Guild Wars 2

As the title alluded to, this will be my case to explain how 15v15 deathmatch is the pvp game mode that ArenaNet unknowingly created Guildwars2 for. This is not to put any other scenarios down but rather show how the 15v15 game mode fits perfectly into ArenaNet’s vision of pvp.

1 – Pillars of GuildWars 2 group combat

a) Fast action combat: While not necessarily revolutionary, ArenaNet’s implementation of this style of combat is by far the best I have experienced. The mix of abilities that allow for fast closure or escape combined with a near perfect mix of rooting and non-rooting abilities enables an extremely high skill cap for group mobility. Those who can move together the quickest have the upper hand in combat.

b) Combo Fields: From launch, Combo Fields have been ArenaNet’s main pillar to highlight group combat. The intent is to have the team who can make the best use of combo fields and finishers come out with the victory.

c) Last Chance Revive “Downstate”: With two teams of equal competence in fast action combat and combo fields the victor will come down to which team can get those first few opponents killed. The team with the better ability to revive their players will be the victor.

2 – The case for 15v15 Deathmatch

Below is an example of a fight between GF and Ark that highlights how the 15v15 format puts all pillars up front and center in importance. Notice the speed which the combat zone moves around the field, the usage of combo fields, and how vital those few revive are for victory.

There are also problems with SPvP design that I feel only harm the scene overall but that is another argument for another thread.

I can see this thread going places…

It was an interesting fight. I think Anet hasn’t taken warmly to GvG because of the limited role variety, and also that they know how imbalanced PvE gear/buffs are.

Don’t know if you watched the MLG tournament tonight, but one of the good things that is different about traditional tPvP is that turnarounds happen all the time. GvG definitely looks intense, but as you say, once you finish 1-2 people it’s over.

GvG is incredibly unbalanced, half the classes are useless. But I guess ANET can try to fix the 4 classes that are useless right now…

Excalibur.9748:

GvG is incredibly unbalanced, half the classes are useless. But I guess ANET can try to fix the 4 classes that are useless right now…

The only class that could possibly say they are useless would be ranger. Every other class can be useful depending on how you organize your comp.

note: There is a completely separate part section of our 15man comp that you can not see that performs a completely different role than what the main group does.

NevirSayDie.6235:

It was an interesting fight. I think Anet hasn’t taken warmly to GvG because of the limited role variety, and also that they know how imbalanced PvE gear/buffs are.

Don’t know if you watched the MLG tournament tonight, but one of the good things that is different about traditional tPvP is that turnarounds happen all the time. GvG definitely looks intense, but as you say, once you finish 1-2 people it’s over.

Turnarounds are not only in the current sPvP. I will throw back to an EP vs Agg fight were EP pulled it off after dropping 3 or 4 players while Agg had lost none. What happened was EP had a lax moment in the beginning that cost them those players but they were able to pull together and then outplay Agg to grab the victory.

I tried to watch the video but it was a complete mess of stuff going on. Like the game on a cohesive understandable level does not scale for 15v15.
Like I’ve play Planet side 2, and it can have way more players duking it out then that, but it’s never that unreadable. It was straight messy. It sounds like you guys are communicating but I couldn’t even watch the full thing it was so messy, like everything that is groaned about in SPvP multiplied 3 times if not more.

GW2 just has that much Flash. If Anets vision of PvP is being that messy man they need some glasses.

In some respect it was messier than even a normal Zerg at a keep as the keeps help to force a sort of front/mid/backline a tad that organizes things visually even though it’s flashy. That Ele went from the front, to the back, to the front again, could be anywhere there is no line in the sand drawn and because of that so much flash clutters up the screen….

style.6173:

and no. Do NOT put 15v15 into PvP. There is more strategy involved and is better suited as a WvW gamemode.

15v15 can work in SPvP if Anet would bring in the same gearing options that exists in general play. That is, in my opinion, one of the big points that is holding back SPvP in general. The pve style gearing creates the mentality that when you make your build, it is YOUR build and for most players that is huge.

ensoriki.5789:

I tried to watch the video but it was a complete mess of stuff going on. Like the game on a cohesive understandable level does not scale for 15v15.
Like I’ve play Planet side 2, and it can have way more players duking it out then that, but it’s never that unreadable. It was straight messy. It sounds like you guys are communicating but I couldn’t even watch the full thing it was so messy, like everything that is groaned about in SPvP multiplied 3 times if not more.

