God.2708

Glyph of the Stars.

Does anyone actually have any arguments about PoP being overtuned/overpowered? Or is 'People get boons if you cure their conditions' all you've really got? The only thing I really see being problematic is the fact chill gets converted to alacrity, which allows the scrapper to get an okay uptime of a boon it generally should not get access to. Chill is also not nearly as uncommon as it should be, and something as simple as a tempest support putting out frost aura occasionally allows a squad to gain way more alacrity than it should (which acts as an inadvertent nerf to the tempest too). And possibly that immobilize gets converted to resistance, but resistance does not get converted to immobilize (please do not bring that back). Keep in mind purity of purpose use to exist on e-gun cleanses only (which is 60% of a scrappers cleanses anyway) long before PoP came about with https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Inversion_Enzyme and scrappers still didn't get used as supports. It started getting looked at in the May 2018 update when MDF got a huge buff, Med kit got reworked, and defense field applied stability. That was 3 months where PoP existed and scrappers were 'meh'. They became staple in start of 2019 with the gyro/superspeed rework (compounded by the anti-toxin rune silliness). So I remain skeptical that PoP is in any way a problem beyond the resistance/alacrity access it gives scrappers (which is a small acceptable change that shouldn't be 'hard' to implement)

> @"Hannelore.8153" said: > Target caps should be doubled on offensive skills which would literally half the "spread" of damage in zergs. By doing that and leaving the number of targets for support skills at five after the recent changes, it'd give smaller groups the advantage. > > The problem with building a game around using siege for zergbusting is they can just build a balli and destroy it in 5sec, and a zerg will always have an advantage at building siege due to increasing builders, blueprints and supplies, so players need to be capable of their own "siege warfare". I've seen this done in other RvR games and it does work. > > In the early days we somewhat had this with skills like Meteor Shower, but hard nerfs ruined those tactics. Yes please. I would love to make a blob of reapers and tempests and just one shot shout the stupid clouds dead whilst they think they can wipe my parties with actual sustain out because they can hit more people.

> @"JTGuevara.9018" said: > > @"God.2708" said: > > > @"JTGuevara.9018" said: > > > @"subversiontwo.7501" > > > > > > First off, I will just address your name. You have a massive post, so I will just address it in general. As far as my argument being "baffling", it is simple enough to me. Maybe I should reiterate it? Here it is. I'm just going to be transparent about this. > > > > > > Guilds should not be given any more power in this game. A potential influx of guilds aided by the implementation of an alliance system will not magically fix WvW, specially at this point. The fact that PUGs are toxic and mean at times are _not_ a viable argument for guilds taking control for this game mode. Period. End of. Guilds are _not_ "the server", as you claim, they are _a part_ of the server, they are _in_ the server. Guilds are no more important than PUGs and everyone else. That is ALL that I have said. > > > > > > I really cannot make this any more clearer than that. > > > > I don't think you understand what power actually is, or how it manifests itself in something like WvW. Else you would not be speaking nonsense like you are. > > My apologies! Might you explain to the rest of us what power is then if what you think I say is "nonsense"? I'll be waiting. > > @"getalifeturd.8139" > > It is massive posts like these that just drive the point home for me that any sort of guild 'alliance' system is doomed to fail. All this drama, politicking and backstabbing...for what? Stroking your e-stick to compensate for what you don't have? Doing it just for kicks? Tryharding in this manner is just sad and just drives people away from playing this game. And overall, these situations demonstrate how flawed and broken the server tier system actually is. If ya ask me, honestly, nothing short of unifying all the servers and implementing a WvW mega server with a 3-way faction system will actually address population in any meaningful way. Yes, I know _some_ people will _balk_ at this suggestion, but I honestly see no other way. With the server links that we have, we basically are halfway there. (8 to 4 tiers) However, I see that people are either too loyal to either their guild or their server (aka "guild pride" and "server pride" respectively) to actually accept meaningful changes to WvW. > Power is top down. What something has to exert control on its surroundings by force or tools that grant it said control. If you join my guild I can kick you. What guilds have that you are describing is authority. That is bottom up. Authority is control gifted from below, and it can be rescinded at anytime by those beneath it. WvW runs off of authority because there doesn't exist any tools of power. I can't kick anyone off my server, at best I can annoy/troll them which could possibly result in Anet using their power on me to get me removed, so is not very effective. Guilds are given that authority by subsections of the WvW populace for a variety of reasons. Some because they like the commander's attitude, some because they like to PPT, some because they like to troll. The point of alliances is to create a system that lets guilds expand their authority and compete with one another. (IE. a guild that caters to PUGs and gets them to work with it will see more success than one that actively trolls them, regardless of the guilds capabilities when actually playing) This is why what you are saying is nonsense. Guilds aren't separate entities from PUGs. They are PUGs that have gotten together and agreed on a mutual idea. (It should go without saying that a mode about war would value coordination and cooperation, a topic many PUGs seem to fail to grasp.) You can't get rid of that 'power' because it isn't power, it's authority. Nor can guilds gain 'control' of the mode through alliances. If they have control it is through the collective cooperation of a very large number of people. The only way to get rid of it would be to randomly match people and not let them talk to each other so they can't coordinate. Which, forgive me for saying, sounds kitten awful. The largest detriment to the mode at the current moment is the fact that Anet makes it actively difficult for servers to gain a consistent identity. Identity and culture create a lasting impact, and are important to a long term mode like WvW. You can take guilds out of Guild Wars 2 but you can't take it out of war. Also that guy was copypasta ing.

