Guild Wars 2

Just gathering thoughts on what people think about time to live and reflexes in PvP.

I was here since launch but changed as a gamer. I got older, my reflexes got slower, and getting into an accident where the stem of a wineglass stigmata’ed my hand didn’t help either.

My reflexes are not terrible. I can still react within a .25 second time window to most things.

Compared to most MMOs where some of the combat is “stat-based,” survival time in Gw2 is very low. This is against conditions and raw damage, most of the time you will get bombarded with both at once -even against a single player.

In low end matches you can make about 3 mistakes before you die. I would consider a common mistake being 1-2 seconds too late on a critical clear, burning a heal through poison or missing a stunbreak before half a burst lands.

Normal to high matches this cuts down to 1-2 mistakes, a single critical error can drop you from 100%-0% instantly or put you in a situation where the fight will end in the next split second attack.

An example would be to hit a dragonhunter trap stack without an immediate dodge or defensive CD or eat a single thief backstab without an instant response. One single interrupt on a heal -your only heal for most classes will kill you. Or getting hit by necro scythe 5 from a reaper is also a good example of an instant KO.

Because of this I find that Gw2 is more reflex and muscle memory than strategy. The game moves too quickly (around fighting game speed) to really “strategize.” The bottom line is when you are getting hit by something really critical and you don’t hit your “I want to live” button, you simply don’t.

This is true in WvW where stats are really overblown and you can get instagibbed even in soldier or dire. Also there is no middle ground because some builds allow for sustain on the level of being almost unkillable but will cause you to drop dead if you mess up a defensive rotation.

Some of the best parts of a game is being able to make a mistake and recover against impossible odds or somehow use a strategy to turn the tables. I don’t see that happen much here. It’s simply someone makes a mistake and then they explode.

Tells in this game are also still pretty bad, sometimes its hard to mentally process what’s going on -especially when getting full condition stacks. Where did they come from, what combination of skills caused this? Some are just due to passives that have no tells and are just attached on to normal attacks.

Personally I’m considering passing on PoF, I feel like power creep will get worse and getting 1 shotted from 1500 from Deadeyes doesn’t seem like a fun way to spent my limited gaming time.

What do people think? Is player damage too high? Is sustain too low? Is this where it should be?

I say no to nerf creep until you can propose ways to actually increase strategic depth in a fight. You’re not actually expected to land sick mlg interupts.

I used to play WoW several years ago, and that’s where my expectations of MMO PvP developed. They have a system of diminishing returns such that each time you are hit by CC effects, it halves the duration of subsequent effects within a short window, until you are immune to further CC.

Obviously, GW2 doesn’t have DR and the result in team play is to pile on CC and burst enemies down quickly. On the other hand, clearing soft CC and instantly healing allies seems far less limited than I recall from WoW. There’s also the fact that GW2 is designed without dedicated healers in mind, so I feel like every class’s innate ability to heal themselves is at least somewhat stronger than it was in WoW.

It’s been years since I played WoW, so my memory of PvP there isn’t fresh (or current!), but I can’t say 5v5 team fights feel all that different here than they did there. A good team would lock down a target and focus them down to create a 5v4 advantage that quickly snowballed.

CC is a double-edged sword. It can be used to lock down and burst targets, but the opposing team can use it defensively to blunt your team’s burst. I’m sure the complaints ring true in that the burst is a bit higher than it should be at this point, but I’m not sure a drastic change in that sense is necessary or desirable.

What may be more meaningful is creating better opportunities for strategic play. Fewer passive/ancillary effects. For instance, I play ele and my overloads do about 20 different things from applying auras that also apply boons, clear condi, direct heal, to dealing damage and CC all at the same time. It isn’t very strategic when all we have are choices between abilities that do everything and other abilities that do everything, if you see what I mean.

I agree with Aliam about cc cause ive even made posts about it, cc is just cancer rn and out of control

I also agree that damage is too kittening high to have so little health

My necros has 24k health (if I’m remembering correctly) and he pumps out enough damage to have killed himself 1,000 times over

Ive literally cleared 400k plus in damage back to back in matches with a character that only had 20k something health

Damage should not be so kitten high

Like its been stated, in WoW you can make mistakes and get away with it, especially if you know what youre doing. Get sapped by a rogue? Don’t waste a stun break on it, wait for them to open up and then react from there. A good bit of this community hasn’t played WoW (and some of the ones who argues against of us played the last expansion). I played WoD as a Frost Dk and we all know that DKs were still cancer at that time

It was normal for me then to get the most kills, but at the same time I never took someones health from full to gone in 2 seconds flat, especially an experienced player regardless of their pvp status. If they knew how to react we were going to be locked into a fight for about 20 seconds+.

The game is fun or else I wouldn’t be playing it, but it needs some tweaks here and there

The strategic element may have decreased since HoT launch but the game still has some reactive gameplay. This is more apparent in duels but in teamfights and WvW you often dodge pre emptively expecting some nukes.

Some builds are also more forgiving due to passive out-of-jail traits.

To compare it with other games, while I havent played WoW, I did spend a few months on black desert online and blade & soul. Because of their pure action combat, those games had even *less* reactive gameplay than gw2. Animations are faster and you usually rotate out i-frames while hoping to cc combo your enemy somehow.

If you have slower reflexes, you are limited to fewer classes but can still do okay.

I have been fighting this issue for quite a while. It’s partly age and partly injury. Yes, I could take up DH.. but I don’t want to play DH.

