aelska.4609

I dont see lord being such a problem as it is easily farmable with 2+ players, while taking more time/being more challenging to solo it.

However, I do regret the extreme difference between condi builds and power builds in the ability of taking this thing down. As dps-hammer guard, it takes me hours to kill it (and I am always close to dying, but that's because i'm terrible); while it just disappears in less than 5 seconds when equipping a meme-burn build.

Same goes for Svanir/Chief.

> @"Ovark.2514" said:

> They should just have a ring around the character of the appropriate color. Minimalist but effective.

Any colorblind out here will tell you how much such a system would make them QQ. Some already confuse an ennemy for an ally because of the title color, imagine asking them to distinguish a color between 7 others. Auras have powerful effects, knowing when to hit is a must-have.

> @"Hirosama Nadasaki.6792" said:

> > @"aelska.4609" said:

> > I don't remember anyone complaining about previous aura animations. They were way more visible.

>

> I certainly hope you mean the previous, _previous_ animations and not the egg shells.

Yeah, the ones that were doing RKZZRKRZKZZZ for shocking aura!

> @"McPero.3287" said:

> Animations are better but icons need to be changed. They can keep same icons but give them colours:

> red for fire, blue for ice, brown for magnetic, white for shocking.

Icons change would already be quite an easy fix indeed :)

> @"Shiyo.3578" said:

> My first impression is that blatant exploits are allowed and no punishments are given.

> https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/663499079803863071/718688444012036116/unknown.png

>

> It's a joke to consider this a "tournament".

I have followed that part on Teapot stream and I really could not figure out what they were so upset against.

Plenty of other nodes have fences you can be projected against without the point getting uncapped. This cart is a bit more extreme as it prevents the knockback from 3 directions, but it also forces you to remain in a tiny spot. Any player would just dps him the hell out of that area.

If you play a build that has the sole purpose of exploiting its CC output to uncap/cap a point and to bunker it, yes it can be infuriating to be countered as easily. But you are the idiot trying to abuse the system at the first place.

I understand the philosophy behind "uniform aura animation" but I genuinely think it was a mistake. You dont react the same way to magnetic aura than shocking aura. Color and "status bar effect" are different BUT:

* Icons are very similar from one aura to an other

* Colors are not perceived the same way by everybody: screen settings or colorblindness.

I don't remember anyone complaining about previous aura animations. They were way more visible.

You had a balance patch 3 months ago, dont expect a new one before september.

Big update should have been followed by others but none came. So we are basically facing the unplanned consequences of this patch:

* stability nerfs gave room to more CC gameplay

* power nerf gave room to either more condis or full berzerker gears

* sustain-oriented builds seem to have an advantage on other builds, leading to endless fights (either you get farmed playing a more dpsi build, or you go hybrid, hence nullifying each other build)

* Forgotten skills in the big update nerf are still running around (pets/lich/burn guard/etc.)

Don't get me wrong, I 200% support the philosophy of the big update, but I rate it 1/10 for the execution. The 9 points missing are the updates that should have followed.

I think what you need is to take a step back. Matchmaking is not perfect but it is not catastrophic either, the players you face are as skillful as the players in your team (you included). Losing streak can happen, main cause often being a mood thing (you play better when relaxed).

My advices: pick a "fool-proof" build that you could find in metabattle and stick with it, try to master it. Change your keybind so you dont need the mouse to trigger your skills. Watch your replays and try to realize your mistakes; once you have fixed all that you can start blaming the game or your teammates :)

... blaming Reaper.1592 and Feuly.9736 for cheating...

Welp, it's true (basically waiting out of map for end of the game for auto-win):

This post will get flagged but at least you know how to report the bad guys meanwhile.

Funny thing is that the previous post got flagged but 12hours after these idiots are still playing. I'm the bad guy now :D

> @"Agramon.4278" said:

> A simple question to you all. If you think revenant so broken why you not playing with it? Why always necromancers and guardians complaining about it? Let me tell you a bitter sweet truth you are not talented to play with a different class. Not even "broken" revenant. Thief always been op mesmer either, in past warrior and elementalist too and now revenant. If they gonna kill revenant some other class poped up with new "broken" title.

