The first time PVP has been fun and balanced!

The first time PVP has been fun and balanced!

in A Very Merry Wintersday

Posted by: QueenHysteria.1084

QueenHysteria.1084

And as someone that plays a ranger I appreciate it. Snowball Mayhem is probably the best pvp event I played in this game. It so well balanced, so simple, and so much fun. As a ranger and one of the worst most broken classes to play in this game it was actually the first time I had fun playing PVP in GW2 and I mean EVER.

Other players during the game say the same stuff they’re all just having actual fun for once. I was almost reminded of how much fun pvp was in GW1 where you played with a close group of 6-10 other players and you played game after game after game fighting the same folks and having fun. Exchanging a few taunts and everyone having a good time. Snowball Mayhem brought that feeling back for me. I’ll be sad to see this event go. Right now it’s the only reason I still play and made me realize what I’ve been missing “fun”. I know I probably wont continue playing after this event is done because I think I’ve pretty much gotten all I can get from this game. I just don’t like how Rangers are done in this game.Assassins were booted, and so were Dervishes. No class for me to fall back on that I also like and I don’t care for the new classes much. Not saying this game is bad but I don’t enjoy it as much as I did the previous Guildwars and therefore haven’t played it as much till this event and I’ve been loving it.

I just hope more fun stuff like this will be done again in the future.

The first time PVP has been fun and balanced!

in A Very Merry Wintersday

Posted by: TChalla.7146

TChalla.7146

I agree. This game has been a lot of fun and has been preventing me from leveling my main (currently at level 52). I can’t seem to stop playing it.

The first time PVP has been fun and balanced!

in A Very Merry Wintersday

Posted by: DeWolfe.2174

DeWolfe.2174

Totally agree! The streamlining of skills and especially limiting the over abundance of conditions has made this SO much more balanced and fun. Besides the fact that were actually tossing SNOW BALLS at each other!

….This is the way PvP should be…

[AwM] of Jade Quarry.

The first time PVP has been fun and balanced!

in A Very Merry Wintersday

Posted by: KyreneZA.8617

KyreneZA.8617

I prefer the bell ringing (not that I’m musically inclined at all; I can just mash most of the keys in the right order fast enough) because I’m better at it than my wife, but this is a very close second. I hope either can become part of the permanent roster of daily activities once Wintersday is over.

Recently returned to…
Aurora Glade some random MegaServerâ„¢, always being asked to volunteer for that buff…
Ranger | Necromancer | Warrior | Engineer | Thief

The first time PVP has been fun and balanced!

in A Very Merry Wintersday

Posted by: KrisHQ.4719

KrisHQ.4719

The reason these small pvp games are working, just like Dragon Ball Arena did to some extend, that there is no inflation going on.
No permanent vigor leading to endless dodges, no spamming since you have limited skills. The mechanics are much simpler and you quickly learn what do dodge and when to use any specific skill.
It’s also much easier to balance when you give people pre-made builds, the negative side is that the customization suffers.
I hope Anet realizes that sPvP should move in this direction, which means:
Longer cooldowns and less of everything.
Nerf DMG, Nerf Condis, Nerf self-heal and boon spamming, Nerf Condi-Cleanse and most importantly Nerf Vigor and remove Sigil Of Energy.

Lysis Kawahara – D/D Elementalist
Zaphiel Faires – DPS Guardian

The first time PVP has been fun and balanced!

in A Very Merry Wintersday

Posted by: Freeelancer.2860

Freeelancer.2860

I hope Anet realizes that sPvP should move in this direction, which means:
Longer cooldowns and less of everything.
Nerf DMG, Nerf Condis, Nerf self-heal and boon spamming, Nerf Condi-Cleanse and most importantly Nerf Vigor and remove Sigil Of Energy.

I agree. I’d much prefer if PvP was a 15 minute long staring contest.

The first time PVP has been fun and balanced!

in A Very Merry Wintersday

Posted by: Vick.6805

Vick.6805

I agree. I’ve never been a big PvP’er, but Snowball Mayhem has me hooked.

The reason these small pvp games are working, just like Dragon Ball Arena did to some extend, that there is no build crafting going on.

Fixed that for you.

It has nothing to do with inflation. It has everything to do with ANet being able to pre-balance the builds without worrying about allowing the players to customize them, which I think was your intended point.

And, yes, this is a large reason why Snowball Mayhem, Dragon Ball Arena, and Aspect Arena were all successful.

The first time PVP has been fun and balanced!

in A Very Merry Wintersday

Posted by: KrisHQ.4719

KrisHQ.4719

I agree. I’ve never been a big PvP’er, but Snowball Mayhem has me hooked.

