Guild Wars 2

So for those of you who have 1000’s of PvP games under your belt, how did you find climbing this season so far, how did you get past the losses and bad players who held you back,

Tonight I finally hit my final straw with PvP, (I tend to main Necro) but the match up’s now have made it where I no longer enjoy PvP at all, I shouldn’t have to tank players, but it seems that any guard I get on my team dies in 4 seconds to the enemy, where as the enemy guard can tank 3 players on my team,

Speaking of main classes, ( everyone has one ) has anyone else seen someone on there team with the same class, and you don’t switch because you just don’t trust them, I had a Necro on my team a few days ago, so I swapped to Ele, and half way through the match I noticed they were not doing any boon stripping, when challenged they said they don’t play for boon stripping they are condi, * I literally slammed my head into the wall* needless to say we got destroyed.

So yes, how did you get past the frustration of match after match that had players who have no interest and are just AFK farming the pips for the chest, ive seriously added about 25 shockingly bad players to my ignore list to try Queue dodge them, its beginning to feel like some of the people im getting have seen youtube/twitch and think oh I can do that.

Do I need to play more PvP off season to boost the MMR so that next season placement is better after the first 10 games, so I can potentially avoid some of these players, should I look into a guild that is more dedicated to PvP.

Someone in my current guild said do not worry about ratings, and just AFK run around the map, and get pips its easy farm mode, I actually felt disgusted by that comment, but it seems im getting players who only are interested in that.

I was against pre made 5 man teams, but now thinking about it, its a good idea, sure you will meet teams that are fantastic and will destroy you, but at the same time it will help avoid those who have no interest in PvP at all.

For now I will continue to try and improve, and I understand results don’t happen over night, and I know that some guys have gotten 1000’s of hours in PvP, but for now it feels like im slamming my head on my keyboard.

I have 4000 games played but this season I haven’t managed to get higher than Plat T1/Gold T3. I just haven’t managed to click this season and despite still managing 1 vs 2 at Plat I always seem to end up with teams that just are so outmatched by the opponent. Can’t break out of my 50-60% win rate.

I have pretty much given up now and just log in every 3 days to stop decay.

It’s incredible really. The same complaints flood these forums every single season, people feel like they are getting horrible teammates below their skill level. What blows my mind, is the most simple fix to this is for ranked pvp to be for 5v5 teams only. Yet people insist on trying to make Solo Queue the only mode for ranked pvp and anet caves in and here we are again, everyone flooding the forums with the same complaints all over again.

With Team Queue, you can put a stop to class stacking, allow people to choose their own teams, and work towards a more competitive ESL scene. It’s like if you wanted to go play fractals but didn’t get to choose who you played with, people would have to deal with complete noobs with no agony resistance, people who had no idea about the fights, wouldn’t be able to play with your guild etc.

You know how solo players get into fractals and raids and dungeons? They use the lfg tool or ask around. This same tool is available for pvp! Some people complain that they would have trouble getting on a team cause they’re bad and others know it, well the solution to that isn’t forcing those bad players onto others. It’s Ranked pvp, it’s supposed to be competitive. Go play Unranked until you get better or find other bad players that can’t join a team.

Unless Anet puts together some incredible method of taking into account individual skill in a match, Solo Queue is never going to work. PvP is set up around teams of 5. Rating should be based on the average rating of two teams and how they performed against eachother. Everyone on that team should gain/lose the same amount of rating. Why should a higher rated player gain less rating for a win than a lower rated player in his group? He had to work to carry the lower rated player. Also, the lower rated player shouldn’t gain more rating, he was carried by the higher rated player.

If Anet wants to keep Ranked Solo Queue around to appease people that’s fine, but there needs to be a pure 5v5 only Team Queue. And if Anet insists on Ranked being split into Solo and Team Queues, then Team Queue has to have better and more exclusive rewards than Solo Queue to encourage people to play it, otherwise people are just going to always take the easiest route to get the same rewards.

