Complain or learn to counter?

Examples of some of the comments I’ve received this last week:

‘Noob’, (from the unimaginative ones)
‘Learn to play the game’
‘Stop abusing the game’

Why?

As I’ve finished the game with my new Factions Monk and Ranger I have taken to trying different builds in RA. I stumbled across a thread about Touch Rangers on these forums and decided to give it a go.

My question being, is any build a valid one? When in HA I/my guild try to adapt our tactics to suit the opposition build and I have never complained, on forums or in game, concerning an individuals/teams build, (even IWAY).

My view is that if the skills go in the skill bar, and it works, then it is a valid build and good luck to those that use it. Those who wish not to, then learn to counter it and stop complaining.

It’s amusing that the comments are from the opposing side and never my fellow team members!

The novelty of the Touch Ranger in RA is starting to wear a bit thin after a week so shortly I will be returning my monk, who, no doubt will meet many a touch ranger.

As a monk I mostly fear Mesmer’s, so I may well start a campaign to have them banned from the game

Seems like a bit of flamebait here. I mean, the obvious answer to the question would be "Learn to counter". However, how do imbalances get airtime and ultimately get addressed by the developers? From people who "complain".

In this case, the word "complain" could be synonymous with "evaluate the need for balancing of a skill combo".

Labeling anyone who mentions evaluating the need for possible balancing of a skill combo as a "complainer" won't win you many friends, and may encourage some pretty nasty responses.

In the recent Gaile chat, someone asked about touch rangers and mentioned there were plenty of counters but she was going to ask the developers about it but didn't think it needed a change personally.

What is a proven fact. If everyone starts doing the same that it gets loopsided (such as Iway) Anet will "shake" things up if any FOTM lasts too long. No matter if it's "too easy" or a way or two to counter it, took no skill, did take skill, etc.

That is certainly not my intention and I have used the aforementioned build purely as an example and not as a specific talking point, but wish to hear comments regarding the validity of ‘any’ build.

The big thing for Anet is to keep guildwars from becoming stale. If another FOTM comes up and previous dies down they don't make changes.

Now if something "stays" too long, they middle with skills / equipment to force a change. No matter how much skill, lack of skill, etc.

It also appears they don't want to middle unless they have to, in hopes that there will be a change/shift in the FOTM.

Of courst there are counters, I just think people get upset when:

-They have to change their skillbars
-They have to change to stop one build, and the skill they need to take will have limited use/be useless against any other build.

Although, things like touch rangers were bound to pop up when A-Net decided to create duplicate skills.

its just an annoying build nothing less, nothing more.. in my opinion its not effective, hence, I dont like having a toucher in my team..

as youve already noticed, try to ignore the comments, it only spoils the fun.. i had some warrior bitch at our team becoz he was blinded for like a 10 minute fight (enemy team was a mes, 2 monks and that warrior). we decided to quit (it really was 9-10 mins up to that point..) and he cursed at us, bitched at the ele, then told us to "go get some skill and stop noobing"

ignore that stuff

Touch rangers were in the game before factions, factions just allowed the build to be modified so that a sacrifice skill wasn't there anymore.

Psychic Distraction

I sincerely believe any build is valid because any build can be defeated.

It really is that simple, touch rangers can be defeated but if players are either too lazy or too incompetent to learn how then I say "Go Touch Rangers", if you cannot in PvP learn to adapt to new builds you shouldnt be playing it, go play CS or something then.

Heh, we had a battle like that once, we lasted each other out for 16 minutes without anyone dying and it became quite obvious no one was ever going to win. The other team decided to be gracious, said GG and bowed out.

For the life of me, I cannot fathom why people have to show such little respect for each other. These guys where our equals and nobody was going to win so why go around calling ppl 'noob' or hurl abuse then?

Ignore it or report it, my feelings exactly.

Wild Blow, Black Out...

People need to actually look into what skills AssTouching Rangers use and find a counter. With the above, you make them vulnerable to hit by breaking their stance and you stop them from from stealing more life.

You also need to realize that you are in a TEAM and need to coordinate your efforts to take these guys out. If you try to take these guys on solo up close without a counter, you will lose.

When you can get a RA game where there are seven touch rangers it's getting stupid.

