Guild Wars 2

This is an idea to make PvP Conquest a more exciting place to fight and for PvP to be entirely separate from PvE and WvW’s goofy Customization system. This is a radically different idea than most, but, if implemented, I believe would make GW2’s PvP much more interesting and competitive.

I don’t care if the Devs consider it or not. They only consider what the community supports in overwhelming fashion. This suggestion is for YOU, the player, to consider and support or criticize because ultimately the Devs are slave to your desires.

I. Definitions

Focus
Game balance in GW2 where each class has a defined role that only one other class can do. Each class is sought after based on roles and the competence of the player to accomplish those roles. The roles ought to be easy to learn but difficult to master, so that new players aren’t alienated and veterans aren’t bored of how easy it is.

Customization
The current game balance of throwing an enormous wad of options at each class, of which only a small fraction will be used. The roles are unclear, because they are supposed to be decided upon by the playerbase, not the developers. Build becomes more important than skill, because your ability to pick the best possible options in each slot matters more than your execution of them.

II. Why Customization Sucks

In a competitive environment, the ideal is to be able to respect your opponent and accept the outcome of the contest as “fair enough.” It is currently impossible for anyone to respect their opponent because their build is a lot more important than how they use it.

If you aren’t bringing at least one Hambow on your team you’re going to lose. Period. If you bring an Ele you are more than likely going to lose. Period. If you bring a Necro he’s a free kill without peels. Period.

This is what happens when you throw wads of options at the players – they will only pick a few of them and dominate with them until the devs introduce another set of options to dominate with.

If anything, Customization discourages competition rather than encourages it because once you’ve figured out the dominant build it’s pretty much over. Unless they use the same build, you’re going to beat them repeatedly.

This upcoming patch is not going to fix this problem. It will, if anything, irritate it further by creating yet more monster builds and exclusion. Elementalists might come back, but it will be at another classes’ expense – possibly Ranger’s.

This is a terrible competitive environment, and encourages PvP to just be a place to farm gold and get gear faster than repeated dungeon runs.

Is that acceptable?

III. What Focus Requires From Classes

First, to accomplish this vision, classes need to be looked at with a narrow vision rather than a broad one. The total package must be broad but the pieces smaller, MUCH smaller than they are now.

If the favored mode is indeed conquest, then each class needs to fulfill its role in that game mode in a specific way that no other class can.

Here are four roles I think the eight classes could be built around, with the 5th member providing more of one of the roles to add an additional strategic layer that differentiates each team’s strategy.

1) Duelist – focuses on single engagements and point control. Their goal is to kick someone off the point and kill them, but require help if they are outnumbered because their abilities are limited to handling that single opponent.

Ideal professions: Ranger vs. Warrior.

2) Support – focuses on team engagements and scaling their fights with size. Their goal is to either give their teammates a boost in an area or make life hell for the other team in that area. They are quite vulnerable if left alone, however, and require help if they are cornered.

Ideal professions: Necromancer vs. Guardian.

3) Assassin – focuses on speed and fast time to kill. They use stealth to sneak up on people and sucker punch them, quickly changing the tide of battle if they are successful and throwing airballs if they screw up. It’s a very challenging role that will attract the most elite technician players, and will frighten your opponent if executed well.

Ideal professions: Thief and Mesmer.

4) Hunter

These classes focus on killing Assassins and controlling the map. They would have the unique ability to have a radar effect on their map that lets them see enemy icons in a wider radius. Their priorities are their challenge, and, like Assassin, are not an easy role to do by any means. If they screw up they’ll win pointless fights that put the team behind and get snowballed. They are the shot callers on their team, having more information than anyone, but have to act on that information decisively.

Ideal Professions: Engineer vs. Elementalist

IV. How Classes Would Have to Change

This is the big one. The builds available to the classes would have to shrink substantially.

Duelists would have to lose group utility of any kind. Warriors would lose Shouts and Banners, Rangers would lose Spirits and Shouts, and their available pool would focus on winning duels on points. The choices of weapons would eliminate AoE since they would be focusing on killing the player alone. They would have strong defensive cooldowns that make it hard for anyone to gank them, so Endure Pain type skills are important, if not vital for them. They would have knockbacks, launches, etc. to grapple with, and “money shot” skills to seal the deal with.

Assassins would also give up any group utility and would have to give up the entire concept of doing condition damage. No more PU Mesmers, P/D Condi Thieves, or Phantasm Mesmers. There would also be no Shadow Refuge, Veil, or any of that group stealth cheese. Their builds would focus on getting from A to B as quickly as possible, getting a money stun or knockdown and doing massive damage. The focus would be narrow, but the challenges would be many. They’d have personal stealth and movement boosts, but, like Duelists, would not scale with numbers without Support.

Support would not do very much damage at all. Their role would be to turn the battlefield into a much friendlier place for their team at the expense of being fragile and weak in small fights. If a Hunter or Assassin joins them, however, they can supercharge their offensive and inflict CC and/or conditions that line up the killing blow. They’re like wingmen. The idea of a “Bunker” would have to die. Support has to come at a price – so they’ll be fragile and easy to kill if the team’s Hunter isn’t paying attention and helping him out.

Hunter would be fast, and have the radar effect that would make him the best equipped to protect his Support and kill Assassins. Their combat would focus on speed, denying the opponent their movement, lowering physical damage through Chill, Weakness, and Blind, and do damage in a combination of AoE and Single Target, but in a limited way. The AoE would be there to take down clones with, so that the Mesmer can’t keep his advantage or make a Thieves’ Guild less effective. They wouldn’t have defensive cooldowns, so a Duelist will beat them by extending the fight well past their survivability. An Assassin can gank them if they aren’t careful, but will have the tools to extend the fight and make the Assassin run away if he wants to live. Support won’t be able to hold up against him because they’re too flimsy.

V. Role of Downed State

How does rezing figure into the picture? Support and Hunters would be most responsible for this aspect, since they are designed to reinforce and scale with greater numbers. Assassins and Duelists can’t be empowered for that because they’d be too strong and invalidate the other roles.

Support could have more immediate and powerful res skills, like a casted res that brings the teammate back from range. Hunters could trade a bit of firepower for faster rezes with Traits if they want to help in that way.

VI. Traits

These would be significantly reduced to two trait lines that have to do with the primary role and utility. The choices would be more about the weapon set and utilities for the primary role.

Utility would determine how versatile or further specialized the class is. A Hunter could help with downed state as a light support, an Assassin could improve their movement speed vs. their attack speed either moving to points more efficiently or getting that kill faster. Support could introduce CC where there wasn’t any, add boons, or a debilitating condition where there wasn’t one.

The narrow choices are, again, a theme because the choices should matter.

Classes don’t need to be changed you need more game modes. The way the game is now with customization you can implement new game modes because everyone is flexible. If you focus the classes then you have to make modes more around those specialization.

They need something other then conquest. When they do that then customization will shine. Still there will always be a best at.

Say king on the hill mode would have different best then conquests. Just sucks there isn’t any different modes. Right now it’s just a revolving door of 5 roles 8 professions.

I’d rather have one fully supported game mode that’s fun and competitive than a whole bunch of crap. The QQ is not the player’s fault it’s Anet’s for making the game so easy to cheese at.

I know the post was really long, but think about how much more fun Conquest would be if you had that kind of counterplay going on.

Even if the game modes come, this wad of options approach isn’t going to make those game modes work. That’s probably why they haven’t released them because they know that there would be god tier builds from day 1. TDM is going to be a thief’s world and no one else’s. It’s not rocket science.

That’s why Skyhammer is so unpopular. Certain classes can dominate because their pool of options leads to a much stronger outcome than the others’. Spirit Watch was a joke because of the same problem. Crapricorn was awful because of how Underwater Combat is severely Warrior, Ranger, and Mesmer favored.

Ironically, this kind of PvP would take LESS work to balance, and create MORE competition. Just tweak a few of the classes’ numbers every month or so and you’ve got a thriving, self-regulating Conquest mode that rewards skill.

Sounds a bit like League of Legends, but with less variety.

I would never want to see this happen. Hell, (just to use one example) some of us happen to prefer sneaky Condition specs. Your “Assassin” archetype would leave that playstyle buried in an unmarked field. Indeed, I would go further and say that -in general- PvP needs to run off and become its own game mode, considering that historically, its issues bleed into the other two areas of the game.

It’s a bit late to completely re-structure the entire profession design philosophy. Also, I would like to point out that re-structuring so that each profession is limited to 1 archetype is an extremely unnatural approach to MMOs.

I understand what you’re saying – each profession has certain narrow trait usages of traits & utilities across game modes.

If anything, I think that we should adhere to the system in place even further, and do a balance patch that focuses on enabling all of the professions to have a build that embodies a chosen ‘major’ in Support -or- Damage -or- Control, with minors in the other two. This is the true GW2 design philosophy.

( http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combat )

Unfortunately, I think there is a lack of congruence with the GW2 combat design philosophy.

IE: Viability of professions who major in support, such as Thief, Mesmer, Engineer, Necro. Or, the viability of professions who sacrifice a major in damage for a major in control, for example.

Obviously, in PvE, the encounters are so easy, and there is so little control needed, it’s a DPS fest. Take steps to eventually change this, and allow GW2’s self-declared ‘roles’ of a combination of Damage, Control, and Support, to bring something to the table when one aspect is specialized in.

In PvP, which has a much higher focus on competitive builds, the lack of role diversity is the strongest.

