Guild Wars 2

I’ll be watching.

I hope the Devs will bring new ideas to the table, if nothing else. Because last SOTG, I was rather disappointed with their contribution.

Thanks for the effort, Grouch!

As primarily a WvW player it feels strange to have to tune in to this sPvP chat to discover what lies in store for our classes.

Is it possible for you guys to answer the questions specifically and not beat around the bush? (that’s the question). JK. Don’t ban me.

Volrath.1473:

If the SotG is going to be 1 week before the end of the month, does this mean that there will be no patch in April? will in come in the first half of May instead?

There’s still an April patch to my knowledge – I just ended up doing the show a bit later than usual. Ain’t nobody got time for set schedules.

zone.1073:

When doing the balance segment, instead of going through every class without specific questions, perhaps it’s better to ask specific class balance questions.

Because I noticed last SotG went like this:

Q: Rangers?

Devs: Oh, blah blah…blah.

Q: Necros?

Devs: Yup, blah blah..

Q: Eles?

Devs: Mmmhm, blah.

This went on for what, 30 minutes? The devs’ responses were not very informative because there were no specific class balance questions. And also, you can make this segment much shorter by going to the core of things and asking specific questions for specific classes.

Also, try to phrase your questions so that it’s not susceptible to “Yes/No” easy-out answers. For example, instead of asking, “Are we going to see changes to Warriors next patch?” (Devs will respond with “Yup” or “Nah”), you could rephrase it like “What do you think needs to be changed for Warriors? What problems does the class have?”

A good indication of whether or not the devs know what they’re doing is to make them state the problem in their own words. Have them tell us what the problem is, and what their solutions are. Also remember to challenge the devs with thought-provoking questions. Don’t let them off the hook easily. They are being paid by the hour, so really exercise their brains with challenging questions.

This person took media studies. Listen to them.

Q: what do you think to do against macro users and direct damage for engineers?

zone.1073:

When doing the balance segment, instead of going through every class without specific questions, perhaps it’s better to ask specific class balance questions.

Because I noticed last SotG went like this:

Q: Rangers?

Devs: Oh, blah blah…blah.

Q: Necros?

Devs: Yup, blah blah..

Q: Eles?

Devs: Mmmhm, blah.

This went on for what, 30 minutes? The devs’ responses were not very informative because there were no specific class balance questions. And also, you can make this segment much shorter by going to the core of things and asking specific questions for specific classes.

Also, try to phrase your questions so that it’s not susceptible to “Yes/No” easy-out answers. For example, instead of asking, “Are we going to see changes to Warriors next patch?” (Devs will respond with “Yup” or “Nah”), you could rephrase it like “What do you think needs to be changed for Warriors? What problems does the class have?”

A good indication of whether or not the devs know what they’re doing is to make them state the problem in their own words. Have them tell us what the problem is, and what their solutions are. Also remember to challenge the devs with thought-provoking questions. Don’t let them off the hook easily. They are being paid by the hour, so really exercise their brains with challenging questions.

From the last two SotG, they don’t seem to know what the problem is, so having them state the problems themselves will just lead to more of the same “blah blah blah.” The moderators and invited players should be the ones asking class specific questions such as “With banner buffs doing nothing to help warriors in pvp, what else is going to change with warriors that will make them more viable after the quickness nerf?”

• Is it currently a goal to give elementalists better ranged options for PvP? Are the less popular weapons, utilities, and trait lines being improved?

• Is it currently a goal to help engineers achieve more build diversity? (Condition removal for builds that don’t use Elixir C/elixirs with Cleaning Formula 409, for example.)

Hey,

After playing allot of games this evening a problem that has still not been handled properly has raised again. Elementalists are just simply too much, for months promises have been made to nerf them but nothing real game changing has happend.

The question I would like to ask in the the next SOTG is the following:

In one of the previous SOTG’s you stated that the fact that Elementalists are over the top does not come from single ability but because they are to strong across the board.

Are you working on actually changing multiple aspects of the elementalist at the same time and thereby actually affecting the meta?

Thanks in advance!

Razac – Team Conclave

Q: How do you counter one guard 3 eles and one mesmer?

Q: In the 1st SOTG you brought a “priority list”. Has it changed? Could you update it?
IMO the biggest issues atm are soloqueue and no map rotation

Is there a reason TP members are being invited every time? I am sure Team Idle, Curse, Boon and many more would be happy to join the discussion.

Erwin.5603:

Is there a reason TP members are being invited every time? I am sure Team Idle, Curse, Boon and many more would be happy to join the discussion.