GW2 just has that much Flash. If Anets vision of PvP is being that messy man they need some glasses.

That is a complaint not only thrown out for 15v15 but even the tournament pvp that happened today.

-To the untrained eye, everything in gw2 is a mess.

Gorefiend.9675:

ensoriki.5789:

I tried to watch the video but it was a complete mess of stuff going on. Like the game on a cohesive understandable level does not scale for 15v15.
Like I’ve play Planet side 2, and it can have way more players duking it out then that, but it’s never that unreadable. It was straight messy. It sounds like you guys are communicating but I couldn’t even watch the full thing it was so messy, like everything that is groaned about in SPvP multiplied 3 times if not more.

GW2 just has that much Flash. If Anets vision of PvP is being that messy man they need some glasses.

That is a complaint not only thrown out for 15v15 but even the tournament pvp that happened today.

Definitely I’m saying that it feels like the problem of Tpvp is even more clear with this video that the combat just doesn’t cohesively scale that well for multiplayers as it was even harder to discern things than a normal tpvp match. Which isn’t a good thing.

That looked like a kitten of a lot more fun than 5v5 ring around the arena.

Gorefiend.9675:

-To the untrained eye, everything in gw2 is a mess.

Untrained? The explosion of skill effects that comes from just 5 people is more than enough to warrant animations being toned down. You have either skills that fill the screen with effects or skills that have really bad telegraphing. It’s a horrible combination and 15 v 15 has no chance if animations don’t get toned down.

Leuca.5732:

Untrained? The explosion of skill effects that comes from just 5 people is more than enough to warrant animations being toned down. You have either skills that fill the screen with effects or skills that have really bad telegraphing. It’s a horrible combination and 15 v 15 has no chance if animations don’t get toned down.

You know, I would have agreed with you had it not been for Sacrex shoutcasting a fight between Second Law and Seventh Legion. He had managed to catch several crucial ground effects that I, and I presume most others, had missed. Though, I still agree that skill effects need to be toned down.

Gorefiend.9675:

The pve style gearing creates the mentality that when you make your build, it is YOUR build and for most players that is huge.

There were a couple of staff eles that were built power/enough other stats to stay alive and still deal damage. Hammer trains=PTV and maybe a bit of other stuff. Necro=dire or maybe zerker bomber/ds is viable, I don’t know. Guardians=soldier/cleric mix.

In the MLG tourney tonight, there was a zerker rifle engi running slick shoes; another engi running three kits; rangers; a d/p thief; a zerker guardian; a sword/warhorn/mace/shield warrior; and many others that I can’t remember. Are any of those even possible in GvG? Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, it looks fun and all but I’m just not convinced there’s anything like the depth of a tournament.

NevirSayDie.6235:

There were a couple of staff eles that were built power/enough other stats to stay alive and still deal damage. Hammer trains=PTV and maybe a bit of other stuff. Necro=dire or maybe zerker bomber/ds is viable, I don’t know. Guardians=soldier/cleric mix.

In the MLG tourney tonight, there was a zerker rifle engi running slick shoes; another engi running three kits; rangers; a d/p thief; a zerker guardian; a sword/warhorn/mace/shield warrior; and many others that I can’t remember. Are any of those even possible in GvG? Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, it looks fun and all but I’m just not convinced there’s anything like the depth of a tournament.

EP runs an Engi, though not sure what type. TW runs a backline rifle warrior. Some guilds run a very light hammer train and focus more on backline dps. While others go all in with the frontline and leave a bare minimum backline crew. Some guilds run a periphery counter squad of varying sizes that run on the DPS side. The variety for this type of gameplay is unmatched to any other game mode.

Specifically on your point of running zerker. A person with a mixture gear set/build in pve will out-burst a zerker gear set/build in spvp.

note: In pve/wvw, you are not pigeonholed into being either bunker or zerker. There is an entire spectrum inbetween you can work with and still be viable.

“GvG” is a zergy clusterbeep lol, keep that stuff in WvW, or let custom arena’s hold 30-40 people for people that feel like kitten ing around like that.

15 v 15 as an actual mode would be fine as long as the map is big and splits people up, I wouldn’t mind having an Arathi Basin.