Chaith.8256:

It’s a bit late to completely re-structure the entire profession design philosophy. Also, I would like to point out that re-structuring so that each profession is limited to 1 archetype is an extremely unnatural approach to MMOs.

I understand what you’re saying – each profession has certain narrow trait usages of traits & utilities across game modes.

If anything, I think that we should adhere to the system in place even further, and do a balance patch that focuses on enabling all of the professions to have a build that embodies a chosen ‘major’ in Support -or- Damage -or- Control, with minors in the other two. This is the true GW2 design philosophy.

( http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combat )

Unfortunately, I think there is a lack of congruence with the GW2 combat design philosophy.

IE: Viability of professions who major in support, such as Thief, Mesmer, Engineer, Necro. Or, the viability of professions who sacrifice a major in damage for a major in control, for example.

Obviously, in PvE, the encounters are so easy, and there is so little control needed, it’s a DPS fest. Take steps to eventually change this, and allow GW2’s self-declared ‘roles’ of a combination of Damage, Control, and Support, to bring something to the table when one aspect is specialized in.

In PvP, which has a much higher focus on competitive builds, the lack of role diversity is the strongest.

Nothing weird about one class having 1 archetype. FFXIV does this and it does it very, very well.

You’re kind of proving my point with how you’ve come full circle about PvP build diversity. Why aspire to diversity when the system is designed for it and still doesn’t happen. There’s no point. It’s a waste of resources to keep that contraption going in PvP. People are going to pick the most efficient way to play the game and leave the garbage behind.

The problem with that “major” idea is the player base doesn’t really care about that at all. They will cherry pick what’s going to do the best overall, not specialize because the game lets them do what they want.

If GW2 was released with a Specialization system or something in the Traits that made you pick Support, Control, or Damage builds that’d be different.

Relentless.7023:

Nothing weird about one class having 1 archetype. FFXIV does this and it does it very, very well.

You’re kind of proving my point with how you’ve come full circle about PvP build diversity. Why aspire to diversity when the system is designed for it and still doesn’t happen. There’s no point. It’s a waste of resources to keep that contraption going in PvP. People are going to pick the most efficient way to play the game and leave the garbage behind.

The problem with that “major” idea is the player base doesn’t really care about that at all. They will cherry pick what’s going to do the best overall, not specialize because the game lets them do what they want.

If GW2 was released with a Specialization system or something in the Traits that made you pick Support, Control, or Damage builds that’d be different.

The ‘major’ system that I described is at work, in every build that players load on live GW2 servers. It’s a ‘soft’ archetype, not a hard, restricting archetype. My only problem with it, is that the non-‘damage’ roles in GW2 aren’t as impactful as focusing on damage is.

Another really big thing with GW2 has 3 game modes, and it’s highly non-competitive in 2 of 3 game modes (PvE and WvW). There is minimal garbage, because you can run any build, as long as it’s coherent, and not fail at that content due to a bad build. What would adding ‘duelists’ and ‘hunters’ and ‘assassins’ do for PvE content? It would just be the exact same as it is now – whoever brings the highest combined damage, and group utility.

In PvP, the one game mode where builds are highly competitive, no matter whether there are ‘soft’ specializations, or ‘hard’ archetypes, as long as there are interchangeable weapons, and traits, there will always be a more efficient way, for every competitive gametype, and that leaves garbage. Whether your system is implemented or not, there will be plenty of garbage ways to build your character – even if each profession is specialized for one single role, IE, hunting, assassinating, supporting. You can’t get around it, unless you have pre-packaged heroes, like MOBAs.

Relentless.7023:

Build becomes more important than skill, because your ability to pick the best possible options in each slot matters more than your execution of them.

I’m assuming you are talking about tPvP, due to the implied competitive nature of picking a comp. Let me just say, there are no 5 best professions & builds in each roster. And even if there were, your system would be no different – which duelist is optimal, and which is garbage? Which hunter is garbage? Only 1 of each role can be brought (except for the 5th slot).

Relentless.7023:

It is currently impossible for anyone to respect their opponent because their build is a lot more important than how they use it.

This is wrong on so many levels.. and sounds more like the angry tears of someone who doesn’t know how to handle himself when he meets his counter.

For example, I have a lot of respect for the ability of certain Necromancers and Spirit Rangers. Can I tell the difference between good players using a good build, and bad players using a good build? Absolutely. Am I going to avoid 1v1s with those professions on my condi-Engineer if possible? Absolutely. Am I going to coordinate with my team to nullify the threat that those professions mean to my Engi when they dive to kill me? Absolutely.

When GW2 is played at it’s competitive level… it’s freakin’ challenging. It’s almost impossible to go through a game and make all the right rotational choices, never let your abilities get dodged/blocked/blinded, and keep excellent positioning in teamfights. Not using awful builds or an awful comp is surely important to winning, but I assure you, in GW2 PvP combat at its most competitive, builds are only a fraction of what it takes to succeed.

I suspect you only have the opinion that ‘builds determine everything, might as well call GG before game starts’ because possibly you’re used to playing in Soloq, or other non-competitive pvp where everybody is thrown together without a balanced comp, and nobody ever feels like switching.

The truth, however, is that you can’t even begin to be competitive in those high level matches without at least two standard builds on your team.

I respect the fact that you created your build from scratch, but the fact that there is a Spirit Ranger, Bunker Guardian, and a Hambow Warrior on your team speaks to the inability of the playerbase to escape the truth that you have to pick the most efficient options. The riskiness of your build doesn’t work in a setting without good support and rotation, just like SupCutie’s Mesmer build isn’t any good without teamwork and proper use. While those kind of builds are what celebrate the potential of this concept, the truth is most people are never going to see that world within the PvP game. Their random teammates simply don’t give them the foundation to push the limits.

All I’m suggesting is to take an organized, competitive system of roles, condense the classes into fitting into a puzzle of those roles that doesn’t exclude classes. These roles balance against each other naturally and without any potential to become overpowered if handled, as you say, restrictively.

I realize that there would be differences between classes in this suggestion, which might lead to “viable option A” vs. “garbage B,” but the subjective nature of “Ele isn’t viable” right now is so prevalent that Anet really can’t figure out how to fix it without making Ele broken again.

In the system I suggest it’s a lot more clear – does Ele track down and deal with Assassins effectively enough? Can they reinforce mid to help Support effectively? Those are easier questions to ask and answer than the dozens of questions that would have to be asked in the current system. They’d be able to patch more quickly and efficiently with a more narrow system, promoting a more satisfied competitive community that sees that their concerns are being addressed promptly.

Just because the system starts narrow, doesn’t mean it can’t be expanded upon and made more complex too. Maybe this is just a spitball idea (it is) that could be iterated on and built upon.

And for the record I stopped playing this game a long time ago because even if I got to the top, it would be playing the same teams with the same people over and over, pretending that there’s something there when there isn’t. This game will never be a respectable competitive game until the Devs realize that their wad of Customization simply doesn’t cut it.

Mastering something doesn’t mean you have to reinvent the wheel – you just take a fast car and drive it better than the other guy. If they took this concept and built it into GW2 PVP I guarantee you the population would explode and new players would buy the game ready to play PvP

There are a huge number of MMO players who want that one MMO that can actually provide a competitive PvP game. They drift from MMO to MMO because that’s what they really want, but nobody’s been able to pull it off. These companies are scared of committing too much to it because they think it will backfire, but once a company figures it out they’ll have the next era of MMO dominance after WoW dies out.

Relentless.7023:

Mastering something doesn’t mean you have to reinvent the wheel – you just take a fast car and drive it better than the other guy. If they took this concept and built it into GW2 PVP I guarantee you the population would explode and new players would buy the game ready to play PvP

Take a fast car, and drive it better than the other guy? If this is the game winning philosophy, why can’t everyone just take the most competitive builds and focus on outplaying the others? That’s what it’s like at the top of GW2 competition, as of now. And to be honest, I still find pre-made team queue very fun because this is how it is. There are 3 players on each team that are driving the same ‘fast cars’ and it becomes a competition of who can drive those cars the best. On the other hand, outside some of the must-have professions, currently, there is a ton of meaningful customization choices – and it’s extremely incorrect to say that any of those options are garbage, or that there’s an optimal customization. I will explain:

I’ll do a customization analysis for example, when Team Good Fights plays say.. Disney Channel.

Pre-game: On my Engineer, I have many viable options. P/S, Nades/Bombs, P/P, Nades/Toolkit, Rifle, Nades/Toolkit. I can run 3 different stunbreaks of choice.

On Kensuda’s Guardian, he can toss in a bunch of different utilities. Sanctuary, Wall of Reflection, Purging Flames, full Shouts, and there are completely different viable customizations for an Altruistic Healing type bunker.

On Rar’s Warrior, he can go freely between Soldiers/Berserker amulet, Endure Pain, Dolyak Signet, or Signet of Stamina.

On Magic Toker’s Thief, he can run S/D Acrobatics, D/P Trickery, S/P Trickery based builds.

On Genyen’s Ranger, he just runs the same kitten all the time because he’s bad <3

There is a good chunk of viable, meaningful customization. Obviously, most tend to settle into out signature setup, but that’s absolutely unique to team.

Disney Channel’s Lineup, for example:

• 0/0/10/30/30 Clerics Guardian,
• 10/30/0/0/30 D/P Berserker Thief,
• 0/10/30/30/0 Carrion Ranger,
• 20/20/0/30 Berserker Mesmer (maybe 20/20/30/0/0 Chaotic Interruption?),
• 0/0/30/10/30 Soldiers Warrior.