The reason these small pvp games are working, just like Dragon Ball Arena did to some extend, that there is no build crafting going on.

Fixed that for you.

It has nothing to do with inflation. It has everything to do with ANet being able to pre-balance the builds without worrying about allowing the players to customize them, which I think was your intended point.

And, yes, this is a large reason why Snowball Mayhem, Dragon Ball Arena, and Aspect Arena were all successful.

My point is that Anet is using the infamous power-creeping method in sPvP, which is leading to some kind of inflation. This is why there is so much of everything in sPvP at the moment. Thieves can teleport and evade every second, guardians can spam heal and boons every second, necromancers can spam conditions every second. Even when you think he has used his initial burst, he will hit you like a truck once more. I think you get the point.

@Freeelance
So games like Dota 2 are staring contests?
There has to be more focus on strong skills that have a hish risk/reward factor. Think of a skill such as Sand King’s Ultimate from Dota. He is incredibly vulnerable while channeling it, but it can turn the tide of a fight if used correctly.
GW2 is right now one huge clusterkitten of spam.
There have already been tons of posts on how to adress this, and how to for instance revamp alot of the elite skills.
Another good example though is the new healing abilities. Instead of buffing the new ones to fit the likes of Healing Signet, the older ones should be nerfed in efficiency to match the new ones. Skills that can actually be countered and requires active play are much better than passive abilities.
The game won’t become a staring contest if the nerfing is done properly.

Lysis Kawahara – D/D Elementalist
Zaphiel Faires – DPS Guardian

The first time PVP has been fun and balanced!

in A Very Merry Wintersday

Posted by: Freeelancer.2860

Freeelancer.2860

@Freeelance
So games like Dota 2 are staring contests?
There has to be more focus on strong skills that have a hish risk/reward factor. Think of a skill such as Sand King’s Ultimate from Dota. He is incredibly vulnerable while channeling it, but it can turn the tide of a fight if used correctly.
GW2 is right now one huge clusterkitten of spam.
There have already been tons of posts on how to adress this, and how to for instance revamp alot of the elite skills.
Another good example though is the new healing abilities. Instead of buffing the new ones to fit the likes of Healing Signet, the older ones should be nerfed in efficiency to match the new ones. Skills that can actually be countered and requires active play are much better than passive abilities.
The game won’t become a staring contest if the nerfing is done properly.

Churning Earth, Meteor Shower, Eviscerate, Earthshaker, Backbreaker, Dragon’s Tooth, Barrage, Judgement, Light of Deliverance.. probably missed a couple. All telegraphed skills and allot of them put you in a vulnerable position (unless you use blink, just like SK uses dagger, or some hard CC), have long CD’s and can turn the tide of the battle.

I will agree with you that faceroll builds are in most cases on par or even stronger then builds that rely on fast (re)actions, proper use of combinations and saving your CD’s. In fact, IMHO, this is one of the biggest flaws of PvP system now that the rewards have been introduced.

As far as new heals go, I find most of them usable in one part of the game or another. They are, for the most part, more situational then old healing skills, but that doesn’t make them inferior to the old ones. For example, when I WvW in zerg with my warrior I always switch to new heal, which by the way promotes allot more of skill/active play then a ticking signet, don’t you agree ?

Lastly, while I do appreciate your willingness to improve sPvP in this game, I’d like to remind you that not every person shares your point of view.
For example, what I’ve heard mentioned regularly as the biggest flaw of PvP is that it’s based on capture and hold system and that people want to fight other people and not to stand in circles..
If ANet “listened to tons of posts on how to address this”, and for example replaced current system with pure DM, you’d see an instant and massive rise of gimmicky stealth builds that would go from something no one uses in higher tiers to a must have spec. The balance would be completely ruined and instead of having “only” 2-4 viable specs for each class, you’d end up with only stealth thieves and PU mesmers being viable…
Similarly, I am most positive that allot of the “revamp” posts fail to address the balance issues that would occur if a complete reboot of the combat system would occur.

(edited by Freeelancer.2860)

The first time PVP has been fun and balanced!

in A Very Merry Wintersday

Posted by: KrisHQ.4719

KrisHQ.4719

@Freeelance
So games like Dota 2 are staring contests?
There has to be more focus on strong skills that have a hish risk/reward factor. Think of a skill such as Sand King’s Ultimate from Dota. He is incredibly vulnerable while channeling it, but it can turn the tide of a fight if used correctly.
GW2 is right now one huge clusterkitten of spam.
There have already been tons of posts on how to adress this, and how to for instance revamp alot of the elite skills.
Another good example though is the new healing abilities. Instead of buffing the new ones to fit the likes of Healing Signet, the older ones should be nerfed in efficiency to match the new ones. Skills that can actually be countered and requires active play are much better than passive abilities.
The game won’t become a staring contest if the nerfing is done properly.

