DoomNexus.5324

> @"Vancho.8750" said:

> I wonder if the POF speck were made in mind to be easier to play but that ended in reverse and made the game way too fast and overloaded. No one likes conditions, no one likes getting rag dolled, no one likes to get killed under 3 seconds but here we are, and people thought that Hot Elites were powercrept.

I think PoF classes were designed either because the devs just liked the idea/design or with PvE raids in mind. Same goes for HoT specs.. If you think about it all classes are either full support or full damage.. Perfect for raids but awful in PvP. Deadeye for example is just 100% damage with easy stealth access for maximum DJ spam aka max dps but has literally nothing else so it's awful in PvP unless everybody's just sitting there without paying attention. Same goes for scourge but with AoE condi spam. And to keep them alive in raids they introduced firebrand.

HoT specs even more so.. everyone either got a supreme dps or support spec depending on which one the core spec was lacking (back in 2014 ofc, you can't compare powercrept specs today with back then.. back then 10k backstab crit combo from thief was op burst damage, now it's pretty much average sustained dps by most classes)

So in my opinion PvE destroyed and still destroys sPvP/WvW balance.. just think about condi changes.. Nobody asked for removing a cap for condi stacks, especially not burning or something.. this design choice is just awful and terrible for PvP scenarios but was mandatory when HoT introduced raids because bosses had way too much hp and power damage was too powerful in comparison so they had to change that.

Also Anet completely refused to split skills and stuff between game modes back then and we have to endure the consequences still today imo

PvP in GW2 has a pretty rough time tbh. Guild Wars 2 as a game is just 100% casual but you simply can't make a competitive game mode casual and expect it to be good.

Combining hardcore players and casuals in one game mode will never work in a game. Casuals will be just completely overwhelmed and just straight out quit due to it being too difficult and getting rekt by veterans, while hardcore players will just get bored and complain about the system being flawed while still holding on to the game because they really like it in theory so they want the game mode to succeed but then again continue to constantly steam roll casuals until they have enough and they eventually quit too. So it's a negative experience for everyone.

So.. The question imo isn't really "is the learning curve too steep". Because a casual probably would answer with "hell yes!" while a hardcore pvp'er will probably say "hell no!".

For example.. I like that I have to play every other class with various different builds at least once so I can get a rough idea how all the other classes work and then try to figure out (maybe by getting defeated myself on that class by my main class) how I can counter play. I love theory crafting and tinkering around with my own builds - which is extremely effective. Every time I've been higher than plat 1 was with a custom build because nobody knows how to counter play because everybody is just fixated on metabattle builds and everything different completely overwhelmes a lot of people.

I love the strategic element of the capture mode and the complex decision making based on map awareness and experience and game knowledge.

GW2 is a very easy looking game when you just glance over it but if you go deeper it gets really complex actually.

So... I think the learning curve is steep but for me at least it is/was not "too" steep, in fact it could even be steeper.

And I really appreciate the capture mode btw. I kitten hate Team Deathmatch and I'd probably hate GW2 PvP if we only had TDM as sPVP mode. Just as a side node.

What really kills GW2 PvP for me is solo/duo Q because I have to rely on team mates who absolutely have no clue how to make decisions based on your team comp and map, a really bad balance, extremely slow (balance) updates and overall just basically no support for the game mode from the devs.

@edit: removed first sentence of my comment since op was talking about WoW, which I misunderstood. Rest still holds.

Anet straight up buffed the hell out of the classes over the years, especially with every new expansion. Pre-PoF was much better sPvP balance-wise (even thief was viable for some period during HoT and not just because of shortbow#5), vanilla was even better and that's not just rose-colored glasses. I remember a time when 10k full bersi thief backstab crit was "ermagerd op dmg, plz nerf q_q".

And now 10k are more like 1 or 2 autoattacks for most builds. Keep in mind that we didn't get hp or toughness buff, quite the opposite, sPvP has become a big aoe condi spam, at least teamfights. So we have not only WAY higher direct damage but we now also have constant (pretty much) unavoidable damage just lying around.

Unless Anet nerfs ALL the classes and especially elite-specs to pre-HoT power level I don't really see how this game could be balanced at all.

I know a lot of people just straight up HATE getting a nerf to their main class but keep on the power creep and sPvP is dead before the new expansion drops. And if it's not dead until then, then the new elite specs will probably be the final nail in the coffin.

Imo invulnerability should just be removed from the game or at the very least from PvP modes and be replaced by like an evade or something. Being completely unsuceptible to everything including CCs and condi damage should just not be a thing in a pvp environment imo.