Apex Prime’s Lineup, for example:

• 0/0/10/30/30 Clerics/Soldier Guardian
• 0/0/10/30/30 Clerics Staff Elementalist
• 20/0/20/30 Berserker Warrior
• 20/0/20/30 Soldiers Warrior
• x/x/30/30/x Carrion Ranger

As you can see, there are a lot of similarities and a fair bit of unique-ness to each team.

Good Fights brings a balanced 2 Condi Damage / 2 Power Damage dealers, Disney Channel is currently trying out a Bursty & less tanky 3 Power Damage, 1 Condi Damage dealer. Apex Prime prefers to harness as support and sustain/combo fields as much as possible, with 2 Warriors, Staff Elementalist, and Spirit Ranger. No squishies, tons of Water field blasting, and a huge amount of reviving ability. Almost all of our matches lately have ended via the timer expiring.

It’s just a pity that only a handful of people per region build highly competitive comps. Disney Channel has ran a Necromancer with huge success, Apex Prime continues to be extremely competitive with a Staff Ele – which might be competing for a spot in the ‘core comp’ with Ranger after April 15th. Mesmers of the Chaotic Interruption variety are extremely tough customers when their Thief is driving the car better than the other team’s thief. Engineer is a ridiculously strong teamfighter, that is NOT that easy to rush, or catch out of position. Thief is pretty much part of the ‘core comp’.

Balance is pretty dang good, if you ask me. Because I can say for certainty that if you want to play any profession and be among the best teams, it’s totally possible. Right now, there is a dependence on Warriors and Rangers, but April’s Patch will likely change that stance a bit, by shaving those two professions. Warrior and Ranger suffer slightly from a lack of meaningful customization in competitive games, too.

There’s honestly not a whole lot I would change about the GW2 competitive comps, in regards to your customization vs. focus belief.

Appearances are reality though. When you log in for the very first time, what you see is a massive pile of information that doesn’t really make sense until either someone walks you through it or you play long enough, and get beat up long enough, to figure things out.

On top of that, quite a few people expect there to be more competitive builds than there are. This is what happens when you give them too many options – they expect it to be all socialist where you can bring whatever build you want and it will work well enough to win.

Take PU Mesmer for example. It’s a terrible build for Conquest, but people still run it because it can kill people pretty well. They complain that this build should be viable, but do not consider how useless stealth is for point fighting and how a Warrior or Ranger do it better overall. The option is there, they take it even though it’s just a Volvo, not a Lamborghini.

Every competitive game is going to have a hierarchy, and what I’m suggesting is to do away with all the useless junk that doesn’t make it into competitive play in favor of a system that gives everyone a Lamborghini instead of having to build one and risk bringing a Pinto.

That way your time playing this game isn’t spend wondering if your build is optimal enough, but whether or not you are in fact driving the Lamborghini better than the other guys.

It’s keeping it simple.

Relentless.7023:

Appearances are reality though. When you log in for the very first time, what you see is a massive pile of information that doesn’t really make sense until either someone walks you through it or you play long enough, and get beat up long enough, to figure things out.

On top of that, quite a few people expect there to be more competitive builds than there are. This is what happens when you give them too many options – they expect it to be all socialist where you can bring whatever build you want and it will work well enough to win.

Take PU Mesmer for example. It’s a terrible build for Conquest, but people still run it because it can kill people pretty well. They complain that this build should be viable, but do not consider how useless stealth is for point fighting and how a Warrior or Ranger do it better overall. The option is there, they take it even though it’s just a Volvo, not a Lamborghini.

Every competitive game is going to have a hierarchy, and what I’m suggesting is to do away with all the useless junk that doesn’t make it into competitive play in favor of a system that gives everyone a Lamborghini instead of having to build one and risk bringing a Pinto.

That way your time playing this game isn’t spend wondering if your build is optimal enough, but whether or not you are in fact driving the Lamborghini better than the other guys.

It’s keeping it simple.

I agree that build vs. build is boring gameplay and should be avoided. I disagree that the logical conclusion is to then turn everything in PvP into hard counters, because I find that just as boring and consider it to be the opposite extreme of where I would go. While overall strategy and teamwork should be probably the most important thing, it shouldn’t be the only important thing.
I would vastly prefer a situation where if someone tries to kill me I can turn it around if I happen to be better than them (and conversely if I try to beat on someone who proceeds to outplay the heck out of me I lose) to one where if I am a duelist and I get spotted by an assassin I might as well just take my hands off the controls if I don’t have a friend nearby.

Duelists would be able to kick anybody’s kitten 1v1.

Assassins would just be able to either catch you off guard if you’re new or lagging, or seal the deal if you’re already in a fight with another Duelist. They wouldn’t be able to gank Duelists by design, only the best of the best would be able to.

Relentless.7023:

Duelists would be able to kick anybody’s kitten 1v1.

Assassins would just be able to either catch you off guard if you’re new or lagging, or seal the deal if you’re already in a fight with another Duelist. They wouldn’t be able to gank Duelists by design, only the best of the best would be able to.

Same deal either way. Very little is left up to skill with the class, and the vast majority of what makes wins leans towards tactics, which would be fine if other games didn’t already have such a massive head start in that area. As much as I love MOBAs, I don’t really want this game to turn into one.

“Skill with the class” is a WvW and PvE thing. Skill with the best possible builds, as Chaith described, is what is going on at the top of the game anyway.

Why give people the illusion of choice in the matter? There isn’t any choice. It’s either best builds and best teamwork / timing, or you get beat. Period.

Relentless.7023:

“Skill with the class” is a WvW and PvE thing. Skill with the best possible builds, as Chaith described, is what is going on at the top of the game anyway.

Why give people the illusion of choice in the matter? There isn’t any choice. It’s either best builds and best teamwork / timing, or you get beat. Period.

I would propose preset PvP builds that people can stray from if they wish if I thought people were struggling too much with finding a build upon coming to PvP, though honestly anyone could just google it (bing if you are the spawn of Satan) and find the top three builds for their class in all of twenty seconds.
I would not take every class and force them into builds that hard-counter each other.

At least nobody would be put on the bench for months at a time that way.

Ele players have no reason to queue up right now unless their team builds around them, if they even have a team. That’s completely unacceptable.

This system would eliminate that problem and any potential for a future patch putting a class on the bench. Sure, some people would say that one Duelist is better than the other, but it wouldn’t take much to fix that if it were actually true.

You can’t have “freedom to build how you want” and competition at the same time. It’s not working.

Relentless.7023:

And for the record I stopped playing this game a long time ago because even if I got to the top, it would be playing the same teams with the same people over and over, pretending that there’s something there when there isn’t. This game will never be a respectable competitive game until the Devs realize that their wad of Customization simply doesn’t cut it.

Mastering something doesn’t mean you have to reinvent the wheel – you just take a fast car and drive it better than the other guy. If they took this concept and built it into GW2 PVP I guarantee you the population would explode and new players would buy the game ready to play PvP

There are a huge number of MMO players who want that one MMO that can actually provide a competitive PvP game. They drift from MMO to MMO because that’s what they really want, but nobody’s been able to pull it off. These companies are scared of committing too much to it because they think it will backfire, but once a company figures it out they’ll have the next era of MMO dominance after WoW dies out.

I appreciate your idea, and I think PvP balance becomes a whole lot easier when you focus roles and don’t worry about customization. I agree with you in that often customization is just the illusion of choice for a truly competitive player. Given X choices, the odds of all X being equally balanced is so close to 0% that it might as well be. Even with a simple example like a DOTA 2 hero, you have 4 abilities you can put points in as you level, 3 of which are the only ones available until level 6. However, the order in which you put those points can have drastic changes on whether you’re extremely effective or basically trash, even just in the first 4 – 6 levels.

Compound the complexity and number of options, and the “cruft” builds are going to pile up. A few builds are going to shine through. That’s the nature of the beast, and to ever think any game boasting a lot of options is going to fulfill a promise that you can play any option you want and be competitive is to simply lie to yourself. At that point, if you truly want PvP competition, you really should just define roles and build slowly from there.

However, I have a bit of an issue with your statements above. If you get to the top of ANY PvP game, you’re going to be consistently seeing the same people over and over again. Complaints of opponent stagnation (in this game and in every other game I’ve played) never cease to amaze me. All it really says to me is “I don’t really enjoy playing this game, so I need to see new names above heads in order to trick myself into thinking this is a fresh experience.” If you really don’t enjoy simply playing, then I don’t really think you should be playing to begin with.

Do you really think that, if ANet focuses class roles and defines them specifically for competitive PvP environments, you would suddenly enjoy playing again? Or would you feel like you’re still stuck in the same META fighting the same people? You really think the pool of players at the “top” would suddenly grow to provide you with a wealth of new and exciting matches against opponents that have varying strategies? If the pool does grow to that size, is it still the “top”?

You can’t tell me you think that, and if you do, I don’t believe you. I think you’d come back to the game, play it for a few weeks to a month, then lose interest again. You guarantee the population would explode, but given that your guarantee is true, I’d guarantee you that the population would die out again within a short period of time.

The problem with MMO Players is that they seem to need change to sustain their interest. New instances, new WvW match-ups, balance changes, new skins, new abilities, new traits, new weapons, new classes. New, new, new, new, new. Multiple classes are in disarray with regard to how their players feel about balance, bugs, etc., and I still see a post about Guardians where the OP was bummed that they didn’t see many changes, even though the classes that were seeing a lot of changes were ones that are in a larger state of turmoil.