I’ve done both 15v15 and team play. They both differ so feeling threatened by one or the other is not needed. Bringing the 15 man teams would bring a lot more heads for this spvp grand plan of #esports and gaming houses. Those 15 mans would probably never go back to wvw and be in the heart of the mist. Something tells me they would 5man in off hours.

That was a free #protip

Gorefiend.9675:

You know, I would have agreed with you had it not been for Sacrex shoutcasting a fight between Second Law and Seventh Legion. He had managed to catch several crucial ground effects that I, and I presume most others, had missed. Though, I still agree that skill effects need to be toned down.

Several being the operative word.

Mindtrick.5190:

I’ve done both 15v15 and team play. They both differ so feeling threatened by one or the other is not needed. Bringing the 15 man teams would bring a lot more heads for this spvp grand plan of #esports and gaming houses. Those 15 mans would probably never go back to wvw and be in the heart of the mist. Something tells me they would 5man in off hours.

That was a free #protip

SPeaking sense isn’t allowed.

That being said didn’t GF beat CC in the MLG tourney????

I think this should be a thing just so that the gw2 gvgers actually have a place to go, Devon doesn’t seem to give a kitten about them. As long as tPvP exists I’m happy, and what others play doesn’t effect me.

Gorefiend.9675:

ensoriki.5789:

I tried to watch the video but it was a complete mess of stuff going on. Like the game on a cohesive understandable level does not scale for 15v15.
Like I’ve play Planet side 2, and it can have way more players duking it out then that, but it’s never that unreadable. It was straight messy. It sounds like you guys are communicating but I couldn’t even watch the full thing it was so messy, like everything that is groaned about in SPvP multiplied 3 times if not more.

GW2 just has that much Flash. If Anets vision of PvP is being that messy man they need some glasses.

That is a complaint not only thrown out for 15v15 but even the tournament pvp that happened today.

-To the untrained eye, everything in gw2 is a mess.

Even to the trained eye. Particle effects need a massive tone down.

The problem with 15 vs. 15 Deathmatch is obvious: The game is not built for it. With skill effects of 30 players cluttering your screen the dodge mechanic becomes meaningless. Especially in melee trains it is impossible to indentify animations and single spells. How could anyone time their dodges under these circumstances? Further, with the AoE cap you cannot reliably target inidividuals. In the GvG clusterkitten your AoE spells hit randomly five people in the area.

The worst thing: your individual skill does not matter. In sPvP you sometimes see great gameplay by an individual that impacts the entire match, Teldo’s 1v2 at PAX for example. In GvG, however, the influence of a single individual on the outcome of a fight is minimal. 15 vs 15 is simply too much, for the game, the player and the spectators.

yeah but CC had latency issues and super dc/d at the beginning of the second match

FirstBlood.7359:

The problem with 15 vs. 15 Deathmatch is obvious: The game is not built for it. With skill effects of 30 players cluttering your screen the dodge mechanic becomes meaningless. Especially in melee trains it is impossible to indentify animations and single spells.

As said earlier, the clutter is a problem even for the 5v5 SPvP matches.

FirstBlood.7359:

Further, with the AoE cap you cannot reliably target inidividuals. In the GvG clusterkitten your AoE spells hit randomly five people in the area.

Except both Ark, GF, and multiple other guilds use strategies that involve targeting specific individuals for 15v15.

FirstBlood.7359:

The worst thing: your individual skill does not matter. In sPvP you sometimes see great gameplay by an individual that impacts the entire match, Teldo’s 1v2 at PAX for example. In GvG, however, the influence of a single individual on the outcome of a fight is minimal.

There is a phrase for someone without personal skill in 15v15 type of fights. They are called “Rally Bots” and having one alone is enough to cause a loss against an otherwise evenly matched opponent.

For an example to counter your personal skill point, lets talk about a staff ele’s role:

Positioning:
The staff ele needs to maintain enough distance from the enemys frontline as to avoid getting quickly singled out and killed (eles won’t last more than 2 seconds in that kind of heat). At the exact same time, the eles need to make sure they are close enough to your friendly frontline so that if a “regroup” (regroups take at most 4-5 seconds) is called or you are getting singled out by counter-classes, it only takes a second to re-gather on the frontline leader.