The amount of blocks, evades, invuls etc is too much anyway. Should get an overhaul..

I don't like MOBAs and I'd love GW2 sPvP if it had better balance so why not just use a different pvp balance team in vanilla GW2?

Also MOBA relies on good and very frequent balance way more then gw2 in its current state, Anet would never be able to pull that off. It's just that GW2 pvp balance is fubar unfortunately.

> @"Chiuvitas.8946" said:

> this is regarding https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/83741/chaotic-interruption-temporarily-disabled-in-pvp

> in the other patch you completely remove stuff without giving any compensation and this keeps going on over and over (...) And again, chaotic interruption build wasn't even viable and i'd know cus ive played both mesmer with and without it. It lacks damage and it doesn't put enough pressure, it's only "okay" while outnumbering and it's still worse than a thief or a revenant in that situation

Mirage used to be extremely op so nerf after nerf without compensation was absolutely necessary. Why would you give a broken class compensation if you tune it down so it stays broken? Doesn't make sense to me. Admitted we have reached the point where mirage isn't completely busted a while ago but it's just the mechanics with all those clones that let mirage just spiral out of control and amplitude every little bit of unbalance to a point where it's ridiculous to play against. So as long as clones work the way they work atm (and have worked since ever), there will always be at least one ridiculously annoying build to play against and people will always complain - and rightly so in my opinion. Clones should be mere shatter fodder and for utility only, not for damage or CC imo. This would require buffs to mesmer itself of course but I think it would make balancing much easier and fairer.

If you define "it lacks damage" as "I can't wombocombo anyone out of stealth with 20 stacks torment and confusion with a bit of burn so they die within like a second or two" then yes, I agree, CI mirage lacks damage. However I'd argue being able to lock someone in place for an eternity without the slightest chance of counterplay makes up for the bit of damage loss quite well.

"it's still worse than a thief or a revenant in that situation" -> in which situation exactly? "Disabling the enemy until he's dead" is not quite in the toolkit of a thief or revenant.

And well.. yea.. sPvP is after all still a game mode where some people might say that team work is important so maybe explain again why is it particularly bad for a mesmer to trade a bit of damage/solo pressure to get insane CC output so your mates can just snack the enemies away?

And it's hilarious imo. Mirage was absolutley and objectively broken like a year or so ago and just because Anet fails to tune it down properly so they have to nerf it like every balance patch, people are under the impression mirage is overnerfed now and "it's the worst class in the game".

Of course Holo direly needs nerfs too but that doesn't make mirage the worst class in the game lul.

As a sidenote: The fact that anet can't fix something like ONE SINGLE TRAIT outside a major balance patch via hotfix is just evidence of incapacity.

> @"bravan.3876" said:

> What possitives? I mean really the only thing left is the general combat system being awesome. That and the fact that there is no other mmo with equally good combat system is what hold few ppl back of quitting pvp/wvw in GW2.

^ this.

sPvP is just unfun at this point. The lack of care from Anet killed ESL and by openly showing how little they actually care about the game mode, I think they started to drive away a lot of people a long time ago.

Additionally the solo/duo Q is like the worst thing we can have. A lot of people just hate the idea of joining a full team of solo players while the enemy has a duo. And without a (separate!) full team Q, the only meaningful full team content being ATs with 6h in between just doesn't give any incentive for forming guilds or whatever.

WvW and PvE would be probably dead as well if you restrict raids to 2 man squads max and the rest has to be random.

Balance is pretty much also non-existent and I think this is actually the biggest problem. There have always been several broken builds that were just extremely unfun to play against and while those broken builds often persisted for several balance patches, a lot of fun and already not-really-viable builds were killed off completely.

Anet just doesn't really has a clue about their game.

It's really a shame because GW1 was fantastic. PvP was pretty much always fun, even tho we had absolutely ridiculously broken team-builds but it somehow just worked. The time to kill was probably near perfect. Fights were not lame stalemates for ages (like in FF14 for example) nor did you get bursted down within a second by 95% of the builds (like it is at the moment). And Anet wasn't afraid of completely splitting skills between game modes which helped balancing a lot I guess.. Like there were literally over a thousand skills in the game and you could combine almost every single one into one build and it still somehow worked. I don't know what prevents them from doing the same in GW2.. Guess to keep it casual-friendly so they don't have to remember anything special and can just hop between game modes without using their brain.

Perma stealthing thieves porting mates/mesmers into a keep/tower is actually the only reason why I was hyped for the new portal in the first place.

Don't really see another use for it or something you can't do as mesmer too.

