Guild Wars 2

Yes, automatic-triggered passives are kitten that need to go. Players should play actively and proactively, not passively.

As for reducing the game’s speed, you’re overexagerating. I think that between the uber-fast mess that GW2 is now and turn-based play, there’s a whoooooole lot of middle ground in between.
There’s no need to exagerate, it doesn’t have to be full black or white, but instead a few shades of grey (not 50 shades, mind you!).

GW1 was/is as lot better as far as PvP is concerned and has more depth and strategy than GW2. One of the key factors (but not the only one) is that skills usually do 1 or 2 different effects, not the whole 1 skill= damage+teleport+heal+remove condis+burning or aura+heal+vigor+regeneration+condi_cleanse like we have at the moment in GW2.

Pvp does not require skill, its a mess of a invulnerability CDs

I think people in the post are more and more agreeing that we need to make weapons and utilites more active, efficient and less prolonged effects. Also preferrably with easy-to-see cast animations, but that’s a whole other terrain to discuss. Perhaps instead of changing animations we can reuse what already exists and make short spammable skills have longer casts.

Edit: I for one like the fast pace of the game, but we have to understand that when devs design for a fast pace game, they have to give immunity to players so that battles don’t end in seconds. But then again, that’s my question and we should study a consensus about it: do we want long or short battles?

As a die-hard glass cannon I prefer short battles.

I personally think both should be in there.
Yes, short battles are nice but there has to be a certain length sometimes, else we might as well kick every heal from PvP and say: Deal with it.

See, supportive builds should have their role, heal should be a thing to take into consideration.
If you only want fast paced short lived battles, well, let’s say everyone only plays thieves with no heal, there, got your fast paced battles.

I personally enjoy my characters, i have some with builds that are bursty, some that try to gnaw an enemy down to the bone slowly and i think for a good game both are needed.

Or just make all skills like Thiefs backstab if you miss it get a cooldown…

cyberzombie.7348:

As a die-hard glass cannon I prefer short battles.

Well, the general idea of my suggestions are actually to not really change the pace of combat. In fact I believe the length fights last now is actually pretty good.

It’s more I, and many others in this thread, would like to see many of the passive and ezmode defenses converted into more active meaningful choices. The removal of all passive, and tune down of skills that grant the ability to attack/defend at the same time ( Like Defy pain or Shield of Wrath ) would then be offset by the buff of skills that let the player choose between defending or attacking.

My own personal suggestion, which is a universal endurance-draining frontal block, would likely not change much in combat pace if implemented at the same time as a nerf to the passives/get out of jail free moves.

Lol this thread. Rofl bhawawawa. If it’s no skill at all to play this game why are you all not pro esl legendary players? I’d say if you wanna talk broken go look at wvw. The kittening stats and comps carry everyone PvPs balance is actually not too shabby this season

@OP I think we will need to discuss game pace at one moment. As I said, they can remove all passives, skills with abusive long effects (I personally think combo fields should be shorter and provide stronger sinergies) or spammable autoattacks, but this will have some effect on the speed of the game.

I too agree that the current pace is pretty fun, and we should aim to keep it. Don’t you think it’s easier instead of adding a frontal block we just gradually remove passives and nerf spammable skills’ cast times, nerf easy ccs, and nerf invulnerability frames? The game will be slower for each player, but fights and combats will last the same, possibly reach an outcome faster IF one of the players misplays.

Also, what do you guys think about the amount of AoEs in the game? I can’t take it out of my head that there are too many AoEs in this game, cleave is too easy. AoE should be a special feature in any build, not a requirement.

GW is like boxing really, the basic moves are easier then those of aikido or karate, but this doesn’t mean I can all of a sudden fight Muhammad Ali because I will get hospitalized for sure. If there’s anything I don’t like about GW it’s the pop-your-aoe-and-hope-for-the-best kind of fights that are fought in nodes that are way too small. Add in some minion/pet/clone clutter and an average GW2 teamfights looks like the sidewalk in front of a 24-hour snackbar. It feels too messy and random, really, esoecially in lower-tier pvp.

Ezrael.6859:

Lordrosicky.5813:

It doesnt require any skill. It is based on repetition and knowledge of match ups and skills. It is also based on builds. There is basically no skill to this game at all

If it requires no skill then why do you perform so poorly and complain so much on the forums?