Churning Earth, Meteor Shower, Eviscerate, Earthshaker, Backbreaker, Dragon’s Tooth, Barrage, Judgement, Light of Deliverance.. probably missed a couple. All telegraphed skills and allot of them put you in a vulnerable position (unless you use blink, just like SK uses dagger, or some hard CC), have long CD’s and can turn the tide of the battle.

I will agree with you that faceroll builds are in most cases on par or even stronger then builds that rely on fast (re)actions, proper use of combinations and saving your CD’s. In fact, IMHO, this is one of the biggest flaws of PvP system now that the rewards have been introduced.

As far as new heals go, I find most of them usable in one part of the game or another. They are, for the most part, more situational then old healing skills, but that doesn’t make them inferior to the old ones. For example, when I WvW in zerg with my warrior I always switch to new heal, which by the way promotes allot more of skill/active play then a ticking signet, don’t you agree ?

Yes. Some skills are already well telegraphed with a risk/reward factor, but take a look at those skills again.
How many of them are actually used in the current meta? Earthshaker and Eviscerate. I’d argue that Backbreaker is not well telegraphed.
These two skills are well telegraphed and can be fairly easily dodged, however they have no risk-factor. If you miss the attack, your adrenaline level will not fall and you benefit from the minor trait Adrenal Health, so you can basically spam this as you want it will always be in your favor.
Many of the other skills you mentioned are rather useless. Skills like Churning Earth hit for way too low dmg compared to how vulnerable you are in the situation. In a duel situation, you will never hit with a Churning Earth against a mediocre player.
Light of Deliverance and Judgement? They are NEVER used, because there are much better alternatives with instant casts and no risk. I really hope though, that more skills would be like these.
More importantly, because of the major vigor/boon inflation the chance of actually hitting a person without stability or dodging is almost non-existant.

As for the new healing skills, yes I agree they are more active which was kinda my point. What I tried to explain was that because some of them actually have counter-play (You can stop attacking the warrior, make sure he does not heal) they are too risky compared to the current heals. Why would anyone take the new heal instead of Healing Signet? Healing signet heals you 400 pr. second in full berserker armor, and the new heal will most likely not heal you more than 4k in a standard tPvP situation. That’s only 10 seconds of having Healing Signet active, and it cannot be countered in any way, there is absolutely no downside to this ability.

Lysis Kawahara – D/D Elementalist
Zaphiel Faires – DPS Guardian

(edited by KrisHQ.4719)

The first time PVP has been fun and balanced!

in A Very Merry Wintersday

Posted by: Freeelancer.2860

Freeelancer.2860

Yes. Some skills are already well telegraphed with a risk/reward factor, but take a look at those skills again.
How many of them are actually used in the current meta? Earthshaker and Eviscerate. I’d argue that Backbreaker is not well telegraphed.
These two skills are well telegraphed and can be fairly easily dodged, however they have no risk-factor. If you miss the attack, your adrenaline level will not fall and you benefit from the minor trait Adrenal Health, so you can basically spam this as you want it will always be in your favor.
Many of the other skills you mentioned are rather useless. Skills like Churning Earth hit for way too low dmg compared to how vulnerable you are in the situation. In a duel situation, you will never hit with a Churning Earth against a mediocre player.
Light of Deliverance and Judgement? They are NEVER used, because there are much better alternatives with instant casts and no risk. I really hope though, that more skills would be like these.
More importantly, because of the major vigor/boon inflation the chance of actually hitting a person without stability or dodging is almost non-existant.

Well, to return to your example, you can’t/shouldn’t use SK’s ulti in 1v1, since without secondary mechanics like BKB or blink dagger or both (stability, blink) you won’t do squat with it. Even in team fights it’s hard to pull off, just like churning earth.
As far as general viability of long casting skills go, IMHO it comes down to the speed of the game, and GW2 is arguably much faster then DotA. Should GW2 be slowed down to DotA’s speed ? I personally see no reason to..
To me this is an argument similar to implementing holy trinity in GW2. Just because some other game has chosen this path doesn’t mean this game has to as well.

As for the new healing skills, yes I agree they are more active which was kinda my point. What I tried to explain was that because some of them actually have counter-play (You can stop attacking the warrior, make sure he does not heal) they are too risky compared to the current heals. Why would anyone take the new heal instead of Healing Signet? Healing signet heals you 400 pr. second in full berserker armor, and the new heal will most likely not heal you more than 4k in a standard tPvP situation. That’s only 10 seconds of having Healing Signet active, and it cannot be countered in any way, there is absolutely no downside to this ability.

