to start : let me answer the question: yes i was in the leader board at the until yesterday in the 117 mark, ^^, i will explain below my experience with it, and most of it since i can only play 1 hour of pvp a day, i’m not in it anymore.
let’s move to the wall of text now :
well, i disagree on that(the archer part), i’m playing cata , with petal hop build i must say that i’m doing very well myself since there is not one match that i could not “carry” someone with impaler and throw it on my teamside AOEs for the kill. , even getting kills since i’m being very aggressive, and in some matches i can even do a complete knockback cycle in some enemies, even killing them if they are already on low hp or finishing it with impaler but after playing a few matches i can say that the only reason cata is doing fine, is
1: the mobility of course we go cata because of that.
2: the HP, we have a natural high hp because of SW so, even if most players are using a pve build with their cata, the HP already would be HIgh
and this is the problem with archers, many of them are simple doing pve builds with 0 con, so they are really easy to kill, once you fight a good archer with CON they can kill you easily if your rush is on CD or any teammate if they just keeping their distance and going for the damage without pressing too much for the entire enemy team to focus on him, this happen a lot since most times the entire team focus on the healer, the archer have a free reign to kill without anyone notices him, well i do and i always go for the archer first because it would be a 0 con and easy kill or a truly powerful fight who can change the game for them.
Now after playing almost one week of pvp ( i can only play one hour because of the time limit, sometimes two hours if i got home earlier).
I can say that cata can do fine their job, that is to destroyer the formation of the enemy, be it with impaler and bringing one of them, since most of the time some “Playmate” would try to save the one you got and you can get two kills from one impaler once you teammates knows about the cata of the team a be aware of possibility impaler’s target, since most of the time some players do not even see it.
Now, the second aspect of the pvp: killing: cata completes lack the damage to kill anyone that is not using a 0Con build if Rush is on CD or if they have a full con build even with rush is impossible , this even includes once you have add the dragoon kit of damage, of course talking about a 5x5 scenario, since it simple takes too many tries for the opponent to die and some teammates can come to help him or he have the ability to escape the knockback cycle since a few at least for me when i try to mix some damage skills from dragoon in it, sometimes they can run away before i can knockback them again, and the cycle would repeat itself, so the best bet i can give is, try to low their HP with the knockback cycle alone, so they can feel “secure” since they HP would not go down so fast and once you have the HP you “know” that rush can finish them off, you use it and kill them, some of them do not even use HP pot until is too late (rush is on them), since they do not believe that i can kill them because the knockback cycle does not have much damage.
on the third aspect: surviving, i can say that cata because of it’s mobility can survive really well, unless you are doing a rush zerg with your team or trying to save some squish teammate with a good position earthwave for the knockback the entire enemy team the change of being “killed” is really low in a 2x2 scenario in a 5x5 scenario i would say that is normal since they can ambush you once you are running and deplete your hp until you die, since you can always out run them, but again being running all the time would not make you win the match.
edit: there was even a match that i went for the earthwave since the enemy team was with a rune caster doing making a icewall PP combo in my team that was trapped in ice three, and got “out” with only 155 hp 0 pots, i keep running the arena for more than two minutes, asking for heal from the Monk, since he was “only” healing himself when his hp went down, and even them had a doppel in pursuit (yes he keep coming the entire time, i could even swear that i could see red in his eyes) and to keep him out , it was just knockback after knockback, but by the end of it i was the one alive together with a wl, even killed the doppel in the process, after i got my heal of course, it was my best match so far, i was laughing when it was over and i was alive, pvp really does make you blood boil, i would never have this emotion if it was in pve, the next round they tried to do the same, but i died in the “Process” of stopping them, but it was all good, the 2-3 minutes until the round was over was a good time to calm myself down.
on a finish note: now i can understand because someone months ago once we got the korea ranking list, the “doppel” on the list had a cata3 build, cata really offer a lot for a SW kit in pvp but lacks the main aspect that can make you win, that is a good finisher, rush is fine most of the time but it can not compare with cyclone from doppel for example.
on a off note: how about the population of you serve in this pvp-time, once i play pvp i always use the addon !who to see how many is online, and the lowest number was 2047 , i got as high as 25xx playing one day, i’m from silute .
on a final note: about the rank 5 players, yes they have really low skill set to work it, but i can affirm that i can see some of them evolving, most of them once they die or tries to do something and fail on the match, they can see the fail of their build and change it, one example would be a archer wugushi i saw, one time he was 0 con build on my team, two days later i got to fight with him again, and he had 40% more HP, since i believe that he had put CON in it, once he saw the failure of his pvping last time, (and yes i had take notice of him because he had only 4xxxk hp, close to 5k the first time we fought together). and this would never happen with a archer rank 7, for god sake i fought with one yesterday, that “said” it was lvl 262, and had only 6,8k HP.
and I hate full con goons, at least for as long as the STR block pen isn’t implemented.