Yes you can counter them, but in a tight RA bar allready being forced to take another two skills to counter touch rangers is stupid. It's not random arenas, it's touch ranger arena at the moment.

its just that so many people are vry narrow minded.

they think th only way is IWAY

Well isn't that generally how you win? Beat them by being better at the metagame or running a counter to the metagame. :P

Well since so many of you are telling us to counter touch rangers, then what should we do to counter them?

Moving, Snaring, Learning to play, etc etc

All of the above can easily kill a touch ranger since one has to "touch" you to do any damage.

Seems pretty relevant to this topic, so... ;p

I feel less strongly about Touchers than I do about IWAY because it's harder to pull off. My whole beef with IWAY isn't the build (which is pretty strong if you're not used to PvP) but rather the people running it and only it and not experimenting with new things. I think that's where a good deal of the loudest complainers come from.

I've seen people who make outrageous claims to faime, and watch them do amazingly stupid things over and over again. Then they scream at the other players there because it can't possibly be the fault of the one that walked into the middle of 4 ViM trappers and stayed there.

I've met people in my life that believe that game developers are perfect people. Ones that know their code so well, they program in little "loopholes" for enterprising players to take advantage of, giving them an edge. Then, when the developers close these loopholes, these players find that their little trick doesn't work the same anymore, so they scream "Nerf", because obviously they've removed content from the game (even though that "content" wasn't supposed to be there in the first place). These are the ones that, in my opinion at least, are the first and loudest complainers when things get fixed, and are the slowest to do anything about it. These are also the same people that whine and scream in-game about "nerfs" and refuse to aknowledge when another player says "So what? Deal with it". Even elementalists have dealt with quite possibly the most cripling game update to date, the DoT/AoE AI change.

If Touchers are truely unbalanced, then A.Net will adjust the skills a little bit to make them not quite as effective, then while those that had to fight against them breathe a sigh of relief, the unimaginative ones that were using it to farm mass factions will have a collective cry of "Y U NERF ANERF?!"

So, I guess my point is "People are stupid". [/rant]

I think just about any build that has a brain behind it that is difficult to run is excellent. Learn to Counter!

Not everything should be nerfed because people don't know how to adapt. Heck I HATE Iway and thats cause every Tom Mo and Jerry can run the build to farm faction and fame... It made honest fame and glory farmers... pointless.... I personally think it is stupid and over powered in some instances. However we learned to counter or at least play against it defensively... Unfortunately we never ran into an IWAY group while running that certain build but it did get us all the way to Halls (no we didn't take it, so close tho ).

I know some skills are just obscene and need some balancing and I understand why for Factions they nerfed MMs... OMG I COULD HAVE AN ARMY OF 200!!! (Silly to me that the mobs are that large tho lol)
The bonder builds I see in HoH, cute!, but not very stable. Necro spikes, nasty if done right but really slow to get moving. EoE.... OW but amazing!

If it works for you, then run it! If someone can't come up with a way to counter it then why are they doing any type of pvp at all?
Thats just my opinion take it for what its worth.

pvp stands for : player vs player

peole who are not used to it will thnk its like fighting dumb mobs in pve, that just repeat 3 skills, and dealing 5-6 dmg per hit.

bad news: you need BRAINS. if you got that no build should scare you. just make one of yor own

I think that in any situation where you get utterly ganked in pvp you should scream "n00b!!!!" and "lern2play u asshat" .. at least, that's what the majority of guildwars does.

vampiric touch, vampiric bite, vampiric touch, vampiric bite, vampiric touch, escape, vampiric bite, vampiric touch...

Now if only I could get them to drop shards.

Seriously, it's not overpowered, it's just overplayed.

ya its 3 skills repat, but youre doin a major damage here, not a -5 everytime, to which PvE ers are used to.

and unlike a dumb pve mob, a real player thinks, of what and when to do something

Maybe I'm different then, I've changed the original build I copied and actually use all 8 skills

"PvE'ers are used to"? Guess you havent played much PvE in Cantha lately.

Name me one PvP player who can hit me (wearing AL 90 armor) with a sword for 129 damage, please? How much damage do you do against 90 AL armor in PvP with a sword then (not counting skills)?