> @"JTGuevara.9018" said: > @"subversiontwo.7501" > > First off, I will just address your name. You have a massive post, so I will just address it in general. As far as my argument being "baffling", it is simple enough to me. Maybe I should reiterate it? Here it is. I'm just going to be transparent about this. > > Guilds should not be given any more power in this game. A potential influx of guilds aided by the implementation of an alliance system will not magically fix WvW, specially at this point. The fact that PUGs are toxic and mean at times are _not_ a viable argument for guilds taking control for this game mode. Period. End of. Guilds are _not_ "the server", as you claim, they are _a part_ of the server, they are _in_ the server. Guilds are no more important than PUGs and everyone else. That is ALL that I have said. > > I really cannot make this any more clearer than that. I don't think you understand what power actually is, or how it manifests itself in something like WvW. Else you would not be speaking nonsense like you are.

Yes. Alliances helping with scoring/population imbalance was meant to be a first step. That wasn't the heart of the motivation for it. The key thing alliances fixes is that **_I SHOULD NOT HAVE TO TELL MY FRIENDS THEY NEED TO SPEND MONEY TO TRANSFER TO MY SERVER (If it's not full) TO PLAY WITH ME._** For a mode about working together, the fact people cannot easily play with others without it, at best, being locked behind a paywall is by and far the biggest detriment to the mode bar none.

> @"Svarty.8019" said: > > @"Sviel.7493" said: > > I'm really curious as to what they're doing here. I missed the announcement (if there was one?) about the first part, though I did notice that wall health was lower. 6 months is a long time--what could they possible have in store that can't even be mentioned in that time frame? > > > > Also, apparently they don't have any fun fighting to open structures...which is not a great look when designing a territory control game. They should seriously consider hiring [someone who knows how the territory control game works] > > I've edited your quote, so that an Arenanet employee could read it more clearly. > > I concur with your opinion and would very much like to see what would happen if such an employee were to appear. > > It seems to me that there are many things that could be tried in terms of wall adjustments in order to make the capturing process more interesting. I believe we're currently in a situation where the game favours a specific types of attacker (giant group, aka zerg) - especially now that pulls and other crowd control abilities are way more common than their counters (such as Stability). > > The knock-on effect is that the traditional counters to siege, i.e. disablers and counter-siege are themselves death-traps - countering big groups is now too difficult. > > I posit that Just because you bring a giant group, doesn't NECESSARILY mean you should get a free cap (effortless capture). -we're losing players because it appears that Arenanet don't agree. > > Why bother trying to defend anymore? Generally if you want to counter a big group, you should bring a big group of your own. If you can't be bothered to cohesively work together to stop the enemy, you deserve to lose the structure. If you don't have enough people to form a big group, that is a different problem that doesn't have to do with wall health or territory control.

