Guild Wars 2

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Arganthium.5638:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

finally, sPvP will be made so casual friendly by then, the population will be stable and healthy, then they will finally make sPvP esports worthy. yay!

This statement is inherently self-contradictory.

doesn’t matter [snip]

How does it not matter? That was the basis of your argument for saying that appealing to casuals will help promote sPvP turning into an ESport.

Arganthium.5638:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Arganthium.5638:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

finally, sPvP will be made so casual friendly by then, the population will be stable and healthy, then they will finally make sPvP esports worthy. yay!

This statement is inherently self-contradictory.

doesn’t matter [snip]

How does it not matter? That was the basis of your argument for saying that appealing to casuals will help promote sPvP turning into an ESport.

a game with low population count will never become esports.

there are still lots of casual players in guild wars 2. but in PvE / WvW.
the first step is to attract those players from PvE / WvW into sPvP. (new rewards)
2nd step is to retain them there. (better rewards)
3rd step, is to train them casuals, so some competitive may be born from casuals (sPvP living stories, seasonal ladders)
etc

Ranger: nerf, nerf, nerf, nerf, nerf.

Guardian: buff, buff, buff, buff, buff.

You know, over half those Guardian reworks do not matter because they still aren’t going to be used in tpvp anyway.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Arganthium.5638:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Arganthium.5638:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

finally, sPvP will be made so casual friendly by then, the population will be stable and healthy, then they will finally make sPvP esports worthy. yay!

This statement is inherently self-contradictory.

doesn’t matter [snip]

How does it not matter? That was the basis of your argument for saying that appealing to casuals will help promote sPvP turning into an ESport.

a game with low population count will never become esports.

there are still lots of casual players in guild wars 2. but in PvE / WvW.
the first step is to attract those players from PvE / WvW into sPvP. (new rewards)
2nd step is to retain them there. (better rewards)
3rd step, is to train them casuals, so some competitive may be born from casuals (sPvP living stories, seasonal ladders)
etc

Casuals do not become competitive, because they don’t care enough to put in 20-40 hours a week to practice. Your idea that bribing people who don’t take the time to even learn basic damage formulas to transform themselves into competitive teams is… interesting.

There has to be a point to investing that much time into the game, and that means cash prizes, regular sponsored tournaments, and a skills/balance team that is concerned about PvP’s specific needs with a sense of urgency, not four month cycles where the problems are written off as “nobody adapted to the changes, so it’s not our fault.”

jmatb.6307:

Casuals do not become competitive, because they don’t care enough to put in 20-40 hours a week to practice. Your idea that bribing people who don’t take the time to even learn basic damage formulas to transform themselves into competitive teams is… interesting.

They don’t compete, but they do watch. Espawts needs spectators, and adding more casuals is a very solid, if not the best, way to get them. I’m fairly sure that’s part of LoL’s success; the barrier to entry is very low.

There has to be a point to investing that much time into the game, and that means cash prizes, regular sponsored tournaments, and a skills/balance team that is concerned about PvP’s specific needs with a sense of urgency, not four month cycles where the problems are written off as “nobody adapted to the changes, so it’s not our fault.”

Those first two will never happen without spectators, at least not on the third party side. A quicker skills/balance cycle would be nice (though personally I think just balancing isn’t enough and new content needs to be added to the game regularly to revitalize it).

Sarrs.4831:

jmatb.6307:

Casuals do not become competitive, because they don’t care enough to put in 20-40 hours a week to practice. Your idea that bribing people who don’t take the time to even learn basic damage formulas to transform themselves into competitive teams is… interesting.

They don’t compete, but they do watch. Espawts needs spectators, and adding more casuals is a very solid, if not the best, way to get them. I’m fairly sure that’s part of LoL’s success; the barrier to entry is very low.

There has to be a point to investing that much time into the game, and that means cash prizes, regular sponsored tournaments, and a skills/balance team that is concerned about PvP’s specific needs with a sense of urgency, not four month cycles where the problems are written off as “nobody adapted to the changes, so it’s not our fault.”

Those first two will never happen without spectators, at least not on the third party side. A quicker skills/balance cycle would be nice (though personally I think just balancing isn’t enough and new content needs to be added to the game regularly to revitalize it).

It’s not like Guild Wars 2 never had spectators. It’s just that none of the resources needed in order to make a game “esports” that were mentioned were utilized in that time frame (a simple urgency of balance would have been nice) and viewers lost interest.

We’re still dealing with issues of screen clutter and cleaning up the UI here, so overall the game just isn’t all that viewer friendly to begin with, and the amount of passive play that goes in the game creates probably the highest barrier of entry possible as a viewer, because there are important things happening in the game that never get seen or noticed by a person that doesn’t know the ins and outs of every build and every trait being used. Even commentators have a rough time explaining what passively proc’d at times because there are just so many things happening passively that it gets difficult to trace certain things back to their source.