Spell usage:
Staff Ele is a groups primary source of combo fields. The ele needs to make sure to time out his/her fields with, usually, the second ele in the group so as to never overlap them. All combo fields need to be placed in spots where the battle will linger so as to make best use of it. Re-watch the GF vs Ark video and see just how hard that can be with the fast moving pace of the battlefield.

On the offensive part of spell usage, the staff ele needs to be constantly applying pressure to the enemy to not allow the enemy safe and fast re-groups. The most important spell being meteor shower as a well place meteor shower (one that is placed on top of a lingering group in battle) will set the enemy on the backfoot. Also realize a well placed meteor shower will take off about 9k health from the ele through retaliation alone so proper positioning means the difference between life and insta-gib.

That is the overall role of the staff ele alone. If you want even more examples of individual skill, often times groups will employ “periphery counters” which is basically someone or a group of someones whose main responsibility is to single out low health and backline individuals to quickly take them down. If you are being singled out, you need to have the knowledge of each classes abilities to know what to dodge and when. In that sense, you need to have knowledge of 1v1,2,3 to be able to effectively fill the role of staff ele. That level of awareness needs to happen all the while keeping up with the previous three paragraphs of role explanation during the entire fight.

With that knowledge in mind, re-watch the example video and just see how those play into that group setting.

note: I chose the staff ele to explain not because it takes the most skill, every other class will have equally long role explanations, but rather because it is the role I know the most.

I think GW2 just needs a death match mode. Just for laughs. Not for anything serious. I currently play smite just to punch things in the face because it’s fun.

I really don’t think bringing gvg to spvp is a good idea. I think just about everyone who does gvg prefers pve gearing and food. If anet wised up and brought those things over then maybe, but atm I doubt many would want to make the transition. I think it’d be far better if anet instead worked on a way to integrate organized gvg into wvw.

However, I facepalm every time I see dumb comments about pve gear and food buffs being horribly unbalanced. Remember the whole, worst meta ever, terrible balance, elementalists being nonexistent, and most classes being pigeon holed into one or two builds thing? What balance do you think you’re protecting in spvp? Pve gear and food buffs allow far more customization and build diversity than pvp gear, and is a pretty significant reason for many people choosing not to play spvp.

dreztina.4820:

I really don’t think bringing gvg to spvp is a good idea. I think just about everyone who does gvg prefers pve gearing and food. If anet wised up and brought those things over then maybe, but atm I doubt many would want to make the transition. I think it’d be far better if anet instead worked on a way to integrate organized gvg into wvw.

However, I facepalm every time I see dumb comments about pve gear and food buffs being horribly unbalanced. Remember the whole, worst meta ever, terrible balance, elementalists being nonexistent, and most classes being pigeon holed into one or two builds thing? What balance do you think you’re protecting in spvp? Pve gear and food buffs allow far more customization and build diversity than pvp gear, and is a pretty significant reason for many people choosing not to play spvp.

sPvP balance is trash but still 100x better than GvG balance

Excalibur.9748:

sPvP balance is trash but still 100x better than GvG balance

Nothing comes close to the diversity of builds and group setups you can bring to 15v15’s

Gorefiend.9675:

Excalibur.9748:

sPvP balance is trash but still 100x better than GvG balance

Nothing comes close to the diversity of builds and group setups you can bring to 15v15’s

Yes, if you consider pressing a bunch of buttons mindlessly and hoping to win counts, then yes it has more diversity of builds. Build diversity isn’t going to save that clusterkitten you guys call GvG. The fact that arenanet is supposedly wasting resources on a game mode that can only benefits a small tiny fraction while they can use those same resources to open up SPvP more to the players, is sad.

But I supposed the loudmouths go arenanet by the balls.

Gorefiend.9675:

Excalibur.9748:

sPvP balance is trash but still 100x better than GvG balance

Nothing comes close to the diversity of builds and group setups you can bring to 15v15’s

Nothing comes close to the diversity of builds and group setups you can bring to a siege zerg.

This is a terrible line of reasoning because PvE equipment has no balance checks whatsoever, leaving you with things like Rune of Perplexity and rampant food buffs.

Leuca.5732:

Nothing comes close to the diversity of builds and group setups you can bring to a siege zerg.

This is a terrible line of reasoning because PvE equipment has no balance checks whatsoever, leaving you with things like Rune of Perplexity and rampant food buffs.

