losing the rest of the map.

Again that's a learning issue on ur part part of the evade rotation is vault and bound which both have frames at end of the skills that the thief can be punished and since it's a thief that usually means dead type punished. No one talks about acro staff in pvp cuz it's a kitten duel build compared to other classes, worse +1 and decap build compared to s/d, hell even s/d is a better dueler than acro staff lmao only time acro staff is ok at best is in wvw zerg bombing and that's only compared to other thief builds not classes

only bad staff thieves use vault to evade. Im not gonna argue with a silver player. Good thieves use Debilitating arc. Since you clearly have no idea how to play staff thief or whats its capable of im not going to reply any further.

Ummm thieves use vault to return endurance to bound in a loop hence why it looks like a endlessly evading thief so..... not sure how u think a thief bound 20 times lmao that's how acro staff boundless dodge works. If the were using other ways to return endurance like SA or aDD heal trait it wouldn't make for a very dodgy DD. And 20 dodges is also a gross over embellishment to begin with

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

People still dont seem to understand how insanely broken mirage cloak is in pvp. The ability to dodge while performing other actions is ridiculously powerful, and its exclusive to one elite spec. Try using some imagination for a minute and picture other classes with mirage dodge, it would literally be game breaking. The reason why mirage has got so many nerfs and still remains one of the most powerful specs is because of its class design & dodge, not damage numbers on skills.

[Alatar.7364]

@Hex.8714 said:A staff thief at 1600-1700 rating has to be ignored or else the team is wasting resources by 1v2ing the thief for an extended perioid of time while losing the rest of the map.

Who is the Staff Thief at 1600 - 1700?

[ArthurDent.9538]

@Eurantien.4632 said:Condi mesmer has counter play. Daze mantra does not. That's the problem. A game built around dodging animations has zero place for an instant cast daze. When paired with CI it becomes even more ridiculous.

Daze mantra must go.

I say instant daze is fine since you can still dodge while dazed, it just basically becomes a different kind of defense. Instant cast stun however is not ok and thanks to CI giving immobilize that essentially becomes instant stun same as the old confounding suggestions though at least it requires an interrupt now.

[Eurantien.4632]

@ArthurDent.9538 said:

@Eurantien.4632 said:Condi mesmer has counter play. Daze mantra does not. That's the problem. A game built around dodging animations has zero place for an instant cast daze. When paired with CI it becomes even more ridiculous.

Daze mantra must go.

I say instant daze is fine since you can still dodge while dazed, it just basically becomes a different kind of defense. Instant cast stun however is not ok and thanks to CI giving immobilize that essentially becomes instant stun same as the old confounding suggestions though at least it requires an interrupt now.

Very valid points, I have to agree with you. CI is definitely more the problem.

I still personally believe instant cast ranged offensive skills like daze mantra and power spike shouldn't exist. Although with a CI change maybe daze mantra could stay.

[Master Ketsu.4569]

@"JayAction.9056" said:Bro you are dancing with words and half of what you are saying makes no sense.

1. Objectively Mes is stronger than everything in game
2. Mes has the highest damage in the game and the highest sustain in the game as well as having the largest PVP tool kit and game breaking “God Power” abilities
3. Rev?
4. Meta Rev is objectively stronger than Mes? Do you know what the word objective means? You completely misused the word.
5. Mes currently holds the top 3 spots of the leaderboard and I will put real money on it you won’t beat them with anything in the game. Especially Kronos.

I think Hex is talking about the "interactivity" problem but just isn't doing the best job explaining it.

[Tayga.3192]

@JayAction.9056 said:snip

Renegade is the strongest elite spec, even better than mirage. When people say rev they mean renegod, not the bad herald thing. Objectively speaking,1) Renegod2) Daredevil3) Condi mirage4) DPS Firebrand...27) Power Herald

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

I think there is a huge misunderstanding on what counter-play actually is and what the implications of counterplay mean for a game like guild wars 2

Consider the following example, that having a skill that has a 20 second block duration has counterplay if an enemy player has an attack skill that gives 20 seconds of unblockable attacks

The block skill mentioned above is itself a counter to attacks that aren’t unblockable. So you see the process of counterplay is a cycle that will naturally powercreep itself of said match up until one person becomes completely invulnerable to attack and completely unstoppable in offense.

Another example. You have a skill that provides stealth. The counterplay to stealth is Reveal...then one must ask what the counterplay to reveal is?

Counterplay has a more exact definition that when put into context of the game can provide counterplay without having to powercreep everything by Fixing the fundamental mechanics of skills can relieve the game of power creep

Take the following as an example;Player A has a skill that provides stealth for 3 seconds. Player B has a skill that can block a single attack for 3 seconds. Player A’s attack fails. Player B retaliates with an attack that stuns for 3 seconds, Player A has an attack that can interrupt the stun.

These trade offs never directly nullify the previous mechanic, and any move player A or B makes can also counterplay the other mechanics...

Essentially Player A could begin by interrupting Player B’s block skill. Player B can then use a stun on Player A, and Player A could stealth to avoid Player Bs stun.

This is why mechanics like Blinding Powder were so balanced. It provides stealth and blinds a single attack, so that one could use the skill to counter others in many situations and it wasn’t overpowered in the slightest despite what some would consider nowadays to be quiete a low yield ability.