Guild Wars 2

I’ve met many people who have told me they rolled sPvP/WvW Asura Mesmers, simply because of the advantages of having a smaller character model. It’s just that little bit more difficult to tell what skill the Asura is channeling, so I can’t react in the same way I do with other species. This is particularly annoying when fighting Mesmers, because things like Moa Morph and illusionary beserker are much harder to avoid. It does serve to undermine the dodge mechanic a bit, especially when you’re a player who puts time and effort into reacting correctly to enemy behaviour.

So it’s a bit lame that simply your choice of race can cause such a disparity like this but I don’t think it’s particularly damaging to the overall balance of the game quite yet. I really don’t see everyone suddenly rolling Asura, because I imagine the majority of people base their race choice on personal aesthetic preferences and not on what gives them that edge in battle.

I have a huge Norn and a tiny Asura.

The difference is AMAZING in WvW big fights, you ll get always focused as a big model but rarely as an asura. Really.

Size makes difference. You can hear this from every woman. And every necro using Lich Form

I think there should be an option in the menu to turn skill names on, and during the casting animation have it appear above an enemies head (excluding auto attack.)

Won’t really work with invis and instant skills but I think it would solve some animation problems, and be optional to turn off if you don’t like it.

Or maybe add an option to allow people to see asura with bigger character models in pvp settings. Watching an asura be the size of a normal human would help with people who have that issue, while creeping people out at the same time.

You know. I always thought people were complaining a little too much about Asuras. Then I fought a full asura team. I could not tell who was who at all and they had a distinct advantage over us. This should be addressed.

kodesh.2851:

Plum Butter.4058:

The problem with enemy cast bars is that Arena Net wanted everything to be more reliant on the visibility of the world itself. That is why they were not in the game to start with and the UI is very minimized.

^^

This. No cast bars. It would lower the skill cap, not raise it. Memorizing the names of the most dangerous skills so you can interrupt them isn’t in fact, skill. Having a feel of what your opponent is/will cast next based on many hours of gameplay and by watching their movements, is.

This required situational awareness lends itself greatly to the immersiveness of the combat and gameplay. And I think it would be of too great a detriment to that immersiveness and feel changing character model sizes, for the tiny smidge of fairness you might add.

It’s also a totally hokey/kludgey way to fix the “issue.” I hope ANet has more class than to just resize a race model because someone lost at pvp.

I totally agree, having to read animations is a really cool aspect of this game. It is however much harder to see those asura animations, and I also find them more difficult to tell apart.

If Guild Wars 2 ever turns into an eSport, it will only consist of full asura teams. Guaranteed.

Here is the reality about the Asura race. They were made to be small, annoying little beasts that everyone loves. I, personally, love the Asura race. I roll a Thief Asura who uses Black Powder —> Hartseeker --> Backstab. One word to you, chill. I never have a problem using Backstab on Asuras. I am perfectly fine with the race. I am actually happy that they implemented Asuras in the game. If you were a former Guild Wars 1 player, you would be glad that they added this race in the game. Furthermore, making them bigger in sPvP would be pathetic. The Asura race was adored in Guild Wars 1 because they were short, cute, little beasts. To take that away from them just because some people have no fighting skill vs. the particular race would be a pathetic choice. Agan, I’ve killed Asuras many times. The hardest kills are elementalists like Crypticrage or Dante, however, the reason I stalemate with those type of characters isn’t because I can’t hit them in the back with Backstab. It is because they sacrificed all thier damage to heal and tank out a storm. My advice to you my friend is learn to fight the class. Talk to someone like Soko D Mudo. I’ve seen him own Asuras many times. I, myself can easily destroy an Asura with Backstab. Practice makes perfect my friend.

Well, Anet stated that they were testing 1 map at each time in the paid tournaments to see how the meta was being developed, what was the trend in strategy/class setups and so on.. so they could do some changes in order to be more balanced and spread around having a larger diversity.

Anet, just check all top paid teams and you will see 90% of them are Asuras.. Is this good for the state of the game? If i had a steady tPvP team (i’m usually pugging) i would 100% for sure make everyone small little asuras with a huge guardian norn or so.

Personally i kinda prefer when there is many asuras in a team fight than lots of big blokes blocking the view(screw you big mesmers!)

I’m currently an asura(thief), human(warrior, ele) and sometimes a charr necro.. But i’d prefer all my classes would be charr but thansk to how ugly armor look on them in general i just can’t do it which breaks my heart

I cannot believe this topic goes on and on. I think it reflects on the quality of the community.
What is there to discuss here really?