I mean.. did really nobody think about that when it got announced or why all the whining just now?

> @"huluobo.7036" said:

> they always make senseless battles outside.

> I am really tired, I am trying to keep the capture point, but they are hanging out.

I honestly don't see your point. Are you blaming rotational damage dealers to rotate around the map and maybe die when they're getting caught because you stand within your small node circle and just watch them die instead of just helping them?

> @"huluobo.7036" said:

> Sometimes I really want to say something dirty in the game, but filtering will be banned. Sometimes, saying something unclean will make my teammates stronger.

Flaming is like the worst thing you can do honestly, especially against thief. I am a thief main myself and we get blamed for EVERYTHING, even if it's not our fault. It's just sooo kitten annoying and I can't really see how being toxic makes your teammates stronger. In my experience it actually annoys people to a point where they'd rather throw the match and let you lose than trying to turn the game.

I'd assume you are like silver or low gold atm, is that true? just curious.

Yea I'd also argue you should just play sides (either 2 far 3 close or vice versa - depending on where the 5th enemy is and how fast they are counter react and rotating around), then they are forced to rotate somewhere and like 99% of the time it's like the burn dh then pushes far and 1scourge+fb go back to close but they probably take longer to get there than it takes for your team to get both points so you can probably kill at least the guard in an outnumbered fight, enabling you to snowball in a 3v5 on the map, take full control and bash the fb-carried scourges in a 3v5 as well.

Nobody in your team would want to be in the same place as the double scourge + fb tbh, always outrotate them and stick together really well to help each other escape if someone gets caught. Never commit to such a fight and always pay attention to not get steamrolled when they come out of spam together.

This would also apply to close and far, not just mid. Just take the 2 points where they are not atm since they are probably rotating together as well and you are forced to leave.

As a sidenote: 2 scourges with 1 firebrand often split up and the fb rotates between them (unless the fb only cares for one scourge because they duo Q or the other one isn't worth the effort or something), so also pay attention to how they roam, maybe you can gank the fb while he's solo roaming to the other scourge or something like that.

Honestly I think TDM is like the lamest pvp mode you can think of. It's just not exciting imo, so I'm really glad the mode is the way it is, I like it.

> @"Tom Hsiao.9705" said:

> I mean isn’t it a wake up call nobody is going crazy for GW2 PvP... you don’t see massive fans tune in to watch the PvP game or tournament for a reason...

It's more the fact that Anet doesn't care about PvP and even let ESL die rather than investing a bit so the balance doesn't suck.

I mean.. I am still always hoping there will be some changes and improvements but let's be honest.. A company that discards their eSport League because of lack of interest in the game mode and that abandon their brand (back then) new game mode (stronghold) rather than advertising and improving it speaks for itself imo.

If you want to enjoy TDM then I'd suggest playing custom games on courtyard or something.

In my opinion that's just logical tbh.

The mean rating is somewhere in gold1 and the further away you will go with your rating, the more extreme will your +- get.

Like.. It always tries to snap you back to the average value in either direction or rather it occurs naturally since the further away you go from the mean, you have less players on the same rank so you necessarily get team mates with lower ratings. The most extreme case of course is place 1 in the leaderboard.. you can only play against lower players but since you are the highest rated player you are expected to win against everyone else and if you don't you'll get a bigger punishment than if someone that is supposed to lose against you actually loses (based on rating - neglecting counters and such ofc, that's where I see the actual problem but which is also muuuuch more complex to solve if even possible).

A more important problem I see is the coinflip due to solo/duo Q and the wide variety of ratings that get matched together during off-hours and sometimes even peak-hours which makes a perfectly well balanced match for the algorithm since the team's average ratings only differ by a small amount but things like comps or previous ratings won't get taken into account. Because just because someone had a lose streak and dropped from plat 2 to gold 2 because of shitty team mates, he isn't actually playing like a gold 2 so he can probably quickly recover back to plat but on the way up destroys a couple gold players who then come to the forums and whine about op-ness.

Yea I actually thought about that a couple times myself, I'd really appreciate it. It would be extremely helpful to judge how well I performed in comparison to my mates especially if we lose and try to determine whether I was the weakest link in the chain or if there were one or two guys who got completely stomped.

But I don't really see that feature coming tho, simply because it would probably increase toxicity towards specific players (I mean.. just look at all those discussions regarding dps meter in PvE) and Anet probably doesn't want that.. But I can actually see how this could improve the whole whining thing and reduce toxicity in general a bit since you can clearly make out the problem in a match. Whether it was a complete retard on your team or a massively overpowered guy in the enemy team.