That burn

I am just stating a fact. This game takes literally no skill. It is all about builds, knowing what to play around and spam.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Ezrael.6859:

Lordrosicky.5813:

It doesnt require any skill. It is based on repetition and knowledge of match ups and skills. It is also based on builds. There is basically no skill to this game at all

If it requires no skill then why do you perform so poorly and complain so much on the forums?

That burn

I am just stating a fact. This game takes literally no skill. It is all about builds, knowing what to play around and spam.

go get some of that ESL cash money then homes.

choovanski.5462:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Ezrael.6859:

Lordrosicky.5813:

It doesnt require any skill. It is based on repetition and knowledge of match ups and skills. It is also based on builds. There is basically no skill to this game at all

If it requires no skill then why do you perform so poorly and complain so much on the forums?

That burn

I am just stating a fact. This game takes literally no skill. It is all about builds, knowing what to play around and spam.

go get some of that ESL cash money then homes.

Nah, i have no idea what any of the classes even do lol. I just faceroll my keyboard and do ok. If i wanted to put my effort into an online game to make money it would not be gw2. I have already put hours into online games where i have made that “cash money” to a level i would never be able to do in gw2.

Gw2 is a fun game but its not a game for a competitive player imo

I wouldn’t exagerate and say that the game takes no skill.

I’d argue instead that the game needs not enough skill to actually get good results;
or in other words, a player can get too much results for too little skill, since the game has too many passive, automatic procs and effects and too little player input.

Stance Zerker is a prime example of this.

I barely know how to play it, but I can charge in and 1v3 people, bursting people down, cc-locking, getting kills + stab stomps relying almost entirely on passive traits. My gameplay is basically: spam all the weapon skills, zerk, burst, attack, burst, attack, burst, maybe run away a bit. Repeat. I feel like a beast that only sustained pressure by 2+ people can take down. Last Stand, Defy Pain, Eternal Champion, and Adrenal Health are doing all the work for me.

Meanwhile, on my off-meta Rifle/Nades kit engi, I know every button press. Every skill I use is with purpose. Thousands of hours on it – It’s my main, and I’m playing the keyboard like a piano.. Yet.. I feel really weak. I can’t take any meta builds 1v1 in a reasonable amount of time. My escapes and sustain are sub-par. I’m reduced to +1-ing fights, but even there I’d be better off playing a HoT meta class like Scrapper or DH with lots of passives and built-in attack/defense skills.

Why would I play a high-skill, high-risk no-reward build when the HoT elites just do it better and easier?

if you want a real pvp game, go play OW or Dota 2. GW2 and always been an unbalanced spamfest, but the xpac made it a lot worse by adding more conditions and CC. the best balance this game has ever had was the summer just before xpac’s release. you could still play SOMEWHAT reactively. yes it’s a shame, because i love the aesthetics and combat of this game quite a bit. i was very attached to my characters before i quit. but the spamming of condis, CC, cleanses, i-frames, invulns, etc. is pretty out of hand.

most of the skill in GW2 comes from 1) playing a very versatile build good for many different situations (as there is no draft phase), 2) knowing your basic rotations, and 3) figuring out the most versatile build. #3 honestly requires the most “skill”, but it’s basically just analysis and reasoning.

i think Battlerite really got it right, even though the game isnt very popular or aesthetically pleasing (to me). there is a sweet spot of about 8 abilities, so it still remains very skill-based and not spammy. yes the game has i-frames but not too many. i wish GW2 had a system that was just a bit more complex than OW and Dota 2, like Battlerite.

coro.3176:

Why would I play a high-skill, high-risk no-reward build when the HoT elites just do it better and easier?

when i still gave a kitten about this game, i was begging the devs to balance the core specs. we were actually promised elites wouldnt be stronger than core, just different.

Faux Play.6104:

Several of the rune passives need to go to. You shouldn’t be applying CC conditions to someone when they attack you for free, and no way for the attacker to know this will happen until they hit you.

Which runes? Rune of the nightmare has been changed for a while you know.

Why do I get beaten so badly by the league players if this game doesn’t require enough skill? Am I just not “spamming” hard enough?

coro.3176:

Stance Zerker is a prime example of this.