Learn to play is no defense whatsoever when the build you're playing against can only be properly countered in a way that would reduce your effectiveness against any other build. For people who feel like this is a valid argument, give examples of successful ways to deal with a build like touch rangers that are generally available across the board, or stfu (I'm sorry to be so blunt, but I'm getting tired of this psuedo-elitist 'you should counter me' attitude).
Generally a good build will have interrupts, snares, damage reduction and hex/enchantment/condition removal. A good player in all circumstances, except against a touch ranger or similarly out of control build, will be able to apply a skill bar so designed to deal with a balanced build. An occassional blind spot is understandable. Touch rangers (to my knowledge the only build like it) ARE the blind spot. Touch rangers are countered well by one class (mesmers), and GOOD touch rangers are not so easily destroyed by e-denial and snares. (I made a touch ranger that laughed at snare builds, then killed them because I could). In my opinion, a build is out of balance when the meta-game must adapt to deal with that build even though, were it not for that build, such adaptions would otherwise be broadly undesirable, considering every other build extant. For example, warrior hate is a broad strategic area that should include strategy applied by (nearly) every class and build. There is almost no cross-class, cross build hate for touch skills and stances (nor do I think there should be, as this is the appeal of skills and stances). The problem isn't so much touch rangers as an idea, however, as it is the ability of the class to accomplish goals that every other build wishes it could achieve but doesn't, because they have been balanced to prevent such accomplishments.

Countering touch ranger has everything to do with learn to play. Just kiting will reduce their effectiveness a lot.

People bring specific counters against warriors, but that's a bunch of dead skills against caster spike.
Are caster spikes overpowered ? I don't think so.

The problem with RANDOM arenas, is that you control only 8 skills. You just won't be able to counter everything by yourself.

Only complain if the build or mechanic is actualy broken. You need sound reasoning and examples of why and how it is broken. You also need to be able to back that up with cold hard facts, such as math or tactical impossibilities(like old imperial isle). For an actual build to be broken, it has to be unbeatable, without making your build into a build that can only beat the specific build that's actualy overpowered. If it can't beat the build in question and still win, then the build in question is overpowered, or the counters to it are underpowered, or there's some other mechanic that is broken and is preventing balance. I hope I explained what makes a build overpowered clearly enough, it's quite tricky to do without rambling on and on with examples :-/



Most people that complain are scrubs because they can't adapt or can't play the game well(and thus can't counter). The others are scrubs who want more counters to somthing, even though there are already many counters, and those counters are extremely common counters. So they either want somthing to be buffed in their favor, or nerfed in their favor, or sometimes a totaly new skill or multiple skills added to compensate for their lack of skill, unability to think, or refusal to adapt, or a combination of those.

<hint>

If a certain build consistently owns you, you are a fool and a noob to not play it yourself.

</hint>

That said so what if touch rangers are overpowered, abuse it yourself too! Hell, what'd be really funny is your touch ranger team meets ANOTHER touch ranger team, That'd be a true test of skill since no one can accuse the other of being "noob feeders".

Now now... The fact is I didn't post a counter because I haven't played against a touch ranger, because I don't play randoms. The people in randoms, well, are random is likely the best way to put it. Someone posted counter methods already. I'm not elitest, heck I suck, but just the same as I have posted before in other threads where people complain about builds and I still don't see a reason to be spoon fed. If it is that big of an issue, COUNTER IT! It's that simple! Use your own head for what its worth and stop relying on every tom, mo, and jerry to come up with one for you! I'm not trying to be rude, but it's a fact. You have a bunch of skills, learn to read them!

Stop being ticked off because a bunch of rangers figured out how to whoop your butt while earning faction and do something about it! (If you can't figure it out for yourself then MAYBE YOU SHOULDN'T BE PLAYING!... Yes, it is a complete matter of learn to play. They are NOT glitches, just a better skill set then whatever it is you are carrying!)

Oh yeah
PS: I don't like playing the common everyday build, so I wouldn't know how to use a touch necro.... Don't care to learn tho it is interesting... Basically, I don't follow the herd so... yeah....