MakeitNeil.4561:

Here is the reality about the Asura race. They were made to be small, annoying little beasts that everyone loves. I, personally, love the Asura race. I roll a Thief Asura who uses Black Powder —> Hartseeker --> Backstab. One word to you, chill. I never have a problem using Backstab on Asuras. I am perfectly fine with the race. I am actually happy that they implemented Asuras in the game. If you were a former Guild Wars 1 player, you would be glad that they added this race in the game. Furthermore, making them bigger in sPvP would be pathetic. The Asura race was adored in Guild Wars 1 because they were short, cute, little beasts. To take that away from them just because some people have no fighting skill vs. the particular race would be a pathetic choice. Agan, I’ve killed Asuras many times. The hardest kills are elementalists like Crypticrage or Dante, however, the reason I stalemate with those type of characters isn’t because I can’t hit them in the back with Backstab. It is because they sacrificed all thier damage to heal and tank out a storm. My advice to you my friend is learn to fight the class. Talk to someone like Soko D Mudo. I’ve seen him own Asuras many times. I, myself can easily destroy an Asura with Backstab. Practice makes perfect my friend.

You do realize you told me I lack skill and then told me to go ask myself (see my signature) for advice on how to improve?
Priceless.

Mufa.1326:

MakeitNeil.4561:

Here is the reality about the Asura race. They were made to be small, annoying little beasts that everyone loves. I, personally, love the Asura race. I roll a Thief Asura who uses Black Powder —> Hartseeker --> Backstab. One word to you, chill. I never have a problem using Backstab on Asuras. I am perfectly fine with the race. I am actually happy that they implemented Asuras in the game. If you were a former Guild Wars 1 player, you would be glad that they added this race in the game. Furthermore, making them bigger in sPvP would be pathetic. The Asura race was adored in Guild Wars 1 because they were short, cute, little beasts. To take that away from them just because some people have no fighting skill vs. the particular race would be a pathetic choice. Agan, I’ve killed Asuras many times. The hardest kills are elementalists like Crypticrage or Dante, however, the reason I stalemate with those type of characters isn’t because I can’t hit them in the back with Backstab. It is because they sacrificed all thier damage to heal and tank out a storm. My advice to you my friend is learn to fight the class. Talk to someone like Soko D Mudo. I’ve seen him own Asuras many times. I, myself can easily destroy an Asura with Backstab. Practice makes perfect my friend.

You do realize you told me I lack skill and then told me to go ask myself (see my signature) for advice on how to improve?
Priceless.

Ha ha! That is interesting Soko. I never thought you would be so adamant on changing the Asura model. I never saw you have trouble against them. I find it really easy to hit Asuras with Backstab. I thought it would be the same for you. Just practice more. Try to get to know the Asura’s body. Ha ha.

Anyone who thinks looks should be more important then functionality for the purposes of game design is the reason gw2 devs have no plans for esports..

I’ve come to accept that asuras will never get changed and am Instead going to reroll all my characters as asuras for superezmodetinyness. Even though it disgusts me to play ratpeople I guess there’s no point in not being an asura.

Hoping the devs make a “display all enemy models as humans” is pretty silly no one is going to put in that much coding into something so easily addressed by rerolling.

I still believe that devs should just normalize the sizes of character models for pvp.. I just don’t see it happening any time soon..

I agree with this. This is the case in all PvP based games, with some sort of small/short/tiny character model. I think it is a little unfair to make other people suffer this just because some people think it’s cute. If Arena Net Prides it self on having a “Level Playing Field” across the board. Something should be done to address this issue in PvP at least. Doing nothing to address this issue is, in my view, a display of favoritism towards “Tiny” character models for PvP advantage. Which makes all other attempts for Level Playing Field for naught.

Posted this topic in june, hundreds of people posted the same thing since then, this is half an year late, thought that by now people would have figured out that there is no longer point in complaining….

I always think that Asura thieves are doing heartseeker when they’re just dodge-rolling… But yeah, Asura’s are OP.

The most OP model is huge charr mesmers that fill my screen and block my view with their illusions.

Lol charr Mesmers are the easiest to kill.. you can always tell which one is real by watching for animations which are really easy to see because of how huge the charr is when he raises his sword to summon a phantasm every one on the map knows it.

Normalize all races to max norn size in pvp, problem solved.

Some asura animations are ez, some are not they just need to fix it.
Can’t tell me you can’t see an Asura using HB or HS.

It is a valid concern. example, human warrior eviscerate versus asura eviscerate, have two different animations for the same skill. Human eviscerate looks like an axe attack while asura evis kinda looks like a dodge flip.