I barely know how to play it, but I can charge in and 1v3 people, bursting people down, cc-locking, getting kills + stab stomps relying almost entirely on passive traits. My gameplay is basically: spam all the weapon skills, zerk, burst, attack, burst, attack, burst, maybe run away a bit. Repeat. I feel like a beast that only sustained pressure by 2+ people can take down. Last Stand, Defy Pain, Eternal Champion, and Adrenal Health are doing all the work for me.

Meanwhile, on my off-meta Rifle/Nades kit engi, I know every button press. Every skill I use is with purpose. Thousands of hours on it – It’s my main, and I’m playing the keyboard like a piano.. Yet.. I feel really weak. I can’t take any meta builds 1v1 in a reasonable amount of time. My escapes and sustain are sub-par. I’m reduced to +1-ing fights, but even there I’d be better off playing a HoT meta class like Scrapper or DH with lots of passives and built-in attack/defense skills.

Why would I play a high-skill, high-risk no-reward build when the HoT elites just do it better and easier?

You mentioned a very very important aspect of build there. And worse, sometimes we don’t even know if we are playing correctly or getting hardcountered; it’s a feeling too familiar for those of using almost-meta builds, followed by hours of build testing, mostly for nothing.

So far we need an organized recap of what we mentioned in the topic: Something alone the lines of 1-passives 2-easy spam 3- easy invuls 4- aoe ccs 5- excess point aoe in general 6- builds being too countered by each other (I have a suggestion for this, better information post-game about what you faced, will post later) and more

I sense we are finally getting to a balance equilibrium that allows us to make the changes we need to achieve a competitive environment

Lianon.3479:

I too agree that the current pace is pretty fun, and we should aim to keep it. Don’t you think it’s easier instead of adding a frontal block we just gradually remove passives and nerf spammable skills’ cast times, nerf easy ccs, and nerf invulnerability frames? The game will be slower for each player, but fights and combats will last the same, possibly reach an outcome faster IF one of the players misplays.

That’s kind of what I meant by the second suggestion: The Guild Wars 1 route. That’s basically what GW1 was. No passive defenses, cast bars, punishing disruption moves. For those who played GW1 PvP, they might even remember who I am. A T7 Gladiator Ranger from back in the days that Team Arena existed.

Back then, you could stop spammers with “Dshot” A quick cast arrow that would disrupt an ability and place it on an additional 20 second cooldown. It existed as a way to basically punish players for trying to spam AoE skills with large cast times. This is honestly a big thing missing from GW2. We have these huge AoE skills and traps that have no cast time, hardly any animation, no cast bar, and tons of passive defenses to make sure you are perfectly safe from any kind of disruption while facerolling your skillbar. It’s no wonder why GW2 mass pvp is such a clusterkitten of spam.

The only reason I suggest adding a on-demand frontal block instead is actually to give Anet an easier-to-implement idea. I’ve developed for games before, and so I generally know how long it takes to implement certain ideas. Adding cast bars/cast times/disruption/passive nerfs to GW2 would mean a complete and total rework of all game balance and changes to nearly all the skills in the game. Frontal block on the other hand, well coding already exists in the game to do this so all they would have to do is copy it to every class and give it a bindable key in options.

rennlc.7346:

Why do I get beaten so badly by the league players if this game doesn’t require enough skill? Am I just not “spamming” hard enough?

Because the game actually does require skill, just not enough. The title of this thread isn’t “no skill” it’s “enough skill”. Very big difference.

There is going to be a difference between good and bad players no matter how low the skill floor is.

The problem this thread is meant to address isn’t balance, but fun. It isn’t fun to play GW2 PvP in its current state, because spamming skills while playing meta builds is lame.

I’ll use Tera as another example: In Tera, if a pro is playing warrior and comes up against a brawler that is just randomly spamming skills… they don’t just beat him. they absolutely demolish him. That brawler will get staggerlocked to death and not land a single skill.

But in GW2 if a pro is playing a warrior and goes up against a DH that is just randomly spamming skills, they still beat him but there is no way to avoid taking any damage at all. Even the worst of the worst DH can still deal some damage to the best of the best. And that’s what is wrong.

https://youtu.be/EitZRLt2G3w
Some people consider this good design practice

It is a subjective how accessible success should be how low the skill floor should be.

alemfi.5107:

https://youtu.be/EitZRLt2G3w
Some people consider this good design practice

It is a subjective how accessible success should be how low the skill floor should be.