Eviance, I was hardly angry at you. Generally, I agree with your posts. I can and often do deal with touch rangers in Random, but that's because there are so many that I have to, and when I get to Teams, where few if any deal with them, my build sucks because it is too limited (I like trying to go from Random to HA ... I consider that the true holy grail of PvP). Builds designed against touch rangers are very specific because there are few good ways to counter the class across classes. Some people consider balance to be a matter of whether or not a build can be countered. I think it's a matter of whether or not a build has enough prolific counters. Warrior builds of almost any variety can be countered in whole or in part by Blurred Vision, Empathy (there are better counters for mesmers, I know), Escape, MONKS, Endure Pain, Viper's Defense, RITUALISTS, enfeeble, etc. * The same counters that work against warriors can work against rangers (not touch, just normal archers or beastmasters). Casters of all types are taken down by hexes and interrupts (Including a disrupting attack by warriors, which I love because no one expects it). Only touch attackers, as a class, are free from across the board build hate. Mesmers can hurt them because they are anti-skills in general, but what other class can effectively deal with touch rangers played well? (as per my post in the anti-touch ranger thread, I DID PLAY A TOUCH RANGER, just to prove the point that there was a balance problem in random arena PvP. I discovered that the balance problem may extend to Teams as well (either that or everyone I played against needs to learn to play). )

* Bolded classes are those that by their very nature have anti-class hate built in (or, more accurately, by the nature of the class effected).

P.S. Much of the above is why, as an elementalist who wishes I could do (meaningful) damage, I will never argue for the Warrior to be nerfed as some truly unskilled players do. I know well enough that the Warrior is a balanced class (at least in so far as its effective builds allow it to be).

P.P.S. Kiting is a fine way to get your other team mates killed if the 'kited' player has any skill at all.

Zorian,

1. You can not get to HA from TA after any number of wins. You can only unlock it after 5, you will continue to play in TA until you loose.

2. Touch rangers are not a balance issue. They simply exploit poor players using poor builds, or poor players using good builds poorly, and poor players having poor teamwork. They just happen to hit the jackpot in RA, the least skill and experience of anywhere in PvP(since it's mostly for new players), and the worst builds(due to new players/players who think it's 1 vs 1), coupled with poor teamwork(that 1 vs 1 mindset again).

With any team in RA that has players willing to work as a team, and OK teamwork, you can beat touch rangers. Even with fairly bad players and using bad skills.

In a TA mindset, they're so easy to beat it's not even funny.

The counters to them are applicable agaisnt all other builds, in almost every other situation. Snares for example can be applied defensively, and offensively.

There are no specialised counters to Rangers, like attack-based guys have with attack-effecting skills and casters have with spell-effecting skills. This does not make them overpowered or unbalanced in any way. People used to say IW mesmers were overpowered in RA because there was "no way" to stop IW. Then people figured out you could kite, or remove their IW.

3. Elementalists are a support class. They don't do damage, although ANET dpes keep giving them damage spells that aren't worth a spot on any bar, and not Support spells.

4. Kiting is an effective way at mitigating damage, weither it be from a touch ranger, a warrior, or an assassin. Mitigating damage is good. Kiting will not get you killed, it will prolong your life while reducing your opponents effectiveness. You can also stop to do somthing at any time. It in no way gets you or anyone on your team killed, unless you're playing PvE and run to your monk. Good thing we're not talking about PvE.

My mistake then, and I admit it. Only did it once where our team got dropped off in HA, after we lost after who knows how many wins. Didn't realize we weren't in it as a result. God that was a good run. (I will also admit here that my HA experience equals zero, though I've done random through teams to death... 110,000 Balthazar faction and counting).

I'm still saying it is a balance problem, but I'll get to that in a moment.

I know, and it ticks me off. They were advertised for DAMAGE. They are STILL advertised for damage. The majority of their skills exist to inflict DAMAGE. Yet the most effective elementalists in my mind right now go water/earth and ward/hex. (or flash heal, but that's an old trick).

Knew that would come up, my bad for not limiting the focus of that statement. A good touch ranger is difficult, if not impossible, to kite. Kite me and I will use Escape to rush hit you, back off when you least expect, and run over to your monk (or appropriate priority soft target) who's position I've been keeping track of on the map (if playing a touch ranger). Kiting works well on an assassin (limited chase mechanisms, need to combo), but a touch ranger has enough tricks to mitigate kiting concerns. Note also that Crippled is a condition, that is transferrable by PT, so that's not happening (In my Touch Ranger experience I once went up against a monk, a ranger, a warrior and an elementalist. The ranger and warrior smacked me with multiple conditions (crippled, blind, deep wound, bleeding), hoping to kill me early ... I just dropped those conditions off on their monk, and proceeded to suck him dry.)