Ideally, what jmatb is exactly what the game needed when the population was at its peak. But now, the population has been let stagnate so long that the game would literally need, on top of a huge balance patch, to then have some sort of crazy “hype” campaign to get the word out that the game might actually have a competitive atmosphere afterwards.

Hmm… You really don’t play a Ranger, do you? “Sword evasive Auto-Attack”…That’s a funny thing, considering Sword Auto-Attack is just plain opposite. It roots you and doesn’t really allow to move until chain in complete
Also, I don’t really get your suggestions about Necromancer. Imho, if you nerf currently OP Signet of Spite so much, nobody will ever run it. I’d just redesign it to be more like Power, because very few people use it with combination with 25 minor in curses and that was it’s destinated combo I believe.
Now, I don’t get why do you reduce already minor power damage from scepter. To force even more players playing condition spec? You know, it’s damage is like 1k maybe in meta builds. If it crits.
Problems begin only when you use SoS followed by Feast. Then you can get nice amount of LF instantly, but I wouldnt call nerf for it. If you can nerf LF generation, you have to no
t only nerf, nerf, but also give Necro other surv tools
. Now the fun stuff. Your entire suggestion about Warriors is to well…bring them back to state from last year. Just a little bit nerfed.
Warrior, same like Mesmer, Ranger and Thief, needs great redesign, because the core is broken.

Now, if we talk about Zerker stance, Diamond Skin etc.
I think, at least for Warrior stance, there should be something like tgis: For 8 seconds, all condition duration on you is reduced by 33%. Conditions don’t do damage to you.
This way, you can still kite Warrior somehow, Fear him etc, but it’s just like Endure Pain. You can also still stack conditons, but their duration is decreased and they don’t do any damage for duration of skill.
You see, Grizzly, your balancing is just mixing numbers when I feel, that to achieve balance and keep fun of playing, we need major overhaul, everything else is like using bandage after deceptication

jcbroe.4329:

Ideally, what jmatb is exactly what the game needed when the population was at its peak. But now, the population has been let stagnate so long that the game would literally need, on top of a huge balance patch, to then have some sort of crazy “hype” campaign to get the word out that the game might actually have a competitive atmosphere afterwards.

Yeah, a huge population injection is more or less required. That’d probably take quite a bit; new gametypes, skills, etc., to pull in the old players and possibly a F2P mechanic.

But, not really sure we want to get into that in depth here.

Honestly, the best way to increase the pvp population is to have a separate pvp only purchasable copy for like…10 dollars…then throw it on steam and sell the rest as a 20 dollar upgrade/dlc.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Honestly, the best way to increase the pvp population is to have a separate pvp only purchasable copy for like…10 dollars…then throw it on steam and sell the rest as a 20 dollar upgrade/dlc.

that would be a good start but mother (nc soft) would not approve. mother wants all the gem sales profit solely to mother only.

listing on steam store means lord gaben gets a profit cut on each gem sales.

A lot of this has been off-topic and, to reiterate, it would be nice for more suggestions that are specific rather than generalized.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Chapell.1346:

Mrbig.8019:

Qaelyn.7612:

Mrbig.8019:

If this game has no reputation as a good PvP game is due to those reasons i mentioned before ( slow balance handling, gamebreaking bug left untouched for months, no rewards, no way to estabilish serious competition), not because playerss want to play “cooperatively and not competitively”.

And I disagree. Because when I have discussions with people outside the PvP community, I get a general negative response that has nothing to do with specifics of the PvP system.

Most people don’t like PvPing because it’s a much more difficult and aggressive form of gaming. And GW2 also has another option that vies for players who like inter-player combat in WvW, which is much more relaxed and has other benefits over PvP.

Again, you’re not getting my point.

This game already HAD, in the past, a good PvP community, without caring about WvWers and PvEers.

Gw2 players that don’t like PvP have no point in playing it, but if aNet had been able to keep old PvPers ( like 6months after release) and let the PvP community grow instead of letting it shrink, this game could have had the potentiality to attract lots of people interested in PvP OUTSIDE the Gw2 players crowd ( most likely from other games, or totally new customers).

Anet, with their decisions, cut this game’s PvP legs.

We don’t want PvErs and WvWers in PvP, they’re, with a good amount of certainty, the cancer which brought all those terrible balance decisions into the game.

I may sound elitist and most probably i am, but this is the truth.

Exactly! we do not care about those ingame rewards, and then they put a lot of them suddenly all competitive teams quit and those so called HARDCORE SPVP players you can see on the top100 using their condition hambow cheesy kitten build just to flash their name in the leaderboard remain.

like someone said before, hordes of casual paying customers matters. the rest do not. time will tell.

there are still lots of PvE / WvW players.
future patches will draw more of them over into sPvP.

finally, sPvP will be made so casual friendly by then, the population will be stable and healthy, then they will finally make sPvP esports worthy. yay!