I think I’ve watched this video before so forgive me if it’s covered in the video but

It’s pretty important to keep in mind that GW2 is a team game with discrete roles. It’s very easy to think that the game “doesn’t require enough skill” when you are in a matchup where your role does not match up well against the enemy or enemies’ role. That doesn’t necessarily mean that skill the skill floor or skill cap are too low.

mistsim.2748:

if you want a real pvp game, go play OW or Dota 2. GW2 and always been an unbalanced spamfest, but the xpac made it a lot worse by adding more conditions and CC. the best balance this game has ever had was the summer just before xpac’s release. you could still play SOMEWHAT reactively. yes it’s a shame, because i love the aesthetics and combat of this game quite a bit. i was very attached to my characters before i quit. but the spamming of condis, CC, cleanses, i-frames, invulns, etc. is pretty out of hand.

most of the skill in GW2 comes from 1) playing a very versatile build good for many different situations (as there is no draft phase), 2) knowing your basic rotations, and 3) figuring out the most versatile build. #3 honestly requires the most “skill”, but it’s basically just analysis and reasoning.

i think Battlerite really got it right, even though the game isnt very popular or aesthetically pleasing (to me). there is a sweet spot of about 8 abilities, so it still remains very skill-based and not spammy. yes the game has i-frames but not too many. i wish GW2 had a system that was just a bit more complex than OW and Dota 2, like Battlerite.

coro.3176:

Why would I play a high-skill, high-risk no-reward build when the HoT elites just do it better and easier?

when i still gave a kitten about this game, i was begging the devs to balance the core specs. we were actually promised elites wouldnt be stronger than core, just different.

How recently have you logged in? If I remember you quit back towards the start of the summer?

The current balance feels highly reminiscent of pvp right before HOT dropped. I think you’d enjoy it.

alemfi.5107:

https://youtu.be/EitZRLt2G3w
Some people consider this good design practice

It is a subjective how accessible success should be how low the skill floor should be.

The issue here is it’s currently ridiculously low.

Even the “hard” builds in the game would be considered noobcannons in many other games.

And the easy builds in this game like DH or Condi nec are basically idiot proof.

What kind of skill level do you expect it to require?
I think it is already quite skill dependent in MMORPG scene. Do you srsly think it should require skills as much as say Starcraft 2? If that is case, I would probably stop playing.

If you really think the game is that simple why not break into the ESL scene? If you can’t be a top player, stop complaining that the game is too easy.

I don’t think it’s about getting to SC2 skill level, more like other first person/third-person battle games. Honestly consider the distance between mobas and even new FPS games and GW2.
In fact this game already draws too much from the cluttery RTS genre, maybe it should be inspired by other styles of design, don’t you agree?

Teepo.2435:

I don’t think it’s about getting to SC2 skill level, more like other first person/third-person battle games. Honestly consider the distance between mobas and even new FPS games and GW2.
In fact this game already draws too much from the cluttery RTS genre, maybe it should be inspired by other styles of design, don’t you agree?

(not direct at you teepo)

BREAKING NEWS Different genres play differently. More at 10.

An MMO is simply a kittentier version of the non-MMORPG counterpart.

You are right, guild wars 2 compared to competitive non-MMORPG game doesn’t require a very high skill level. However, this begs the question. If the people who are claiming guild wars 2 has very little skill, why aren’t they the top of the top in this no skill game. It is easy to make a post claiming it is no skill and get a few angry players to agree. It is completely different to actually prove that point by joining and winning at a tournament with other “high” skill players. It is usually easy for people to run their mouths when they have no incentive to prove it.

In any case, within this low skill game, there are still players that are still good.

Also if you have a topic and Apolo.5942 is on your side of the argument, it might be time to reconsider that argument.

Imagine how awesome PVP would be in this game if you needed a high skill level to do it!

Oh wait, it would suck because 99% us wouldn’t have a chance. /thread

Obtena.7952:

Imagine how awesome PVP would be in this game if you needed a high skill level to do it!

Oh wait, it would suck because 99% us wouldn’t have a chance. /thread

I think that deppends Obtena, making game more dificult might mean that players need to play better while in team and spam less, wich is what lacks in gw2, i guess Anet forgot to import clever gameplay skill usage from gw1.

The issue of gw2 pvp is that gw2 classes were designed for pve only, and those classes work how they work due how “horrible” the pve is… all that matters is damage and how dev feel the class should perform in PVE, even if it means broken skills to carry its players on pve due damage output and that leads for some skills ending overperforming and others underperforming in the pvp component.

