Master Ketsu.4569

This thread just confirms what many have been saying all along: That the way downstate works in WvW principally benefits lesser skilled players who are being carried by their zerg.

>"Waaaaaaah I'm being WAHNSHAWT!!!"

Bruh. It's time for a reality check:

**You already were getting oneshot. You always have been.**

The difference is beforehand you could be insta-rezzed back up by your group quickly, so you didn't notice the effects so much. But the fact is picking people off who are playing out of position from their zerg has always been a thing. _It has never not been a thing_. The only difference now is that the second-chance crutch has been temporarily removed.

Here's the truth: decent players rarely ever get "oneshot". Every class has a 10~20s defensive rotation they can do when they get focused. And of course add LoS and knowing how to abuse noport spots on top of that and you can actually survive against multiple "oneshot" builds all focusing you for a fairly decent amount of time. This is why TTK is often higher in Plat~Legendary in sPvP ranked, because players who know their class know how to survive on it. Decent PvPers in WvW are also capable of solo-roaming, and have been dealing with the no-downstate life in an indirect way for ages.

So that leaves two choices to this weekend for players getting oneshot:

1. Complain about how them feeding/dying all the time is somehow not their fault

2. Take this time to reflect on their class and playstyle, watch streams of known good PvPers, and perhaps learn the real reasons why they are getting WAHNSHAWT. ( Hint: It's not no-downstate )

People who think they would have trouble landing abilities from stealth if missing them caused the revealed debuff are just lol.

Because the balance and skills team refuse to accept the fact that most balance issues actually have root causes in mechanics that have been in dire need of improvement for years.

But to make things worse, a lot of the community doesn't get it either. So you get thread after thread of nonsensical balance suggestions coming from people who never even played the class they are complaining about.

> @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> > @"Master Ketsu.4569" said:

> > > @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> >

> > >

> > > And suspicion confirmed. Clown does not do it in the match *a single time*. Every time he disengages, waits until no one is attacking him or *can* attack him, and then, and *only* then does he stealth. Thats not in-combat stealth. Thats out of combat stealth.

> > >

> >

> > Bruh.

> >

> > You seem to have an extremely warped understanding of what "In combat" means. If you haven't dropped combat to the point that you are in regen, you are still in combat. Just because the people in that MAT are not stealthing point blank right in peoples faces does not mean that they aren't using it in combat. That would be ridiculous, and only very bad players use stealth the way you expect them to.

> >

>

> I suppose I should have chosen more clear words. Yes, from a game perspective you are still in-combat, but thats the thing, you could already have successfully run away and the game will still treat you as "in combat". The way I use it is "in combat" is when you are actively fighting an enemy, and "out of combat" is when you have already disengaged and wont be attacked. They are not using it "in combat", as they dont use it while actively fighting. But there is the thing, when people complain about stealth, they *specifically* complain about people stealthing up in-combat. As in, while actively fighting. Despite the fact that that is terrible.

The definition of in-combat should mean exactly the same as what it means in game. Any other definition is arguing semantics and/or intellectually dishonest word soup.

It's not so much instant revive as it is downstate itself has not been updated to reflect the "damage calculation overhaul" megapatch. This means downstate is significantly harder to outcleave, and still receives the same healing that it did before the overhaul. Any build that is even slightly tanky can very easily press F to insta-rez. Any build that is both tanky and has rez traits to boot can exploit this oversight to the Oort cloud and back.

Anet really should have nerfed downstate HP and incoming healing by at least 25% on the day of the overhaul patch, but alas they didn't and still have not addressed this issue. And as more and more people realize how exploitable it is we inch closer to full bunker meta with each passing week.

The only problem with Reaper right now is honestly just Lich.

If you are getting regularly memed by anything else it's kind of an L2P issue.

2v2 is fine.

It just needs to separate duo/solo q otherwise the ranking really doesn't mean anything.

Yeah it makes very little sense for the damage mod on lich 1 to be so high. The form is technically fine from a mechanical standpoint, but that (2.34) power mod is resulting in this ability boosting a lot of bad players.

> @"UNOwen.7132" said:

>

> And suspicion confirmed. Clown does not do it in the match *a single time*. Every time he disengages, waits until no one is attacking him or *can* attack him, and then, and *only* then does he stealth. Thats not in-combat stealth. Thats out of combat stealth.

>

Bruh.

You seem to have an extremely warped understanding of what "In combat" means. If you haven't dropped combat to the point that you are in regen, you are still in combat. Just because the people in that MAT are not stealthing point blank right in peoples faces does not mean that they aren't using it in combat. That would be ridiculous, and only very bad players use stealth the way you expect them to.