And you could objectively keep track of certain class performances. It obviously doesn't reflect the actual performance of a class/player because if you are just standing in a 1v2 as a sidenoder all the time, deal and soak up massive amounts of damage over the course of the match, while your team mates are constantly dying on mid because they need you to be there for enabling the snowball you clearly didn't perform well in that match decision making wise, even tho you may be a beast mechanically/gameplay wise.

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> > @"tacomex.8179" said:

> > Please include deaths as a top stat in PvP, so that players who're feeding actually feel bad and perhaps they'll want to play better or try to improve.

> >

> > Thanks

>

> However if someone had no top stats, but received Most Damage Taken, it would indicate he was a punching bag that match and really didn't contribute much at all.

However if someone had Most Damage Taken but the least deaths or something he was clearly tanking a lot of damage that would have otherwise destroyed the rest of the team, so he would've contributed a lot actually. You always have to look at the whole. This would describe basically any bunker build and we all know how effective Scrapper is.

> @"Braile.3894" said:

> > @"crepuscular.9047" said:

> > I'm happy if Anet will just continue to push the game to its limit the game engine can, in the background they build a brand new game with new engine, or use 3rd party engine like UE4

>

> totally off topic but i hope not

Yea I hope not as well.. People keep forgetting that engines are an extremely complex piece of tool. So developing one is very complex stuff, if you want to go for versatility the complexity rises probably exponentially.. Like it's moderately easy to develop an engine that runs a superb looking game on 1 console (one of many reasons why some games are console exclusive) but trying to support multiple CPUs, GPUs (even different architectures) and OS with a very wide variety of performance of the rig is extremely challenging. Additionally for a MMO you have to think about a clever way to incorporate clustering and various online mechanics (technology wise, not like ingame features) as well.

On top of that it still needs an editor too so you need to provide dedicated pipelines to make the workflow of devs as efficient as possible. So developing an engine is a tough task on its own.

And even if you eventually got the engine to a point where you can actually develop a game with it, it's not like your dev team will immediately produce your regular high quality stuff even if they are experienced game developers in general. The best analogy I can think of atm is it like you'd give a trumpet player a trombone and ask him to play.. extremely similar instruments and techniques needed but it's just not quite the same stuff, you still need to learn and practice a lot.

I guess that's also a big reason to why a lot of asian mmos are STILL being developed with UE3 even tho UE4 has been around and very accessible for ages now. Just because those devs know UE3 and training them for UE4 is probably not really worth it for a MMO since you need a ton of content to begin with and quick update cycles.

@topic:

yea.. GW2 isn't multicore friendly and this information has been around for ages, you'd want to go for max single core performance and in this regard Intel takes the cake in general. But then again not EVERY intel cpu will run well obviously - intel also develops different cpus for different applications and stuff.. an i9 would be a complete waste of money if your concern is running gw2 smoothly for example. You'd probably even be better off with a good i5 then.

Get a good quad or hexa core cpu (I mean.. you won't optimize for gw2 alone let's be honest, but even a good quad core cpu is still sufficient for 99% of the games out atm and I don't think it will change very fast..) with the highest possible frequency, ideally overclockable, get a good cooling system and a matching, high frequency RAM and since nobody has mentioned it already: make sure your mainboard supports those speeds as well. Like.. if your mainboard can only support 2133MHz your 3600MHz RAM won't do anything for you.

> @"Dahkeus.8243" said:

> > @"DoomNexus.5324" said:

> > > @"Dahkeus.8243" said:

> > > > @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:

> > > > > @"Dahkeus.8243" said:

> > > > > > @"Zenix.6198" said:

> > > > > > > @"Dahkeus.8243" said:

> > > > > >

> > > > > > > I'll reserve my opinion until I see what actually comes from all of the big reworks, but if we do end up with a tanky meta, I'll be disappointed since that just leads to really boring and frustrating games with people that just never die.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Not sure what merit that statement has.

> > > > > > Bunker scrapper got nerfed, chrono bunker got nerfed, weaver essentially only dmg buffs.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Overall dmg from the prominent burst classes got nerfed (soulbeast and herald) so Firebrand prolly will have an easier time.

> > > > > > But other than that I don't see a bunker meta emerging, since the sidenoders will just be as susceptible to +1s as before.

> > > > > > But maybe im just talking BS here ....I dunno

> > > > > >

> > > > >

> > > > > It may not be a bunker meta, per say, since a lot of the changes weren't necessarily towards big fight bunker specs, but there were still a lot of buffs to support utility and damage reduction.