So MMO Players want an MMO game that they can consider competitive, but the second they get up into a competitive tier of players, they get bored because it’s always the same players. So what do you need? Well, probably money. Create incentives to play the game at a competitive level and people will probably try to play it competitively. I honestly think that the smartest thing Valve did for DOTA 2 was host the first International and put an enormous prize pool on it.

But companies can’t just do that, and you’re forgetting what an MMO actually is. I don’t think the MMO Players you are referencing actually want to play an MMO. You want a competitive PvP game in a third-person control style where you use a character that has abilities. In short, a PvPRPG. These games do exist, and have existed, but I don’t really ever see them around because I honestly think the MMO Players who would get the most out of them are busy looking at MMOs. Which are the wrong genre entirely.

You aren’t going to get strict PvP focus in an MMO, because then it won’t be an MMO. An MMO incorporates all walks of life, including: player housing, raiding, dungeons, exploration, crafting, PvP, customization, RP, socializing, etc. PvP is in there, but you’d be crazy to tell an investor that you are designing an MMO, but just focusing on PvP. At that point you aren’t marketing an MMO.

It isn’t about companies being scared. It’s about investors being conservative, and players not knowing what they really want. Most often, they just want something new and fresh to be excited about, and they don’t get excited about trying something different against a core group of people to shake things up. You want new strategies? Throw in something wild yourself. Go crazy outside the box against these old opponents and suddenly it’s all mixed up. The META is a prison as much as it is a general guide on what you should probably do. People get locked up inside and think that’s the only way to play, until someone with a little ingenuity steps outside the box and does something new.

Anyway, that’s too long, but I needed a break from work.

TL;DR: I think the “MMO Players” you mention shouldn’t actually be playing MMOs. They should be playing PvPRPGs like Forge or something. I also think boredom from opponent stagnation just means you don’t have fun playing the actual game, and nothing is going to change that unless suddenly there are cash prizes in a wider array of tournaments.

I don’t mean a PvP only MMO. Never said that.

I meant an MMO that has all the bells and whistles of the PvE, raiding, etc. but with a PvP game mode that can become competitive enough to attract Esports and cash tournaments. Real ones not what we’ve seen in this game’s attempts at it.

Relentless.7023:

I don’t mean a PvP only MMO. Never said that.

I meant an MMO that has all the bells and whistles of the PvE, raiding, etc. but with a PvP game mode that can become competitive enough to attract Esports and cash tournaments. Real ones not what we’ve seen in this game’s attempts at it.

Out of curiosity, what do you think it takes to make a game worthy of being an e-sport and attracting cash tournaments?

Relentless.7023:

I. Definitions

Focus
Game balance in GW2 where each class has a defined role that only one other class can do. Each class is sought after based on roles and the competence of the player to accomplish those roles. The roles ought to be easy to learn but difficult to master, so that new players aren’t alienated and veterans aren’t bored of how easy it is.

Customization
The current game balance of throwing an enormous wad of options at each class, of which only a small fraction will be used. The roles are unclear, because they are supposed to be decided upon by the playerbase, not the developers. Build becomes more important than skill, because your ability to pick the best possible options in each slot matters more than your execution of them.

I want to stop right here because these aren’t definitions; they’re observations and assertions. If we’re to take these as definitions, their value is very questionable, as you’ve defined ‘Focus’ to be inherently good and ‘Customization’ to be inherently bad. This puts the rest of what you’re saying on very shaky ground.

I think that it’s best not to get really misguided with our proposals to increase the success of the game.

I think a better definition of the success of a game is better derived from the PvP participation, and viewership. We could derive it from the combat system, or the profession balance, but honestly I feel those are quite healthy, not perfect, but quite healthy, and definitely not what is the actual huge turn off for the PvP community.

High participation is not going to be achieved (I feel) by restructuring the combat roles, but making it feel rewarding, and prestigious. I think once the patch hits, we’ll return to this and re-evaluate. High participation can be achieved by allowing for an experience which is easy to get in to, for new players. Unfortunately, conquest is extremely hard to master effectively – Still waiting on that answer when it’s best for one to leave close, so the map isn’t 4v5! Regarding conquest:

Chaith.8256:

I’d say it’s probably the annoyance of having to constantly be checking enemy numbers and figuring out if you’re where you need to be, or are the reason for an outnumbered fight, causing your team to lose nodes. Lots of people are true deathmatch players, and that has a comforting simplicity to it – you’re already where you need to be, just focus on surviving.

Adding other game-modes that are easier to get in to than conquest is very important. Rotations and matching numbers is extremely draining on the player.

High viewership is directly correlated with cash prize tournaments – because viewers indirectly trickles down into the return on investment needed in order to justify more prize pools. Cash prizes will also, in turn, add many more participants to tPvP.

What WILL increase the viewership of GW2 PvP?

1. Emotional connection to the game mode.

• I think GW2 has struck gold on the unofficial 2v2 tournaments that take place. I am effing pumped when I saw this clip for the first time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT4x1QoGkzY . I think that the reason why people love watching this game mode is the fact that the camera is on a certain person’s perspective long enough for the viewer to identify with that player’s struggle.

2. Clearly visible plays.

• This is tied in to spell effects, animation size, and character size. If these 3 things were modified in PvP to be to a certain standard, it would facilitate a better viewer experience.

Mobas are not easy to figure out at all for a new player or someone who hasn’t seen them before, but they can be explained pretty effectively in pre-game and during the game.

This suggestion would make GW2 PvP really easy to explain, but the players would have to be really good tacticians to win consistently. The second role would be the intrigue before each match, wondering how much more of one role they want to specialize in as a team.

While I get it that you believe that the balance is good, Chaith, where is everyone else? The community has pretty much fallen apart and many have said that it’s irreparable at this point. New players don’t make teams, they just farm gold and their dailies. People don’t care about PvP in this game, save for a few dedicated teams.

EU used to be the lifeblood of the PvP community and now its falling apart too.

This isn’t working.

Chaith.8256:

High participation is not going to be achieved (I feel) by restructuring the combat roles, but making it feel rewarding, and prestigious. I think once the patch hits, we’ll return to this and re-evaluate. High participation can be achieved by allowing for an experience which is easy to get in to, for new players. Unfortunately, conquest is extremely hard to master effectively – Still waiting on that answer when it’s best for one to leave close, so the map isn’t 4v5! Regarding conquest:

Just gonna poke in here;

I think that getting people to participate in sPvP is largely a matter of rewards. Average GW2 player probably plays more PvE than sPvP because playing sPvP doesn’t buy you a Legendary and it doesn’t really get you any cool skins until you start pushing Shark at the moment. Hopefully upcoming patch helps to address this.

Relentless.7023:

Mobas are not easy to figure out at all for a new player or someone who hasn’t seen them before, but they can be explained pretty effectively in pre-game and during the game.

I’m not 100% certain what this is supposed to mean.

If you mean someone who has never played or watched a MOBA before will have a difficult time understanding what’s happening in the game? That’s basically every sport ever, and there’s not really any way to get around it.

If you mean a new player entering the game won’t understand what’s going on? LoL (which, as far as I can tell, is top dog), does a fairly good job of teaching you the mechanics with its tutorial, and limiting the amount of information you have to digest at any one time with its levelling system and champ rotation system.

With this in mind, your solution is way too big for the problem. If you want the game to be easier to understand, it needs a more streamlined introduction for new players and it needs to trick new players into thinking they’re good, not a complete overhaul of the combat roles and system.

Relentless.7023:

The community has pretty much fallen apart and many have said that it’s irreparable at this point. New players don’t make teams, they just farm gold and their dailies.

So basically;
the old players have left
the new players don’t matter
let’s completely overhaul the game and see if that reanimates it.

I’m not a game historian so I won’t pretend to be an expert, but I’m very skeptical that this has worked ever.

I think Chaith makes the most appropriate 2 points. It can be very difficult to watch the game/plays developing in GW2 because of the pacing and degree of effects popping all over at once. It’s hard to tell what is doing a lot of damage, what isn’t doing a lot of damage, and what people are actually doing that is skillful. Take a game like DOTA 2 with all of its downtime, and you can really help a new player sit and understand the game to the point where they feel they can see developing what the commentator is talking about, and often, heavy-hitting nukes are flashy and exciting. Also, tension is often built when teams smoke, when song of the siren is used, when you see a bait happening.

GW2’s PvP reminds me a lot of watching Bloodline Champions. The action spikes up, stays about constant, then goes back down when the match is over. There isn’t really a roller coaster of tension/excitement that the big eSports seem to have, unless a team mounted a comeback that you didn’t expect.

I hadn’t seen the clip mentioned in the emotional connections piece, but it was really fun to watch. It makes me want to keep an eye on the 2v2 scene, as I think that probably has the most promise in the game. To add to this, I really think they need to incorporate sPvP/tournament spectator mode into the rest of the game, including alerting when certain teams/matches are playing against one another. With a more anonymous queue system this isn’t as feasible, but if they start formalizing 2v2s, or if there’s more emphasis on broadcasting team success in 5v5s, people start to notice.

I think they did something like this in GW2 with regard to announcing matches and allowing the user to quickly and easily pop in and watch. From anywhere. I want to be roaming around in WvW and get an alert that two teams are about to face off in some format, then pop up an interface window that shows me what’s going on. Make it resizeable and I’ll put it on the edge of my screen while I roam.

Give me the tools to get involved easily and make me aware of what’s going on, and I’ll happily get involved.

And Relentless, I’d still like to hear what you think a game requires to be an esport and attract cash tournaments. I don’t get the impression you’re looking at the big picture.