PVE classes were designed to hit several targets at the same time, since we dont have the mob pods that needed to get cautiouly lured or evaded, all that maters is the pve class spam 1 and that will lead to atack several targets, players dont even need to know wich target needs to be killed first, gw1 had this, so this led to a gameplay of damage “spam splash” and horrible to watch/observer since one guy can atack 3 other with cleave by doing the same damage on the 3 targets, and aoe burst combos, fields, wathever.

Look the number of cleaves skills exist….
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleave

Now add all those AOE and some are even on low CD, other do very high damage(due pve needs and how dev’s feel the class must be played).

I think making the game more pleasent to play would be a better, that would create more players that actually need to call targets, know wich target need to be atacked first, since they no longuer could atack 3-5 targets at once..

IF the cleave/aoe skills were reduced, and some classes could actually have aoe spells that could even target arround 10 targets or have its own aoe role??
Q: would that make more weapons and builds viable for pvp?
Q: Would WVW lag be reduced as well?
Q: Would that create better players since game has less aoe/cleave spam and need more teamplay?
Q: Would that make pvp better?
Q: Would that open for a better iteration when working skills for next classes or even tweaking some skills that are underperforming or overperforming?

Obtena.7952:

Imagine how awesome PVP would be in this game if you needed a high skill level to do it!

Oh wait, it would suck because 99% us wouldn’t have a chance. /thread

A long time ago I shared this opinion of yours; I thought a game couldn’t be overly complex or players would be unable to play.
Then I discovered that achieving complexity through variety (builds, skills, strats) only means that new players will stick to what’s easier to play. Even if we nerff everything that’s “easy-to-use”, casuals will still find the easiest build, master only enough of it to have fun, and go on with their online lives.
The changes we are discussing here are mostly for medium-high skilled players that feel the game isn’t engaging enough in motor or mental skills (again reminding that it is currently probably the most skillful MMO)

I think that’s my problem with this suggestion … what is the point of pushing less capable players towards the easier to play builds? In otherwords, are less capable players not already playing builds that are easy to play for them, so it’s necessary to make the PVP game harder for them to corral them into the ‘only easy’ builds?

On the flip side … there must be challenging builds … maybe the answer isn’t to corral scrubs into easier builds by making things harder … maybe the answer is to corral pro players into harder builds by making more things easier?

I guess my point is … I don’t see what this accomplishes or I don’t see how whatever is being suggested isn’t just a zero-sum impact on the game. Probably all irrelevant anyways … Anet doesn’t balance to increase or decrease difficulty of play; we have different classes to accomplish that already.

The point being made here is exactly that these changes will benefit mostly medium-high skilled players and mostly not even affect casual players, since there will always be easier builds than others.
Also another very important contributive factor is that when you remove all the cluster an UNINTUITIVE DESIGN skills of the game, you also make it easier for casual players to understand the matches. This is proven by a very simple argument: imagine a casual observer watching an ESL match; he would be baffled by every single second of the match.

The more I read these threads the more I’m convinced that “low skill” is just a term bad players use to describe stuff that they die to.

Crinn.7864:

The more I read these threads the more I’m convinced that “low skill” is just a term bad players use to describe stuff that they die to.

It is.

People make rules in their head about what is ‘fair’ or not. In reality, if it weren’t ‘fair’, it wouldn’t be balanced in the way it is.

Sarrs.4831:

Crinn.7864:

The more I read these threads the more I’m convinced that “low skill” is just a term bad players use to describe stuff that they die to.

It is.

People make rules in their head about what is ‘fair’ or not. In reality, if it weren’t ‘fair’, it wouldn’t be balanced in the way it is.

I mean why blame themselves for their failures?

Sarrs.4831:

Crinn.7864:

The more I read these threads the more I’m convinced that “low skill” is just a term bad players use to describe stuff that they die to.

It is.

People make rules in their head about what is ‘fair’ or not. In reality, if it weren’t ‘fair’, it wouldn’t be balanced in the way it is.

‘no skill’ threads are usually just a big circlejerk full of people who couldn’t get into ESL or Pro Leagues just to make them feel better about themselves.