> > > > >

> > > > > Bunker scrapper got some nerfs, but also a huge buff from Function gyro. Not sure why any buffs/nerfs to chrono bunker would matter.

> > > > >

> > > > > Tempest and Thief are probably the wild cards though. I don't know ele enough to know whether the Tempest stuff will matter much for PvP, but the buff to overloads certainly makes water overloads a pretty massive heal. If thief ends up getting any support builds, they'll almost certainly be completely obnoxious as they always are, even though they've never been meta.

> > > >

> > > > For ele, they are nominal changes. Most of the changes are okay for tempest. But nothing of major impact.

> > > >

> > > > Thief however is a different story...defined run a wild card. I predict Deadeyes with shadow portals. But there may be some really cool kitten with shadow arts that could come into the gold as well. Daredevil still dead tho until swipe gets reverted.

> > >

> > > Yea, thief could definitely be wild. I mean, will we see D/P come back as DA/Tr/SA? Will the Shadow Savior trait be good enough that it makes it ideal for sword builds? I doubt it would replace a trait line in the meta S/D build, but maybe a S/P build would be viable? If Flickering Shadows doesn't have an internal cooldown, will people abuse it for a Thief bunker build or sorts?

> >

> > D/P won't ever come back without Swipe range buff/revert or a major damage buff. I mean it wasn't the only thing that got nerfed on d/p (dmg via lead attack nerf for example) only the final nail in the coffin.. And I don't really see SA becoming viable in competitive play even after the changes. Keep in mind that d/p was almost exclusively played as Daredevil because d/p doesn't provide any evades or good disengage potential unlike s/d on 2 and 3, so you need something that allows you to stay longer in melee range (aka a lot of evades and endurance gain - which Daredevil provides).

> >

>

> D/P definitely come back the way it was with DrD, but it will have plenty of escapes from stealth to make up for the losses in evades. If the new portal skill has a decent cooldown and mechanics, it'll also give another good escape.

>

> D/P was never a great spec for actual fighting the way that S/D is, but it had insane mobility and good burst. It's definitely possible that the burst just won't be good enough without lead attacks or damage boosts in SA, but the stealth will make it very good at decapping.

Well.. okay maybe.. thief could become a little sturdier with the new SA due to Flickering Shadows (since it's basically a perma infight protection buff that can't be corrupted or ripped) as well as some passive heal via Cloaked in Shadow life siphoning effect, but probably not to outweigh DrD since Escapist's Fortitude also provided heal on dodge or Marauder's Resilience for a bit more def/hp too.. The advantage of Flickering Shadows + Cloaked in Shadows is you can use both at the same time ofc .

But other than that I don't really think the changes will do anything for d/p in sPvP since it already has good stealth access and you probably don't want to perma stealth in sPvP. What is really useful I think is that the +50% movement speed (along with the extended stealth duration) is a minor trait now so it won't take up a slot anymore and it will be extremely useful for decapping/rotating for sure. But keep in mind that DrD added Pulmonary Impact for additional dmg and Dash for soft CC break and perma swiftness as well as 1 additional maximum dodge and additional endurance gain. So I'd guess the reduced damage and higher stealthed mobilty you get from SA will come for the price of way less evades and less mobility in general so.. Maybe the (almost) flat 33% dmg reduction and additional 2 boon rip on Rending Shade (which brings us to 5 ripped boons on steal/backstab combo which may trigger the fear quite often) will outweigh the negatives but we'll see.

But even then.. Lead Attack nerf chipped away a huge chunk of initial burst damage and Swipe range is just.. yea.. it's just unfun to play with 600 range steal tbh.

As for the portal skill. While there will be some play involving it for sure, since you can take 1 mate with you through the portal which get stealthed, it won't be as useful as Shadow Trap imo. A skill almost nobody used.. I stumbled across it like at the end of last year or something and since then it was my default third utility skill on d/p. If you are not familiar with it.. it was a trap you could lay down and either activate yourself to get a 10000 range shadow step back to the trap's location (huge for decapping, disengage and instant re-decapping - it also had a massive uptime of like a couple minutes, don't remember exactly anymore) or if activated by an enemy you can shadow step to the then marked enemy (also with 10k range?) and get a couple seconds of stealth. The only thing that broke it a bit was the shitty shadow step validation, so on some spots I only shadow stepped like 2k range even though I could've traveled the entire 10k distance back by valid path.

My all time favorite is thief, just because you can ez mode almost everything in open world due to ez stealth access, good amount of dodges and high out-of-combat mobility. I also really like the playstyle of thief in open world because you can either deal a pretty substantial amount of single target damage (with almost every weapon set) while also not too shabby with AoE (shortbow). And you always have the ability to just disengage and recover.