Relentless.7023:

Mobas are not easy to figure out at all for a new player or someone who hasn’t seen them before, but they can be explained pretty effectively in pre-game and during the game.

This suggestion would make GW2 PvP really easy to explain, but the players would have to be really good tacticians to win consistently. The second role would be the intrigue before each match, wondering how much more of one role they want to specialize in as a team.

While I get it that you believe that the balance is good, Chaith, where is everyone else? The community has pretty much fallen apart and many have said that it’s irreparable at this point. New players don’t make teams, they just farm gold and their dailies. People don’t care about PvP in this game, save for a few dedicated teams.

EU used to be the lifeblood of the PvP community and now its falling apart too.

This isn’t working.

Relentless.7023:

This suggestion would make GW2 PvP really easy to explain, but the players would have to be really good tacticians to win consistently. The second role would be the intrigue before each match, wondering how much more of one role they want to specialize in as a team.

In your proposed combat system, how would you explain to a new player when he needs to stop watching close and rotate to mid. And what should he do if some enemy contests that node when he leaves? How do you sufficiently explain to new players the importance of developing the battlefield awareness of all 5 enemy players, so that proper rotations can be done? These are, in my opinion the true issues as to why sPvP is not as vibrant or as populated as WvW and PvE – the profession balance in those modes are far worse, in my opinion.

Relentless.7023:

While I get it that you believe that the balance is good, Chaith, where is everyone else? The community has pretty much fallen apart and many have said that it’s irreparable at this point. New players don’t make teams, they just farm gold and their dailies. People don’t care about PvP in this game, save for a few dedicated teams.

I just don’t see the evidence that implies that bad profession balance is causation for the PvP community to have fallen apart. Maybe everyone in tPvP made a mass exodus away from the game mode in the last year is because they are the Mesmer and Ele players who it’s been significantly harder to be competitive with those professions? Lol, I joke.

Restructuring the combat roles could be interesting, but I don’t think it’s going to work well for the rest of the game, nor would it fit in the budget. I’m not even sure if it would translate into a more successful PvP mode, once the new changes become old.

We already have a really robust and interesting combat role system right now. I feel due to the lack of rewards, and therefore, competition, most players just haven’t had the incentive to master it, yet.

Every profession already has a unique, desirable function right now in high level tPvP. I think people are just unappreciative towards the beauty of the current system because conquest rubs them the wrong way, and they haven’t had the chance to master the current combat roles.

Relentless.7023:

EU used to be the lifeblood of the PvP community and now its falling apart too.

This isn’t working.

Instead of “PvP is falling apart, must be the un-interesting and difficult combat roles!” I feel that it comes back to the reasons I roughly outlined earlier.

• Emotional connection to game-mode
• Reward
• Prestige
• Ease of Mastery without VOIP

First, the ease with which the roles would be introduced would be far easier than currently. As I’ve said before there are so many variables to building a character that these new roles would do away with because they don’t matter anyway. A narrow purpose makes it easier for each role to decide what to do, but doesn’t give them the experience or skill to successfully implement it.

For example, let’s say as a Thief your Assassin build is the equivalent of a choice between D/P SB and S/P SB, Zerker in each, eliminating the dagger offhand and pistol mainhand. Your utilities are condensed from the mountain of crap we have now to signets and shadow steps. Wouldn’t that be 10000x easier to figure out for someone brand new?

Now because those builds would be the only two builds that a thief could pick, wouldn’t Anet have an easier time balancing them against the other classes? These classes who, in the immaculate words of Doyourbestbear, have had their “Bullkitten Mountain” reduced to two competitive builds?

Now I get it that some people would get bored of that, but if they picked the roles and builds in a balanced way, then you have to push yourself to beat the guy who isn’t thinking about his build, but whether or not he’s playing it better.

The teamwork would be a hell of a lot easier to start up and keep together because you don’t have to worry about some kittened build coming in and screwing things up like you do right now. GW2 PvP players have to weigh so much more information than is necessary to compete that it kills the desire to compete in the first place.

You don’t try to reinvent a Champion or Hero in LoL/Dota – you master it and do what it’s designed to do. Right now, no class in GW2 has a designed purpose, and people just follow what the best players play, which only encourages the very thing I’m suggesting – establishing a set of competitive builds.

The problem, though, is once things start to settle down, then some monstrosity rolls along that screws up that balance and kittenes everyone off because now the pieces have to be figured out, measured against one another, again.

These monstrosities happen because the stability created by a metagame has always excluded classes because Anet didn’t give Class A enough resources to compete. Then they give them too many resources and it turns them into the new FotM, screwing it all up just because of QQ and their inability to plan these things out.

That. Isn’t. Fun. Never has been and that’s the spiral of WTF that is GW2’s PvP.

Frustration does not mix with competition unless it’s because they know they didn’t play well enough. Having to build well enough only compounds that and irritates what is already frustrating further.

The lack of clarity and purpose to the classes makes it impossible for PvP to flourish. It’s just who can build a more effective class or team composition, not who is actually good at them. If the roles were narrow, there would be no question about who is the best and who isn’t.

Relentless.7023:

First, the ease with which the roles would be introduced would be far easier than currently. As I’ve said before there are so many variables to building a character that these new roles would do away with because they don’t matter anyway. A narrow purpose makes it easier for each role to decide what to do, but doesn’t give them the experience or skill to successfully implement it.

Having the proper utilities & traits alone isn’t going to introduce a role to anyone.

Relentless.7023:

For example, let’s say as a Thief your Assassin build is the equivalent of a choice between D/P SB and S/P SB, Zerker in each, eliminating the dagger offhand and pistol mainhand. Your utilities are condensed from the mountain of crap we have now to signets and shadow steps. Wouldn’t that be 10000x easier to figure out for someone brand new?

Who decides what is useless in PvP and should be off limits to PvPers? What if balance changes and those ‘useless’ utilities become viable? Wouldn’t it just be 10000x easier to have a few freakin’ link of the current meta build for brand new players? You can’t just ‘condense’ all the utilities and traits. It would not work in the UI, it would be a complete nightmare for players who are on the cutting edge of what the ‘meta’ build is, and it feels like 80% of the game content would be stripped from you. It’s an extremely abrasive and intrusive solution. It would step on more toes than you know.

Relentless.7023:

GW2 PvP players have to weigh so much more information than is necessary to compete that it kills the desire to compete in the first place.

Nobody has to think about what adept trait they should have taken during matches when they’re processing information. This is just insulting to players.. builds are not too complicated so that there’s no willpower left for competition, lol.. New players just need to have a quicker path to making good builds, if anything at all.

To be honest, if there was the proper population to support matchmaking and there actually became noticeable permanent differences in the quality of players in the games at any given MMR, once you get in the proper bracket, there won’t be any bad builds ‘screwing up’ your teamwork as you put it. When you’re new in any game, even a game like LoL or DoTa like you hold in such esteem, you can definitely ruin the game with a bad item build. You are definitely not propelled to attack the proper targets, and fulfil the Champion’s role properly. It comes down to education, experience. It does not come down to limiting all the bad options so there can only be meta builds.

Relentless.7023:

The lack of clarity and purpose to the classes makes it impossible for PvP to flourish. It’s just who can build a more effective class or team composition, not who is actually good at them. If the roles were narrow, there would be no question about who is the best and who isn’t.

I don’t think that forcing players into the current meta build will make your comp good. It will still be a comp game. Every game is a comp game. Try to play a MOBA like SMITE Arena with 4 Assassins. Or no magic penetration vs. a team stacking magic protection? How is the better player going to be found? Choices, man. Choices. Games need them – they are what set the good players apart from the bad ones, too.

I think you have a point about focus, but I feel like this is biting off more than you can chew. It’s just way too much of an overhaul. Good ideas, though.

Personally, I think they should axe 6 traits per line and make the remaining 6 give more of a buff but have an obvious “package” sort of deal. Instead of having one trait that (for example) reduces <skill> cooldown and another that gives <skill> some sort of buff, you’d consolidate those two into a single trait. This would have the absolutely huge benefit of making it obvious which traits work well together as defined by the dev team as well as making the small number of traits easily balanced.

As it stands, giving players so much choice has two problems:

1. It enables them to shoot themselves in the foot by picking traits and skills that have no benefit with each other. This might not be a problem with “easy-mode” classes like warrior, but for elementalist (who’s been getting the short end of the stick in terms of class balance), it’s killer.

2. It causes the devs to be in a constant nerf-buff-nerf-buff cycle. When the playerbase, due to the staggering number of trait/skill/gear combinations, discovers the tactic of the month, it gets nerfed, which buffs another class into the spotlight. Having fewer combinations means the nerf-buff rollercoaster is more like nerf-buff speed bump.

Consolidating traits and skills isn’t a huge thing, either. It doesn’t require a gigantic overhaul of the class system.

Sometimes what separates the players is not their ability to press a button quickly, but how well they can adapt to a changing landscape. So the balance shifts and a new meta rolls in? That means you can up and quit, then say they should stabilize the roles in order to provide the players with an environment where the truly skilled would shine?

I’d argue the opposite. The truly skilled will shine despite a changing landscape.

DOTA and LoL keep getting referenced. Maybe LoL is different, but I’ve been following DOTA 2 for years now, and played DOTA for years back when it was a WC3 mod and no one knew what they were doing. You think the landscape in DOTA doesn’t change? Follow the pro meta. The second it settles, a balance patch happens and everything turns on its head. When was the last time you saw KotL/PL? I saw it just recently, and it got decimated.