A game that is casual friendly cannont be competitive.

There’s a difference between a “easy to pick, hard to master” game like LoL and a “scrub friendly” game like GW2 where you can pick up a broken meta-proff, play it a day and striive to compete in top 1000.

This is the very reason why GW2 is not considered a serious PvP game and will never be an E-Sport, exactly due to people talking and reasoning like you do.

As Igritte would have said, “you know nothing, Jon Snow”.

Stop this “casual” bullkitten, you’re wrong.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

A lot of this has been off-topic and, to reiterate, it would be nice for more suggestions that are specific rather than generalized.

Fair enough.

I can’t speak for most classes on your list in depth other than ranger (not that I only play ranger, but that as my main when I first started the game, I know more in depth about it than other classes), so I’m curious where you think your changes would shift the meta too.

For instance, you only tone down a specific ranger build. I agree with your changes on that front, but what build would you believe replaces it in the new meta that your changes create? Do you believe your changes hit the power creep issues hard enough that builds like, say, the trap build, would be a warranted choice in the new meta, or are the changes meant to shift the “tiering” out of the ranger’s favor entirely because both the engi and necro can bring the same utility to a team, but can potentially build for options outside of how specialized a rangers trap build is.

Basically, I like that your changes address issues within the current metagame, but I don’t see how they open up many options for classes to build around to create more build diversity, which should also be considered as part of the balancing process.

While some people are freaking out about how “severe” the changes to “their” class are in the list, I do not think that if they were implemented the game would be so unplayable that people could not put together a working build.

Bear and the others who contributed to this list want a game where the best and people who want to be the best have to earn their place. These changes would start to take low-risk, high-reward stuff out and replace it with a progressively risky mentality to more rewarding builds, like a fighting game.

In that regard, I respect the idea, since I enjoy other MMOs that have a lot more cooldowns to manage, fighting games, RTS, and Moba games a lot more than the way GW2 PvP is and has been.

But at the same time, there aren’t many people who enjoy that kind of stress and competition when they play a video game. These are the people who run stuff like Minion Master, Spirit Ranger, etc. because they don’t want to turn the game into a part time job to be good at.

I support the ideas for sure, but I know that most people are either too selfish with their class’ standing, too ignorant to see the big picture, and too casual to learn about the whole game to value this list enough to support it being implemented.

jcbroe.4329:

DoYourBestBear.6810:

A lot of this has been off-topic and, to reiterate, it would be nice for more suggestions that are specific rather than generalized.

Fair enough.

I can’t speak for most classes on your list in depth other than ranger (not that I only play ranger, but that as my main when I first started the game, I know more in depth about it than other classes), so I’m curious where you think your changes would shift the meta too.

For instance, you only tone down a specific ranger build. I agree with your changes on that front, but what build would you believe replaces it in the new meta that your changes create? Do you believe your changes hit the power creep issues hard enough that builds like, say, the trap build, would be a warranted choice in the new meta, or are the changes meant to shift the “tiering” out of the ranger’s favor entirely because both the engi and necro can bring the same utility to a team, but can potentially build for options outside of how specialized a rangers trap build is.

Basically, I like that your changes address issues within the current metagame, but I don’t see how they open up many options for classes to build around to create more build diversity, which should also be considered as part of the balancing process.

The goal is not to make the spirit ranger build(s) obsolete, but to tone down their relative power so that making a clear and distinct choice between the builds spirit, traps, and BM can be considered within the overall team build to create a further sense of synergy rather than just “spirits are the best at the moment, on account of the team wide support and added damage to the battlefield, as well as incidental sustain on account of an aoe cap of 5 targets.”

Additionally, as things are incrementally toned down (as power creep is pretty evident, toning things down rather than buffing is the move here), things like power ranger and hybrid builds will still to appear with more regularity.

Moreover, the Wilderness Survival trait tree provides unparalleled sustain and is one of the best lines in the entire game – adding active play to this trait line will go along way towards extending the skill ceiling required for competitive play.

about your Mesmer changes:

Do you think, “turning around” the damage of Greatsword is a good idea?
I know, that some people complain about the damage Mesmers can do on a range of 1200 with GS.
However, du to the fact that sPvP is a lot about fighting on points, the high damage of long range GS shots wont appear that often, as when a Mesmer is fighting on a point, he will be close to the enemy.

In addtion, the fact that the GS damage increases with range, gives everybody a way of decreasing the damage by getting close to the mesmer.

If the damage, Mesmer now deals on 1200 range be the damage, he deals with GS in “melee”, I think more people would complain, as this would probably increase the average damage output of a Mesmer. (Without changing playstyle or anything).