Just wondering but what is wrong with food buffs? It adds another level of choice for someone to make. Choice is always good. I always run around with 7 or so different food buffs that I can change to depending on which group I am fighting. That is another level of diversity that I rather enjoy.

Rune of perplexity is indeed overpowered in 1v1’s. I am not arguing for 1v1s though, I am arguing for 15v15s and there perplexity actually fits in rather nicely.

Gorefiend.9675:

Leuca.5732:

Nothing comes close to the diversity of builds and group setups you can bring to a siege zerg.

This is a terrible line of reasoning because PvE equipment has no balance checks whatsoever, leaving you with things like Rune of Perplexity and rampant food buffs.

Just wondering but what is wrong with food buffs? It adds another level of choice for someone to make. Choice is always good. I always run around with 7 or so different food buffs that I can change to depending on which group I am fighting. That is another level of diversity that I rather enjoy.

Rune of perplexity is indeed overpowered in 1v1’s. I am not arguing for 1v1s though, I am arguing for 15v15s and there perplexity actually fits in rather nicely.

Being able to double click for +40% condition duration is broken. You don’t even get that bonus by maxing out a traitline. And that’s just one example.

Runes of Perplexity fit in so well with teams because they’re broken. It’s like taking a confusion on interrupt and multiplying it by 5 for each person who has the rune. The only thing keeping it from decimating entire mobs is the aoe limit, but that’s not enough of a balancing factor.

Well i watched the video, first and only thought: like hotjoin 8×8 BUT worse.

Leuca.5732:

Being able to double click for +40% condition duration is broken. You don’t even get that bonus by maxing out a traitline. And that’s just one example.

Runes of Perplexity fit in so well with teams because they’re broken. It’s like taking a confusion on interrupt and multiplying it by 5 for each person who has the rune. The only thing keeping it from decimating entire mobs is the aoe limit, but that’s not enough of a balancing factor.

So you don’t really care about the buffs the food brings but rather the method you go about obtaining it. Never mind that the food buffs are all actually balanced within themselves. Just your problem with them is how you obtain that buff? Seems pretty petty to me.

Runes of Perplexity fit in so well with teams because there does not exist a way for you to reliably get the confusion to proc AoE. It is impossible to spam that level of confusion on an entire group. The amount of AoE abilities that proc confusion that are not nullified by stability pales in comparison to that of single target. Add onto that the amount of natural condi removal a good frontline will have the runes are not at all overpowered. That rune would best be used on the role of counter periphery.

Gorefiend.9675:

So you don’t really care about the buffs the food brings but rather the method you go about obtaining it. Never mind that the food buffs are all actually balanced within themselves. Just your problem with them is how you obtain that buff? Seems pretty petty to me.

Runes of Perplexity fit in so well with teams because there does not exist a way for you to reliably get the confusion to proc AoE. It is impossible to spam that level of confusion on an entire group. The amount of AoE abilities that proc confusion that are not nullified by stability pales in comparison to that of single target. Add onto that the amount of natural condi removal a good frontline will have the runes are not at all overpowered. That rune would best be used on the role of counter periphery.

Have I just read that Runes of Perplexity are not broken?

sorrow.2364:

Have I just read that Runes of Perplexity are not broken?

1v1 yes they are broken. We are talking about 15v15 though.

I don’t have problems with you to 15v15 around. But stop calling things like food-buff or RoP “balanced”. You totally attract negative comments with statements like these.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

I don’t have problems with you to 15v15 around. But stop calling things like food-buff or RoP “balanced”. You totally attract negative comments with statements like these.

Unless you will backup your statement that food-buffs are not balanced with reasoning, I suggest you don’t make that claim.

Gorefiend.9675:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

I don’t have problems with you to 15v15 around. But stop calling things like food-buff or RoP “balanced”. You totally attract negative comments with statements like these.

Unless you will backup your statement that food-buffs are not balanced with reasoning, I suggest you don’t make that claim.

Because the amount of efficacy you get for the minor monetary investment completely determines your output in PvE/WvW. Nevermind the fact that adding a money sink to PvE/WvW balance mechanisms is a terrible idea; their effects are just too strong for what they are actually affecting. 40% condition duration wouldn’t be as game-changing if conditions weren’t the strongest form of damage (per stat point invested) in the game.