> @"Helicity.3416" said: > > @"supreme.3602" said: > > > @"God.2708" said: > > > > @"supreme.3602" said: > > > > > @"God.2708" said: > > > > > > @"Helicity.3416" said: > > > > > > > @"Infusion.7149" said: > > > > > > > Firebrand , tempest, or scrapper (if you don't care as much about loot bags and your commander doesn't give scout tag) > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Chrono / spellbreaker are both more for boon rip not really for heal output or "keeping people alive". > > > > > > > Your other options are dismal: druid, any thief, support scourge (people usually run hybrid) , herald (clunky tablet). > > > > > > > > > > > > Tempest is dead. > > > > > > It was already easily outperformed by scrapper, and then they nerfed shout targets to make sure Ele can't do anything the best. > > > > > > > > > > > > Thanks anet! > > > > > > > > > > Tempest cleanses more than scrapper does, assuming you are running the right build. It also offers a glyph rez. It's much stronger than scrapper at the small scale because of that. The shout nerf (which was known as going to happen for almost a year) did nothing really to affect tempests place in zergs, it was and is still about the superspeed, stealth, and condi conversion. > > > > > > > > No competent Scrapper will allow themselves to get outcleansed by a Tempest. It's not possible anymore, not with the nerf to **Tempestuous Aria** and **Water Overload**. > > > > > > > > Give me some of that good stuff you're smoking, as well, because I wish I could play Tempest again and get high numbers like I once did before, I really do. > > > > > > Scrapper Cleanses > > > Fumigate: 25 cleanses every 12s (2.1c/s) (Edit: Thought it was 30, its 25) > > > Cleansing Field: 20 every 15s (1.3c/s) > > > Purge Gyro: 25 cleanses every 20s (1.25c/s) > > > Cleansing Synergy: 5 cleanses every 17s (0.3c/s) > > > Super Elixir: 5 cleanses every 20s (0.25c/s) > > > Some Whirl finisher shenanigans: ? > > > 4.98 Cleanses per second. > > > > > > D/F Elementalist, Trooper Runes. > > > "Feel The Burn": 10 cleanses every 25s (0.4c/s) > > > "AfterShock"/"Deep Freeze": 10 cleanses every 30s (0.33c/s) > > > Eye of the Storm: 5 cleanses every 35s (0.14c/s) > > > "Wash the Pain Away": 10 cleanses every 25s (0.4c/s) > > > Fire attune ->Transmute: 15 cleanses every 10s (1.5c/s) > > > Water attune: 5 cleanses every 20s (.25c/s) > > > Shocking Aura -> Transmute: 15 cleanses every 25s (0.6c/s) > > > Overload Water: 25 cleanses every 20s (1.25c/s) > > > Stop Drop n Roll: ?? > > > Air overload -> transmute: ?? > > > Extra fire aura casts: ?? > > > Randomly blasting your guardian light fields with one of your 3/4 blasts: ?? > > > 4.87 Cleanses per second. > > > > > > The scrapper has a slightly easier/more consistent time, but the tempest is easily competitive, and better if any of those ??s happen regularly (more than once every 10s) > > > > > > > Nice, you're one of those numbers kind of guy. Doesn't matter, anyway. I have yet to see a Tempest outcleanse a Scrapper in this current meta. It won't work no matter how many numbers and skills you post here. > > It's not even close, and we really REALLY tried. > > But let this guy keep believing, presumably he is on a onepush server where he does comparatively well because the bar is very low. > > I can outcleanse a garbage scrapper on my tempest, but any remotely competent scrapper will begin outpacing at around 1m combat duration, and never stop. Whoosh. I'm very excited to here about your leet server. I didn't state tempest was better than scrapper at all. I said tempest can outcleanse it. I've watched it happen and I've done it on multiple servers. You can anecdotal away. I don't think taking tempests over scrappers is a good idea, because of things mentioned in first post, but Tempest has more, if slightly less consistent, cleanses (which is why they stop cleansing more after a minute usually) I also appreciate you totally left out the brunt of my argument: Tempest isn't dead, and thrives at the smaller scale, where the utility it brings that scrapper doesn't have access to shines way more.