DoYourBestBear.6810:

jcbroe.4329:

DoYourBestBear.6810:

A lot of this has been off-topic and, to reiterate, it would be nice for more suggestions that are specific rather than generalized.

Fair enough.

I can’t speak for most classes on your list in depth other than ranger (not that I only play ranger, but that as my main when I first started the game, I know more in depth about it than other classes), so I’m curious where you think your changes would shift the meta too.

For instance, you only tone down a specific ranger build. I agree with your changes on that front, but what build would you believe replaces it in the new meta that your changes create? Do you believe your changes hit the power creep issues hard enough that builds like, say, the trap build, would be a warranted choice in the new meta, or are the changes meant to shift the “tiering” out of the ranger’s favor entirely because both the engi and necro can bring the same utility to a team, but can potentially build for options outside of how specialized a rangers trap build is.

Basically, I like that your changes address issues within the current metagame, but I don’t see how they open up many options for classes to build around to create more build diversity, which should also be considered as part of the balancing process.

The goal is not to make the spirit ranger build(s) obsolete, but to tone down their relative power so that making a clear and distinct choice between the builds spirit, traps, and BM can be considered within the overall team build to create a further sense of synergy rather than just “spirits are the best at the moment, on account of the team wide support and added damage to the battlefield, as well as incidental sustain on account of an aoe cap of 5 targets.”

Additionally, as things are incrementally toned down (as power creep is pretty evident, toning things down rather than buffing is the move here), things like power ranger and hybrid builds will still to appear with more regularity.

Moreover, the Wilderness Survival trait tree provides unparalleled sustain and is one of the best lines in the entire game – adding active play to this trait line will go along way towards extending the skill ceiling required for competitive play.

Totally agreed.

Thanks for the response. Not sure why there are people up in arms about your thread, but I’d support the suggested changes in a heartbeat.

@ EverythingEnds

I think it’s a great idea because when you think about it, you could have some seriously massive burst with GS and Sword Zerker builds that requires great decision making, timing, and skill to get a return on. If you mess it up you get dumped on by a Warrior, DPS Guard, or any other melee oriented build that outplays you.

Doing that much damage from 1200 range is very easy and effective, which not the kind of gameplay Bear and others want. It’s a very old issue, where back in the day Mesmer would literally stay at range all game, Illusion of Life res and Portal out teammates who need it, and keep the siege cannon running.

That’s why they also bring up the Portal Repair Kit fix, to prevent that old school cheese from coming back and being required to win the third match in organized tourneys.

Obviously I like that change, and hope that explains some of the rationale of it. I’m sure Bear could elaborate further.

Mrbig.8019:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Chapell.1346:

Mrbig.8019:

Qaelyn.7612:

Mrbig.8019:

If this game has no reputation as a good PvP game is due to those reasons i mentioned before ( slow balance handling, gamebreaking bug left untouched for months, no rewards, no way to estabilish serious competition), not because playerss want to play “cooperatively and not competitively”.

And I disagree. Because when I have discussions with people outside the PvP community, I get a general negative response that has nothing to do with specifics of the PvP system.

Most people don’t like PvPing because it’s a much more difficult and aggressive form of gaming. And GW2 also has another option that vies for players who like inter-player combat in WvW, which is much more relaxed and has other benefits over PvP.

Again, you’re not getting my point.

This game already HAD, in the past, a good PvP community, without caring about WvWers and PvEers.

Gw2 players that don’t like PvP have no point in playing it, but if aNet had been able to keep old PvPers ( like 6months after release) and let the PvP community grow instead of letting it shrink, this game could have had the potentiality to attract lots of people interested in PvP OUTSIDE the Gw2 players crowd ( most likely from other games, or totally new customers).

Anet, with their decisions, cut this game’s PvP legs.

We don’t want PvErs and WvWers in PvP, they’re, with a good amount of certainty, the cancer which brought all those terrible balance decisions into the game.

I may sound elitist and most probably i am, but this is the truth.

Exactly! we do not care about those ingame rewards, and then they put a lot of them suddenly all competitive teams quit and those so called HARDCORE SPVP players you can see on the top100 using their condition hambow cheesy kitten build just to flash their name in the leaderboard remain.

like someone said before, hordes of casual paying customers matters. the rest do not. time will tell.

there are still lots of PvE / WvW players.
future patches will draw more of them over into sPvP.

finally, sPvP will be made so casual friendly by then, the population will be stable and healthy, then they will finally make sPvP esports worthy. yay!

A game that is casual friendly cannont be competitive.

There’s a difference between a “easy to pick, hard to master” game like LoL and a “scrub friendly” game like GW2 where you can pick up a broken meta-proff, play it a day and striive to compete in top 1000.