>

> I suggest L2P, if you think x class is op go try, play, learn, investigate get some experience with it then talk.

The answer to your simple question: You must realize some people (like me) enjoy playing a class because it corresponds to their playstyle, which are very different between each of them. These people will not bandwagon classes easily, as they have found a way of playing the game which satisfies them, at the cost of a lesser "performance/reward" ratio.

The existence of these players is quite independent to the fact that some builds may be overperforming. Of course, an other category of players will see these overperforming builds as a virtual ladder to climb the leaderboard (over the first group of players) and this effect can be directly visualized through statistics: win ratio, number of players playing that build over time, build spread over a sample of the ladderboard (like top 100).

We do not have a clear access to these indicators except for the last one (thanks falan, on an other thread), where we can easily admit that revenants is over-represented, in a top 50 sample of last season, compared to the other 8 classes. In 3v3, we can't deny the supremacy of tempest elementalist on its support role; just to cite an example.

I hope this simple answer will help you have a clearer vision on the situation, and will help you in the future to avoid sharing overly-aggressive fast thinkings like "you say X is OP but you dont play it -> what you are saying is dumb and you are a bad player and you should L2P".

That is what happens when mechanics almost exclusive to one profession gets forgotten in a big balance patch, with developers too scared to hotfix these.

Yes, I am speaking about auras, lich form damage coefficients, pets damage coefficients, burn guard, engie mortar.

> @"Psycoprophet.8107" said:

> Why doesn't the community just be blunt and just say that u guys would like burst specs and the burst playstyle fully removed from the game. U all have issues with any spec doing it so....

> Like the above poster what kind of burst spec would a spec be if its bursts didnt take half to close to the enemies hp if its burst connects effectively, a burst class hitting for 15% of ur hp in a game like gw2 would not be functional or effective as a burst class if it did so little. Also the sword 5 requires line of sight and if u kno revs targeting u u can assume given the class type hes gonna be trying for the sword 5.

> Lastly rev being a burst spec it makes sense it has skill like sw5 for quick engage but definitely isnt amazing at disengaging compared to a lot of other classes. The fact it's got great engage but less disengage and the port on sw5 needing los seems pretty balanced given gw2 roster of skills. Rev may have been some superpowered spec but it's not nearly as broken as the community is making it sound these days. Also the cmc comment makes sense as power rev as I'm assuming hes referencing has a higher skill floor so usually players not that mechanically skilled more often than not don't do very well on it and rev players that people hear about or get wrecked by are unsually good players that are skillful on multiple classes or would be so on any the took the time to learn. Even now I see far more variants of necros, guards, thieves, engis than power revs in pvp. U guys are literally killing ur own game along side anet lol.

> It's funny no?

To be honest I am fine with the big burst. Be aware, open your eyes and dodge when necessary.

What tickles me a bit more is when the big burst guy has also enough sustain to be hardly killable before his next burst ... especially when a part of it has, at the same time, the effect of two full dodges.

Dear Anet,

It has been 3 months since you nuked pvp scene with important changes by lowering the damage and sustain on all the classes. Main goal was to have longer fights, which should feel less spammy.

Of course some build happened to overperform in this new scene and we have been promised fast patches to solve that. These patches are indeed happening but we can already regret their low frequency. How long did lich form, pet damage, condi thief, condi, etc. plague the pvp until properly fixed ? These problems were quite easily fixable, as they only require slight coefficient adjustements.

More problematic is the lack of communication about skills and traits that got murdered in the process (300s cd traits/warrior hammer/etc.). Do we have to expect changes for these, or do we have to accept the actual state as "permanent" ?

Finally, this patch revealed some "burried" bad design on the game. Who would have thought a reduction of damage would make revivals way more powerful ? That the reduction of sustain would lead to people spamming their 0 damage CC skill, leading you to an inevitable death ? That conditions build, although not especially meta (they do have weaknesses-, would feel so rewarding ? Do we also have to accept these as "permanent", or do you acknowledge the problem and are working on it ?

