(edited by Arheundel.6451)
When Anet gonna keep true to their words: "Offense>Defense"?
The game mode is conquest, the best strategy will always be bunker
Powerr
PZ
PZ
@Powerr
So what about extending the use of boon removal skills to all other profession outside necro and mesmer? Boon removal is the best strategy to get rid of bunker builds but not everybody want to run a necro ( my 2 alt is necro for this reason)
any other pvp modes planned soon? getting bored of those spvp maps and their objectives…
The game is fun to log on and smash some faces in sPvP but bad balance kills any possibility of competitive fun, especially for people who pug, which is most players.
The game is fun to log on and smash some faces in sPvP but bad balance kills any possibility of competitive fun, especially for people who pug, which is most players.
competitive puggin? oxymoron much
YES, more modes are coming, give them time. There are no dates or anything, but i’ve read they will come. : )
Most people just wanna log on and have a few good competitive games for the playstyle they choose to participate in i.e. fair games pug vs pug with good 1v1 balance. Not pug vs premade which on top of being a premade, has 3 overpowered FOTM bunkers in it.
I tend to think that the meta is full of bunkers due to the fact that offense, specifically thieves, is TOO good. If you run anything other than a bunker, you run the risk of getting istagibbed by the thief combo. Tone down the burst (while maintaining overall dps) and your bound to start seeing things other than bunkers.
What do you think of that, OP?
It’s not offense should > defense, but damage > healing.
In a perfect meta even two bunkers would kill each other eventually.
I tend to think that the meta is full of bunkers due to the fact that offense, specifically thieves, is TOO good. If you run anything other than a bunker, you run the risk of getting istagibbed by the thief combo. Tone down the burst (while maintaining overall dps) and your bound to start seeing things other than bunkers.
What do you think of that, OP?
I agree with this 100%. The only way to play some classes is to fortify yourself.
If the balance shifts to allow more balanced builds, fights will be longer, builds more diverse and pvp more fun.
We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional
Anet lied (where’s the Manifesto now?)
Anet lied (where’s the Manifesto now?)
Conquest inherently favors defense because it allows a team to utilize locational advantages more efficiently (by fighting at a disadvantage elsewhere). Another way to put it is that teams with a bunker or two are effectively more mobile than teams without. Mobility, in turn, is an important offensive tool. Furthermore, in this game bunker specs share most of their skills with balanced specs, so balancing them through skillbalance is a difficult task to say the least. A thing to note, though, is that the mobility increase has major diminishing returns and I don’t see any serious team using more than 2 bunkers.
A larger problem is that you only win by holding points. Even the secondary objectives work like point-holding. There’s no alternate tactic to winning. Without a reliable comeback mechanism you are forced to play it safe because a minor skill advantage won’t save you if you mess up in the beginning. Offensive builds tend to be high risk high reward. Even good players might die several times while getting used to an opponent’s way of thinking, the aim is to clean house in the end.
Unfortunately, there’s no reward large enough to offset the risk in tPvP. You don’t get to make a bunker weak enough to kill 1v1 by stacking death penalty on him. You don’t get to kill the enemy Guild Lord after wiping their team. Chances are you don’t even get all the capture points. And you definitely won’t be able to hold all of them, while a team that’s ahead might only need to hold one for the rest of the match.
Basically, no matter how much you’d nerf them, bunker specs are here to stay. Bunkers are to conquest what monks and defensive midline were to GvG. The question isn’t whether to have one, it’s how many and what secondary role they need to accomplish. The only way to make it not be so would be to allow a team to play in a way that makes guarding a point a bad tactic. In most PvP games, being mobile and seeking locational advantages is the way to do that, but how can you do that if defensive teams are inherently more mobile?
(Note: if you get confused by this mobility thing, in most games defense is built as parts that support each other and doesn’t scale down (or, in some cases, move). When fighting on a smaller scale than the defense scales, offense has the advantage. The defense also breaks down when one of its parts is killed. In GW2, defense scales all the way down to the point where one player can hold off 2-3 for a finite time. You can’t split any further than that. So, all defense has to do to be useful is to be where the fighting is (offense, on the other hand, needs to actively get kills to be more effective at taking points than defense is at holding them), and a guardian is perfectly as fast as a warrior. Even if the guardian isn’t literally shadowing the warrior, the time it takes to move from a point to another is slightly less than the time it takes to neutralize and cap one and far less than the time required to finish a battle with a one-player-advantage.)