Rev (Herald) is also pretty good but is a bit awkward with the legend+weapon swap system and energy management if you aren't used to it. You can't do anything wrong with Holo/Engineer either, it's really a jack of all trades.

But if you enjoy it, Necro should be just fine as well imo. Reaper would probably my go-to spec for Necro for open world content. With staff for events/farms due to massive area coverage.

It's like with everything that involves conditions. If you run it against classes with poor condi cleanse (say Rev) it's completely and utterly busted while you do basically nothing to something like Firebrand.

Yes we definitely need a much quicker balance patch cycle and Anet shouldn't be afraid of hot fixes too. Like with Berserker Arc Divider. Being able to dish out 31k to everyone within the entire node should have been fixed no later than the next day for example. Instead it stuck around for 3 weeks (and is still ridiculous but hey.. berserker still gets overshadowed by spellbreaker so why bother right?).

Also those balance changes should be much smaller then and not adjust 10 screws at a time, completely overshooting the goal, like Anet regularly does with those occasional "big" patches.

And as far as theorycrafting and time to settle goes.. While I can fully understand that this is indeed important, it isn't really a good argument here imo, they could easily put out another balance patch in which they then address stuff like Holo or Firebrand+Scourge, so a completely new and independent balancing to the current/next one.

Instead we will have to wait another 3 months to let our hopes for finally a better balance die.

So.. I wouldn't expect them to instantly revert or further balance already balanced stuff (unless direly needed) but could then simply address other stuff too.

And yes. P L E A S E . keep on nerfing the classes because the constant buffing and power and sustain creeping has to come to an end!

> @"bladezero.9470" said:

> 1. How do you get the NA playerbase to receive healing signet res? They always blink/step/mist out of range in their downstate?

Idk about NA playerbase but ye.. just don't pop it on classes with ports and stuff.. I'm a thief main and we are conditioned to either port towards mates or away to get out of combat for a short period and hope you'd cleave the downed guy next to me faster than I get cleaved.. so just anticipate the port if you are in range and prepare for manual healing, but thieves for example aren't really expecting to get rezzed anyway tbh.. but I'll comment the rest from a firebrand point of view since I have a bit of experience with fb in sPvP as well.

> 2. Do you use Mace or prefer Sword with shield?

If I can stay on point I prefer Mace, if I have to roam around with my team I'd take sword

> 3. Do you use mantras? Like...do you use any of them? Like...ever?

Yes, heal and elite.

> 4. Renewed Focus is OP?

Nah I don't think so. Renewed Focus is nice but it's not reactive enough in a teamfight imo. 3s in which you can't heal/support is just too long if the enemy is bursty enough (which is the case more often than not in this meta) and even for selfsustain on node.. it prevents node capture so not particularly good either.

So.. it's obviously not bad but I wouldn't say OP either. Most of who I know play with mantra anyway and it works actually better.

> 5. Can you justify running anything other than shelter in this bursty meta?

yes, the mantra.

> 6. What do you open a team fight with?

I don't, I'm support, I let others engage first.. The less I need to sustain myself the more I can focus on supporting them. Maybe pop staff5 wall to split the enemy team while engaging or stuff like this but other than that I try to stay out of focus as best as I can.

> 7. When do you engage the initial team fight?

When my mates are engaging. Also if 1 lonely guy decides to blindly rush on node while 2 others + me are still waiting for an opening, I don't overcommit just to save him tbh.

> 8. When do you disengage a losing team fight?

I don't, I follow my mates if they disengage but if they stay I will too. Because if I disengage and they don't immediately notice they'll die pretty fast and so will I when the enemy decides to chase me. But again.. if one lonely guy blindly stays on point while the other 2 are already trying to roam away I won't try and carry him unless I'm confident enough we can sustain and not waste our time/provide free kills.

> 9. How do you stop your scourge from roaming solo?

Follow him. I mean if he roams to far or something just ask him to stay mid/close because far is not the scourge's business anyway. But even then you should follow if that's the best option.

> 10. How do you stop your scourge from feeding a 1 v 3 at mid?

You don't, you should easily be able to 2v3 as fb+scourge on a node tbh, at least long enough to get +1'd. Unless one of you (or both) is garbage ofc.

>

> Bonus Questions:

>

> 11. Revenants, aren't they cute? How do you support them?

You don't. At least not if you have higher priority targets to focus heal like your scourge or maybe even Holo (works pretty well with FB support too).