I know it’s sort of an abstract concept,

but I think they could further seperate PvE from sPvP and have the ‘heart of the mists’ generate a seperate, permanent human avatar that would represent all classes for an account, and would be customizable the first time the account entered the mists. Then, further seperate Hot Join and Rated Play, and let Hot Join players have a way of playing with their PvE avatars to allow diversity to still exist to the majority of players.

My 2c.

Well this thread is dead, and no official response I guess anet is saying we should all just reroll to asura and stop QQing about completely imbalanced tiny character modules.

I agree with OP.
If the targeting system were polished pvp would be balanced, i myself use tab targeting because left clicking is more inaccurate and sometimes wasting skills on allies or wrong opponent also the game is not fast hands friendly, Here’s an example:
You cast a skill on target A then you want to cast a skill immediately to target B well that won’t happen,hits target A again even if your target is already in target B.

Well i don’t know why Anet wouldn’t care but for all i know is that “we already bought the game and anet has no business with us anymore so beat it” why? because the game is almost 1 year and the battle system is not yet fixed, hell even pvp still has op professions specially the when mesmers are zergin it’s super op.
Now back to original topic, yes asura’s has the advantage specially with necromancers wanna know why? it’s because when asura nerco summons a lot of minions it would be hard to target the asura unless you kill the minions first, they also have the advantage of team fights & when hiding against obstructed objects with thief class.

It might also help if they gave us a bit more zoom back. I truthfully only prefer using an Asura character in PvP because I can see more of what’s going on around me, I can’t imagine trying to use a Norn with the terrible camera angles in the middle of a cluttered fight, especially fighting on the tight spaces on the nodes. That combined with particle density is a nightmare sometimes.

do people in TF2 complain that the scout is smaller than the pyro is smaller than the medic is smaller than the spy is smaller than the sniper is smaller than the soldier is smaller than the heavy gunner?

no. because they aren’t kittens.

size matters more in a game that requires skill and aim than it does in a game where you can hit TAB and target whatever you need to.

zooo nooo i have to tab multipul timez in a crowd!

mew mew.

Size would matter less if condition effects were equally visible for all races. The purple chains from an immobilized Norn are gigantic and easily visible without even having to look at the player’s condition bar. The purple chains on an immobilized Asura look like a single strand of pixels – barely visible at all.

The swirling stun animation above a player’s head is extremely visible on Norns (it’s like a massive white swirling cloud above their heads). On Asura, the stun looks like a single strand of white pixels.

Simply make the condition effects equal among all character models and the problem is solved.

Don’t know if this has been suggested already or not but maybe implement an option to change all characters in spvp into 1 model much like in WvW only the animations should be fully detailed. This should be easy to do, gives people a choice and doesn’t actually change anything just adds to the game. It will also keep spectator mode and live casts enjoyable to watch

I can easily dodge burning speed on a human via reflex in a duel, when it is an asura it starts to get a lot more difficult…. that isnt coincidence and it does determine the outcome of a fight via something as stupid as race choice.

Mufa.1326:

I do not know again how this bad of a design could find its way into the game.

I know that for some people it is a non-issue since they do their dmg in aoe manner or generally do not care if they are hitting from the back, front or side.

However, if you have to consistently land backstabs on something that looks like a little speck and is moving and you have no idea which way it is facing and you cannot even see when it is dodge rolling…..it really makes it much much much harder than playing against other models.

Players should not be getting huge advantage relative to others just due to the model choice.

everyone can reroll any class/race combination at any point in time and instantly play

^perfect game balance achieved

/thread

nakoda.4213:

do people in TF2 complain that the scout is smaller than the pyro is smaller than the medic is smaller than the spy is smaller than the sniper is smaller than the soldier is smaller than the heavy gunner?

no. because they aren’t kittens.

size matters more in a game that requires skill and aim than it does in a game where you can hit TAB and target whatever you need to.

zooo nooo i have to tab multipul timez in a crowd!

mew mew.

You can not even compare the 2 games. GW2 combat has so much more depth than TF2 could ever have. It is much more complicated than target and shoot. The issue with Asura is not about targeting them, it’s about seeing their animations and their actions.

i never have problemsfightingasuras in particular… not going into deeper discussion here because this subject is already too much.. discussed >_<

Asura are op in pvp, why do you think 80% of pvp (tournements) is asura?

The reasons:

they are smaller thus harder to notice animation (but could live with if this was the only gripe).
2) They use DIFFERENT animations, and almost all of them are similar, to the point it’s ridiculous hard to find out wich animation is wich. Humans act much more natural. Asura with GS carrying over their head and all animations keep it on top of their head, making it way to similar, and hard to interprete the animation. This should be fixed, copy paste all, human action to asura please. They can keep their smaller animations as advantage.