I would love it, if just for one season, Anet would make ranked only for 5 man teams. PvP guilds would become more relevant and would help players find others to queue with. The lfg tool could be adjusted even further much like the fractal lfg tool, splitting the pvp ranked lfg section into divisions. You could even mimic the fractal lfg tool even further by only allowing players to post and search for others in the lfg division that matches their rating or lower, though this probably wouldn’t be necessary. I could be wrong, players could rebel and quit pvp altogether because they hate the idea of playing with others in a game that requires them to work together. But so far this method works for every other game mode in gw2, and it actually solves two of the most common forum complaints, class stacking (if they only allowed you to queue no more than 1 of each class in your group and removed class swapping before the match) and getting stuck with horrible teammates.

(Over 4k games)

I litteraly said this to a friend of mine lately:
“Perhaps I should become a fulltime pve’r”

Stuck in Gold t3 – Platinum t4, spending more time in Gold than Platinum. I get the kind of “thief should cap home” guys in my team. The Soloqueue hero’s, who run far at the start and lose their 1v1’s. The necro’s and dh’s that melt the first seconds of a teamfight.

Shortly. After two years, this season makes me close to giving up the pvp scene all together.

Other than that, I also get the ridiculously bad players on the enemy team.
The ones that try to 3v1 me on far, but fail to kill me. The ones that push into a 1v1 against me on our home node, while it’s our cap.

Those matches end up with a 500 – 50/100 score. In our favor. But lets be honest. There’s no fun in that.

(Besides admitting the above, the ‘ridiculously bad players’, seem to be on my team more often as the other way around)

I mainly SoloQd and I reached 1900 rating in EU. Sometimes I win 6 matches in a row, to lose the next 5 in a row. It can be hard. Sometimes you can get farmed by ESL DuoQers. But one of the most prominent reasons for lost matches was the inability/unwillingness to reroll of teammates. Mainly duo thief and duo necro comps can cost you games. Finding a good teammate to DuoQ with can significantly increase your chances.

Sometimes you get unlucky with ur team, but self-improvement is something that many people overlook as well. Besides, there is another topic in the PvP forums about the failure of the current team formation system, which places sometimes 5 1900+ players against 5 1800- players. However this happens more often, I still feel that this system is better than we used to have, and that it actually means something when you climb across divisions.

Long term, that’s easy. Only commit to getting 200 rated wins with each class, by that time you should have at least unlocked all reward tracks once, got your dungeon collections done and a few ascended’s along the way. Don’t commit to PVP seasons since there is no real reward, bragging rights is nothing important, for it’s the same as useless players running around with a Legendary weapons when they don’t deserve it.

I have a little over 7000 games played and am currently 42 on the NA leaderboards.

I placed low tier gold I believe when the season started and climbing out of that was a little annoying but manageable. Plat my games started to improve and once I hit top 250 I got a few good games while the leaderboard players were actually playing.

A few questions for you:

1. What do you want from PvP? Are you only here for the rewards? Are you here because you want competitive games?

2. How much time do you want to invest into PvP

3. Do you actually enjoy playing PvP, both winning and losing?

I’m assuming you’re not here for the rewards based on your post haha. And you’re clearly not finding those competitive games yet. I myself am a very competitive person. When I started PvP in this game I got my butt handed to me over and over and I hated that. I hated losing every 1v1 I took. So I worked to fix it, I dueled everything over and over and over until I could consistantly beat it. Then once I started winning the majority of my 1v1’s I was still upset that we were losing so I started focusing on map rotations, what 1v1’s should I take or not take, where should I be in the next 20 seconds, how many enemies are alive right now, where are they on the map?

I hate losing so I pushed myself until I could start winning not just 50% of my games but more like 60%. That was what kept me going. This was all back in solo queue too. Solo queue is very different than playing on with a team. In my honest opinion trying to climb as a support in solo queue is going to be really hard. I find it much easier to “carry” (for lack of a better term) on a roamer who can kill stuff really well than anything else. If your team isn’t performing well against the enemy the best thing you can do is kill the enemy before they kill your team. No amount of healing/support is going to win that team fight if your teammates don’t know how to interrupt and capitalize to get the kill.