To go back to the balance issue ... my problem isn't 'can you beat them', it's a two part question. 1) Is it a solid build. 2) Does it suffer from as many counters as similarly solid builds. The answer to one is 'yes'. It deals (a lot of) damage, self heals, removes conditions, runs fast, has high evasion almost always on, can't be blocked or evaded and is immune to enchantment stripping. If I took the word touch ranger away from that description and just listed those attributes, I think most would agree that this sounds like a darn solid build. The answer to two is 'no'. There are very few stance/skill counters in the game, where few can be defined as an amount seemingly deficient when considering the broad spectrum of counters otherwise available for different activities devoted to the same purpose. For me, balance is as simple as asking are 1 and 2 met? For R/N clone skill touch rangers (not to be confused with other, more manageable variants), the answer is 'no'.

Perhaps it can be put as simply as this: running any other build in PvP I will be much more concerned about counter-measures taken by the other side if I am NOT running a touch ranger than if I am. That I'm not as concerned, basically, concerns me.

I think a Final Thrust under 50% will quite happily do that kind of damage.

If the sword war is enchanted with judges insight, then 129 damage is really quite common. If you throw in DW bonus 129 damage in real terms in PvP is definately something you have to be wary of.


RE: Touch ranger, in one sense, its annoying the fact that they are annoying builds and there is little margin for error. The fact that, a lot of people playing the FoTM build call you a noob if you get snared on a rock and suddenly get 4 of the bastards on you, but you get asshats in anything. However, I think the actual presence of touchies is a good thing for PvP scene in general. It forces people to kite, which has been so lacking for a very long time.

Anything to get rid of the W/Mo mentality of "me have armour, me rage mending, me crush you die now, har har har" the better.
TA team of 4 touch rangers is tricky, sure, if your a team with 3Wars and 1 monk, you will have difficulty, but then if you met a team of 4 flashbots, you will have equal difficulty. But a balanced team generally can win out, the best thing to do is churn out the degen and just run around like headless chickens, the fact that they have to stop to TU, gives you the opportunity to KD and bash them to death. They are rangers after all, and are quite frail.

The reason why so many people complain about annoying builds is:
They are broken.

"Broken" means it is not balanced. Too strong. Uncounterable.

To give you some examples, let's take touch rangers. What is the counter to touch rangers? Water eles. That's it. Protection skills don't even stop it. It is not reasonable to metagame in a water ele in order to shut down one build.

Another example? Apostasy iway, the build I hate the most. Why is it broken? Because it singlehandedly makes you win without any kind of srategy or coordination. The counter? Either run through trap bombs and 8 melee damage dealers to kill the necro, or stack literally 10 enchantments on each member of your party. Reasonable? No. Broken? Definitely.

Psychic Distraction Mesmers. Why is it broken? Because it can't be stopped. Mantra of resolve and glyph of concentration do not affect PD.

The point of all this is to show you that people complain because if they don't, this game will continue to suck moldy... nevermind. The players and developers need to know which skills are broken and why.

A lot of if's there. Now lets go back to the starting point, what damage does a plain sword hit do in PvP to a warrior wearing AL 90 armor? I'm willing to bet its 0 more then a lv 24 creature does in PvE.

What makes a build valid?

As long as the player using the build understands why the build works and why the skill that are used are used. As long as the player can do that, I don't have any problem with them using a build they copied from a forum.




Finaly, about the touch rangers. Overplayed doesn't mean overpowered.

learn to counter..thats about it.......

over the past few days of this week i have been trying out difernt touch ranger builds and almost ervy other group called me a noob..trs arent noobs only creative. there are many ways to coubnter a toucher (there is even a thread for it)

Yeah right. And all of the above apply to warriors too.

This is my exact point of complain. Touch rangers are not unbeatable but they have way FEWER counters than warriors. And their armor ignoring damage+self-healing+defence exceeds a typical warrior build when in touch range. That makes them unbalanced. Make a list of all anti-warrior skills, count them. You will notice that a tiny percent of those are anti-touch ranger too. The key word being TINY.