If they stick around they will probably get some heal from your AoE heals and if they roam and port around you probably can't keep up anyway.

But you don't really want to stand in one point all the time so don't be afraid to roam into team fights if this makes sense.. ofc don't roam to a sidenoder on far when he's in a 1v1 but ye.. when there's like a 2v3 going on at far or something and mid is calm/can be held by a mate for the time you are roaming you could maybe support-gank far.

As with everything in GW2 sPvP you have to make some decisions. Just don't be afraid of opening your gameplay up (rotating around and such), especially in solo Q where you can't necessarily rely on your mates.

> @"Dahkeus.8243" said:

> > @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:

> > > @"Dahkeus.8243" said:

> > > > @"Zenix.6198" said:

> > > > > @"Dahkeus.8243" said:

> > > >

> > > > > I'll reserve my opinion until I see what actually comes from all of the big reworks, but if we do end up with a tanky meta, I'll be disappointed since that just leads to really boring and frustrating games with people that just never die.

> > > >

> > > > Not sure what merit that statement has.

> > > > Bunker scrapper got nerfed, chrono bunker got nerfed, weaver essentially only dmg buffs.

> > > >

> > > > Overall dmg from the prominent burst classes got nerfed (soulbeast and herald) so Firebrand prolly will have an easier time.

> > > > But other than that I don't see a bunker meta emerging, since the sidenoders will just be as susceptible to +1s as before.

> > > > But maybe im just talking BS here ....I dunno

> > > >

> > >

> > > It may not be a bunker meta, per say, since a lot of the changes weren't necessarily towards big fight bunker specs, but there were still a lot of buffs to support utility and damage reduction.

> > >

> > > Bunker scrapper got some nerfs, but also a huge buff from Function gyro. Not sure why any buffs/nerfs to chrono bunker would matter.

> > >

> > > Tempest and Thief are probably the wild cards though. I don't know ele enough to know whether the Tempest stuff will matter much for PvP, but the buff to overloads certainly makes water overloads a pretty massive heal. If thief ends up getting any support builds, they'll almost certainly be completely obnoxious as they always are, even though they've never been meta.

> >

> > For ele, they are nominal changes. Most of the changes are okay for tempest. But nothing of major impact.

> >

> > Thief however is a different story...defined run a wild card. I predict Deadeyes with shadow portals. But there may be some really cool kitten with shadow arts that could come into the gold as well. Daredevil still dead tho until swipe gets reverted.

>

> Yea, thief could definitely be wild. I mean, will we see D/P come back as DA/Tr/SA? Will the Shadow Savior trait be good enough that it makes it ideal for sword builds? I doubt it would replace a trait line in the meta S/D build, but maybe a S/P build would be viable? If Flickering Shadows doesn't have an internal cooldown, will people abuse it for a Thief bunker build or sorts?

D/P won't ever come back without Swipe range buff/revert or a major damage buff. I mean it wasn't the only thing that got nerfed on d/p (dmg via lead attack nerf for example) only the final nail in the coffin.. And I don't really see SA becoming viable in competitive play even after the changes. Keep in mind that d/p was almost exclusively played as Daredevil because d/p doesn't provide any evades or good disengage potential unlike s/d on 2 and 3, so you need something that allows you to stay longer in melee range (aka a lot of evades and endurance gain - which Daredevil provides).

> @"Nezekan.2671" said:

> This game can no longer afford complete nerfs. The player base is already dying. A lot of people left the game when Mesmer was nerfed to the ground across the board in all modes in 2018. People who played Chrono since HoT were very disappointed and it decimated Mesmer playerbase. They will not repeat that mistake again.

That's bs.. Anet should nerf everything, the power and sustain creep went too far and needs to be tuned down across the board so I'm actually quite happy to see some of the nerfs. But we have a typical Anet move here and they are only adjusting half of what they should do.

Yea I'd guess it's just lag tbh.. I mean.. if you invest in a port hack you'd want to use it properly right? like.. teleporting between nodes and stuff..

And the ports only occur when CC'd and every time in the direction they are currently running (with the exception of 1 time but it seems reasonable to run in the direction they get ported) and one time even back and forth on the same running path.

> @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> Suspicious perhaps, but my reaction is still "this haxxor teleporting around is *nothing* to compared to what a plain regular thief can do with normal skills" for some reason.

Yea right, obviously thief needs his mobility nerfed since it's the only thing thief has and what makes the class still viable in sPvP lol.. And pls let's just ignore that Infiltrator's Arrow cost 6 initiative while thief maxes out on 15 in total so even for a third cast you need to wait and then you are left with 0 initiative which leaves thief with only auto attacks so..

