A note on Thunderclap in CA...

Well, I took the ol' ranger into the CA specifically looking for Thunderclap abuse, and gave up one of my attacks for Winter. Sure as the bear poop in the woods, every 4 out of 5 groups I went against had at least one thunderclapper. Oddly enough... the four or so groups I was in never had one. Which was a good thing, btw.

So, every time I dropped winter just outside the spawn point and we all stayed in it's range. Every time the E/x or x/E would be firing off Thunderclap. Every time, it failed to do what they hoped.

What was real fun (and surprising) was the Korean team we faced in the CA... again, clappers (2 I think...), and again once combat began no one thought to hunt the spirit... they just kept trying thunderclap. That was my team of three rangers and a W/Mo, no healer.

We beat 'em.

If you're going into the CA as a ranger, take winter until the bug's fixed. ftw. People are making the mistake of relying on clap instead of simply using it as a part of their build.

They must had been n00bs because you see Winter Spirit icon on your effects monitor so you know all elemental damage is cold damage until the spirit is dead but they still try to use Thunderclap again and again?

True brainless mimics. They don't have a clue how things work but they know something is bugged and think it is über skill in every situation.

Does anyone use this to an advantage in PvE?
like perhaps a certain Monk boss around the Ring of fire...
hmm constant knockdowns would help everyone during one of those missions...
hmm how about GLINT; are there any Glint groups with Thunderclap?

Exactly... no one made any attempts to kill the spirit. Granted, I tried to keep it behind a wall or something, but it's like once combat starts they forget.

Although... I suspect that's more true than we realize. Someone may see the spirit, start moving towards the spirit to kill it and get hit by poison arrow/ dual shot with kindle up. Suddenly life drops, turns green and degens... what spirit?

Zomg, you genius. I need that bonus.

[Changes ranger secondary to Ele and goes to DL]

Ah, no TC on ranger yet... /doh

I don't think Glint can be knocked down, can she?

From my experience, giant-size monsters can't be knocked down.

Not to mention you'd only get about 10 seconds worth of hex time on her due to the boss hex duration penalty.

Why would a ranger need Thunderclap to beat Glint? Get a decent group, and Distracting Shot on Crystal Hibernation, you win.

I used thunderclap on Tombs, was funny to keep knocking down certien heroes from "claiming resource". But then I quit cause a team of W/E all used thunderclapping -_-

same with everything that warriors do in the tombs, whatever they do.

I'd agree with this. Most of the people using it don't know what they're doing, so Winter is an excellent counter.

As far as other classes, I would advise Monks bringing Holy Veil and running it on themself at the start of combat. As well as killing Backfire it will turn any Thunderclapper into a wussy Ranger/Warrior with minimal energy and no Knockdown hex.

Mesmers are another good counter - I went into CA with my Mesmer bringing Inspired Hex and Soothing Images - killed that W/Es hex, then prevented his all-adrenaline damage with a hex of my own that he couldn't remove. Good times.

heh theres the new repleacement for IWAY, thunderclaping warriors...

I'd imagine six of them, even with the bug fixed could be a bit annoying if they cycled who was casting it well enough, and if counters weren't packed.

I wouldn't run such a build, just on matter of principle. In fact... I haven't done any PvP since this bug was discovered. It's just not fun right now.

See, I like this. They think they can exploit a bug, but then you exploit the exploiters. LOL

Man, I never noticed that until I played a Necromancer. I hate it. :P

As stated before, they'll just whack your winter spirit 3-4 times to kill it and go on their merry way. =]

But... they didn't.

Another reason could be that they saw it show up in their bar and went "Oh look, a gay ranger spirit, who cares, the ranger will be on his ass in no time and the spirit's effects won't matter."

There are still many people out there that have no idea what the majority of ranger spirits do because they never bother to take a second to hover over with their mouse and read the desc.

And in CA at least... they usually won't. Very few people think in those terms in the random arenas. Now in TA you'd see more coordination. You'd have someone detailed to find Winter's and take them out.

I'm sure there's a lot of truth in that, but also I suspect that the actual distraction of combat may have taken folks minds off of the spirit to the point that no one got around to killing it. I know one group I was with, the monk was always primary target it seemed, with people running past the spirit to get to him.

Don't think that would work. They'd only get in 3 hits max before Thunderclap ends due to low energy. Unless they actually took turns attacking individually, they all hit pretty much as one and completely drain the first casters energy and end Thunderclap right there on the first knockdown.

Winter is used so infrequently that anyone who hasn't run a ranger up, or who hasn't been paying a whole heck of a lot of attention, probably has no idea what it is or how to counter it. Any decent TA or Tombs team will know what's going on and whack the spirit, but I'm not at all surprised to see the spirit survive in CA.

That would never work, Thunderclap is not nearly a good enough skill for that.

At 12 Air Magic you loose 9 energy or thunderclap "ends." So, if it were fixed and you had 6 warriors all equiped with Thunderclap and a lightning hilt, each Thunderclap will end in 3-4 knockdowns, making the total duration last less than one volley from the warrior team.

A single warrior at 1.33 swings per second, will get 3-4 seconds of thunderclap before it ends.

So, it will take 5-6 castings in the 20 second regharge time of Thunderclap to keep it on a target.

In the 20 second cooldown of each of the warriors they will gain less than 20 energy, so there is a good chance that using sprint, or anyother energy skill, will make it so there is a lag from when a instance of Thunderclap ends and the next warrior can cast it.

Add in a couple of hex removals and your whole stragedy is eliminated.