Huge work was started few months ago but now it feels like it has totally stopped. No communication is made, and the only changes we are seeing _3 months later_ are minor changes that we should have seen _the first few weeks_ .

We would understand simple communications like "pvp is not mandatory atm, we are fully deployed for expansion/new pve stuff/wvw thingies" or "due to world apocalypse our changes are delayed, but we are indeed focusing on this, that and that". However we can't even bite to that ...

And here we are, waiting in a middle of a gamemode plagued by unhealthy design, waiting in silence.

> @"HnRkLnXqZ.1870" said:

You already got the answer of most of your questions, but here are some precisions... These are not universal rules of course, each game is different; but that could help you to get the spirit of the gamemode, which is mostly *do not make your team outnumbered*.

> Regarding Nodes:

> a.) Match starts, 3 head for mid 2 head for the own node. Who has to leave and join mid? How do you decide? It seems chat is not an option to settle this. Is there a list of classes that should always capture the own node and classes that should always go for mid?

-> "the guy that is the most able to win a 1v1/least impactful in teamfight"; so any brawler would do the job. Sometimes it's not as clear as that, and you will see people "fighting for the close", in these situations either you really show your interest for the point (typically mobility skill, small target on the guy -shift+alt+t-), or you let him take it.

> b.) Mid is busy, enemy node appears to be unprotected. Go for that or join the bloodbath in mid? At some point I learned that winning the match is done by collecting points, which a team gets for capturing nodes. You can lose a match although you have better kills. So I thought claiming nodes would be more useful than ... mashing my head against the others for the sake of doing it.

-> If you are in my team and I see you abandoning a "nowhere-to-be-lost even-numbered teamfight" to cap far, i'll probably shout on you. Why ? Because you would have sacrificed all your teammates and the nodes they were fighting for to cap an other node, where you will also probably die outnumbered while your teammates are at respawn.

Consider an outnumbered teamfight to be lost. If you are the reason your allies got outnumbered, then it is bad move.

However, if you see the teamfight is really getting lost, then uncapping far might give your team the time they need to reorganize. Consider full capping it ONLY if you will be able to sustain a 2v1 for a while, otherwise your best move would be to regroup with your dead teammates once the point is uncapped. Why ? Because uncapping is faster than capping, and the time the ennemy will take to cap it is the time your team will be able to win a potential easy 5v4.

> c.) Own node captured. Mid captured. How many people camp mid?

There are no clear answers to that, as it depends heavily on the mobility you have, the burst you have or the sustain you have, and the spread of your team on the map. One thing is sure: most of the ennemies are at respawn, so it will be easier for your team if they dont "come all at once". Several ways to do so:

* Uncap far if it's unprotected, or burst it hard with one mate and let a sustain guy on it ... or leave it uncapped if the ennemy team comes to blob it. At that point dying is extremely important to avoid, as they would be in position to snowball all the map.

* (if you have a bursty build) Help your team to kill the last people alive on the map. That would send people at respawn with a delay timer, perfect to farm the 3-4 guys that are respawning with 5 ppl.

* (if you have a high mobility build) Try to poke them a bit at respawn, the most scattered they are the best it is for you. If they can waste a lot on cooldown on you without you getting killed, that is best: as soon as an other teammate will join the fight, they will be pretty dead ... again.

This moment of the game is crucial, as the defender will have to keep the snowball active (i.e., permanently outnumbering the ennemy on all the fights) _while keeping the nodes_ . If they regroup properly (favoured by the proximity of the spawn ... the infamous "regroup close"), the other team can very easily start snowballing if your team is not ready (aka they miss the first 5 s of the fight).

Speaking about "easy builds" and plat 2-3 elo is quite odd, so I would like to know what is your definition of easy.

And then there is the paradox: an easy build to play will be hard to play at higher elos ... because it will require precision to land the obvious skill that your opponent is expecting you to land.

For instance, playing a full DH trap build in plat2-3 is not easy. Why ? Because the build is quite predictive, kitable and lacks defensive options. The same build played in gold, however, is a total noob killer.

An other example could be the burn guard. On paper, it sounds easy: put sword of justice on top of a symbol, wait 3 s and it's good, opponent will die with 15 stacks of burn. However, in plat 2-3, people know how to counter that quite easily ... they will step aside of the AoE, and annihilate that stability-lacking build. That is a reason why you don't see this build in plat2+.