This is the very reason why GW2 is not considered a serious PvP game and will never be an E-Sport, exactly due to people talking and reasoning like you do.

As Igritte would have said, “you know nothing, Jon Snow”.

Stop this “casual” bullkitten, you’re wrong.

LoL is casual friendly. one day, guild wars 2 will achieve that. no thanks to you bunch of elitism people that’s for sure.

hordes of casual players from PvE / WvW will make guild wars 2 succeed into esports!

mark my words!

you heard it first from me!

EverythingEnds.4261:

about your Mesmer changes:

Do you think, “turning around” the damage of Greatsword is a good idea?
I know, that some people complain about the damage Mesmers can do on a range of 1200 with GS.
However, du to the fact that sPvP is a lot about fighting on points, the high damage of long range GS shots wont appear that often, as when a Mesmer is fighting on a point, he will be close to the enemy.

In addtion, the fact that the GS damage increases with range, gives everybody a way of decreasing the damage by getting close to the mesmer.

If the damage, Mesmer now deals on 1200 range be the damage, he deals with GS in “melee”, I think more people would complain, as this would probably increase the average damage output of a Mesmer. (Without changing playstyle or anything).

I do think reversing the functionality of the Mesmer GS autoattack is the right move here. The game needs to increase the correlation between risk and reward – higher risk, more reward. Right now, the Mesmer GS is one of those tools that is very low risk for a sizable reward. Also, the zerker phantasm has great AoE potential – both in team fights and solo encounters.

Another thing you will see is higher tier Mesmer cancel/casting the GS auto – this pretty much eliminates down time in the after cast portion of the skill as it was intended.

So, not only should the risk match the reward, but cancel casting to eliminate aftercast while still dealing massive damage should also be addressed.

How do you figure that LoL is a casual game and this game is not? I guess LoL perpetuates the illusion that it’s a casual game because of its matchmaking. There is no such thing as hotjoin where there is an amalgam of players with different skill levels. The so called “casual” low-skilled players get matched with other casual low skilled players.

There is matchmaking in solo queue in this game as well. But, the illusion of casual-ness falls apart when those casual players join a hotjoin with perhaps a high skilled player and gets annihilated, followed ofcourse by them coming to forums and saying X and Y class are OP (granted, sometimes they may be correct; but oftentimes not).

LoL is and will always be a more competitive hardcore game than GW2 because the game is more objectively balanced. Furthermore, it is easy to balance the game because each champion’s can be tweaked individually. There is little to no diversity WITHIN a certain champion so their kit skills can be tweaked accordingly. Runes, Masteries and Items provide very little customization the champion’s base kit remains intact and is open to counterplay. Furthermore, every champion has access to every item/mastery etc. Summoner spells provide an added level of customization, but every player is made aware of each other player’s chosen summoner spell, again open to counterplay.

By contrast, in GW2 you have multitudes of traits, utilities, healing skills, elites, weapon swaps. This provides too much customization for the devs to balance the game effectively. Every single tweak they make make has an expansive reach. It’s not like in LoL where a certain skill of a champion can be adjusted to balance that particular champion. From a gameplay perspective, characters don’t have predictable kits like in LoL, no counterplay, more random spam.

Qaelyn.7612:

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Looking at shortbow number 3, you now have almost infinite dodges/evades.

Because tournaments are being dominated by thieves spamming SB 3, gotcha.

Dont forget my unlimited stability as a thief so i cant get stopped spamming evade skills by guardian lines circles and other impassable skills o wait…..

Ya GW2 is a perfect example of what happens when you create too many options. All the good stuff gets collected into a Frankenstein monster that destroys everything, and instead of reacting immediately to these monsters, they let them pillage everything for months before nerfing them.

Add that to the arrogance these devs have about their work, like how Skyhammer isn’t a total joke of a map to them or that we “need time to adapt to new changes” that are apparently beyond the scope of our understanding, and you’ve got a weak competitive scene at best.

As a long term suggestion I’d like to throw in a suggestoin:

PvP specific choice of two specializations for each class that accomplish conquest specific roles but are limited in scope, challenging enough to practice, and fit within a bigger puzzle of archetypes that make up team comps.

Some ideas of roles could be:
- Duelist (1v1 guy, backpoint specialist, not very good in team situations)
- Roamer (fast, hits like a truck, but made out of tissue paper)
- Team Support (decent damage and survival, great in teamfights, not good in 1v1s)

These specializations would limit your access to 3 trait lines and give a bonus grandmaster trait choice in each. You could only have 2 of them with the level 80 trait point pool, and those GM traits would be balanced to be a choice that your team needs would determine as the best.

That way you’d be strictly focusing efforts on PvP balance, eliminating the Frankenstein monster balancing issues by narrowing choices while giving them incentive, and shoutcasters could go over builds by calling out their specializations.