First of all Anet is already working towards implementing [build templates](https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/whats-next-for-guild-wars-2/ "https://guildwars2.com/en/news/whats-next-for-guild-wars-2/")

> Over the past few months, astute players have been noticing a trend of updates and improvements to how our skill-slotting system works and have accurately speculated that the long-requested feature of build templates is in the works.

Secondly you already have the option to use build templates from arcdps. It works quite well atm although I'd suggest at least checking everything after swap.

> @"aymnad.9023" said:

> Quite sure that's what it means. 3s of daggerstorm invulnerability instead of 4.

*Evade*.. Pls use the correct terms.. there's a huge difference between invul and evade and that's exactly the reason why dagger storm doesn't prevent point capture for example.

> @"James.1065" said:

> > @"Ganathar.4956" said:

> > > @"James.1065" said:

> > > I honestly don't know what they based the decision on that reapers survivability was too high with soul eater healing in shroud.

> > >

> > > It's the squishiest class of all the melee professions and common knowledge to focus it first as an easy kill! Seriously kitten

> >

> > It's a PvE change. In PvE the mobs just stand there and eat your damage, and even if they move a bit reaper has enough cleave to easily multi-hit them. The trait made it so you were much harder to kill. This is on a spec that was already harder to die with than other DPS specs in PvE without soul eater. It does suck a little for competitive modes but the truth is that it barely did anything there anyway. If you get any significant healing from this it means that you would have won the fight anyway.

>

> It suits the theme to be able to heal in shroud and also makes playing it fun: you take damage from your health bar to gain LF and then go into shroud to deal damage and gain back your health, as your LF depletes. It's a balancing trick of micro managing your health vs force. It was a super cool mechanic and not over powered at all.

So you are telling us that.. having 2 separate hp bars, where one recovers while the other one gets depleted and you can change almost at will (with cd) so you can recharge the second one while the first one regenerates.. is not an op mechanic? thonk

I agree tho, the change was not necessary. Would rather like to see a little less aoe burst. The damage output is actually fine imo, it's just that in sPvP the on-point AoE cleave is a tad too high when using Reaper's Onslaught imo.

> @"James.1065" said:

> It's the squishiest class of all the melee professions and common knowledge to focus it first as an easy kill! Seriously kitten

Let me fix that sentence for you:

"It has ridiculous burst output with spin2win and AoE chill and it is common knowledge to focus it first as a very strong aoe damage dealer".

There you go :)

From a sPvP point of view (I couldn't care less for PvE or WvW balance tbh):

Burn and Fire buffs to ele were absolutely unnecessary, now we will only see sidenoding Fireweavers in every (other) match.

DH and Reaper changes were also pretty much unnecessary, Reaper needs a slight damage output redcution on shroud4 spin to win but other than that.. DH.. I don't really know what DH needs, it is already pretty good, it just completely gets overshadowed by Firebrand.

None of the broken stuff from Mirage got adressed (mainly CI perma daze/immob spam). Holo didn't get adressed at all (like.. Overheat was imo already punishing enough and since noone actually overheats.. could as well not be there at all - the tradeoff for Holo is basically non-existing). Firebrand+Scourge didn't get any nerfs at all too.

Rampage nerf was too little. I'd like to see a damage reduction on autoattack and CC-duration tune down.

I like the changes to soulbeast and Revs, although I think Rev got a tad too much of a tune down, hope Herald won't be a +1 class only anymore. Like.. might uptime got a massive nerf and on top of that also 2 of the main burst components (Shackling Wave and Impossible Odds). Let's see how this works out.

The scrapper changes are pretty ok overall, I just hope the function gyro change won't be too op.

Thief changes were.. idk I'll take it, won't complain unless they are as garbage as traps. Guess thief mains can consider no additional nerfs a positive (other than dagger storm - which is.. okay.. it's not as necessary or important to thief gameplay as those think who constantly cry for "nErF dAt GoDmOdE sKiLl" on forums). But I'd rather like to see some buffs to d/p daredevil again since it's pretty much the most enjoyable thief build/spec combo for thief but unfortunately garbage since lead attack nerf and swipe change/nerf (can we pls get its ranged increased to 900? :< ) and some other nerf I have already forgotten.

Overall while there are slight positives, I'm very underwhelmed by the balance patch tbh. But since I didn't have any expecations.. Anet just lowered the bar over the years to a point where I don't really care anymore, just wanted to share my 2ct too, since I'm still actively playing.