I dont know how easy this condi-thief build is to play but I do think its effectiveness is due more to the way stealth interact which condis than the build itself. If the player survives the first "condi coming out of nowhere" strike, i can guarantee you the thief is pretty dead. Imo, this example is unrelated to the actual topic "build effectiveness should be linked on how hard it is to play" as it is a very cheese build that is almost like tossing a coin at the first second of the combat "cleanse and win or die from condi".

And then there are the "hard builds" like herald or weaver. And if you ask me, I would say that their strength should rely on how "unpredictable" (because of the number of different skills they have) they could be instead of the skills they have. Unfortunately that is not how it is done in practice: these builds offer too strong offensive and defensive options, so that someone mastering that class will cumulate the defensive options while waiting for the strong offensive ones to get out of cooldown. Is it hard to learn how to cumulate the defensive options ? Yes, certainly. Does it offer counterplay while it is mastered ? Absolutely not.

When engaging an herald, I know exactly what his skill rotations are going to be. The other plat 2-3+ players also know it. However, fighting often results in watching your character die even if you played perfectly, because no counterplay is proposed. And for them, this "hard build" actually becomes an easy build.

And for these reasons, **the number of buttons your class has should not be linked to how effective it is. Instead, it should offer you an other game experience that "easier classes" cannot give you; while having the same efficiency when properly mastered** .

It was so cancer but probably the funniest pvp experience I had. Maybe just don't put it in ranked :p

You interpret leaderboard classes wrong, only conclusion you can draw is that rev players are more likely to wintrade than war players. ?

Common advices:

* Rotate so that you never let anyone in your team outnumbered. Your team got outnumbered because you did beast/capped a node/you died by jumping in a fight where you were outnumbered? -> bad. Sole exception to that golden rule is if your ally is able to kite outnumbered, then rely on his strength to outnumber the ennemies on the other nodes.

* Master your build for maximum efficiency.

Best part is how easily fixable it is without even needing to remove it. Because it affects all the players no matter their classes, they can make changes without testing them; hence relying on players' feedback.

Minimum would be, imo:

* 1 kill 1 rally, within range (600 ?) _... or no rally at all_

* Limited range rezzing skills with visible animation _... or no rezzing skills at all_

* Faster finishers

* Revive speed should not scale linearly with the number of players (doubled at most with 3 players reviving ?)

Next move could be:

* No skill recharge when downstate

* Debuff when revived

* Downstate skills balanced between classes

Tada. Team that managed to make a downstate "does not need much" to actually finish the fight, while a coordinated team would still have a nice advantage upon successfulling reviving an ally.

> @"Wojciech.8024" said:

> And the purpose of such a list is....?

To prevent the balance team to continue the transversal work they started few months ago.

It is too early for such a topic, we should encourage the devs to continue reshaping the game in a more healthy way. These QQ threads "nerf this buff that" bring nothing more than noise in this overall work.

Burn guard is a build that relies mainly on sword of justice, which has two extremes:

* Insignificant damage against aware people, people will not even step in your sword of justice.

* Insanely rewardful when used to cleave downstate/used sneakily in a teamfight (we are speaking here about 10k/s against a downstate, making it effectively impossible to rez).

It is part on the inconsistent design of the class, with burning mechanics no one asked for, which can only be made potent with other stupid mechanic no one asked for (AoE burn with traited F1/burn on sword of justice). It effectively hard counters your build (which hard counters itself all the others guard builds).

Besides being clunkily stupid, it is not overpowered by itself considering how easily counterable it is (don't walk in sword of justice, or use a cleanse right after and gg). Although I would love to see some changes made in guard in general to make it feel more "consistent".

Imo downstate is necessary to prevent "heavy burstplay" from happening (imagine rushing alone understealth in a 5 ppl group and doing that spin-to-win skill with your full berserker gear and your 25 mights + quickness, solely sending to respawn a whole team with little to no counter play ?). But...

* WHY can 1 kill rally a WHOLE TEAM ??