Hey,

If people want to participate in the discussion then they can freely message us at sotg@guildwarsguru.net – they should include some information about themself and what they can bring to the show that gives us reason to invite them.

A lot of people seem to think that we are only inviting people, but if people do not show any interest then it is hard for us to “find” them. The same goes for all our other projects at Guru, we are always looking for more volunteers to help out with all sort of content, but people can’t expect us to find them when they aren’t showing interest in being found. Right? ^^

Q:

Any reason why custom arenas won’t have the ability to toggle the capture points and downed state off?

In this SotG i would like someone to ask the devs what they will do to the warrior to put him in line with the other professions, They will do the same they did do engeniers last patch or Warrior dont deserve that kind of attention?

When is coming the AOE nerf and how it will work.

If anyone would dare to ask about ranger pets/necro minions and why they were so poorly implemented to the game and lack of improvements/fixes to their ai/durability/pathing i’d appreciate it.

@Devs
When will you start buffing bad traits like scope

Ask them if the decision to split more will result in more frequent patches.
Ask them why they want to nerf me.
Ask them why it seems they don’t know what they want thief weapon sets to do and so they leave skills in disrepute and look to axe them even further if they aren’t D/ and most specifically D/P. Ask how many more gems I have to throw at their store before I see the trap thief meta?

Ask why they defend conquest with "in other modes people wait for their elites to initiate and nodes keep people moving "when bunkers are specifically about not moving and deterring opponents from initiating at all due to time constraints of the format unless they know an ally is on the way to speed up this process.

Ask why they haven’t pushed up Foe fires secondary to help reduce the above and deligitamize bunkering.
Ask why I can’t warp properly on a third of the bridges on spirit watch. Ask when the map in general is getting debugged and revised.

Ask em why they haven’t deleted ricochet and potent poison.
Ask em why power shots is mediocre.

Ask them when Spirits getting buffed.
Ask em when is the conjure Ice bow meta?
Ask them how cheesed I’m going to be this update for thief and if I should reroll Ranger.

Ask them if we can get an estimated time on seeing our internal CDs this year or next?
Ask why them why it seems they care so much about nerfing S/ thieves harder than smiters boon any time they see it getting some use.

Tell em they should nerf sword thief pistol thief focus ele staff ele conjure ele axe/axe shout ranger with pig/warthog, spirits, kick. stomp, axe off hand warrior, axe necro, elixer fun, flamethrower kit, mine, battering ram and slick shoes.
Tldr tell em I miss Izzy’s dart boarding at this point.

Q: What’re you planning on doing about the HGH Engi. you can’t look at this screen and deny that this stuff is OP. No class should be able to permanently maintain 20 stacks of might on itself.

Errant Venture.9371:

Q: What’re you planning on doing about the HGH Engi. you can’t look at this screen and deny that this stuff is OP. No class should be able to permanently maintain 20 stacks of might on itself.

Many other classes can with far more efficiency and less opportunity cost. The build becomes viable when you understand how stats scale with one another and how condition damage needs no other stat to be effective. It also doesn’t hurt that engis have been the best condi class in the game for a while now.

Let me try to explain this once and for all. This is your standard HGH build, the one I usually run:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqalspSXHxSfF17ICoC5loHPGlNZfewWpFEC-ToAAzCpIyRFkLITOSds6MWYKC

With this build I can maintain 25 stacks of might in combat after about 40 seconds. The ENTIRETY of the build is devoted around might stacking while using our only viable source of stunbreaks/cleanses in elixirs.

So what many people don’t understand is that the build actually sacrifices a LOT to get these might stacks. As you can see, all runes, sigils, utilities, traits and amulet selection are dedicated to maximizing condition damage via might stacks. AKA we are not a normal class walking around in undead runes with 25 stacks of might with an earth sigil.

I have been hit by a thief thief in a normal backstab 25 30 0 0 15 spec for 15k before. That’s with about 15 stacks of might. Mind you, I have 2700 toughness. What he gains for having normal runes, sigils and a pure DPS spec via might from other sources is far greater than someone making might a direct aspect of their build and making the sacrifices needed to get it.

I’m not disputing that it’s not a very strong and pretty OP build. However, the implication that we’re just a walking might machine without making sacrifices to get and maintain that might is simply ridiculous.

Steroids in game, as well as IRL, have their side effects too :P

Actual serious question :

Will boons on enemies be more apparent. When a guardian has every single boon under their name / HP bar. It’s EXTREMELY hard to pay attention to aegis / protection / stability while fighting them simultaneously. Will there be any option in the near future to increase the size of boon symbols.