(edited by uncop.5073)
I agree. Conquest is manifesting extremes through unbalanced classes.
Thieves: You know, thieves aren’t as much of a problem 1v1 when they agree to fight you in a duel (with stealth and teleports and thieves guild) yet don’t just run off. Top-tier defense is dropping target with constant stealth, teleports, high mobility to kite, and stun-breaks/condition cures worked right into your weapon abilities. Yeah, some classes can do the same stuff, but imo thieves do all these things as good or better than the other 2 classes with high latent defense mechanisms: Guardians and Mesmers. Now, if you throw them what is arguably the strongest burst in the game, that’s unbalanced offense/defense within themselves. Applied to conquest where they can just run away, it’s very fun for thieves, and very frustrating for anyone not playing to directly counter them. Lets face it: conquest allows thieves to destroy the weakest enemy in each fight, then just run off with very low risk vs high reward. Point game or not: killing alot and rarely dying is the original satisfaction. I’d say bring the burst damage for thieves to the polar opposite of all that latent defense, but do it on a 1v1 level, and you’ll see they are not too far out of line.
Guardians: Best defense, period. Best heals? maybe. Equally less effective attacks? Not by a long shot. 1v1 these guys rule. Conquest these guys rule. Real quick: bring their raw damage down several notches until it’s a balanced yin/yang of strong defense, weak offense. Like the other classes: they can’t have it both ways, man! Ideally, they should be able to hold 1v2 for a while, but not really bring either opponent close to death (or much more than half health, theoretically). 1v1, the great defense should mitigate burst damage well enough for the guardian’s lesser damage to add up over time: equaling out across the fight for the balance of two sides: attack vs defense. And one last thing: can we give the magical Tomes to the wizards!? What is a heavy armor character with the best defense also doing healing everyone better than any other class!? It’s like they have the biggest slices of 2 pieces of the trinity: tanking and healing! Give it to the cloth, rework their traits so it’s not ridiculous on top of their current bunker stuffs, and make big ele damage geared more towards a.o.e’s, with good healing available for all builds, some of which being the best at it.
Mesmers: The ability to drop target constantly, teleport, stealth, and boon regulate are great defenses. 3 peices of A.I. that look just like you when you drop target , do damage comparable to other players, and can be controlled 4 other ways (arguably the most versatile and effective a.i. in the game): that is both a superior offense AND defense. You’d have to redo their whole gimmick to bring this defense in line, so I suggest bringing the Illusion damage way down to compenstate. That seems like the only way they could work 1v1 (or arena). If they can run away with superior mobility (perhaps leaving their allies behind?), then they shouldn’t also be able to leave behind such a devastating personal zerg!
Why can’t classes be balanced unto themselves AND the other classes. I don’t want to play offense>defense, or defense>offense. I don’t enjoy it when one class is just better than mine, such as paper/scissors/rock. I don’t want to main on the OP classes that everyone is abusing, because it’s just not a challenge, and I’m tired of getting wrecked uncompetitively when I don’t. I’ll go ahead and say these 3 classes are breaking the game for me, through conquest. They’re taking the whole attack/defend cake, while Necros and Rangers get funneled into extreme condition builds for what may not even be a whole slice. The game is already balanced better for man-to-man skirmishes than it is conquest (and it always should be), but there are still some major marks to hit.
tl:dr: Put in a mode based on equal forces and combat. Then use the meta from this mode to balance the classes 1st: unto themselves, 2nd: unto each other. Afterwards, find ways to balance conquest unto itself (attacking vs defending nodes) AND around the classes (map balance).
P.S. I should probably add that I have zero experience designing games, even if I know exactly what I want out of them. I understand it’s never easier done than said, and that there could be plenty of things in the way I’m just not even aware of. For everyone’s sake, I hope Anet can admit to some problems and find the humility, wisdom, strength, and patience (within the fanbase) to turn this thing around.
(edited by Master Charles.7093)
You can’t implement a strategy that you would use against a team with 1-2 bunkers against a team with 3-5 bunkers. Pug tpvp groups will have a difficult time defeating the latter. On the other hand, a group of semi-intelligent players using Skype should be able to compete, regardless of player builds. True story… believe it or not.
Back Door Beauty [MUF]
Glass thieves came as a response to the bunker meta, not vice versa.