The great teams research, practice, and adapt when the game shifts.

Frustration does mix with competition. In fact, it’s baked in. What also separates great players is how they deal with the frustration. Do you go diva-mode and complain about how balance changed so the game is broken now? Do you take a loss personally and blame the game when it’s very possible it was your fault that you lost? Yes, frustration is much more manageable when the player recognizes that its their play that’s at fault and not the game. How many players do you know honestly evaluate their performance and come to the conclusion it was their fault?

I’ll give you a good litmus test: those who quit out early probably had their egos bruised in some way, or hyped themselves up to grandeur and didn’t have it delivered. Those who are out there winning tournaments had the wherewithall to blame themselves first when they hit a rough patch.

That isn’t all players. Some just didn’t like how GW2 turned out, which is fine. However, blaming the game and not yourself is a disease in the gaming community that is not easy to diagnose.

One thing I don’t necessarily agree with, though, is Ease of Mastery. I think “Ease of Perceived Mastery” is a better way to put it, though that has its downfalls as well. I think DOTA 2 is a game where you can think you know your stuff, but the amount of information and execution you need to learn in order to be truly skilled is nothing short of monstrous. Knowing all of the abilities on all of the heroes, knowing roles, knowing item builds, knowing situational limits, knowing pull timings, knowing creep blocks, knowing ward placements, knowing how to de-ward, knowing how to farm, knowing how to deny farm, knowing map awareness, knowing when and where to rotate, knowing how to communicate.

I don’t think sheer volume of required information is what really keeps people at bay.

This is the best thread on the entire forums!

“Having the proper utilities & traits alone isn’t going to introduce a role to anyone.”

Obviously this would have to be introduced to people and the general strategy laid out for each class and their options. It wouldn’t just be boom! you can’t run anything but this now good luck.

“Who decides what is useless in PvP and should be off limits to PvPers?”

Uh you guys do. All you players who compete at the highest level. What you decide to play and how you decide to play it establishes the metagame. If you’re concerned about stepping on people’s toes why don’t you run PU Mesmer, S/D Thief, Spirit Weapon Guardian, Axe/Shield GS Warrior, and Fresh Air Ele?

Because those builds suck

Wouldn’t the game be better off without those builds confusing and frustrating new players? If their choices are better, won’t they be more effective right away? Won’t that make competition more intense?

Why have the circus of noob builds at all? What’s the point? I mean, besides getting an autowin because they are so unprepared for the match.

Finally, your example of 4 assassins shows you didn’t read that there would be one of each role plus one that you choose as a team to complete the 5 members. If it’s a queue it would be random.

Every team would have a balanced comp with just a bit of individuality to add a challenge of how to deploy people. There would be dozens of choices to make throughout the match.

Hunters would have to be looking for the best place to contribute for their team, as do Assassins, but with the tension of risk. If an Assassin goes far to go with his Duelist after capping close to gank their Duelist, what if their Hunter comes over? That’s a better fight for the other team. So he’d have to look out for their Engi or Ele and if they see one, call off the push.

Duelists fighting 1v1 would be balanced to be the kind of stuff that would be prime time shoutcasting. Is that Warrior gonna get that stun off? Can that Ranger bait him into using Zerker stance so he can save his condi skills right after? Oooh that was a clutch dodge!

Support – Assassin – Hunter teamfights would be really interesting. Assassins would be the X factor, looking for a way to tip the fight in their team’s direction without overextending. The Hunters would be putting as much pressure on the enemy Support as possible in a war of attrition, with the most devious and lethal Assassin finishing them off. Supports would have enough CC to help facilitate their goals, like a clutch Necro fear or Guardian knockdown.

That would be so much more interesting to watch and play than Build Wars 2.

Relentless.7023:

“Who decides what is useless in PvP and should be off limits to PvPers?”

Uh you guys do. All you players who compete at the highest level. What you decide to play and how you decide to play it establishes the metagame.

I am just still super ‘not ok’ with this kind of responsibility imposed on high MMR players, and the limitations imposed on players across PvP.

Relentless.7023:

Finally, your example of 4 assassins shows you didn’t read that there would be one of each role plus one that you choose as a team to complete the 5 members. If it’s a queue it would be random.

Currently in Team Queues, it’s fair to expect already that teams will fill out the roles somewhat properly. My comment was towards games matched from non-partied players, IE, Hotjoin, SoloQ and YoloQ.

Because we all know that in SoloQ and YoloQ, when people individually queue, everyone loads in to the match and roles are never double, triple, or quadruple stacked. With less roles to choose from, it probably increases the chances of double or triple of a single role in a match. You seem to see things mostly from a shoutcasted tPvP tournament perspective, but in reality, that’s applicable to a very small frequency of games played in GW2.

Relentless.7023:

Hunters would have to be looking for the best place to contribute for their team, as do Assassins, but with the tension of risk. If an Assassin goes far to go with his Duelist after capping close to gank their Duelist, what if their Hunter comes over? That’s a better fight for the other team. So he’d have to look out for their Engi or Ele and if they see one, call off the push.

Let’s see what happens if I just changed out the word ‘Hunters’ for ‘Engineer’ and ‘Assassin’ for ‘Thief’ and ‘Duelist’ for ‘Mesmer’.

Relentless.7023:

Engineers would have to be looking for the best place to contribute for their team, as do Thieves, but with the tension of risk. If an Thief goes far to go with his Mesmer after capping close to gank their Mesmer, what if their Engineer comes over? That’s a better fight for the other team. So he’d have to look out for their Engi or Ele and if they see one, call off the push.

Things like this happen to me every day to me, in tPvP. Counters already exist in the game, and.. the harder the counter, the less fun the combat roles become. I’ll never let our Spirit Ranger 1v1 a Hambow Warrior until the bitter end, I’ll never let our Warrior 1v1 a Thief until the bitter end, and I’ll certainly never attack a Necromancer on my Engineer, for fear of instant death, etc.

Relentless.7023:

That would be so much more interesting to watch and play than Build Wars 2.

You gotta understand that if you have to retreat at the sight of your counter every second 2v2 you engage, that’s like adding a nuclear arms race to Build Wars 2.

You also should look a little bit harder. Clutch dodges aren’t more clutch if you call the professions by different roles, Shoutcasting the actual combat won’t improve because all the strategies around using the actual moves ‘IE: Berserker Stance’ won’t change… yeah, the Ranger will still wait until it’s over before he applies his conditions :P.

The game has pretty much everything that you speak of in your romanticized ideal of GW2 combat, except for every fight being decided before it starts, or an early retreat.

Relentless.7023:

“Having the proper utilities & traits alone isn’t going to introduce a role to anyone.”

Obviously this would have to be introduced to people and the general strategy laid out for each class and their options. It wouldn’t just be boom! you can’t run anything but this now good luck.

“Who decides what is useless in PvP and should be off limits to PvPers?”

Uh you guys do. All you players who compete at the highest level. What you decide to play and how you decide to play it establishes the metagame. If you’re concerned about stepping on people’s toes why don’t you run PU Mesmer, S/D Thief, Spirit Weapon Guardian, Axe/Shield GS Warrior, and Fresh Air Ele?

Because those builds suck

So why do we actually need to change anything? People are already deciding what builds are effective and what builds aren’t. The system you describe is already in the game.

On why someone would play those builds? Maybe they’ll play them because they’re fun. Yeah, you don’t rock up to your Uber Leet Espawts Tournament with them, but not very many people play in Uber Leet Espawts Tournaments.

Relentless.7023:

Wouldn’t the game be better off without those builds confusing and frustrating new players? If their choices are better, won’t they be more effective right away? Won’t that make competition more intense?

Why have the circus of noob builds at all? What’s the point? I mean, besides getting an autowin because they are so unprepared for the match.

One by one:
Yes. The game would be better off if it didn’t confuse new players. Yes. The game would be better off if it didn’t frustrate new players. However, that doesn’t necessitate ripping huge chunks out of the game.

Not necessarily. A new player might have better choices, but that doesn’t mean that they know how to use those choices effectively. A simpler build which is easier to handle but less effective in high-end play would be more effective for a new player, compared to a build that relies on the intricacies of mechanics they don’t understand yet. I build good decks for my brother in Hearthstone, for example, but he complains at me because he doesn’t know how to use them- He spends his Arcane Shots on turn 1 to hit the other player in the face.

This depends on what level of play you mean. In solo and team arena, it’s doubtful that it will make any meaningful impact at all. Mandating options would make hotjoin pointless; hotjoin is fun because you can muck around with options that don’t make any sense or which don’t fit into the meta.

Because making builds is fun for the average player. At the high end of play, yeah, it’s obvious that you only take builds that the meta dictates, but the average player doesn’t play at the high end.

Most players love customization.

Competitive Play is becoming far more niche than core to ANET. Just look at how they restructured their web page around the explanation of the game, or any of the recent Twitch messages.

Sure, they want people to get a bit “serious” in time, but acknowledge that the player base seems far more casual, more PvE, more achievement and reward focused, etc.

The changes in PvP really are to draw in the majority of players who are not competitive.

So, your idea, if it worked would benefit one of the smallest segments of the GW2 population and even then it is risky. Wrong idea for this game frankly.

I. Like it or not, every competitive game looks to the people who win the big game or the most as a starting place for their own builds. It’s not really a responsibility that anyone chooses it’s the most economical choice between thinking of a build yourself and starting with a build that has already won.