Winning 1v1’s isn’t everything but it definitely helps a lot when you can consistantly do it in solo queue. Like I can push far at the start of all my games and with 99% certainty of winning that 1v1 and capping that point. So that immediately let’s my team start with a 2 cap (assuming home didn’t get kitten on) even if the mid fight goes super south.

TLDR: You’re going to lose a lot of games, don’t be upset with losing even if you had a spirit guardian who just talked kitten the entire match and contributed nothing. Always be thinking about what you can do. It’s inevitable you will get bad teammates, the trick is learning how to use them without making them feel used.

I’ve just given up too. Like many players, after stagnating in gold I’ve just gave up on this season and let my decay grow to 700. I have no reason to put myself through that headache so I don’t partake in ranked at all.

Hm, I had a long week at work and ended up getting 300 points of decay on both accounts. I’ve played about 300-400 games total, and have been hovering in T2 gold. A few games are really close, many are blow outs (win or loose).

Easier said than done but:

• Don’t worry about your rank.
• During a match, don’t focus on mistakes (yours or others) they are in the past and can’t be undone
• Be flexible. This isn’t an RTS so you don’t have control over everyone else. They may run a split you don’t like, but your reaction to it could either keep the game close or throw it.
• Recognize when you are tilted/frustrated and either go to unranked, PVE, hot-join duels until you calm down
• Take breaks
• Take time to watch your game play. You can pick up a lot of stuff that you didn’t see when you played.

Played 1500 games in 2013-2014 and got to the top of the leaderboards. Returned in December 2016 to find that everyone that I used to beat now stomps me. Internet crashes during 2 placement games. Land in Silver 1. My mechanics are still trash tier but within 2 weeks I SOLO climb to Plat 1 based on pure rotations/brain usage. Currently Plat 2 1810 Points #108 on the leaderboards.

Elo Hell is a hoax.

I keep playing because straight up, this game has the best, most fun PvP I’ve ever played. You’re going to get AFKers, disinterested people, and the like in any game, and it’s not worth stressing about, it’s the nature of playing a game on the internet. Everyone is going to have those kind of people on their team at some point.

I try not to play more than 5-10 games on a given day because it can get frustrating sometimes, but it’s also much less of a time commitment per game than a lot of other games. A bad player on your team, or a D/C or an AFK only costs you about 8-10 minutes, and then you can get a fresh start and jump into another game. If you get a player like that in a game like LoL, it can cost you upwards of an hour of your time for one single game. That’s why I’m sticking to GW2 PvP currently.

PvP is currently the most rewarding game mode for me, so I keep going. I’ve found a build this season I really like (Core Shout/Support Guard) and it’s got me playing around where I thought my skill level should be (Gold), so I’m happy.

Blizzmaster.9163:

I keep playing because straight up, this game has the best, most fun PvP I’ve ever played. You’re going to get AFKers, disinterested people, and the like in any game, and it’s not worth stressing about, it’s the nature of playing a game on the internet. Everyone is going to have those kind of people on their team at some point.

Not once while playing WoW arenas did I have some afk player on my team. This because I had to choose my teammates before I could even queue up for a match. So no, you will not get afk’ers and the like in every other game. You will, however, get them in this game because you get rewards whether you win or lose and, despite it being a game modes centered around 5-man teams, you have no control over what teammates you get.

2600+ games now — been playing since launch, so I’ve seen the ins and outs. Currently sitting in gold (around 1550). Got a bad luck streak lately and bad teams, so I’m lower than usual.

Thing I’ve noticed is that it doesn’t matter what season or time you play — ever since launch you will get stupid people on your team if you solo queue. It might be easier to require 5v5 premades, and incorporate a special LFG tool to make it easier (IE machine will match a party together based on what it thinks, then people can change it up, then enter). In a sense, it already does this. Just doesn’t give you enough time to actually plan.

I would say most of the time the PvP has been hit or miss. The hits have been great. The misses… well, aggravating. It doesn’t help that ArenaNet’s balance patches are few and far between, and often they hit so hard that the meta shifts to a new unbalanced state. Instead of trying to fix it all at once, I suggest they do smaller balance changes constantly, which would make fine tuning much easier and prevent drastic shifts in the meta.