I believe noone would use Thunderclap unless it was bugged. Except for some boss Monsters that have seemingly endless energy pools anyway.

Right, then before everyone's back up, second one casts it, whack - boom - fall... meanwhile first caster's energy regens and everyone's sitting in the dirt. It's not the clap ending I'm thinking about, but the cyclical knockdowns.

They'd better fix thunderclap before the weekend.

And I hope they don't put it in patch notes. I want to have a good laugh.

Mo/E with Life Bond on everyone, Bal's Spirit on himself. Blessed Signet then Thunderclap.

Someone in CA was spamming about a build being released Saturday to fix the bugs, but I have no clue as to how reliable of a source he was.

Congratulations, you are using all your energy to duplicate the effects of a pair of hammer warriors, minus damage.

Thunderclap, in its un-bugged state, is a useless skill. Short of a buff in a future update I never expect to see it again once fixed - just as I never saw it prior to the discovery of the bug.

It's a shame really - in its bugged state it's actually a useful and reasonably well-balanced skill.

Heh heh.. not me. Others are more than welcome too.

I have noticed last night much much less abuse of thunderclap in CA than earlier, as well as winter popping up more often.

I don't really call sitting on my arse for 10-20 seconds while two warriors beat me to death my idea of 'well-balanced' skill....

Well balanced?!? You must be one of those justisfying exploiting it in the arenas...

Being flat on the ground for the entire match is not well balanced. Without specific counters it's better than any form of interrupt or knockdown out there AND it's AOE, how can you call it well balanced? Also, it takes NO skill or timing to interrupt/knockdown someone. You can just spam attacks.

Simply put, if one skill is far far superior than any other of the same type (knockdown, interrupts) than it IS overpowered.

Alas, in its bugger state, its too powerful; in its origional state, its too weak. Hopefully ANet can find that happy medium.

This I can agree with....and I hope they'll fix it soon. Random arenas are even more of a crap hole with the TC abusers in it now. I've started bringing stances to counter it but even with those it's useless because if your nearby teammate is hit you'll get knocked down as well. And no I have no hex removal since I'm a Ranger/Warrior.

You're a ranger... take winter. Works for me. TC nullified.

Recast on Winter is much longer than on TC. Anybody with half a brain would kill the spirit before Thunderclapping people.

Yep. But I'm still going to avoid the CA's for a while. It's boring now anyway since every other group has a TC exploiter...what's the point in playing there right now...

You're talking about CA. I've had people run right past the spirit like it's a rock and nothing more. If you want to do random, it's safe enough. Besides, cast it close to where you stage... more often than not once battle's engaged people won't even get that far. Just remember to stay within it's range.

Hardly saw any last night... saw a lot of winters being cast. Maybe it's running its course already.

I saw neither last night but I did get a lot of people asking me if my W/E was a TC build its actually Flame based with sword spike attacks like conjure flame+Hunderd Blades (I love that combo), pure strike, Gasrath Slash, Final Thrust which if you use it right can be good.

However I'm pretty sure there is other bug with simliar skills and Anet is checking them to make sure everything is in order and then clear all the skill bugs

However I have seen a few ppl who think the description is bugged

Person: thunderclap's description is bugged it doesn't end when your energy hits 0
Me:Its not the description its the skill itself it's sposed to end when your energy hits 0
person: How do YOU know
Me:

In large-scale battles it's on the weak side as-is, because of how ridiculously easy it is to counter.

Not only have you got the usual warrior counters (blindness, Block/Evade, kiting, ect) but a single hex removal will own the Thunderclapper, turning them into a nothing character until their spell recharges, at which point you can just remove the hex again.

As far as counters...

Monk - Holy Veil (run it on yourself at the beginning of the fight), Contemplation of Purity, Guardian, Aegis.
Mesmer - Inspired Hex, Shatter Hex, Interrupts, Ether Lord (keep their energy at 0 after the first cast of Thunderclap), Distortion + Spirit of Failure.
Warrior - Balanced Stance, any Block/evade stance.
Ranger - Whirling Defense, Dust Trap, Throw Dirt, Winter.
Elementalist - Block/Evade enchantment, Blurred Vision, Blinding Flash, Iron Mist (vs. Wa/Es). Fire eles will have issues though.
Necromancers - Less counters; Faintheartedness is your best bet, but you'll have to rely on other's help to a degree.

And the best part, most of these are useful skills anyway, and you shouldn't have any trouble fitting one or two into your build.

As for balancing it against other Knockdown skills - the thing to remember is that it comes at the cost of all your energy, which no other Knockdown or Interrupt skill does.

So use Thunderclap in its current state and you cut off use of non-adrenaline attack skills, Sprint, spells, maintained enchants, nearly any stance in the game, any non-signet healing...the list goes on and on.

And all of this for what, a single-target shutdown that gets owned by one Remove Hex?

TC is being used in arenas because no one is prepared to counter it, but already in 8v8 it's far too vulnerable for a solid build. Thunderclap is like Illusionary Weaponry - a more powerful effect than most elites, but one Enchant/Hex removal and you get to curl up in a corner and cry for a while.

I did use TC for a bit in Arenas, before this was confirmed to be a bug in the skill rather than the description, but it wasn't long before I swapped into more effective builds with a TC counter. One counter and all those TCers in the arena become so much fodder, weakening the other team rather than strengthening them.

So where does that leave you? You can complain on the forums and swear off PvP until Arenanet nerfs the skill back into uselessness, or you can adapt a bit. Sub a counter into your bar and get back to actually playing the game.

Those that take the former route will get no sympathy from me.