* WHY is rallying SO POWERFUL ?? (50% health ?)

* WHY skills keep recharging WHEN DOWNSTATE ??

* WHY are finishers SO SLOW ?? _(I cant even remember last time I actually finished someone by pressing F ...)_

* WHY is rezzing SO FAST ??

* WHY are there rezzing skills that have so little animations ?? _(I'd put an insane beam of light from the sky when it's happening)_

* WHY downstate skills are SO DIFFERENTLY POWERFUL between classes ??

* WHY it has not been fixed YET ?? Most of the changes only require small number adjustements ...

I thought this removal was just an intermediate step to give time to rework the crazy amount of impacted skills, but now I am not so sure ... it feels like theses changes are permanent. We have been promised fast impactful patches, but all we have are semi-hotfixes to some "a bit more broken skill" ... which does absolutely not change the overall feeling of the game: too much of everything, it is just a spamfest.

With the slow response of Anet it will take years before seeing a healthy pvp mode if going in that direction, while planning to release an expansion meanwhile. Future won't be bright, bois!

Few months after the patch, my feelings about pvp are still the same: we are still playing in a bursty/tankerish game ... while getting way more cced than before. Even if they deal no damage, CCs are things to spam brainlessly and it will have a nice effect.

On top of that, i'll like to point out an other issue linked to it: boonstrip. With the rarification of stability, these have become even more powerful. I will let you judge following video (slowed x2) to illustrate my point: a 40 s CD stability-skill (F3 virtue) went to Uganda because I got hit by .... a CC right after activating it.

In total, it is no less than 5 boons that disappeared in a split second without any tellings, by a class that's not even supposed to do that. Opponent got greatly rewarded by using a random CC, while the micro-management of CD to land mighty blow under stability got annihilated. These examples happen hundreds of times during each game on any class (I also spam mindlessly shield #5 and it has greater effects than it should), which leads to my following demand:

* **Make Stability (and boons in general) more rewardful when timed properly**. This goes by a reduction of the amount of boonstrips in the game, but also a reductions of the stability (and other boons) in the game.

* **Make CC more rewardful when timed properly**. Same idea, less CC in game while reducing the amount of breakstun/stability.

To be honest I am quite happy to not face the "old deflecting shot" anymore. Unblockable CC that blinds you, destroys your projectiles, can be fired backwards and nearly undodgeable (due to low cast time and nearly invisible animation) was annoying as hell.

But there is no doubt this skill has been brought to a nearly useless state, and something has to be done. I think it would be a nice thing if it was "autoguided" and, instead of pushing back, it was pulling ennemies. That would increase the fluidity and reduce the "clunkiness" of dh, whose longbow hardly combines with other weapons.

> @"Sigmoid.7082" said:

> > @"aelska.4609" said:

> > There are two problems I see with this rune:

> > * It's too profession-specific (if you dont have access to traps you just can't take the rune)

> There are a bunch of runes that are like this, wells, shouts, glyphs etc, and some runes that are clearly designed for /are strong on some classes rather than others. I don't see this point as an issue.

>

> > * Effects are quite powerful compared to other runes (stealth + hyperspeed with no icd)

> >

>

> "No ICD" can mostly be informed by the cooldown on the actual trap utilities needed to trigger the rune, superspeed not stacking in duration, and almost all traps having a damage component to cause revealed.

>

> The rune really isn't that strong and it's likely not the reason people are losing to DH. OP just wants something to blame.

>

>

>

* Having to take damage from a trap to counter the rune so that it can reveal the opponent is crappy design. Game should reward people not rushing in a trap.

* Yet superspeed effect still applies, which is also a unique and extremely strong effect in pvp. Disengaging any fight, running like flash to decap a point is stronger than you admit.

* icd from traps is one thing, icd from rune is an other thing. Being able to cumulate 9s of superspeed and stealth with 3 utilities that will get back 30s later is strong.

My suggestion: modify the rune so that it feels less stupid to use, hence enhancing the player abilities instead of granting him access to unique mechanics in the game.

If these mechanics are necessary for the viability of the utilities (traps here), then their effect should get buffed which is an other story.