II. Obviously Anet matchmaking would have to change too. I thought that was implied in my original post, where the current “throw people in a match because we don’t have a way to balance teams in queues” is replaced. Yet another example of why the classes need specific purposes.

How do you fix matchmaking as it is right now? If a Warrior can be a burst, tank, condi tank, condi burst, support, or bruiser how do you define the class? With all the variables how do you narrow it down? Trait choices? Amulet?

Matchmaking will always suck until the classes can be organized and queued for specific roles or a specific range of roles.

This method would make matchmaking 1000% better because each class wouldn’t be so ambiguous. An Engi would be a Hunter. Period. You wouldn’t have to make a bunch of BS excuses as to why you can’t balance teams in that environment.

III. Counters are vital for a competitive game. Allocation and deployment are the strategies. This has worked for Starcraft competitively for more than a decade. If you go bio on Terran, expect your Zerg opponent to bring Banelings. If you go heavy Muta on Zerg, expect anti-air.

If comps are similar, then whoever uses them better wins. So I’ve already detailed that comps would be 80% similar with a 20% difference of the last member that tilts the team comp in one of the four ways. That’s just enough variety for sustained queueing to not be boring, and little enough customization to ensure that you aren’t bringing a comp that could be dead on arrival.

Retreat is not a bad thing. While distasteful to the chest thumping, it can protect your team and redirect resources where they can make a difference.

In the previous example, let’s say the Engi was waiting with their Ranger expecting the push. You, the Warrior, and the Assassin, the Thief, don’t push but instead go to mid, where it’s 3v3. Now it’s 5v3, your side, because they sat on home waiting for the push. The Engi that was waiting shows up but it’s too late and now you have a two cap.

The Warrior breaks off to attack the Ranger, who desperately tried to go far hoping that nobody would send someone to your home fast enough. The Thief, knowing that he has time, comes over to gank the Ranger.

IV. No this game is nothing like how you describe. It might be where you play, where comps are intelligent and the players know how to use them.

The rest of the game’s community is filled with crappy builds and crappy team comps because there isn’t any matchmaking, there isn’t any class identity, people rage quit once the other team gets a two cap, and spend more time QQing than contributing.

There has to be some organization to PvP if the higher quality competition at the top is the standard, not the exception. Freedom to build at the expense of the team makes getting to killing PvP at the lower and middle tiers. Delegating the responsibility of balancing teams to the players is the worst decision I’ve ever seen in a PvP game mode.

Why wade through all that crap?

Chaith.8256:

The game has pretty much everything that you speak of in your romanticized ideal of GW2 combat, except for every fight being decided before it starts, or an early retreat.

I came to the same conclusion with the post mentioned. First, it made me laugh, then it made me want to respond, then I just didn’t care because I don’t think Relentless is actually listening to what people are saying anyway.

A good observation, though.

I haven’t been responding to you Cogbyrn because Chaith is on the best team in NA. If it isn’t it’s 1a.

His opinion matters more to me than yours because he’s actually playing at that level. I have no idea who you are, and you confused me with your Dota 2 response.

Yes, Dota 2 has an enormous amount of different Heroes. The game was designed for there to be options, but instead of each class being the equivalent of dozens of heroes, each of the heroes are just one hero.

There isn’t ambiguity with that game design. Skeleton King and Dragon Knight are both Strength Heroes, but totally different in strategy. Faceless Void and Drow Ranger are both Agility Heroes, but totally different.

You can definitively advise people on how to play those Heroes because there is a clarity about what they can and can’t do in their design. Professions in GW2 are not.

Warriors can perform 6 different roles, at least. One of them, the Hambow bruiser, is dominating PvP and has been for months. All I’m proposing is to get rid of the lesser options and reduce a mountain of crap into, at most, 2 options that can create the same type of clarity we see in Dota 2.

This clarity is what motivates so many people to learn Dota 2. It’s a challenge that actually rewards learning it with a mid and higher tier that is much more competitive.

This lack of clarity in GW2 is what only encourages a very small minority of excellent players to keep playing, and frustrates the majority of people who play PvP with any measure of effort.

Also, that statement about the match being over at the start shows a complete lack of understanding of how this idea is superior to the current.

When there are balanced team comps, which this creates, you don’t know who’s going to win at the start. There’s no way to predict that. Right now, matches are over at the start far more often than not, which is why the best team’s win 70% of their matches.

I’m suggesting to take the equivalent of having every team with a Spirit Ranger, Hambow Warrior, PW Thief, Bunker Guard, and Bomb/Nade Engi and making it the standard. That would make matchmaking a lot more competitive wouldn’kitten

If everyone played with those builds and nothing else, then there wouldn’t be a gaping chasm of difference between the players’ starting value. Their ability to use those builds, like in Dota 2, would determine the winner.

Are you a better PW Thief than the other one? Then you’ll gank people, stay alive, and tip fights in your team’s favor.

I do realize, however, that there has to be some compromise to just one build per class. That is way too much of a departure from GW2’s silly ideology that “you can play how you want.” That’s why I mentioned two trait lines, which would encourage a choice between two weapon builds.

GW2’s not competitive enough. Can you two at least admit that?

Relentless.7023:

I. Like it or not, every competitive game looks to the people who win the big game or the most as a starting place for their own builds. It’s not really a responsibility that anyone chooses it’s the most economical choice between thinking of a build yourself and starting with a build that has already won.

Be specific here. “every competitive game”? ‘games’ are not conscious entities. Do you mean the players, or the developers?

Relentless.7023:

II. Obviously Anet matchmaking would have to change too. I thought that was implied in my original post, where the current “throw people in a match because we don’t have a way to balance teams in queues” is replaced. Yet another example of why the classes need specific purposes.

How do you fix matchmaking as it is right now? If a Warrior can be a burst, tank, condi tank, condi burst, support, or bruiser how do you define the class? With all the variables how do you narrow it down? Trait choices? Amulet?

Matchmaking will always suck until the classes can be organized and queued for specific roles or a specific range of roles.

You can just stop taking solo queue seriously. Solo queue is yolo queue. People don’t take LoL’s solo queuing seriously either. Is it really unreasonable for cutting-edge competitive players to bring a full team?

Relentless.7023:

III. Counters are vital for a competitive game. Allocation and deployment are the strategies. This has worked for Starcraft competitively for more than a decade. If you go bio on Terran, expect your Zerg opponent to bring Banelings. If you go heavy Muta on Zerg, expect anti-air.

If comps are similar, then whoever uses them better wins. So I’ve already detailed that comps would be 80% similar with a 20% difference of the last member that tilts the team comp in one of the four ways. That’s just enough variety for sustained queueing to not be boring, and little enough customization to ensure that you aren’t bringing a comp that could be dead on arrival.

Apples and oranges. Despite that:

RTS games are different because you can alter your build orders as you proceed through the game to match and counter what your opponent is doing. If I’m playing Zerg and I scout the other dude doing a strategy, I can change my strategy to counter that. If I’m playing a thief and the other dude plays a hunter or whatever, I can’t stop being a thief, and similarly, my team comp as a whole can’t change.

Relentless.7023:

Retreat is not a bad thing. While distasteful to the chest thumping, it can protect your team and redirect resources where they can make a difference.

I’m… Not sure what the point here is. You shouldn’t commit resources to fights which are already lost? That already happens. You’re describing the game as it is.

Relentless.7023:

In the previous example, let’s say the Engi was waiting with their Ranger expecting the push. You, the Warrior, and the Assassin, the Thief, don’t push but instead go to mid, where it’s 3v3. Now it’s 5v3, your side, because they sat on home waiting for the push. The Engi that was waiting shows up but it’s too late and now you have a two cap.

The Warrior breaks off to attack the Ranger, who desperately tried to go far hoping that nobody would send someone to your home fast enough. The Thief, knowing that he has time, comes over to gank the Ranger.

…That just sounds like the game as it is. Some of the names have changed, but that’s more or less how the game runs.

Relentless.7023:

The rest of the game’s community is filled with crappy builds and crappy team comps because there isn’t any matchmaking, there isn’t any class identity, people rage quit once the other team gets a two cap, and spend more time QQing than contributing.

Are you seriously suggesting that build customisation should be deleted because a couple people aren’t very good at the game and cry on the forums over it? April Fools was a week ago.

Relentless.7023:

There has to be some organization to PvP if the higher quality competition at the top is the standard, not the exception. Freedom to build at the expense of the team makes getting to killing PvP at the lower and middle tiers. Delegating the responsibility of balancing teams to the players is the worst decision I’ve ever seen in a PvP game mode.

Why wade through all that crap?

If something is at the top of a structure, it cannot simultaneously be in the middle of a structure. This isn’t game design; it’s basic euclidean geometry.

Here is a picture that can explain why this idea is better.

If you look at the landscape you have a whole bunch of people who suck and don’t have any chance of getting into the top tier. They play crappy builds, get mad that their crappy builds suck, and their teammates don’t say anything, ping the map, etc.

When you get to the top of this triangle it isn’t much of an accomplishment because you have such weak competition. All you’re left with is the very few other people who figured out the right builds and strategies. You get bored and leave, which is what most of the teams have done.

This triangle is really huge horizontally, but tiny vertically. This game’s entire PvP history is represented by this triangle, where options are many, but upward mobility is very rare and once they get there they get bored or tired of it.

The second triangle is the proposed method of getting rid of bad options, and replacing it with a more competitive system that pushes people into being more effective. Less horizontal size, but more vertical size.

Winning here matters because your competition is going to be tougher. They don’t have troll builds to implode their team with. They don’t have crappy matchmaking that can’t be organized because the classes have no identity. Winning with that climate is entirely skill oriented, not build oriented.