Yes, also a territory full of people who don’t understand the importance of feedback and constructive criticism towards developing a better game for the community.
Try not to take this attitude very far. Oops. You’re not going to get very far in life with it anyways.

We managed to discuss many important topics in this thread, I hope people continue to use the forums to provide suggestions and opinions about PvP. I’ve played since launch and arguably this is the best moment for the pvp scene. One of the most difficult jobs will be distinguishing honest and inflamatory opinions (many of which may well have reasonings, they should only be dismissed because flaming is typical of intense competitive pvp games), but we can do this if we unite our critical thinking.

I’ll soon make another recap and post more suggestions, if not here, somewhere.

Depends if you want more skill in terms of strategic planning and tactics in combat or more skill in twitch based reaction gameplay.

I think gw2 has too much twitch reaction such that both defence and offence need to be spammable in order to counter the amount of bullkitten flying around.

I would like to see the huge burst (both power and condi) dps reduced and return to a light bruiser meta (not bunker) where time to kill is a little longer (but not indefinite) and choices in combat have greater consequences.

It requires TOO much skill… you realize how many players haven’t reached Diamond/Plat in 7 seasons or know a single meta build? The skill gap is stupid! Even when we had more players in this game… matchmaking wasn’t any better at all.

Either people are good at 1v1’s and can’t rotate
They can rotate but can’t 1v1.

The skillgap is much much higher than Overwatch that’s for darn sure. Only reason why i’m Plat in soloQ GW2 and not SoloQ Overwatch is because a single class in OW can’t 1v2 / 1v3 and carry the team. The skill gap is half the reason why the consistent top 250 keep playing this game. It’s cause we can remain the top 250 each and every season.

People once told me that GW2 pvp is good. I bought the game before HoT expansion and I was pleased. It really was more about timing and risk/reward. If you screwed up, either you could rely on your team to save you, or you just died by your own mistakes.
Now I really regret buying this game for pvp content. If it wasn’t for the community I’ve met here, I’d be playing WoW right now which, ironically, I left earlier becasue of pvp. Now it looks better, definitely better than GW. More active skills rather than butt-saving passives that trigger every once in a while.
But I am like a stupid, loyal dog, I still somehow hold some hope for this gamemode. However, it is easier to break than it is to fix. It’s easier to just power creep all that crap, give some stronger elite specs than core and just be done with it. Is it unbalanced? Throw more power creep in it, that’s how it goes now.
Now that the game caters to casual players, the hardcore skilled ones only profit from it. Before HoT and slightly after it (the first seasons) there were more people, good players that could stay in the game and progress, but they didn’t. Let’s ask ourselves this question, why did they leave?

Saiyan.1704:

It requires TOO much skill... you realize how many players haven’t reached Diamond/Plat in 7 seasons or know a single meta build? The skill gap is stupid! Even when we had more players in this game... matchmaking wasn’t any better at all.

Either people are good at 1v1’s and can’t rotate
They can rotate but can’t 1v1.

The skillgap is _much_ _much_ higher than Overwatch that’s for darn sure. Only reason why i’m Plat in soloQ GW2 and not SoloQ Overwatch is because a single class in OW can’t 1v2 / 1v3 and carry the team. The skill gap is half the reason why the consistent top 250 keep playing this game. It’s cause we can remain the top 250 each and every season.

As for this. What to do if I am good in both 1v1 and rotation? Most of the time I know where to go, of course I’ll make mistakes, I’ve done plenty of them and even lost becasue of them, but all in all it’s rather rare of me. I can 1v1 to the point of killing or at least forcing the enemy to leave me be, it is a fact, but there are exceptions. All in all I solo que and my rating appears to be 55% (Fell from 60% and it feels like 50%)