> @"supreme.3602" said: > > @"God.2708" said: > > > @"Helicity.3416" said: > > > > @"Infusion.7149" said: > > > > Firebrand , tempest, or scrapper (if you don't care as much about loot bags and your commander doesn't give scout tag) > > > > > > > > Chrono / spellbreaker are both more for boon rip not really for heal output or "keeping people alive". > > > > Your other options are dismal: druid, any thief, support scourge (people usually run hybrid) , herald (clunky tablet). > > > > > > Tempest is dead. > > > It was already easily outperformed by scrapper, and then they nerfed shout targets to make sure Ele can't do anything the best. > > > > > > Thanks anet! > > > > Tempest cleanses more than scrapper does, assuming you are running the right build. It also offers a glyph rez. It's much stronger than scrapper at the small scale because of that. The shout nerf (which was known as going to happen for almost a year) did nothing really to affect tempests place in zergs, it was and is still about the superspeed, stealth, and condi conversion. > > No competent Scrapper will allow themselves to get outcleansed by a Tempest. It's not possible anymore, not with the nerf to **Tempestuous Aria** and **Water Overload**. > > Give me some of that good stuff you're smoking, as well, because I wish I could play Tempest again and get high numbers like I once did before, I really do. Scrapper Cleanses Fumigate: 25 cleanses every 12s (2.1c/s) (Edit: Thought it was 30, its 25) Cleansing Field: 20 every 15s (1.3c/s) Purge Gyro: 25 cleanses every 20s (1.25c/s) Cleansing Synergy: 5 cleanses every 17s (0.3c/s) Super Elixir: 5 cleanses every 20s (0.25c/s) Some Whirl finisher shenanigans: ? 4.98 Cleanses per second. D/F Elementalist, Trooper Runes. "Feel The Burn": 10 cleanses every 25s (0.4c/s) "AfterShock"/"Deep Freeze": 10 cleanses every 30s (0.33c/s) Eye of the Storm: 5 cleanses every 35s (0.14c/s) "Wash the Pain Away": 10 cleanses every 25s (0.4c/s) Fire attune ->Transmute: 15 cleanses every 10s (1.5c/s) Water attune: 5 cleanses every 20s (.25c/s) Shocking Aura -> Transmute: 15 cleanses every 25s (0.6c/s) Overload Water: 25 cleanses every 20s (1.25c/s) Stop Drop n Roll: ?? Air overload -> transmute: ?? Extra fire aura casts: ?? Randomly blasting your guardian light fields with one of your 3/4 blasts: ?? 4.87 Cleanses per second. The scrapper has a slightly easier/more consistent time, but the tempest is easily competitive, and better if any of those ??s happen regularly (more than once every 10s)

> @"Doug.4930" said: > > ......... > > What? Berserker? Of all the stats to draw comparisons to that's the one you chose? Your point is any group not running berserker gear will lose to groups that are running zerk?? Ill humour you. Tell me, assuming 2 duo roamer groups are equally skilled, 2 condi heralds vs 2 berserker heralds. Who wins? Or hell one berserker herald and one condi herald against 2 condi heralds? Spoiler alert the condi builds win. Because condi is typically stronger roaming. Despite the fact that berserker herald is more than viable it just isn't going to stand up to condi stats like dire/trailblazer. > > So..... im not really sure how you think berserker substitutes for minstrel at all. Its all too common that a group that is running zerk will lose to groups running dire, cele or other gear stats. But you throw a minstrel support class into that 2v2 [EDIT: Or any size fight to be honest] and whichever duo [or group] thats running it now becomes un-killable. All other gear stats are now irrelevant. Because like i said above no gear/build comes close to rivaling how much a minsterl support class brings to the table in ANY WvW related fight large or small. > > So you can edit my post to replace minstrel with any gear stat. Personally I would have gone with Marauders/trailblazer/dire etc as those gear stats are usually more powerful than straight zerk. But none of them, not even trailblazer which is an abomination in its own right comes close to affecting/breaking the game as much as minstrel gear does. Two people spiking properly will eat through even dire or minstrel gear. If you think two (or any number of) people coordinating builds to work together should lose to two people simply playing... I don't think you understand how teamwork works.