> @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> > @"Master Ketsu.4569" said:

> > > @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> > > > @"Master Ketsu.4569" said:

> > > > The problem with Rifle is that it's balanced around stealth, which in GW2 is mechanically broken. Thus all Rifle skills have been made intentionally bad to balance around stealth, as they refuse to rework the bad mechanic.

> > > >

> > > > This means if you want to play Rifle in PvP, you basically have no choice but to run the stealth-spam version of the build as all other versions are trash.

> > >

> > > Actually, its not balanced around stealth at all. And in-combat stealth isnt even *good* in GW2. The skills are bad because its thief, and still has access to shortbow 5. And as long as thief has shortbow 5, he simply isnt allowed to ever be able to win 1v1s. Only decap and +1. And for +1ing range is less relevant than in-combat mobility, and with LoS-ing and projectile denial, at times being ranged is an outright detriment.

> > >

> > > Also, the stealth spam version is the one thats trash. The correct version is ignoring stealth alltogether (dropping it as soon as you can, and not running SA), and just go for 2 spam with maleficent 7.

> >

> > Stealth in combat is fantastic in GW2. The idea that it isn't is a myth perpetuated by people who don't pay attention to their opponents cooldowns during duels.

>

> Stealth in combat is *awful* in GW2. The idea that it isn't is a myth perpetuated by people who fail the incredibly easy task of punishing someone for trying to stealth mid-combat. Seriously, try using stealth mid-combat as a thief against a good Ranger or Engineer or Rev, and you will find that they just kill you for trying to stealth up.

I can tell from this post almost exactly what mistakes you are making. Engi, Rev, and Ranger all have attacks that will either continue through stealth or hit in massive AoEs to the point where stealth doesn't matter. This means you are stealthing in their face without properly paying attention to what they are doing.

For instance, say you are fighting a SicEm soulbeast-

Correct use of stealth: Predicting when they will switch to LB by paying attention to their weapon swap cooldowns, swapping while LB is down so you don't get rapid fired to oblivion. Even better, stealth just before you suspect they will use it so you get the detarget off before they have a chance start casting RF.

Incorrect use of stealth: Panic stealthing while getting shot. RF continues to hit you through stealth because you tried to use it reactively instead of as a tactic. Complain on forums that stealth is useless in combat because you got RFed to death in stealth. Stealthing at random for a backstab.

Another use in combat is to predict when the enemy team will focus you and pre-emptively stealthing and then quickly refocusing on a target. This particular tactic is used in top games religiously, and allows you to re-engage without actually dropping combat. Clown does it in this match several times:

I could further explain for nearly every single matchup where people think stealth doesn't work in combat, but then this reply would become a massive amount of TL;DR. The reality is people who think stealth is bad mid-skirmish just don't know how to use it properly.

> @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> > @"Master Ketsu.4569" said:

> > The problem with Rifle is that it's balanced around stealth, which in GW2 is mechanically broken. Thus all Rifle skills have been made intentionally bad to balance around stealth, as they refuse to rework the bad mechanic.

> >

> > This means if you want to play Rifle in PvP, you basically have no choice but to run the stealth-spam version of the build as all other versions are trash.

>

> Actually, its not balanced around stealth at all. And in-combat stealth isnt even *good* in GW2. The skills are bad because its thief, and still has access to shortbow 5. And as long as thief has shortbow 5, he simply isnt allowed to ever be able to win 1v1s. Only decap and +1. And for +1ing range is less relevant than in-combat mobility, and with LoS-ing and projectile denial, at times being ranged is an outright detriment.

>

> Also, the stealth spam version is the one thats trash. The correct version is ignoring stealth alltogether (dropping it as soon as you can, and not running SA), and just go for 2 spam with maleficent 7.

Stealth in combat is fantastic in GW2. The idea that it isn't is a myth perpetuated by people who don't pay attention to their opponents cooldowns during duels.

The problem with Rifle is that it's balanced around stealth, which in GW2 is mechanically broken. Thus all Rifle skills have been made intentionally bad to balance around stealth, as they refuse to rework the bad mechanic.

This means if you want to play Rifle in PvP, you basically have no choice but to run the stealth-spam version of the build as all other versions are trash.

> @"dronte.3416" said:

> Reducing the length of blind applied is probably the most useless nerf I have ever seen. Do they even know how Blind works? Reducing duration works perfectly fine with most conditions but with blind it's so pointless, noone is going to stand around for 2 seconds not hitting after getting blinded especially when it's spammable.

>

> Meanwhile mesmer blind spam (Blinding Dissipation) got nerfed to ground (now utterly useless) even though it was actually LESS spammable than Flashbang currently.. What a joke. Throw an ICD on blind and problem solved. It's dumb spammy gameplay that shouldn't be rewarded.

>

> And don't get me started on the other 'nerfs' on holo.. Still easily outperforming every single class in the game.