It’s not as much of a problem with bunker builds being too strong and more of a problem with the format favoring them too much in its current form.
When teams lose a close match to a bunker team even though they have 3x the personal scores there is a problem. Kills need to be worth 10 points again, and it needs to be harder to neutralize side points (something like 6 sec neut – 12 sec cap, or other more creative solutions). This way bunker teams can not just cap 1 point and stream the other 2 for the entire game till they get a 2 cap.
These builds should be viable, but there should be a weakness to them. As they are running heavy defense they should (in theory) have trouble capping points and being mobile, but thanks to weapon swapping out of combat and how easy it is to stream into neutralized points the strategy does not have the weaknesses that it should.
“Bunker” builds do need a bit of balance tweaking, then again so do some hyper offensive builds (in fact many of them are worse); but more than anything else the format needs adjusting to take the edge off bunker builds.
[LR] Siric
You can’t implement a strategy that you would use against a team with 1-2 bunkers against a team with 3-5 bunkers. Pug tpvp groups will have a difficult time defeating the latter. On the other hand, a group of semi-intelligent players using Skype should be able to compete, regardless of player builds. True story… believe it or not.
I believe it: if you don’t have 4 friends in Voip every time you wanna play, there is no real competition, and little place for you in pvp.
It’s not offense should > defense, but damage > healing.
In a perfect meta even two bunkers would kill each other eventually.
I like what you have to say here. I don’t know why people think the issue is any more or less. This shouldn’t be true. Simply out healing your opponents damage is only fun for the bunkering guy and that’s if hes into trolling.
It’s irrelevant. that being defensive is a strong strategy for the only game mode. The game simply shouldn’t play out the way it currently is. CTF would just introduce a variation of the bunker that stacks some swiftness. It’s not a problem with the game mode.
I tend to think that the meta is full of bunkers due to the fact that offense, specifically thieves, is TOO good. If you run anything other than a bunker, you run the risk of getting istagibbed by the thief combo. Tone down the burst (while maintaining overall dps) and your bound to start seeing things other than bunkers.
What do you think of that, OP?
I agree with this 100%. The only way to play some classes is to fortify yourself.
If the balance shifts to allow more balanced builds, fights will be longer, builds more diverse and pvp more fun.
I would have to disagree. Thieves aren’t the problem here causing problems on the other side of the spectrum. I run a mostly damage build on my warrior. Like, I’m squishy and just carry a stun break and a shield offhand. I feel perfectly fine vs thieves. I can react to them doing the same old thing every time they approach me. Not saying they are perfectly balanced. But, it’s not like I mind as well give up fighting a theif as I mind as well not try capping a point with a bunker sitting on it.
http://www.pwnzerfaust.com/ – Dragonbrand
(edited by Sprinkles.6748)
You can’t implement a strategy that you would use against a team with 1-2 bunkers against a team with 3-5 bunkers. Pug tpvp groups will have a difficult time defeating the latter. On the other hand, a group of semi-intelligent players using Skype should be able to compete, regardless of player builds. True story… believe it or not.
I believe it: if you don’t have 4 friends in Voip every time you wanna play, there is no real competition, and little place for you in pvp.
It makes tpvp much less casual. However, being able to verbally communicate with your team, even if it is 5 random people in Skype, makes it more enjoyable. being able to communicate little things makes a world of difference. Unfortunately, with the state of 8v8 pvp, the skilled casual player is really at a loss because, tpvp, as mentioned earlier, is almost unbearable with out a team w/ mics.
Back Door Beauty [MUF]
Overpowered healing just reminds me of WoW and Rift which I both left because healing ruins PvP fun. Healing should always be minor for any build, and you tweak the balance of your build by choosing more toughness or more damage. Right now bunkers are tank + healer in one build, making it twice as bad as the other games.
We can’t keep playing this way, 9 teams out of 10 are running double guardians + eng bunker, I mean c’mon those guardians heal themself to full health far too easily, they remove conditions and more, they last so kittening long that you’re forced to send 2 or more people to take him down.
Between mace bug exploit, broken elites and more the game has become absurd, it’s a sickening situation these teams all run the same freaking guardian build which require little skill to last forever; it’s just 3 bunkers +2 roamers.
No strategy needed you just need to outlast the enemy…so impossibly lame, despite all the promises of balancing, Anet still fail on many aspect.
All you see is the same 2-3 professions, the same team composition and you talk about e-sport…give me a break