Authority.6145:

Q: How do you counter one guard 3 eles and one mesmer?

You place a guardian in their midst and throw in 1 engie and a necro.

I really appreciate the effort put in to make these SotGs happen every month. Thanks to everyone involved, it’s a good thing you’re doing for the community.

I know the developers are hesitant to commit to exact answers or timetables as far as upcoming features are concerned, and perhaps rightly so. However, it would be interesting to hear the following topics discussed:

1) Incentives

Leaderboards were a step in the right direction, but incentives to play are still a bit of a work in progress both at the casual and the competitive spectrum of the playerbase. Casuals desperately need a rated solo-only queue with its own leaderboard that tracks solo performance, while competitive teams really won’t take off before we have tournaments with cash prizes. Any plans to ease the pain of the PUG tournament queue while also developing the high-end competitive scene further, now that custom arenas and spectating are on their way?

2) Build diversity

The upcoming patch sounds promising, but thus far we have not really seen any major improvements in expanding build diversity. It would be great to finally see viable thief builds that are something else than 25-30-0-0-15 backstab, or engies that are not 30-10-0-30-0 HGH. Or to see a viable warrior build of any kind. Perhaps you could do a focused rundown of each profession, narrowing down the biggest problems of each class and what steps are taken to improve weak trait lines.

3) Separating skills in PVP / PVE

Ties into number 2 above. It would be interesting to hear the devs talk about their goals and the rationale behind the upcoming skill splits. Let’s hope skill splitting allows the game modes to develop as independent entities, as opposed to dragging each other down as they do now.

@ phantarantarantaramtaram:

ask em plx: when they will make heart of the mists a free to play content like league of legends and make money by cashshop, new cosmetic stuff like new armors.. , xpbooster, nice weaponskins, nice new downstatus etc…. ? (anet makes lot of money in pve i guess through cashshop)

and when do they start to put money in tournaments ? if they would the community would grow

ah and what will anet change with ele and warrior??

Questions:

1) After shipping Custom Arenas and Spectator mode, what features have top priority now?

2) Will we be seeing split queues (solo-duo/premade), and if yes, are they a priority at the moment?

3) We already know that some polish in PvP is planned (build templates, setting up gear in an easier way then going from merchant to merchant “buying” free items etc.), what priority does that general polish take?

Errant Venture.9371:

permanently maintain 20 stacks of might

Hyperbole at its finest.

Nord.5360:

Hey fellas,

We don’t have a post up about this over on Guru yet, but here’s the details.

Host: Grouch
Date/Time: April 26th, 2013 12PM PST (7PM GMT)
Duration: Around one hour.
Special Guests: ArenaNet Developers Jonathan Sharp and Karl McLain
Players Participating: Symbolic (Team Paradigm EU), Phantaram (Team Paradigm EU), Caed (NA)
Where: You can find us at twitch.tv/guildwars2guru

We’ll have some shownotes available for you guys sometime prior to the show, but expect discussion regarding upcoming changes in the April patch.

If you have any questions/comments let me know about it below.

Hey!

Can you ask the Dev if we will get a Fused weapon ticket after completed this month’s F & F lving story?

Thanks!

Two questions please

1) After the live test will they open it to everyone or will they roll it out in stages?
2) Do they anticipate this will pull people out of WvW?

is it possible for you guys to invite the wvw devs, too?

Why the rank achievement do not count points from won toueney, top players, and won match?

Please ask them gently if they really want to change something. Nothing happend since the last State of the Games and they lie to us very badly.

Seperation of SoloQ and teamQ coming “soon”?

Any Chance Engineers could their RNG elixirs fixed by adding a “if” question and reducing “rng” down to 2. Where the if question is kit equipped yes/no and depending on if you got a kit equipped or not the elixir will proc one or the other effect?

Would be like ELE attunement boons depending on attunement and actually give the engineer some “VERSATILITY” hinthint

How long till the SOTG? I thought it was done today.

Sorry if I’m a little late for the question… just incase…

Can you please point out how many pve players were suddenly interested in pvp after the laurel bug/accident. My guild (pvx, with a wvw focus) was never into pvp but suddenly people jumped into it, and are still playing tournaments.

This highlights the impact of having pve rewards from the mists. Either from glory or even just small amounts of silver for match points. Makes it easier for dedicated players to change mode for a while and still be able to get decent gear for pve/wvw build variety.

