Falan.1839

Scourge still broken, FB still op. The changes on Warr, Thief and Ele are okay imo. Overall rather bad, I mean even this forum understood that scourge is the biggest problem in PvP balance right now (next to SB) and still it doesn't get touched at all...

How are the buffs on Holosmith even relevant. :D Sword is still useless, Healing Turret is still the better heal. The Blast Finisher on Holo 5 really doesn't add anything, since there is tons of Leaps and Blasts already for 2 Water Fields (also nobody will blow away 25% Heat for a Blast). Otherwise the only thing changed is that dodge with Vent Exhaust does 800 instead of 300 dmg, such wow, much op. Oh yeah and, Holo 4 is 20% projectile now, awesome pawsome.

All they did was slightly buff useless stuff that nobody uses. Otherwise it's unchanged.

Dem mighty turrets. :D

Chaith's list makes sense, even though I'd probably move Core Warr and Radiance Core Guard one tier up and Scrapper one tier down. Or make an A Minus Tier, with FA Ele, Core warr and Radiance Guard, since I consider those equally good. All very strong burst build who thrive in the current bursty meta, but might suffer on the highest level where people know how to counter stuff like that. Also Druid is still A Tier I'd say, last one to showcase that was Xomi on EU UGO. It suffers a bit from Mirage, but the combination of mobility, sustain and support is still kind of unique (there are stronger classes for each of those things, but not combined).

The match quality is just as bad as in unranked, with 3 times the queue time. Recently I queued ranked, one player from my team didn't show up and we still won 4v5 because the enemy team so clueless that they kept running in one by one and losing 2v1s - which pretty much sums up most off season games. Ranked Games still happen, but it's usually over 5 minutes queue time for me (EU).

Even in a time with relatively good class balance it was more like a rock/paper/scissors of counters that could only be overcome by significicantly higher skill, once people are somewhat equal skillwise it boils down to hard counters and (at most times) 1-2 op builds overperforming. It would simply be build wars. The ESL 1v1 used 3 classes per person I think to make it somewhat balanced, and even that was still far from perfect.

1v1 is great for practice, but it's not competitive.

Lol, stronghold.

The bunkerishness is not too extreme, since it can be bursted down (still probably the best bunker in the game right now) but the amount of support it can offer is clearly overtuned. It is also what raises Scourge from quite op to absolutely gamebreaking.

It wouldn't even surprise me if Season 9 came without a balance patch. Anet has communicated basically nothing after all.

Well right now that said Mesmer has identified Holosmith as the main balance problem, so she's clearly still on track. :D

On topic: the team that should have won the EU monthly AT was rolling with 2 Spellbreakers and a Scourge, while the other team, that actually won it (due to 5v4) had 2 Scourges and a Spellbreaker. The team that has won most of those tournaments went without such a comp and lost the semifinal. This basically sums it up. Firebrand is the best babysitter for Scourge, so it's Meta aswell, while Thief does the same thing as always. Even though the ability of SB to survive 2v1 for ages has made it somewhat less effective. Right now there is virtually no reason to use any other classes besides, Scourge, SB, FB and Thief. Even though I suspect that even the thief could be sacked with 2 spellbreakers locking sides. I'd honestly roll with 2 Scourges, 2 SBs and Fb right now if I had the players for it and wanted to be tryhard.

Do you still remember when some experts said that balance was bad because Anet was balancing PvP around Pro League/Esports? =) =) =)

Teammates rotating towards me for +1 when I freecap a point. Otherwise the already mentioned Beast/Lord at start also triggers me quite a lot. Oh, and two people capping a free point, although I haven't seen that much lately (thank God).

While enforcing solo Q is generally a good thing one result will doubtlessly be that legendary players sit on their asses even more than it is already the case and only play the bare minigum of games necessary once hitting legend.

Quite impressive cleanse, but I think anyone with a bare minimum of sustain wouldn't die to this build. I think the FA Scepter Burst Spec is better attuned to the current meta, since Firebrand is probably still the best bunker. Fun duels though.

This is actually one of the more sensible threads in this section, which probably means it will disappear soon, while bullshit threads like "Nerf XYZ (insert random spec that isn't even viable in high tier, or doesn't exist) prevail on the top.

Point 1 is likely to require some compensation for at least some of the classes affected, since it would hit some classes harder than others.

More Bronze League Wisdom from Ithilwen, no surprises there. The only semi-useful defensive Skill from Holosmith is Spectrum Shield, which reduces the Damage for 50% for a grandiose 3 seconds (30 sec cd, 15 sec when over the heal threshold). Which is so great, that barely anyone uses it. Also you can a relatively short lived regeneration when leaving Holo-Mode. The rest is the same old (subpar) core defense of Engi, mostly active Eli S, passive Eli S. I have no idea how you even get the idea that Holo takes no Damage for 30 seconds, the whole thought is ridiculous. Holosmith is FAR squishier than Scrapper, what makes it viable is the semi-decent burst and decent mobility/CC.

I'm not even sure if your threads are serious or if you're actually just a very subtle troll.

The current Mesmer specs basically do well with both power and condi variant and scale well with healing power, so cele will boost them quit a bit I think. Might be too much.

However the really annoying fact is that the PvP team has to waste their time tinkering with amulets and runes while 2 PoF specs are breaking the game on the balance side.

Went for scourge since the AE condi is just plain ridiculous and preventy any fight on points, but it's a close one between Scourge and Spellbreaker.

I lost about 150 MMR on Engi running into overtuned Necs and Warrs left and right, decided not to give a fuck until and quit the game until the balance is fixed. I was on the edge between Plat T2/T3 before the disaster known as expansion hit.

Queing is totally bugged atm, the timer doesn't start, queue doesn't start all. Relogging fixes it, but having to do that after every game is fucking annoying.

> @"Omar Aschi Popp.7496" said:

> Let me get this straight... After a full year of warriors being the fodder of wvw and the laughing stock of spvp, you guys are mad that now for 2 weeks we are actually experiencing what you had for a YEAR?

>

> "Waaahhh we are not the UltraOP anymore, now because we aren't at the top we decided it's not fair"

Laughing Stock of PvP with Zerk Core Gs/Axe before Pof that had at least 2 warrs in top 10 through SoloQ, a spec that skill crushes most opponents. Before that the Mace/Gs Zerk Berserker was at least as bad, slightly less Dps but fucktons of CCs and one of the strongest builds in the game at that point.

I'm not even going to talk about WvW where Warrs still have the ridiculous 4 Sec Double Endure Pain + the unnerfed AH and crush virtually everything (except necs which are similarly broken).

Right now as an Engi Ranked at Plat3 is basically unplayable, because in every game I will face at least 3 Spellbreaker/Scourges, which both render me more or less useless.

With Mesmer already doing hybrid damage and scaling very well with healing power that will probably skyrocket that class quite a bit... Same for ele probably. I'm not sure if this is a good idea at all...

That's probably the date when they assume the tournament bugs are fixed. :D

Same here, can't log in with some of my chars.