My solution has been to play an odd build that people are not used to. Some of the super reaction time kids get confused because I don’t do what they expect. Then they have to hesitate and consider there next move. This is significantly slower than simply running through memorized responses.

ANET ought to back off the “hard” content model, it really is not working. In my view, PvP fell under the spell of the league players and has never recovered.

I don’t think the physics of pvp are to blame here. This is a situation where players need to understand combat aspects of GW2 or any game for that matter. There are 3 main things in my opinion, for being able to run as a semi competitive player:

• Reflex, yes always a nice natural gift to have.
• But identifying patterns and the time frame of skill cool downs is more important. After playing your class for around 200 matches, you should start noticing how players of other classes usually engage you. Pay attention to patterns, expect players to use similar patterns. Also pay attention to individual player patterns during matches. Learn the approximate cool down times of skills and know when to expect the big CCs and Burts. If you were to seriously practice 1v1 against a friend playing a specific class who is better than you or counters you, you’ll see that identifying his patterns and knowing his build is how to best him.
• The most important thing – Have a strong PC setup and little to no lag so that the above two efforts are not in vain.

The most important thing – Have a strong PC setup and little to no lag so that the above two efforts are not in vain.

That’s the tips, with micro-lags in the game and average player’s lag, vast majority of player can’t react to animation but can only predict next enemy action with experience …

On a side note it will be good if we can move the dammage display. Sometimes when it pop on ennemies we can’t see his actions.

there are no reflex requirements for GW2. at best, with a lot of experience you’ll get good at predicting what the opponent will do so you can pre-cast your block, evade, or dodge roll. there are way too many abilities in the game, most of them having animations that are too quick. there are a handful of animations that you can actually react to, but overall the game is a spamfest.

the good people who developed GW2 really had no clue about how to create a competitive title, which is why its e-sports got nowhere. if you look at OW or Dota2, the precast, aftercast, and animation dration of each and every ability are extremely important for the competitive health of these titles, and the devs are always paying attention to them. and this is why GW2 was never truly a “skill-based” game.

for GW2 to require reflexes and be a competitive title, they need to reduce the number of traits, abilities, condis and boons by about 50%. from there, they need to slow the game the kitten down so that people don’t have to rely on spam/prediction alone.

regardless, we love GW2 for what it is. I love ability combos, keeping track of all my cooldowns, the cool animations and effects. but let’s not kid ourselves by saying GW2 is a skill-based (i.e. reflex/reaction-based) game.

I don’t agree. There are strong reflex and muscle memory requirements. That’s especially true in pvp.

Special equipment like a razer gaming mouse and or tartarus will help also.

a busted wrist is gonna slow you down in any game, which sucks big time (one of my friends has some major joint issues – she manages as best she can, but some days are just a no-go)

and one of the things I like most about GW2 is how frantic it can be – but I still think there’s a lot of strategic depth in stuff like your build, choosing how/where you engage your opponents, and learning what other classes can do.

have you talked to other folk with similar physical issues? there might be some coping mechanisms

I don’t think I can give ergonomic advice on good faith because you’ve probably heard it a thousand times before

A lot of what you’re describing tends to be situational. If you can’t read and react in a 1v1, you’re just not practiced enough with your class (or the other person’s class).

In team fights, yes its chaos. But it becomes more of a situation of what you and your team are doing than what the other team is hitting you with. Knowing where to stand and knowing when to pull out of a lost fight, knowing which fights to engage are all crucial to survivability and your chances of succes.

For example, if the opposing team is DH heavy, and you see the DH’s standing on a point, make sure you have blocks or dodges and run over there and set off their traps, then attack. If you’re facing thieves, bait their evades, time your reveals and CC’s carefully.

In WvW, if the enemy team/zerg is frontline heavy, stay out of the hammer train. Positioning is crucial, you have to kill their damage dealers without letting their frontline catch you. There are several strategies for this, but essentially its “peeling an onion”. Its a war of attrition.

Gw2 is ez, just dont be a clicker.

And have smart keybinds for combos ex. mesmer forward phase retreat

is it any suprise that older people who have hand injuries have issues with reaction time in an action combat game?

something tells me the issue might be on the other side of the monitor, & not with the game. action rpgs are typically fast (ive played many faster than gw2) games. the fluid & quick combat is one of the main appeals. maybe these older, injured gamers are just in the wrong genre if being competitive at a high level is their goal?

sure damge is high, its a burst meta. but the community demanded this, & complained profusely about the previous bunker meta. people are always going to complain regardless, but i think the majority prefer burst to bunker meta.

yeah, PoF looks like it’s gonna be powercreep in some places. but the specs look much better designed as a set than the HoT specs are. they actually synergise & counter each other. to be honest, i think PoF might actually be a huge improvement over what we have now. but that’s just speculation. i’m going to wait untill Helseth, Phanta, R O M, 5 Gauge etc get their hands on it before dropping cash. i value their opinions a lot more that forum QQ & trash.

People still move their camera with their keyboard instead of their mouse…
People still Skill-click their ability bar instead of key bindings…

It’s no wonder that legit Burst Meta Patch only lasted for a month… the majority player base complained because they “couldn’t react to bursts”…“revolved around who bursted first”.. etc. I felt it was generally well received, but all the other l2p threads at the time was a bit overwhelming.

TL;DR
That “reflex meta” ship sailed back in 2015… this is a very casual MMORPG game. If you want skill-shot abilities, higher reflexes, or better skill-based counter plays… this is not the game for you.