I have 9,8k pvp games played so far, and honestly, if they (ArenaNet) really thought that solo/duo queue was going to be a good decision, it just shows ArenaNet lacks people to make good decisions. I don’t believe it’s really difficult to make a code that will match players who are solo queueing against other players who are solo queueing as well.
When I read they were going to test out solo and duo queue for ranked pvp I already knew this was going to be an utterly bad idea. One or two players aren’t supposed to carry the rest of the team, hence we group up for 5v5, which means that excluding the possibility of queueing with pre-made teams screw up with many competitive players. I am a competitive player as well and I don’t accept the fact that it’s competitive to be obligated to get together with 4 strange people that don’t know how to communicate with each other and tell their builds, their strengths and weaknesses and then hope this team (yourself included, ofc) to succeed. That’s not competitive to me, it’s gambling.

I don’t play meta because it’s lazy and totally against that…what was that…GW2’s Manifesto? It’s against the “spirit” of Guild Wars 2, but since when GW2 has a proper balance team? Since when GW2 PvP balance team test every single trait of every single profession in every single combination possible against one another in order to find out unbalanced and lacklusting build options? Every single balance patch and it’s all the same, buffs here and nerfs there, not only a consistant decision. And this solo/duo queueing.

TL;DR You asked how we manage to survive in this scenario, well I can tell you that I just play whatever I feel it’s the best for me, whatever I like to play and think it’s good. I care about my teammates so far as they tell me what they’re going to do based on their builds. If they don’t tell me and let me to guess based how they didn’t get mid or that dh went far, well then, I won’t worry with whether my team loses or not.

Frustration is simply something you have to expect when playing a competitive game. It’s unavoidable to lose and rage.
I’ve started this season solo in tier 2 plat when an old friend came back to the game after a very long time so we qued up together. He was still a bit rusty and ended up in low silver.
Never in my life did I rage as much as when playing against and especially with this skill level.
But we’ve fought our way through it. Because we knew they were no threat to us and because we had the confidence to go in there and kick their kitten.
During that time I dropped to about mid gold since you always lost about 20 points while gaining 3-4 on that level.
But we didn’t give up. Because we knew we were better, because we didn’t care about a virtual number and most importantly: because we wanted to have fun together.
So we played for a while, had good games, had bad games. Eventually I’ve been on the brink of plat again… And we went on a losing streak straight to tier 1 gold. That was really frustrating, but once again we didn’t give up.
We kept fighting, went up, went down and now we’ve finally reached plat together.
And I didn’t come to the forums to QQ about how this or that is broken because no matter how hard we got stomped, no matter how bad or comp and how stupid our teammates were… I never played a perfect game. Because that’s impossible. You always find mistakes you make and that you can work on. I took many losses personal, even if my teammates may have been a million times worse. Some better skill timing here, a second earlier to rotate and the game might have ended up differently. You should always search for your mistakes. Because you can’t change the system, nor your teammates. But you can change.

At this point I don’t even expect us to stay there for very long. I expect a losing streak at any time just by how it’s been in the past.
I know that I belong here somewhere. But I don’t know where. Because people change, team comps change and I change as well. Sometimes you have a good day, sometimes a bad day. Sometimes good teammates and sometimes bad.
But it doesn’t matter. Just don’t care about that number you see. The way the game is structured it is basically impossible to get a very accurate rating for a single person.
Instead keep doing your best, make sure that you actually still enjoy the game and always look at what you can do better first.

Some tips for solo queuing specifically:

Understand and accept what you’ve gotten yourself into
Everybody who has played 5v5 with a full team in voice comms knows that it’s a completely different game compared to queuing solo. In solo queue, so many things are out of your control, from bad team comps to lack of rotations to AFKs & acne ragers. You’ve made the decision to play solo in what is fundamentally a team game, so you’ve chosen to voluntarily give up a lot of control. Understanding and accepting the situation will help you rage less when silly throws happen.