Examples of the presentation value of this:

“And now we have Caed, who is an Assassin Thief and probably one of the scariest guys to be flanked by with that playstyle’s damage and speed. He’s good enough with the spec to even 1v1 people playing Duelist sometimes.

Kensuda is a Paragon Guardian, who you’re gonna find in all the big fights helping his team with the support they bring. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him out of position without his teammates, which is exactly how you play the spec.

Bear is a Justice Guardian, and is one of the better Duelist players in NA. He takes the Strength of Balthazar GM trait, which is pretty scary to fight without a friend to help you take him down."

You get the idea. Kind of like advanced classes within the professions that distinguish you.

Stinja.9612:

Qaelyn.7612:

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Looking at shortbow number 3, you now have almost infinite dodges/evades.

Because tournaments are being dominated by thieves spamming SB 3, gotcha.

Dont forget my unlimited stability as a thief so i cant get stopped spamming evade skills by guardian lines circles and other impassable skills o wait…..

I do not think you quite grasp the relative power of having a class specific resource tied to skill usage within a realm of skills that have zero cool down. As an addition, SB#3 spam is not even the most grievous offender of the rebalanced initiative regeneration.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Qaelyn.7612:

Rarnark.5623:

Qaelyn.7612:

Oh, and while we’re at it – balancing a game around the needs of the top 0.1% of the playerbase is an incredibly stupid way to run a business.

I disagree. A pvp game should be balanced around the highest levels of competitive play.

Why?

As an example, GW1 was balanced around top-tier (development worked together with [rawr]) and it was a lot more successfull than its follower.
Top-tier players can achieve a level of experience, which a casual will never have. A top-tier player is able to push a class/the game to a maximum and can show the full potential of it.

Pity the example with [rawr] is rather bad, for it greatly delayed a well-needed nerf to an incredibly defensive build that mainly benefited only the said guild, therefore serving as a good example of how top-tier players (can/may) abuse their influence to keep their builds in the game, despite all the imbalances associated with them.

Besides, working together with rawr unfortunately didn’t exactly work in Anet’s favour, did it. (cough unpunished match manip fiasco cough)

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Qaelyn.7612:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Dispute my claim is your right, however not really reliable, as you never played GW1.

GW1 is irrelevant. Someone said GW2 should be balanced around the top levels of competition, and I’m still waiting for some rationale why.

Mrbig gave you already an input. Also the example that A-Net is balancing the game around casuals is the proof it doesn’t work out, not in such a complex game.

I’ve never seen such easy-to-play-builds in any other game, which can be learnt in 1 day and can be played successfull on a high-level. I really don’t understand what’s so hard to understand.

I believe they try/tried to balance it out for both casual and high-tier players…which was a recipe for disaster.

Also, to everyone arguing the game should be balanced around casuals…you can’t really balance skills around players that, for the most part, do not/cannot utilize the game to its full potential, which is sort of a must have when making decisions related to game balance.

Moreover, I couldn’t help but laugh at some shoutcaster suggestions one poster above made…in GW1, top Korean/US/EU guilds were more ‘famous’ and well-known in both pve and pvp game communities than any new-age twitch shoutcasting will ever achieve with the remnants of top players in tpvp. I can vouch for as much, because I was fanboying over Only One Star from [EViL] back when I was still a little ignorant pve/pvp nubbie.
Funny how that was possible even though esportz, shoutcasting and whatnot were either non-existant at that time, or were still rolling in their diapers. Wad does dat tell you. Yea, proper ig features/game infrastructure do wonders!

But yea, this game needs to start following the K.I.S.S. principle. Less is more, after all.

And people, for the love of kittens, do stop feeding Deimos Troll Arin.

I´ve got a solution to help balancing high lvl play:

Top 100 players – balance the game for them with their feedback. They can only play against themselfs.

Create a fórum just for them called Elite PvP players feedback.

Seriosly i´ve read on this fórum that Elite players (the choosen ones) already knew that warrior before the buffs was strong and it only needed some adjustments, but until someone used a warrior in a final match they didn´t know that. Only after that, people (the choosen ones) started to use warriors on their teams. But that warrior build was already played at low lvl pvp by a few warriors even before that final match. This means that “low skilled people” already knew warriors could compete with the meta classes at that moment.

Balance its needed at all playing levels and i agree with some balancing posted here in some professions. But to tell that those balances need to happen because “top players” know what its better for the game…
And to tell that the game its the way it is because ANet balanced the game because of casuals…

I still remember the SotG where elite players talked about the game with the devs and their questions, sugestions were based on fórum feedback (All fórum feedback, not only “Top PvP Players”, ofc they were included so some sugestions were also made by them).