Well I could have written a huge TL;DR post explaining why these sort of "Pretend balance" changes do more harm than good, since they demoralize the community when we read them. Hopefully the point has been made by this alternative method of putting just as much effort into making this thread as the effort that was put into this specific balance decision.

> @"Bazsi.2734" said:

> > @"Master Ketsu.4569" said:

> > The real issue is that the way stealth in GW2 works is poorly designed. It's way too much of a get out of jail free card, and too easily sets up burst combos. But instead of reworking it Anet has opted to nerf the classes that have access to it in many other ways. Like thief, it seems every other patch thief damage gets nerfed in some ridiculous and unnecessary fashion. Nerfing around the bad mechanics instead of fixing them is not the right move, and until the balance team finally accepts this fact the game will continue to bleed players.

>

> This is a common complaint, seen it countless times. I haven't seen an idea for a different kind of stealth that could work though. Some people intend to copy-paste stealth from other games(even though the combat systems are very very different), some suggest things that would make stealth useless(break on taking damage, being slightly visible etc) or straight up advocate for deletion.

> Do you have an idea for another iteration of stealth that could work in this combat system?

Just about any of the systems of how stealth works from other games would be better than GW2.

But if you want something specific, the biggest thing that should have been done a very long time ago is reworking stealth to reveal on the cast of an offensive ability, rather than on hit. Reveal on hit as a stealth mechanic results in a lot of mechanics that are seriously lacking in counterplay. The most obvious example is the relation to evades/blocks - if a player is stealthed, and attacks someone who is blocking, they don't unstealth from this because reveal on hit only reveals upon damage calculation ( which doesn't happen if an attack misses obviously ), giving them a chance to reapply stealth before the "revealed" debuff is applied to them. So instead of a player being punished for their missplay, they are actually rewarded for it and can simply recuperate. This leads to a repetitive playstyle of:

_"1. Stealth attack combo, 2. If you screwed up, reset the fight and go back to step 1"._

'Reveal on hit' just in general promotes uninteractive and unskillful gameplay, which is why most games that have stealth in them do not use this system, or at the very least they make it so you still get revealed if your attack misses. Not revealing for a missed attack is just trash game design.

The real issue is that the way stealth in GW2 works is poorly designed. It's way too much of a get out of jail free card, and too easily sets up burst combos. But instead of reworking it Anet has opted to nerf the classes that have access to it in many other ways. Like thief, it seems every other patch thief damage gets nerfed in some ridiculous and unnecessary fashion. Nerfing around the bad mechanics instead of fixing them is not the right move, and until the balance team finally accepts this fact the game will continue to bleed players.

> @"felix.2386" said:

> > @"BeepBoopBop.5403" said:

> >

> >

> > > @"felix.2386" said:

> > > > @"Master Ketsu.4569" said:

> > > > SoTm is actually one of the most well designed CCs in the game in that it has an extremely obvious animation, requires aim, has a cast time, etc.

> > > >

> > > > It CCs you a multiple times as a tradeoff for how hard it is to land. If you get CCd the maximum number of times it means you ate a skill dead-on that happens to be one of the few abilities in the game that can be realistically avoided by **walking out of the way**. It's so slow you don't even need to waste a dodge on it, legit just walk out of the way lmao.

> > > >

> > > >

> > >

> > > nop, stunbreaking it should get you out of CC. one skill shouldn't be stun locking you right after you stunbreaked and by right after i mean, i wasnt even allowed to dodge. grave well you can dodge out after stunbreak.

> >

> > Is learning to walk in the right direction too hard for you?

>

> is playing something that's not braindead too hard for you?

You are calling the slowest skillshot in the entire game braindead.

See, this is why you should always actually play a class and understand it before complaining about it. It's very clear you have never played a staff revenant in any competent capacity. If you did, you would realize that you are complaining about one of the most easily countered abilities in PvP. Again, it is so slow you don't even need to use anything. You can just WASD around it. You don't need to even waste an evade, nor any block skill, or anything at all.

You.

Can.

Just.

Walk.

Out.

Of.

The.

Way.

SoTm is actually one of the most well designed CCs in the game in that it has an extremely obvious animation, requires aim, has a cast time, etc.

It CCs you a multiple times as a tradeoff for how hard it is to land. If you get CCd the maximum number of times it means you ate a skill dead-on that happens to be one of the few abilities in the game that can be realistically avoided by **walking out of the way**. It's so slow you don't even need to waste a dodge on it, legit just walk out of the way lmao.

Diversity is a false god.