> @"Doug.4930" said: > > @"subversiontwo.7501" said: > > > @"Doug.4930" said: > > > Lets be honest though, the real problem with these supports is minstrel gear stat. The amount of boon spam/cleansing/healing these pocket healers can dish out all whilst being mobile tanks is insane. > > > > > > These supports don't support the group they're in. They outright carry them. > > > > Did you just take every word you didn't like and threw them together in a couple of sentences? > > > > The gear makes them do two things, yes, tank and heal as heals don't crit or extend. That's similar to condition damage on classes that don't need crit or expertise to be effective. The gear doesn't give more buttons to push. Also, pocket healing is generally just when you put support around what used to be a solo roamer. In most common cases its simply a healer. Is the healing too much? The devs did what is still a fairly recent balance pass and seems happy with the balance between heals and damage. > > By fairly recent I'm assuming you're talking by anet standards. So within a year? Are you implying the devs being happy with the balance means its balanced? Devs also seem to be happy with the amount of content they release for WvW. > > Also you're right about condition damage. Blows my mind that condi herald is still not nerfed. But I can understand that condi herald is only good in certain situations like roaming. Minstrel builds are so over-tuned that they break the game in any mode of WvW in which they are present. Zerging/Havoc/Roaming you name it. If you come across a group running minstrel healers and you aren't, you lose. > > So yea condi builds are a plague that only infect the circles that I walk in which ill admit is roaming. I understand that nerfing them will make them even less viable in larger scale where power is still king for damage. So I appreciate the predicament despite my personal bias. Minstrel however is a plague that has spread to every facet of this game mode. It dominates the meta in everything it touches. > You either run minstrel gear or you lose to the group that does. Skill becomes irrelevant. The boon spam, the heals, the cleansing, the projectile hate, how tanky they are. It just brings way too much to the table for the price of nothing. Also you're right about condition damage. Blows my mind that condi herald is still not nerfed. But I can understand that condi herald is only good in certain situations like roaming. Berserker builds are so over-tuned that they break the game in any mode of WvW in which they are present. Zerging/Havoc/Roaming you name it. If you come across a group running Berserker DPS and you aren't, you lose. So yea condi builds are a plague that only infect the circles that I walk in which ill admit is roaming. I understand that nerfing them will make them even less viable in larger scale where power is still king for damage. So I appreciate the predicament despite my personal bias. Berserker however is a plague that has spread to every facet of this game mode. It dominates the meta in everything it touches. You either run berserker gear or you lose to the group that does. Skill becomes irrelevant. The boon spam, the damage, the strips, the projectile hate, how powerful they are. It just brings way too much to the table for the price of nothing. ????????????????????????????? I can sort of appreciate your sentiment, but your argument doesn't amount to much when you can replace the primary keyword and it still be true.

> @"Helicity.3416" said: > > @"Infusion.7149" said: > > Firebrand , tempest, or scrapper (if you don't care as much about loot bags and your commander doesn't give scout tag) > > > > Chrono / spellbreaker are both more for boon rip not really for heal output or "keeping people alive". > > Your other options are dismal: druid, any thief, support scourge (people usually run hybrid) , herald (clunky tablet). > > Tempest is dead. > It was already easily outperformed by scrapper, and then they nerfed shout targets to make sure Ele can't do anything the best. > > Thanks anet! Tempest cleanses more than scrapper does, assuming you are running the right build. It also offers a glyph rez. It's much stronger than scrapper at the small scale because of that. The shout nerf (which was known as going to happen for almost a year) did nothing really to affect tempests place in zergs, it was and is still about the superspeed, stealth, and condi conversion.