Gorefiend.9675:

1v1 yes they are broken. We are talking about 15v15 though.

’cause in those 15v15 matchups nobody is going to use AoE stuns/daze, like Earthshaker, Wail of Doom, Chaos Storm and Static Field, right?
So it is only a hearsay that in WvWvW hammer trains are fairly popular.

sorrow.2364:

’cause in those 15v15 matchups nobody is going to use AoE stuns/daze, like Earthshaker, Wail of Doom, Chaos Storm and Static Field, right?
So it is only a hearsay that in WvWvW hammer trains are fairly popular.

Gorefiend.9675:

Runes of Perplexity fit in so well with teams because there does not exist a way for you to reliably get the confusion to proc AoE. It is impossible to spam that level of confusion on an entire group. The amount of AoE abilities that proc confusion that are not nullified by stability pales in comparison to that of single target. Add onto that the amount of natural condi removal a good frontline will have the runes are not at all overpowered. That rune would best be used on the role of counter periphery.

Not only stability as well; there are also large amounts of blind being thrown about. If you watched the video, remember when the necros called out their plague form? That means they are sitting in the opponents frontline spamming blind making them swing at air.

Leuca.5732:

Because the amount of efficacy you get for the minor monetary investment completely determines your output in PvE/WvW. Nevermind the fact that adding a money sink to PvE/WvW balance mechanisms is a terrible idea; their effects are just too strong for what they are actually affecting. 40% condition duration wouldn’t be as game-changing if conditions weren’t the strongest form of damage (per stat point invested) in the game.

Remember, I am only arguing for 15v15. I have a feeling you are looking at this through a very broad lens. Anyways, you kind of argued both sides of the coin for half of your first point. Your first sentence states that the monetary investment is too small for what you get but the second argues that it should not cost anything. You also state, I believe, that the food determines how you play in wvw? That does not make much sense to be honest because if you spec as a condi player you would either choose the food that buffs your condi damage or the food that buffs your survivability. Nobody goes around building a spec around food.

For your second point, if the opponents is going heavy into conditions with +40% then throw on the -40% condi duration food. It literally does not get any more balanced than that. In a 15v15 scenerio to go heavy into condi pressure you would have to take a risk and sacrifice valuable frontline. That would mean two things, first your opponent would be able to ignore your frontline and directly attack your condi pressure players and second, there would be minimal boons being thrown around (especially stability) so if your condi pressure players get caught they will likely die. It would be a game decided by whether the condi group is better at kiting or the balanced/melee heavy group is better at catching.

I watched the video and I feel GvG like TPvP has its skill level but purely from a viewing standpoint no thank you. Its impossible to follow what the hell is happening to detail it. Just my 2 cents.

Gorefiend.9675:

sorrow.2364:

’cause in those 15v15 matchups nobody is going to use AoE stuns/daze, like Earthshaker, Wail of Doom, Chaos Storm and Static Field, right?
So it is only a hearsay that in WvWvW hammer trains are fairly popular.

Gorefiend.9675:

Runes of Perplexity fit in so well with teams because there does not exist a way for you to reliably get the confusion to proc AoE. It is impossible to spam that level of confusion on an entire group. The amount of AoE abilities that proc confusion that are not nullified by stability pales in comparison to that of single target. Add onto that the amount of natural condi removal a good frontline will have the runes are not at all overpowered. That rune would best be used on the role of counter periphery.

Not only stability as well; there are also large amounts of blind being thrown about. If you watched the video, remember when the necros called out their plague form? That means they are sitting in the opponents frontline spamming blind making them swing at air.

You said it.
Frontliners have a good amount of condi removals, frontliners are also the same who runs with Runes of Perplexity and are able to stack 9 confusions with a single interrupts.

Runes of Perplexity are broken, no matter how you can prevent them, you can’t always make sure that an AoE interrupt won’t land. Being able to stack confusion as easily is broken.

In 15 v 15 their is no winner. Everyone ends up dieing from seizures due to the particle effects.

Gorefiend.9675:

Remember, I am only arguing for 15v15. I have a feeling you are looking at this through a very broad lens. Anyways, you kind of argued both sides of the coin for half of your first point. Your first sentence states that the monetary investment is too small for what you get but the second argues that it should not cost anything. You also state, I believe, that the food determines how you play in wvw? That does not make much sense to be honest because if you spec as a condi player you would either choose the food that buffs your condi damage or the food that buffs your survivability. Nobody goes around building a spec around food.