And you go watch some tournments and see the petting zoo played at high lvl pvp and other cheese builds, and they think that they are the only ones complaining about those builds and they think that they are the ones that can fix that kind of builds.

This tread now its a “I´m right because i know what i´m talking about and you dont” tread.

Stop with the Elitism.

That is not what this thread is. Anyone can post suggestions for tpvp, the issue is that the more general solutions are glossed over and the specific ones are picked apart.

Your feedback is noted.

/scans thread.

Sorry bear, you have no clue.

Yo Bear,

How do you expect anyone to take your thoughts seriously when your notes for the class you play (guard) is all buffs and no nerfs?

DoYourBestBear.6810:

That is not what this thread is. Anyone can post suggestions for tpvp, the issue is that the more general solutions are glossed over and the specific ones are picked apart.

Your feedback is noted.

My little feedback should be in the first or second page.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

You know, over half those Guardian reworks do not matter because they still aren’t going to be used in tpvp anyway.

I understand that, and its opening new fronts for different builds but… should the most used build for guardian remain the same? To be a 100% pick that has been ever since release?

Its just as people said about Healing Signet, its just to good that any build will take it… same for guardians its just to good that any team will take it… and that is not because of the bunkering factor, its because they bring far to much support for team fights, stomps/resses.

Imo this kind of build should be nerfed to be in pair with the other classes as well, don’t you think?

pedrst.3127:

Imo this kind of build should be nerfed to be in pair with the other classes as well, don’t you think?

Actually, yes. At the moment, however, a warrior has access to more stability (not necessarily group wide) and more condition removal for the GROUP per minute than a guardian – not to mention banner regeneration is far stronger than Virtue of Resolve.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

pedrst.3127:

Imo this kind of build should be nerfed to be in pair with the other classes as well, don’t you think?

Actually, yes. At the moment, however, a warrior has access to more stability (not necessarily group wide) and more condition removal for the GROUP per minute than a guardian – not to mention banner regeneration is far stronger than Virtue of Resolve.

How exactly does a Warrior have more group condition removal than a Guardian. Warrior only has it through traits and runes since the only thing that naturally removes it is “Shake It Off!” and Charge removing snares. A Guardian places down a mark and spins through it with greatsword and gone is all the conditions from his group. Also Guardians can get AoE passive Virtue of Resolve on his group too plus perma regeneration.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

pedrst.3127:

Imo this kind of build should be nerfed to be in pair with the other classes as well, don’t you think?

Actually, yes. At the moment, however, a warrior has access to more stability (not necessarily group wide) and more condition removal for the GROUP per minute than a guardian – not to mention banner regeneration is far stronger than Virtue of Resolve.

However you should already consider those changes taking into account all the changes you mentioned (or most of them) would already kick it in, which means ONLY a bunker built warrior only could have similar tools for bunkering as a guardian.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Actually, yes. At the moment, however, a warrior has access to more stability (not necessarily group wide) and more condition removal for the GROUP per minute than a guardian – not to mention banner regeneration is far stronger than Virtue of Resolve.

Oh, pssh, banner regen. I prefer to compare banner to Empower… not so great now, is it?

cymerdown.4103:

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Actually, yes. At the moment, however, a warrior has access to more stability (not necessarily group wide) and more condition removal for the GROUP per minute than a guardian – not to mention banner regeneration is far stronger than Virtue of Resolve.

Oh, pssh, banner regen. I prefer to compare banner to Empower… not so great now, is it?

ROFLMAO

Dude, that’s like saying: compare Aura of Restoration to Healing Signet… not so great now, is it?

IIRC banner regen has 1500 radius when traited. Also it’s permanent regen ticking for ~300/s if you’re running clerics (which you should) so in the 20s that your empower is on CD you’ve healed for more than twice as much from almost three times the distance… Not really a solid comparison.

Acandis, just like they told me in kindergarten – MATH IS POWER!!!!!

You are comparing a boon that every class can get to a healing weapon skill. Guardians can use regeneration with Virtue of Resolve at the same time and they can give perma of both to their team while also having a ton of other healing skills and traits with the possibility of the highest healing power stat in the game. Plus Empower gives 12 stacks of might so…

Perma regen on Guardian? Which game are you playing b/c there are no perma regen builds on Guardian… yet another goofy post by glaphen

Anyway, I think Bunker Warrior should still be a viable thing, but that something needs to be risky about it.

Maybe banners ought to be targetable or the perma regen trait is replaced by something else

Guardian can get perma regen through mace with Symbol of Faith with symbol traits and some boon duration and a bunch of utilities give it. No one uses this kinda build but the option is out there just like banners which offer far less in the support department. Rangers, Necromancers, Thieves, Mesmers, Elementalists and Engineers all have easy access to perma AoE regeneration without a grandmaster trait too.

