Guild Wars 2

So. Recently I saw a post where someone posted a video of there gameplay. While not for the same reason as this individual. It got me interested in it as well. (I tried something like this in the past but my recording at the time was….pretty bad).

My goal with this is simple. I have uploaded a video of a match I lost to youtube. The link to it is here.

My build is in the description of the video but I will also place it here.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnUqA9Ci1CCuCCctglOBDelGT3pO9tAQh7pFMAWYlMtzA-TZRGABGcIAK/JAofZAg2fAgLAAA

My desire for those of you that watch this. Is that you will watch it in full and find my mistakes as well as my successes.

I am terrible at judging my own gameplay. Im too locked into the mindset and that is preventing me from improving.

What did I do right. What did I do wrong. When did I rotate correctly. When did I rotate INcorrectly. Who did I engage properly. Who did I engage improperly. When did I disengage/engage at good/bad times. What could I have done differently.

My goal is to get feedback based on THIS build and toolset. I understand there are other builds I could use. But my goal is to maximize the potential of this one before moving on.

Further information: This match is in ranked play at the legendary division.

I got the permission of as many of hte players in this video as I could reach.

If ANY of the other 9 players involved in this video request that I take down this video. I WILL do so. Simply send me a message with proof that it is you and not a troll.

I hope people see and respond to this. I have hit a wall as far as my skill level goes. And I would like to take this opportunity to move past it.

That was a good game.

Around 10 minutes in, blue capped mansion and clocktower and that seemed to be where it went downhill from there. No one on red seemed to try to neutralize them for a while, and red never couldn’t make a comeback on time. Not necessarily your fault, it’s evident you had your hands full on windmill.

edit/ Yeah, it’s not your fault. Your team was carrying dolten, which everyone else had at least 3x the contribution he/she had.

TheBravery.9615:

That was a good game.

Around 10 minutes in, blue capped mansion and clocktower and that seemed to be where it went downhill from there. No one on red seemed to try to neutralize them for a while, and red never couldn’t make a comeback on time. Not necessarily your fault, it’s evident you had your hands full on windmill.

edit/ Yeah, it’s not your fault. Your team was carrying dolten, which everyone else had at least 3x the contribution he/she had.

Hmm on the part with clocktower at the time you mentioned. Would it have been better if I had stayed there to try and contest and leave home to the respawn that was on the way there? By the time my other ally got to mid it was already capped and he was 2v1d. And the druid came to assist the enemy at windmill which delayed that fight long enough for them to win the mid fight.

Shadelang.3012:

TheBravery.9615:

That was a good game.

Around 10 minutes in, blue capped mansion and clocktower and that seemed to be where it went downhill from there. No one on red seemed to try to neutralize them for a while, and red never couldn’t make a comeback on time. Not necessarily your fault, it’s evident you had your hands full on windmill.

edit/ Yeah, it’s not your fault. Your team was carrying dolten, which everyone else had at least 3x the contribution he/she had.

Hmm on the part with clocktower at the time you mentioned. Would it have been better if I had stayed there to try and contest and leave home to the respawn that was on the way there? By the time my other ally got to mid it was already capped and he was 2v1d. And the druid came to assist the enemy at windmill which delayed that fight long enough for them to win the mid fight.

From what I saw, it’s just a snowball of events that put blue in a better position. Started with Dolten getting focused down by the mansion at 8:36, which made the fight at mansion a 4v2. Think brensloo saw what was going on, tried to neutralize clocktower and make it to that mansion fight but was too late. Erionator got focused down, then brensloo got into a bad position, then venomguard next.

Yeah. After capping windmill at 9:07, the fight outcome might have changed if you ran in to assist your team instead of capping clocktower. At 9:19, your team had 1 point captured and the enemy team had 0.

i think you grasped what your class/build can do. but im confused since i also play a shoutbow but i play it as a support not a roamer. many times your team control 2 points, you as a druid could have secured 1 of them, instead u left it unattended, and because of the map and druid lack of mobility climbing quickly at mid, it got decapped before u get there. and your build is not very optimal as a dps thats why u cant just burst down the guy capping your points. basicly have to be +1 to even kill the guy. also your team got snowball so its basicly bunch of events lead to you guys losing. but as far as the game goes its not a blowout so its actually a goodgame. meaning both sides have the chance of winning.

Keep this advice with a grain of salt, since i don’t think i’m better than you are. Also, i don’t play druid that much and i have trouble seeing what your build’s strenght and weaknesses are.
Not having search and rescue negates a lot of your team support, and not running any glyph makes you less effective in 1v1 and getting decap.

In terms of mechanical skill, i can’t find any obvious flaws. You seem to have pretty good awareness, and you know when to disengage fights.