> @"Dawdler.8521" said: > > @"Svarty.8019" said: > > I read ~~most~~ some of the OP. > > > > I believe the great idea here is to remove the target cap on fixed siege - or something like that. Using zerg-size to mitigate damage is cheese of the highest order. Wensleydale or Double Gloucester or somesuch. > ... siege has a current target cap of 50. What do you want to increase it to, 100? I doubt it will make a difference. ACs only hit 25 targets. I actually had to go in game to verify this, it got patched a long time ago, but the wiki still lists it as 50.

> @"Swagger.1459" said: So you bring up a bunch of comments about him speaking about things dealing lots of damage. His argument is that ranger deals lots of damage, very safely. Perhaps do some more post digging figure out how to handle that other 50% of his argument? He even lists cons about how easily his necro build dies to certain things. Also as an aside, TIL Shadowshot did not get its damage reduced in the feb balance pass. A 1.3 damage modifier on no CD blind+blink is honestly crazy given what most skills do.

> @"Dawdler.8521" said: > > @"God.2708" said: > > > @"Dawdler.8521" said: > > > > @"God.2708" said: > > > > > @"solemn.9608" said: > > > > > +1 to OP > > > > > Most of them won't understand. > > > > > > > > > > They think anything unconventional is not viable because nobody dares to think outside the box anymore in this game. Same with the meta. Plenty of options for interesting and hard to defeat guild comps but people just default to the ole firebrand scourge scourge plus whatever 'meta'. > > > > > > > > > > Don't expect them to understand > > > > > They won't > > > > > It is entirely possible to textmand effectively. I have done it myself and seen others. Make good tactical decisions, have good movement skills, play heal scrapper or something that can hard-carry pugs through raw healing power and type quickly. Really not that hard. But that goes against the norm so everyone will just attack you for challenging their beliefs. > > > > > > > > I mean, basically every group I see that is closed and invisible does so because if they open up all challenge goes out the window. Competitive advantage comes from a variety of sources in WvW, and if a group is actively deciding against increasing their numbers it's because they're either confident in other things (like comms and unique party synergy), or they're expecting similar sized opponents and don't want to just W-key them. > > > Except they still demand everyone to get on discord and join the squad for anything less than 50 man so your theory is a failure. > > > > > > > So, it's possible you witness that on your server, but I've never seen a tag that is both closed AND invisible demand people to get in comms so they can join squad. > > > > Closed squads, sure, but not invisible ones. And closed + invisible was what the original post was about. There are different arguments to be made about tags that are closed except to those in discord, but it is also fairly easy to follow them on your own with your own party if that is your interest so it feels like a silly rabbit hole to dive down. > If they are invisible then they are closed, because its always invite only. You instantly see when they are on the border as the map chat fill people writing what the commander tell them so he/lieutenant can invite. > > I have no idea what you mean with closed being different. You can check a box to make a squad private, this makes the tag invisible. The default setting when doing this is to 'close' the squad so no one can join (unless the commander or a LT invites). You can change this setting back to 'open squad' after making tag private and the tag remains invisible but anyone can join (assuming they know which person to click on). Tags that are closed, IE you can see the tag on the minimap but cannot join without them inviting you, and demand you join voice comms are a common occurrence in WvW, they've also existed since the dawn of the game. Invisible closed tags, IE tags that have vanished and aren't still open in order to hide minimap movements from spies or something, don't generally go around demanding people join them. They're closed and hiding for a reason: see my initial post. As I said, I dunno what's going on in your server, but I never see invisible closed tags filling map chat on the servers I've been on. They generally mind their own business and look for fights. If a tag isn't even willing to put up the tag on the minimap but is whining about people not joining comms and their squad I'd join you in calling them out for being kitten.