Now I’ll tell you something funny. I’ve been to one of my dude’s place when playing games in a dorm. He asked me if I could help him out to get into plat rank, he was gold tier 2. However, I’ve wanted to test a thing, as he got from silver to gold in a few days. I told him what to do during his games, making him play as I do, skill more or less the same. He got to plat 2 playing solo with my help and I can’t get out of t3 of gold by doing pretty much the same.
At this point I just want to farm shards for lege armour, but my inner tryhard boils in its own blood when I am forced to see my games lost by so many repetitive mistakes of about 2 or 3 players in my team tend to make. There is no salt, I just share tips and suggest some actions that they could do. They either don’t understand (language barrier) or just don’t care. As for most players in 250 "Merciless legend"? As I watch those players it is more of a "Merciless luck". And no, I am not saying that I am the greatest, but I am confident in my skills. I watch good twitchers, I read about meta builds, test them out on my own even if I don’t play other classes that much as I do with my main. I am capable of calling targets, adapting to the situation at hand as much as my class enables me to do so. Changing targets from the one that expects to be focused to the one that is opened from all sides, ready to get bursted down. I am doing well enough as a bunker to at least get into higher platinum level. I ask myself "what I should have done to win that match" when I lost it, and most of the time I really can’t answer it, because even if I did flawless, I wouldn’t be able to win. It’s not the fact that it happened that frustrated me. It’s the fact that it’s so kitten often. I’ve never had anything like that in any other game. There were loss streaks, but like once in a week and not a few times a day.
I am doing much better in many other competitive games for obvious reasons, thus this is my only solid argument to refuse an explanation of "git gud" kind of thing.
In the end of the day, I do not play this game, this game plays me with all its weird shenanigans.

Totally wrong.

The PvP is too complicated and too difficult for most and thus fails to attract a larger audience.

I agree with many of your arguments, that being said…

While I dislike passives, I feel it’s fine to have some so long as their effects are minimal. Atm Defy Pain only lasts 2 or 2.5 seconds if traited. That’s not very long and is basically there purely to give you a chance to react to a large spike. Last Stand should probably not give you a full version of Balanced Stance, but just a pulse of it on a shorter icd. It also needs an indicator when active, like the new Brave Stride does now. Once you learn what that icon means, you know not to open the fight with a CC for 4 seconds. Classes like War that ave very obvious animations would be super weak without these mechanics. That being said, what I’d rather have is a stance system like GW1 where you can only have one at a time. Bring back the old Berserker’s Stance where it’s unstrippable but you can’t combo it with Endure Pain (which should just become a big boost in Toughness and not reduce damage to 0) and it doesn’t last as long but has a shorter CD. It would make you either have to run fewer stances or dance between them as needed – but I digress.

Some passives are really flavorful and fun, like Bunker Down on Engi. So long as the passives are predictable and have only a minor impact it’s not so bad. It’s when you’re mid fight and someone’s automatic anti-CC kicks in and you had no way of knowing that things start becoming frustrating.

Another major problem with Conquest is how kitten small the points are. AoE will always be strong no matter what you do when the point is like 15 ft in diameter. It’s even worse with the super fast decap because trying to leave briefly to avoid the AoE means giving up part of the cap. It’s not actually that hard to beat DH’s trap when you can just not stand in it; most of the time however you have no choice.

We also need more skills like A.E.D that cleanses specific conditions so that you don’t get randomly screwed because the first few condis in the stack are cripple or a single stack of bleed or poison while in the middle of the pile there’s 10 stacks of burning. This would make the game much easier to balance as well seeing as you could make classes weak to specific kinds of condis. You can try and balance the amount a individual class can apply but once you get multiple condi users it stops mattering.

I don’t think we need a block that uses endurance, it doesn’t thematically make sense for many classes and adding in an ability for only PvP would be odd. We just have to make using the blocks and the like that we currently have more balanced. Another aside – you should not be able to stomp while invulnerable. Stability can be stripped or the team can focus a bunch of CC to remove it, but for all but 3 classes there’s nothing you can do when someone goes invulnerable. It totally removes any sort of counterplay unless you stealth them, which only a few classes can even do.

While the length of fights right now feel alright, the pace of them is still far too hectic. If you want people to watch this game’s PvP visibility is important. Larger points will make AoE’s less cluttered, most other animations are really well done and distinctive. There’s a lot of reuse in PoF but those moves still preform a similar purpose and are on a class that didn’t have that animation before so that’s acceptable. At launch, you generally didn’t just toss out all your skills constantly because the CDs were generally longer. I too would like to see more lengthy cast times so everyone has to use them strategically. I also find that I feel way more powerful casting a 1.5 second + ability than just throwing out .5 seconds or less actions. You could even up the damage to compensate. Right now many skills just feel weak and are there just to whittle your target down. There are still plenty of impactful skills, but it tends to just be the 5 ability. I’m biased but I feel that Warrior has always done a good job of making every attack feel important – it’s why I put up with the old versions of EP and LS. Obviously not every class needs that level of animation, but taking just a few aspects of it would help with the flow and feel of combat. Make it feel punishing to be hit and rewarding to land hits.