Just a few nitpicks where i think you could have done better :
1:17 → Enemy engi is really pressured in the mid fight, but instead of adding extra pressure, you keep focusing the necro. Your team should have called a target on him.
1:25 → Dolten is pressured and arrive in the mid fight. You just went into celestial avatar and you don’t try to heal him. I think it’s mostly due to tunnel vision. (and the fact that teamfights are an absolute mess, the mid point and his terrible camera angle don’t help either)
2:13 → You have both side nodes. and you are 4v5 on the map. You decide to push mid while the enemy push close and outnumber your team. I personaly think keeping sides would have been wiser, mostly because one enemy would have been forced to stay on mid, making it a 4v4 on the rest of the map.
2:30 → you’re in a 1v1 at mid. I think you should have knockbacked the enemy ranger immediatly to get an easy decap.
6:13 → You decide to leave mid to get a free decap on far. However the other druid was already on it’s way to far. You should have probably stayed on mid or reinforced close.
6:53 → Mid is lost, your team is not in a great position on close either and there’s an enemy on respawn. I have no idea if this would have been a better decision but you could have gone back to far to prevent the incoming decap
9:48 → A bit of miscommunication. You’re garding mid, enemy engi goes to decap close and you don’t know where the enemy team is (probably far and will arrive mid soon). It’s very risky but you try to save close from the decap leaving mid open. imo, it would have been wiser to stay on mid, let the decap happen, and let your engi 1v1 on close.
9:55 → Stability from your elite + dodge would have saved close from the decap.

I don’t think the loss was because of this few ‘mistakes’. The enemy team had a better teamcomp and they snowballed the game just before the end, leaving no chance of a comeback. Overall, i think that’s a very solid performance from your part.

I want to thank everyone involved for their responses so far. It has given me a lot of food for thought. I’ll try to make some changes in my next couple games to cover some of the flaws you have helped me identify. I really do appreciate you all taking the time to watch my video and letting me know what you think.

To Cover some points you all brought up: I play my build as a roamer (im used to calling it a harasser from other games haha) yet its poorly optomized for damage output. I hope to swap to marauders amulet and change sigils to give me a bit more upfront burst. In order to be able to apply more effective pressure.

There were some times where I used cooldowns improperly or waited to use them. Causing me to lose the point due to things like lack of stability or a lack of stunbreak.

There were some times when lack of map awareness caused me to make questionable decisions on my rotations.

There were times when I chose bad targets. Instead of continuing to pressure a low target I swapped to what I percieved as being the highest threat to ME. Rather than the best target for my team as a whole.

Due to taking Sic Em instead of Search & Rescue I have given up a large amount of my group support. Swapping those out would affect my gameplay rather significantly (pulling of in order to get a telerez instead of continuing pressure or moving to the next point) I am going to wait on changing that until I feel comfortable with my other changes. But I will be looking into that in the future. And if I choose a build that gives up group support. I really feel like I have to maximize on what I DID chose to take. I took a more offensive skill in this case. I should have reworked the rest of my build to reflect that change. (focuses more on the damage role instead of just “Staying alive to fight longer”)

You didnt try to win the team fights, you ran away to fully cap far everytime. If you wanted a distraction you could just have decapped and run back to middle and win the teamfight. Everytime you run far and fully cap it when no one is there, your teammates are undermanned at another node and most likely will lose that one.

sanctuary.1068:

You didnt try to win the team fights, you ran away to fully cap far everytime. If you wanted a distraction you could just have decapped and run back to middle and win the teamfight. Everytime you run far and fully cap it when no one is there, your teammates are undermanned at another node and most likely will lose that one.

Hmm. Thats a good point. I recently rewatched the video myself and I did notice myself doing what your saying.

All I can do is offer my reasoning there. Usually when I pealed off it was when I as facing a combo with more sustain or damage than what we had on point. Or I was low on cooldowns. You are ABSOLUTELY right that perhaps I should have just gotten the decap and made my way back to far. In some cases it looks like I underestimated the sustain capabilities of some of my team mates. Or over estimated there ability to hold on there own.

I feel like having more communication either through map pings or ts would have gone a long way to alleviate that. We were a group of full solo quers so our only real way of judging eachothers status from a distance was through the health/boons they have at any given moment. Which can be a hard judge in a game where reapers,scrappers,druids, and tempests are the norm. An ally or opponent that seems dead isn’t until there actually down and stomped.

Thank you for bringing this up. Ill try to pay more attention to my allies status’ as well and see if I can’t make better judgement calls when I push for a side point after a stalemate. Specifically in relation to whether or not to stay for a full cap or rejoin the team fight.