And as I said, you should look at the new heals outside of PvP. For any of the skills I can automatically find a place where they can be useful if not even superior to the old ones, whether that is in open world, dungeons, boss fights, WvW zerging or PvP.

The first time PVP has been fun and balanced!

in A Very Merry Wintersday

Posted by: KrisHQ.4719

KrisHQ.4719

Yes. Some skills are already well telegraphed with a risk/reward factor, but take a look at those skills again.
How many of them are actually used in the current meta? Earthshaker and Eviscerate. I’d argue that Backbreaker is not well telegraphed.
These two skills are well telegraphed and can be fairly easily dodged, however they have no risk-factor. If you miss the attack, your adrenaline level will not fall and you benefit from the minor trait Adrenal Health, so you can basically spam this as you want it will always be in your favor.
Many of the other skills you mentioned are rather useless. Skills like Churning Earth hit for way too low dmg compared to how vulnerable you are in the situation. In a duel situation, you will never hit with a Churning Earth against a mediocre player.
Light of Deliverance and Judgement? They are NEVER used, because there are much better alternatives with instant casts and no risk. I really hope though, that more skills would be like these.
More importantly, because of the major vigor/boon inflation the chance of actually hitting a person without stability or dodging is almost non-existant.

Well, to return to your example, you can’t/shouldn’t use SK’s ulti in 1v1, since without secondary mechanics like BKB or blink dagger or both (stability, blink) you won’t do squat with it. Even in team fights it’s hard to pull off, just like churning earth.
As far as general viability of long casting skills go, IMHO it comes down to the speed of the game, and GW2 is arguably much faster then DotA. Should GW2 be slowed down to DotA’s speed ? I personally see no reason to..
To me this is an argument similar to implementing holy trinity in GW2. Just because some other game has chosen this path doesn’t mean this game has to as well.

As for the new healing skills, yes I agree they are more active which was kinda my point. What I tried to explain was that because some of them actually have counter-play (You can stop attacking the warrior, make sure he does not heal) they are too risky compared to the current heals. Why would anyone take the new heal instead of Healing Signet? Healing signet heals you 400 pr. second in full berserker armor, and the new heal will most likely not heal you more than 4k in a standard tPvP situation. That’s only 10 seconds of having Healing Signet active, and it cannot be countered in any way, there is absolutely no downside to this ability.

And as I said, you should look at the new heals outside of PvP. For any of the skills I can automatically find a place where they can be useful if not even superior to the old ones, whether that is in open world, dungeons, boss fights, WvW zerging or PvP.

Churning Earth still only hits for the same amount as the infamous Earthshaker. And yes, the speed needs to be toned down a notch. Not to match MOBA games, but atm it’s way too spammy.
In regards to your second comment:
It does not matter if they have found use in PvE or WvW, we were talking about PvP.

Lysis Kawahara – D/D Elementalist
Zaphiel Faires – DPS Guardian

The first time PVP has been fun and balanced!

in A Very Merry Wintersday

Posted by: Freeelancer.2860

Freeelancer.2860

Churning Earth still only hits for the same amount as the infamous Earthshaker. And yes, the speed needs to be toned down a notch. Not to match MOBA games, but atm it’s way too spammy.

Actually, if I’m not mistaken, churning earth has triple base power of earthshaker, that’s not including 8 stacks of bleeding. There are a few WvW videos of small organized groups rolling mesmer portal and 3-4 churning earth eles, they are quite hilarious (would be even more if AoE limit were higher).

It does not matter if they have found use in PvE or WvW, we were talking about PvP.

Well then, while we’re at it, we might as well talk about viability of rifle warriors or conjurer eles in PvP.. Or any of the of dozens of skills that are more or less viable/essential in PvE/WvW while being useless in PvP.

The first time PVP has been fun and balanced!

in A Very Merry Wintersday

Posted by: Kirschwasser.3972

Kirschwasser.3972

>Rifle Warrior

>Essential

Had my laugh for the day.

The first time PVP has been fun and balanced!

in A Very Merry Wintersday

Posted by: Lamir.6702

Lamir.6702

I also enjoy Snowball Mayhem but it is not balanced. I’m not sure if many people are aware but each profession gets a special skill in slot 6 on their skill bar that depends upon your profession.

Go check guardian skill and then warrior skill for example. Warrior skill rush is vastly overpowered in this game. I freely admit I abuse it as 90% of my games have been with warrior. The skill allows you to disarm somebody with the gift or cover long distances, making both capping and anti-capping extremely easy.

The first time PVP has been fun and balanced!

in A Very Merry Wintersday

Posted by: Killface.1896

Killface.1896

Ranger GS / LB is epic in WvW,and condition ranger is plain OP in sPvP…

But yeah mayhem is epic ;P