LouWolfskin.3492:

I’m not sure how you can talk about spam.
Most skills do have a cast time and also a rather long recharge.
Or are 30-40 seconds not enough?
Should we go higher? Do you want to play with your auto attack mostly?

How about every skill on 60 seconds, would that reduce spam?

I’m not saying that the powercreep HoT introduced is good, far from it, i would love to see a lot of balance changes but you can learn how each class works and counter most of it.
Most Dragonhunters don’t even use full traps anymore but a set of two, maximum three because they loose out on utitility otherwise.

And many people (ab)using multiple stunbreakers or some with a lower cooldown, sure, but you should ask why they see this as neccessary.

A lot has to happen to make this more skilled again but spamy?
Not sure i can agree on that point.

Also: Trying to put TERA and GW into relation to each other really doesn’t work. I’ll admit i never played TERA for long because the game just doesn’t fit my taste but it isn’t similiar enough to try and compare.

Someone I agree with

GW2 is no where near as spammy as everyones making it out to be

Spam what your weapon skill 1?

That’s about the only ability that I can think of anywhere in the game that doesn’t have a cd, every other ability has a cd which like you said is anywhere from 30-40 secs long

God forbid youre on Mesmer cause then your cds can get really bad

Is GW2 pvp competitive, no, heck no, the devs, balance team, and most of the player base knows this so why try to turn it into something its not?

A block that depletes endurance? In GW2? Are you high?

Yeah imma stand here and try and block this power guard smacking me around like a pimp with his shield while my only means of dodging slips away

That would be horrible for even WoW standards

TL:DR

To OP hell no

To Lou Good man lol

I feel as a thief Im more reliant on knowing my own limitations and knowing my enemy more, than on any other class.
Other than that the game has indeed shifted towards more everyone can do the same, less rock paper scissor, which can get messy with all the boons, reflect, cc, flying around

I give this a big thumbs down. If you take away all my passive skills and spam builds people will notice that I’m actually a bronze tier player pretending to be plat. I don’t want to have to learn how to play. Keep PvP the way it is!

As some one who has a similar post about 4 years ago I agree.

I’m in platinum this season, with a fairly good w/l ratio. I’m a player who tends to just active all of their skills against the enemy and hope for the best, and then come out on top, I can confirm that a good build wins over an inferior one most of the time.

Also you can’t use skill, skill assumes you time you attack and skill use, taking in consideration the enemies skills in CDs. Theres just too much kitten proc-ing from traits, weapons swaps, dodge effects, runes skill, weapon skill, pet skills time 5 enemies. This is why GW2 could not make the PvP competitive scene cause noone could follow what kitten thing some one did.

Its stupid and the system needs a massive redux. But knowing Anet, years from now, GW2 will go down with the kittenty PvP system we have now.

Exciton.8942:

Totally wrong.

The PvP is too complicated and too difficult for most and thus fails to attract a larger audience.

I know this thread is pretty dated…It’s funny some people here think spamming skills against top players would work out for them.

LUST.7241:

Exciton.8942:

Totally wrong.

The PvP is too complicated and too difficult for most and thus fails to attract a larger audience.

I know this thread is pretty dated…It’s funny some people here think spamming skills against top players would work out for them.

Most players will never face top level players. Balancing around the top .1% of players is ridiculous. The problem is that spam can still get you really far in this game. I played corruption Necro for achievements recently and was finding myself being really effective for hardly knowing the class. I just placed circles on the circle and applied a ton of condis. If there were 2 of us and they didn’t have a chance. It requires too much coordination to deal with. If you get focused you can drop really quick but it was still far too rewarding for how long it had been since I’d played my Necro (I got 2 birthday gifts).

No. It does require a particular skill that is very, very important in order to be known as the best.
The “Blame everyone but myself” skill, that consists in constantly pointing fingers at others when your team lose. It requires a wide vocabulary of trashtalk and a limited notion of honesty. Fortunately it doesn’t actually require to be good at winning.

Joke aside, there are classes that are easier to play than others. You can’t say being a good thief / mesmer doesn’t require skill. I’d say it’s great to let newer players have at least a chance in pvp as they’re progressing. Each competitive game needs to find a middle ground and will rarely fully satisfies the extremes.