Adopt a long-term view
Elo hell is a myth and probabilities even out in the long run. If you play consistently better than others in your current skill bracket, you will eventually climb. It’s just a question of perseverance. The key to climbing is to play more, not less.

Have a carry mentality
Nobody can carry every single game, but what you can do is have the right mindset for winning. Your goal is to win the match with the random team comp that you happen to have. Think about where you should be on the map in any given situation for you to have the most impact on the match. Often it’s best to either identify and farm the weakest players on the enemy team, or follow and neutralize their best players all game.

Focus on individual improvement
Win or lose, you should be learning. GW2 is not a hard game micro-wise, it does not require all that much in terms of twitch skills, but the macro element is huge. Knowing your match-ups, which fights to take, when to stall or disengage, and most importantly, where and when you should rotate to, is a crucial element of learning to win. Some people play thousands of games and never grasp the macro elements of conquest. Don’t be one of those people.

Know when it’s time
The reward for getting better is getting harder matches. That’s the way Elo/Glicko rating systems work. If the process of climbing does not feel enjoyable anymore, it’s time to pack it in and go play something else for a while. Sanity should always come first.

I have close to 4500 games played. There are time I feel upset with the class balance or even class stacking. Both of which are Anet’s job to fix. I never feel frustrated with my teammates for playing the way they want. The other team also has players that are playing the way they want. So I really don’t think it is a factor that is holding me back. I’ve been stuck in gold. I haven’t been able to climb much higher than the border of platinum. I’d say it’s 50% because of my own skill level and 50% because I play off meta builds.

Sometimes coordination on my teams are awful for one reason or many reasons. But all the players on the opposite teams also deal with that. I’ve been praised by my team and the enemy team for being really good, then I have matches when a person on my team is calling me the worst mesmer in the world lol. Take it all with a grain of salt. My outlook in this pvp scene is just to worry about my own contribution.

My goals are just to improve my skills and become more aware of everything going on even when no one is talking to each other. I’m not worrying about rating too much. I did, but when I have have a bad streak of losses, my rating bounces back up to where it was at the next day. So really I don’t think you should stress it. Focus on having fun and improving. That’s how i do it.

I have around 1000 games played in sPvP and this season has been hell. The matchmaking is sometimes unbearable, I get totally clueless teammates who don’t know to play their class (guardians going for far) or don’t know how to fight properly. It has been a real pain to reach gold.
During the evening or the night sPvP is a stomping ground. You either win by hundreds of points or lose the same way, depends how kind the matchmaking was with you.

2k games for me. Around gold 1 to silver 3 on thief and alt mesmer.

I have some interesting games, some terrible. When I lack concentration on my thief I switch to my mesmer which is a non meta AOE damage build. Goal is simple, play the teamfighter role I can’t do with a thief. That’s how I came back from lose streaks.

I find this season quite acceptable, the meta has not changed much from last season. There will always be people you find are terrible on every division. But it depends of a lot of parameters : team composition, people’s understanding of rotation, etc….

A lot of the MM problems are stemming from the fact that GW2 is widely unbalanced. Not only players but setups win battles.

I have over 6000 sPvP matches under my belt, have reached the dragon rank around 200 times. Despite my dedication to PvP, I’ve considered myself a laid back player.

I’m moving up and down the gold division this season and I really don’t understand why the ladder works the way it does right now.
But that’s not my problem with the current season. I always liked PvP as a team effort and it was always more fun when you were playing with friends. Unfortunately, this season has been really terrible for that.
People might argue that the quality of PvP has gotten better this season, but I really haven’t been able to feel something like that. I always had a win rate of a little over 50%, I still have the same. I always had good matches, close matches, and terrible matches, and I still have them this season. I always had great random team mates and terrible ones, and I still get them this season.
All in all, I don’t really get how is the “higher quality” being measured, but even if there is any increase in quality, it has come with an incomparably big sacrifice.