No, I didn’t argue both sides. I simply stated that adding any sustained monetary cost, regardless of how miniscule it is, is completely unnecessary and shouldn’t be a factor if you actually want 15v15 to be a structured pvp format. I also didn’t state that food determines how you play; it simply impacts it too much to be a decent balancing factor.

For your second point, if the opponents is going heavy into conditions with +40% then throw on the -40% condi duration food. It literally does not get any more balanced than that.

Yeah, it does get more balanced than that. It’s called not having consumables be a factor in pvp. What is wrong with the game if I must bring a consumable buff to just to deal with somebody else’s? There is nothing ok with a food buff increasing your potential damage output per condi application by 40%. The traits are there for a reason; you give up some traits to get others. Food items let you bypass those limitations, both in the offensive and defensive sense. Food has actually created a necessity to counter the strongest effects you can get from it in WvW.

In a 15v15 scenerio to go heavy into condi pressure you would have to take a risk and sacrifice valuable frontline. That would mean two things, first your opponent would be able to ignore your frontline and directly attack your condi pressure players and second, there would be minimal boons being thrown around (especially stability) so if your condi pressure players get caught they will likely die. It would be a game decided by whether the condi group is better at kiting or the balanced/melee heavy group is better at catching.

With an AoE cap of 5, you numerically only require one fifth of your players to have any significant condition damage. This is not to suggest that your team doesn’t have some degree of utility/cover conditions just from regular skill effects, which must also be accounted for. Unless your condition applicators cannot manage to spread their conditions effectively enough because of 15v15 being too many people, I don’t see the problem with having the rest of your team dedicated to other roles.

sorrow.2364:

You said it.
Frontliners have a good amount of condi removals, frontliners are also the same who runs with Runes of Perplexity and are able to stack 9 confusions with a single interrupts.

You are wrong on three different levels:

1. warrior/guardian frontliners run runes of the soldier.
2. the fear applied by necromancer frontliners doesn’t count as an interrupt and therefore doesn’t trigger perplexity runes.
3. runes of perplexity apply 5 stacks of confusion.

You can have your opinion of the 15v15 format but runes of perplexity are not an issue there as long as your team rotates stability and shouts properly.
I can only see them being effective after a well coordinated well of corruption/null field push (which is hard to pull off and easy to defend against = balanced) or during thieves/mesmers deathsquad incursions against backliners (which are high risk high reward = balanced).

This game wasn’t designed with 1v1 in mind, runes of perplexity are the perfect example of that.

Lachanche.6859:

You are wrong on three different levels:

1. warrior/guardian frontliners run runes of the soldier.
2. the fear applied by necromancer frontliners doesn’t count as an interrupt and therefore doesn’t trigger perplexity runes.
3. runes of perplexity apply 5 stacks of confusion.

You can have your opinion of the 15v15 format but runes of perplexity are not an issue there as long as your team rotates stability and shouts properly.
I can only see them being effective after a well coordinated well of corruption/null field push (which is hard to pull off and easy to defend against = balanced) or during thieves/mesmers deathsquad incursions against backliners (which are high risk high reward = balanced).

This game wasn’t designed with 1v1 in mind, runes of perplexity are the perfect example of that.

Wait, now Warriors run Rune of the Soldiers over perplexity? So they don’t run hammer+runes of perplexity+distracting strikes? What a loss of potential, then.

Assuming a fight between competent guilds a lucky warrior will get his aoe confusion to proc maybe once each 3-4 earthshakers and chances are it will be cleansed anyway.
Runes of the soldier on the other hand would allow him to remove 15 additional conditions (1 condition * 3 shouts * 5 players).

Lachanche.6859:

This game wasn’t designed with 1v1 in mind, runes of perplexity are the perfect example of that.

Runes of perplexity are a perfect example of lazy, stupid developers who don’t give a kitten about how their actions affect pvp as long as the pve crowd likes it.

in all the GvG’s I have been a part of Runes of Perplexity have never been used.
I know my guild does not run them because they do nothing to help the group. its more of a cheese 1v1/Gank build rune.