The idea that having thousands of different options would make something better is the same fallacy as assuming that quantity = quality, which is objectively false as it can be demonstrated to be untrue with simple math:

X = 20 x1000

Y = 5x10000

Y>X

50000>20000

To put this in perspective of GW2: Would you rather have 5 viable builds per class that are fun, well designed, interactive to play both as and against, and fairly skill-based? Or would you want 20 viable builds per class that are completely based on luck, are drop dead boring to play, have zero counterplay/are completely rock-paper-scissors, and make little to no difference when played by a veteran vs being played by a trained monkey that is just 12345-ing his skillbar?

The prime focus of balance should IMO just be making sure every class has at least 1 meta build to play. Everything else should be going into making sure that meta is well designed around quality gameplay.

Because anet keeps nerfing numbers instead of fixing bad mechanics. Stealth being reveal-on-hit and "do X condi when you do Y condi" are examples of bad systems that are still in the game. Anets response is to lower damage, remove amulets, and increase cooldowns, which only slows the game down and fixes nothing.

> @"Asum.4960" said:

> > @"Master Ketsu.4569" said:

> > Reverting the change is basically casual-pandering.

> >

> > Making shade skills not automatically pulse from the Necro made the spec actually require some semblance of tactics and positional tradeoff to play well. It meant that if you wanted a shade ability to pulse at your location, you had to time it with your shade placement cooldown and then put one below you right at the same time as casting the skill. There were some Scourge players last season that showed this. The only thing reverting it accomplishes is it just puts Scourge back to being a buttonmash AoE spam class. Oook OOk Ah EeeH EEEE EeeEE.

> >

> >

>

> No, it just removed it from PvP altogether, along with the Shade placement mechanic in of itself. Where was there a single Scourge player last season? Plus Scourge always has been, and still is with the Shades back to as intended, incredibly heavy on skillful positioning.

> If you ever played Scourge at high rankings you would know that if you are in the wrong spot for just a second you will get pain trained into a smear on the ground under perma CC.

> Shade effects around Scourge is literally the only "defense" on the spec.

>

> If you can't manage to kite the 6 seconds of Shroud around the Scourge before turning around and smacking it down, especially now that it doesn't even cripple anymore, then idk what to tell you about who's the "casual".

For the millionth time, the discussion on what is low skill floor or good for the game is not the same discussion as what is and is not OP / Meta.

It's basically casual-pandering at the expense of balance. I watched the same thing happen to Tera, it is now happening in GW2. Devs desperate to save their game try to make it easier by pushing the meta towards AoE spam because AoE is intrinsically easier to use. It's done in hope that an easier game will attract new players, but in reality it just pisses old players off and the game dies.

Reverting the change is basically casual-pandering.

Making shade skills not automatically pulse from the Necro made the spec actually require some semblance of tactics and positional tradeoff to play well. It meant that if you wanted a shade ability to pulse at your location, you had to time it with your shade placement cooldown and then put one below you right at the same time as casting the skill. There were some Scourge players last season that showed this. The only thing reverting it accomplishes is it just puts Scourge back to being a buttonmash AoE spam class. Oook OOk Ah EeeH EEEE EeeEE.

Hopefully anet will finally realize that mechanics and AoE need to be looked at for most of the current balance issues.

Realistically I know they will increase the energy cost of call-to-anguish to 40e. The actual nerf it needs is a reduction in radius size so it doesn't cover the entire freaking point, but that would make the Timmys who like to spam their big Timmy AoEs sad. So 40e it is. Will 40e fix the skill? Nope. But whatever.

> @"KryTiKaL.3125" said:

>

> MightyTeapots MOTA tournament probably showed quite the disparity between how competitive the NA environment is compared to EU. Team USA, which Naru and Nos are both a part of, got summarily flattened with no wins against Rank 55 Dragons (EU team).

>

> Its situations like that which really cement why I have been saying that the NA PvP scene is nowhere near the **tiniest** bit competitive and the leaderboard means **nothing**, mAT means **nothing**; because while EU does suffer from **some** of the same issues as NA, potential wintrading and toxic behavior, it seems to be so much more of a detriment to the competitive environment on NA and how NA's "top" players tend to conduct themselves. In fact wintrading itself seems to be a much more common thing on NA, along with these players simply off hours queuing so they sit in the top spots on NA because they *know* how shallow the pool of players is.

>

This is half-true depending on how you look at it.

In terms of individual skill, NA has plenty. It's teamwork where NA fails, and largely because there just aren't enough competitive NA teams.

This is pretty apparent if you pay better attention to the fight between Team USA and 55 Dragons. Team USA could win fights, but R55 absolutely shat on them rotation and tactics wise, so they always ended up ahead on nodes. I wouldn't say they got "flattened", as that would imply R55 was just spawn camping them to death. More like they just got outplayed and outrotated since Sind and Obi have a good enough understanding of their role in the team to make sure any death R55 suffered ended up not mattering as they would always either pick up free nodes or troll another.