Thank you for these, always great to watch. (Though would be nice if some of these balance situations happened instead of just talking about them).

i think match making are good now.
i hardely find solo queque when i play with my team but i would run anyway a solo queque where you dont lose ranking (i almost dont play anymore tournaments with out my team since there is leaderboard out).

so my question is :

Separate the Solo queque and change hot join with solo queque.

this actuallly would delete hot join that is pretty useless since you really dont train you new build in the right way and new players dont understand the right way to play tournaments.

hope you understand my bad english and i m sorry about that. i tried to do my best

cherrs
Godo Piu Io Team Flying Monkeys [TFM]

Thought I would bump this because today is the day and I was looking for it.

crossing fingers. I really hope it’s not a train wreck like the last one.

Unfortunately I couldn’t view the live stream, any chance someone could update this thread with a link to the replay?

Be much appreciated.

It doesn’t start until 12pm PST, 3pm EST. Still got some time to go. Though I second the motion; if someone could post the VOD link in here once it’s done I’d appreciate it.

Brutalistik.6473:

Larynx.2453:

Warriors are powerful in PvE because they do a lot of damage. Warriors in PvP do fine damage on static enemies.

You can buff warriors in PvP while having zero impact of PvE balance.

The PvE meta is as terrible as the PvP meta btw. It’s basically stack glass cannons and and zerg everything down. Great game ArenaNet.

I know where you’re coming from Larynx, but warriors don’t do fine in pvp overall. It’s a useless filler profession in that field and not much weapon choices to choose from. I really hope Jonathan Sharp and Karl really gives some info on what they want to do with that class than singing the same old poem. I like playing my warrior, but I hate the profession being the fill in slot role for pvp. A bunker warrior can’t kill a bunker ranger or take on 2 players at a time. It’s either stay and die or run to another safe node that’s empty. It’s frustration to those who play this profession in pvp unless that’s what Jonathan Sharp and Karl like to see Frustrated warrior players. Then you know warriors won’t get any good buffs because they would be unstoppable so they say.

As they say action speaks louder than words. The audience watches for the next reasonable build and if it’s still not good probably more would leave the game until they decide to drop the carrot on the stick act.

I know I put out some negative a bit, but come on already get with the program and make this profession viable in all ways instead of limited.

I never said warriors were fine in PvP. Their damage is fine. The problem is actually doing that damage. Thus PvE and PvP balance changes are not inclusive. Buff warrior mobility, you indirectly buff their PvP damage.

Of course, that post was before the quickness nerfs. As it is now, they could also use some burst buffs.

I wish there were actually some searching questions asked, not just suck up questions. Journalism, not Puff-piece.

Some ideas: (with a mostly engineer bias, I’d expect other classes to make their own list of hot issues)

1. Why no test server? It’s proved a good idea on every other MMO for the last 17years.
2. You refer to s/t-PvP as being THE PVP like WVW doesn’t exist, most balance decisions seem to have extremely poor WvW viability. Yet WvW is a far more successful game mode, and is far more likely to generate gems because WvW is (unfortunately) grind based, isn’t it time to add a WvW class balance team and separate skill balances?
3. Elementalist downed skills as released were really subpar but were fixed in a few weeks, why are engineer downed skills still extremely subpar after 6months?
4. Engineer released with a 20 page bug and QoL list, after 6 months they have a 19 page list, will this ever become a priority?
5. Turrets survive less than a second in WvW, or are out of battle range and therefore useless, will you consider making turrets aoe immune?
6. Minions including turrets are painfully dumb, any upgrades coming to their artificial intelligence to actually include any intelligence e.g. stopping them futilely shooting at some pet that left the area several minutes ago?
7. The kit refinement changes were hated by the engineer community because it made all multi-kit builds worthless not just 100nades, will the kit refinement mistake be learnt from and replaced?
8. Engineer is supposed to have options to control the distance of battle as the only ‘mid range’ class, yet it is trying to do it with basically just swiftness which is mostly worthless in battle (jump shot is slower than running etc). Will we see working gap opener/closers on aspects of the engineer that are actually workable?
9. If HGH/might stack builds are going away, why is nothing coming in to replace it for engineer?
10. If HGH/might stack builds are going away, and 100nades was entirely deleted from the game, why are so many of the other (many stronger) Apex builds from other classes that have been around for far longer being left untouched?
11. Engineer has vastly less builds now than months ago, yet none of the “diversifying engineer builds” measures are anything but thinly veiled nerfs doing nothing worthwhile to open any new builds? What will happen to open some new builds up?
12. Flamethrower, Elixir Gun, just how bad do they have to get before something useful and non-fluff happens?
13. Gadgets… seriously where to start…