Alright, so I thought what I meant by the comparison was pretty obvious. Assuming we’re comparing with Banner of Defense, what I meant is:

• 12 Might AoE = 420 Power + Condition Damage. I know it’s not 100% uptime, but burst is what matters in this game. Banner of Defense gives 170 Vitality and Toughness. I understand not every build can use both Power and Condition Damage well, but hey, just +420 of one of those is already pretty good.
• Power and Condition Damage are offensive stats. Vitality and Toughness are defensive stats. The offensive stats are better because you can have multiple people with the offensive stats all focus a single guy with the defensive stats. The 3-4 other buffed people picking on a single guy with the defensive buffs is more powerful, the 2-3 other enemies with the defensive buffs may not matter because of how focus fire works. To say another way, if you have 3 buffed people attacking someone, it’s like you have 420*3 = +1260 Power and Condition Damage of extra “pressure” on a single guy with +170 Vitality and Toughness, if that makes sense. I understand that AoE and such makes the argument more complicated than how I’m laying it out, but it is at least partly true.
• 2.7k or so burst AoE heal, I know it’s not as much over time as Regen, but burst healing > Regen for squishies.
• Banner Regen doesn’t stack well with other Regen sources. We live in a world where Healing Spring Rangers and Healing Turret Engis are commonplace.
• It doesn’t take up one of your precious 3 utility slots.

And this is just where a Guardian’s support begins. Aside from warhorn, slightly buffed res speed (not even, after you consider Poison on the body that you can’t cleanse), and elite banner, that’s about where the Warrior’s support ends. That’s why I compared it to Empower — I was comparing the banner Warrior’s main source of support to a single source of support of a Guardian. No, they’re not the same, but they’re at least comparable, which is pretty telling.

Your Offense > Defense bit made me think a bit about how you could run a Bunker Warrior more effectively than this Banner stuff.

Here’s a shout build that might be interesting to try:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-sB0t;1NKVP0Y4JLVQ0;9;6TT9;418918B3;0UJk6;2ZF18ZF183NV

Hammer and Mace would be effective CC. The group condi cleanse would be pretty nuts, and the weakness would be strong enough to prevent quick ganks. You’d have dodge spam, knockbacks for Kyhlo and point capping.

jmatb.6307:

Your Offense > Defense bit made me think a bit about how you could run a Bunker Warrior more effectively than this Banner stuff.

Here’s a shout build that might be interesting to try:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-sB0t;1NKVP0Y4JLVQ0;9;6TT9;418918B3;0UJk6;2ZF18ZF183NV

Hammer and Mace would be effective CC. The group condi cleanse would be pretty nuts, and the weakness would be strong enough to prevent quick ganks. You’d have dodge spam, knockbacks for Kyhlo and point capping.

Yeah, a build like this is more competitive in terms of support with a Guardian, although I recommend mace/shield sword/warhorn, and I’d take Last Stand over Merciless Hammer. The main issues compared to Guardian are lack of AoE Protection and Stability, (AoE Stab instead of self-only makes sure your DPS can help res and cleave downed without interruption) but you gain some personal tankiness and CC.

Acandis.3250:

IIRC banner regen has 1500 radius when traited. Also it’s permanent regen ticking for ~300/s if you’re running clerics (which you should) so in the 20s that your empower is on CD you’ve healed for more than twice as much from almost three times the distance… Not really a solid comparison.

600 base radius, 900 traited.

As a warrior I’m ready for another shake up patch, put some hurdles on the track and keep things interesting.

Sarrs.4831:

Acandis.3250:

IIRC banner regen has 1500 radius when traited. Also it’s permanent regen ticking for ~300/s if you’re running clerics (which you should) so in the 20s that your empower is on CD you’ve healed for more than twice as much from almost three times the distance… Not really a solid comparison.

600 base radius, 900 traited.

i guess it got nerfed, cause that kitten used to be HUGE

cymerdown.4103:

Assuming we’re comparing with Banner of Defense, what I meant is:

If you go banner, you go discipline or strength depending on the team comp.

jmatb.6307:

Your Offense > Defense bit made me think a bit about how you could run a Bunker Warrior more effectively than this Banner stuff.

Here’s a shout build that might be interesting to try:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-sB0t;1NKVP0Y4JLVQ0;9;6TT9;418918B3;0UJk6;2ZF18ZF183NV

Hammer and Mace would be effective CC. The group condi cleanse would be pretty nuts, and the weakness would be strong enough to prevent quick ganks. You’d have dodge spam, knockbacks for Kyhlo and point capping.

Lol… That 0/0/30/30/10 warrior….

FYI fast hands is the best trait in the game

Also banners are better because you can go from running no stability to running tons, so shouts would require you to build a comp with others granting the stab, further raising the skill floor.

It’s still not as OP as guard though, and that’s fine.