Axis A represents the top of the hierarchy. B and C measure the horizontal distance of the lower tier.

In the first triangle, the horizontal size is too large and ends up making the difference between low and mid tier negligible. This is why builds like Spirit Ranger and Hambow are so dominating – they are far superior to the other crap options and their vertical size jumps past both of those tiers simultaneously. They look overpowered when they are just better.

In the second triangle, B and C have been significantly reduced because the crap options have been filtered out. The middle and higher tier are strengthened while the lower tier has less confusing and counterproductive ways to shoot themselves in the foot.

Of course, there would still be plenty of people who do that to themselves anyway but there are always AFKs, alt tabbers, ppl mooching on stolen internet connections, kids who can’t be on for a whole match because their parents kick them off, etc. etc.

Relentless.7023:

Here is a picture that can explain why this idea is better.

If you look at the landscape you have a whole bunch of people who suck and don’t have any chance of getting into the top tier. They play crappy builds, get made that their crappy builds suck, and their teammates don’t say anything, ping the map, etc.

This triangle is really huge horizontally, but tiny vertically. This game’s entire PvP history is represented by this triangle, where options are many, but upward mobility is very rare.

The second triangle is the proposed method of getting rid of bad options, and replacing it with a more competitive system that pushes people into being more effective. Less horizontal size, but more vertical size.

Please label your axes.

That’s not an axis. That’s an angle.

I didn’t mean you weren’t listening because you weren’t responding to me. I meant you weren’t listening because there’s no indication in your responses that you’ve actually comprehended what the other person has said, nor do you seem to entertain the possibility that you are wrong.

You seem to think that homogenizing classes into builds/roles will be some sort of silver bullet. I think it would make things easier, potentially, but does that mean better? Will that sacrifice pay off in the long run?

You seem to be arguing for the betterment of the low-mid tier experience, but you only want to listen to the tip top tier. Do you see the discrepancy? I admit, I’m not necessarily the best to be arguing for the low-mid tier front, but do you think the players who are using the wrong builds will suddenly excel when they can only use one build? Will people stop rage-quitting when they’re forced into a single build for their favorite class?

The best thing I can see happening from homogenization is that the queue algorithm will be easier to make matches that aren’t ruined in the solo. But couldn’t the solve the problem similarly by including role selection? In either case, are you comfortable with the impact on queue times this may potentially have for certain roles/classes?

Is solo queueing ever the place for true competition/e-sports/cash tournaments, or are comps in solo/small group queues often blown to pieces by lack of coordination in any game (see: the 4 hard-carry pub comp)? And if you’re organized with a group of 5, shouldn’t your comp be part of your strategy?

Maybe GW2 PvP could be more accessible, but I really don’t think your idea checks out.

And I’m actually really glad to hear Chaith is top tier, as I appreciate his attitude regardless of the fact that I agree with his points in this particular thread.

When the evidence of an apathetic player base, endless threads of QQ, and the experience you’ve had adds up to a simple, and thus superior, solution it’s hard to pay attention to apologists that think everything’s fine.

It’s like saying the US economy is upwardly mobile. It isn’t. It’s a massive oligopoly where the wealth is more stratified than any civilization in human history bar none running far away from 2nd and 3rd place.

Trying to explain that to most people is a waste of time, but the comparison is relevant nonetheless.

There are too many options and most of them are steaming piles of crap in this game. It kills competition because you think you have a choice but you don’t. Most people are turned off by that. They wanted variety but are back at square one and have to start copying the meta or die with their ideals repeatedly.

If you can’t realize that, then your head is stuck about 2 feet in the sand.

Always the assumption that disagreement implies naivety, or rose-colored glasses. I’ll never understand that.

How about this:

If you had to compromise and pluck out the essence of what you actually want to help solve the problem you perceive, what would that compromise be? What sort of step towards your ideal would be satisfactory?

You have a full design for your idea, but assume for a second that idea is impossible/will never happen. What is the core of the change and what else could be done to move in that direction?

Relentless.7023:

snipsnip
When the evidence of an apathetic player base, endless threads of QQ, and the experience you’ve had adds up to a simple, and thus superior, solution it’s hard to pay attention to apologists that think everything’s fine.

Trying to explain that to most people is a waste of time, but the comparison is relevant nonetheless.

If you can’t realize that, then your head is stuck about 2 feet in the sand.

Ok.

• Apathetic player base does not mean re-classifying the combat roles into rock, paper, scissors, lizard, spock is a good use of developer resources.

• Just because your limited experiences have culminated into a ‘simple and superior’ point of view, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t listen to other people’s point of view, you arrogant sob.

• If you are calling me or others ITT a Guild Wars 2 apologist, perhaps you should re-read where I created many walls of text outlining (in my opinion) more thoughtful, realistic, cost efficient, and effective directions to remedy the problem of our apathetic playerbase, and common bad experiences in GW2 PvP. Instead, you chose to only read the part where multiple people have stated they feel the combat roles are not priority to completely re-conceptualize.

Here are some re-reads for you:

Chaith.8256:

Unfortunately, I think there is a lack of congruence with the GW2 combat design philosophy.

IE: Viability of professions who major in support, such as Thief, Mesmer, Engineer, Necro. Or, the viability of professions who sacrifice a major in damage for a major in control, for example.

Obviously, in PvE, the encounters are so easy, and there is so little control needed, it’s a DPS fest. Take steps to eventually change this, and allow GW2’s self-declared ‘roles’ of a combination of Damage, Control, and Support, to bring something to the table when one aspect is specialized in.

In PvP, which has a much higher focus on competitive builds, the lack of role diversity is the strongest.

Chaith.8256:

I think that it’s best not to get really misguided with our proposals to increase the success of the game.

I think a better definition of the success of a game is better derived from the PvP participation, and viewership. We could derive it from the combat system, or the profession balance, but honestly I feel those are quite healthy, not perfect, but quite healthy, and definitely not what is the actual huge turn off for the PvP community.

High participation is not going to be achieved (I feel) by restructuring the combat roles, but making it feel rewarding, and prestigious. I think once the patch hits, we’ll return to this and re-evaluate. High participation can be achieved by allowing for an experience which is easy to get in to, for new players. Unfortunately, conquest is extremely hard to master effectively – Still waiting on that answer when it’s best for one to leave close, so the map isn’t 4v5! Regarding conquest:

Chaith.8256:

I’d say it’s probably the annoyance of having to constantly be checking enemy numbers and figuring out if you’re where you need to be, or are the reason for an outnumbered fight, causing your team to lose nodes. Lots of people are true deathmatch players, and that has a comforting simplicity to it – you’re already where you need to be, just focus on surviving.

Adding other game-modes that are easier to get in to than conquest is very important. Rotations and matching numbers is extremely draining on the player.

High viewership is directly correlated with cash prize tournaments – because viewers indirectly trickles down into the return on investment needed in order to justify more prize pools. Cash prizes will also, in turn, add many more participants to tPvP.

What WILL increase the viewership of GW2 PvP?

1. Emotional connection to the game mode.

• I think GW2 has struck gold on the unofficial 2v2 tournaments that take place. I am effing pumped when I saw this clip for the first time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT4x1QoGkzY . I think that the reason why people love watching this game mode is the fact that the camera is on a certain person’s perspective long enough for the viewer to identify with that player’s struggle.

2. Clearly visible plays.

• This is tied in to spell effects, animation size, and character size. If these 3 things were modified in PvP to be to a certain standard, it would facilitate a better viewer experience.

Those re-reads just dance around the periphery of what the game needs. QoL is all well and good, as well as new game modes, but you can’t polish a kitten . It’s still a kitten .

The balance cycles keep letting the playerbase down because people want to main a class, but aren’t going to be able to if the patch dice doesn’t roll their way. People take their main seriously in MMOs.

If you’ve been an Engineer since launch or since beta, that class is special to you. Yet with how they’re not limiting the access of the player to the tools available, nobody’s place in PvP is ever stable. If you think of a really strong build on the class, people are gonna copy it and then Anet is gonna nerf it after months of being labeled a cheeser.

Example of Decap Engi. The traits and weapons have been there since launch. Nobody used them that way before. Now that they are, people are all complaining about it and now Anet has to nerf a strong build to shut up all the QQ. This is only due to the fact that every class is a giant stack of TNT waiting for the right mind to put together an explosion of dominating gameplay that kittenes everyone off.

Anet’s entirely open-ended customization philosophy is at fault for Decap Engi. You can’t blame the players for putting something like that together when there are no limits to what you can build.

Anyway, I thought of something that is a better compromise than asking for a revamp. Here goes

Each trait line limits the class’ access to weapons and utilities so that a character build cannot have all the best stuff in one build. Make sure GM traits are the best possible choices. You’d have to put at least 10 points into a trait line to get access to their weapons and utilities, and only the first four trait lines would grant this kind of access. Engineer would have kits included with their restrictions, and Elementalists fit perfectly with each option adding up to exactly 4.

This would not only let people keep their beloved customization, but prevent the monster builds that plague PvP from being as easy to make.

Every class would benefit from this. Runes, Sigils, etc. would not be limited because you pick those to support the build, not to define it.

Would June Dhuumfire have been possible if you had to put 10 points into Death Magic for Staff? Would Hambow have been as broken if you had to put 10 points into Tactics for Longbow access? If Water only granted Staff access for Eles and 10 Lightning only gave you Scepter mainhand, would Ele have dominated from launch to 6 months in?