Every season now (and I only play seasons) I seem to play a counter meta build (on mes or war) to see how high it will go, and/or until I get bored. Now that Interrupt Mesmer can’t function in the post HoT era, Rifle on Warrior is the only thing that gives me any interest in this game. And if the rest of the family weren’t using the PS4, I’d not be playing at all XD.

So this season placed in G1. Won a couple matches into Platinum 3. Went on a massive loosing streak to the bottom of G3. Decided my build needed a tweak as the meta had shifted slightly, and decided I needed to retrain myself how to conquest since I hadn’t played at all since sometime during S4. IMMEDIATELY I began winning and climbed right back up into Platinum, which subsequently is about the time I began getting bored/played out. My win rate on warrior has been increasing, and my average for this season over 50%.

I didnt mind the losses because I know I win more than I lose. My point gain has always increased, though it seems closer to leveling out now at the start of plat. I havent put in enough games to see how far into plat Id go. All this aside, since I play roaming DPS, murdering the enemy team always provided satisfaction no matter the outcome.

Oh and as for bad players, on the rare occasion you just have to tell it like it is

I just tell myself I can do it. MM & MMR +/- suck, but I just keep trying my hardest. Also, blocking people that BM me helps a lot

i dont know i always try to win when i play even during the past 4 seasons. now that its more harder to go up specially for someone casual like me it kinda sucks, but i cant even imagine to those who struggle in season 1 to 4 they must have quit pvping already.

…I still say S1 had the closest skill matches. The bunker meta messed up that season, but the matchmaking was the most accurate since launch.

Play less, my last ranked game i lost -14.

1 warrior on my team was raging. I was at far in a 1 vs 2. Mid was in a 3 vs 3 and he came to far. I was also playing warrior, i was still alive when he came off of respawn and got over there.

Soon after i died, he dies shortly later and mid lost there 3 vs 3. He then starts to say stuff like you guys suck , why dont we have mid and i challenged him and he then targeted me and said i was the worst warrior hes ever scene.

I simply told him he was rotating badly, he then said stuff like 1 vs 1 me and i told him hes probably losing alot because he doesnt know how to rotate.

I add him to friends and put his nickname to talks alot and he was over 100 points less then me and has a losing record.

I mean at S5 Anet really needed a system to keep alot of these keyboard warriors in place.

So after almost 9k games and currently playing in plat, i can say play less.

Last note: Some build diversity would be nice Anet

Archon.6480:

…I still say S1 had the closest skill matches. The bunker meta messed up that season, but the matchmaking was the most accurate since launch.

Because simply put, there were more people playing.

HoT has killed off so much of the competitive scene (including WvW) that the problem isn’t the matchmaking algorithms but rather the game just not being good enough for people to actually want to play.

This leads the algorithms to become less effective as doing something as easy as finding ten similarly-skilled players isn’t something that can regularly happen.

Archon.6480:

…I still say S1 had the closest skill matches. The bunker meta messed up that season, but the matchmaking was the most accurate since launch.

That’s because it was so easy to play one of the unkillable bunker setups that even the worst of the worst players could survive indefinitely.

It wasn’t a close skill match. The game was so horribly broken that every match stagnated

LOL XD

Well i have 30 000 pvp games and i have seen everything.
Last game we are at canon we down them , i leave and mesmes and thief stayed behind, mesmer opens portal and leaves, AND THIEF FOLLOWS, giving the down players the canon.
I mean im atm 1800 rating i solo with necro, and i can say its a huge huge pain.
Players wipe in less than 10 seconds,they cant rotate or move,they afk at point, they cant even target.
My games are almost all 1 sided atm.
Its not fun to play pvp for me atm.

I soloqd into legend on first 2 days and went to play overwatch

when i read 5 man premade im assuming ur talking about unranked? either way if u want to carry solo kittenficiently u have to be the damage role if theres no one on ur team u can trust. The amount of hours u put in pvp mean jack squat if u don’t reflect correctly and really know what exactly happened in full depth or where you could of done better so probably should practice in dueling servers or something to build ur knowledge of other classes and their match ups so u can generally rotate and make calls for ur teamates where to stay to fight favorable match ups.