Guild Wars 2

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

The real error here is just doubting the success people could have with multiple Minstrel Amulets. That is the reason people are opposed to it, my team included. Coordinated bunker comps are much tougher to beat than you realize, having not played at top tier, and on top of that are not fun to play against even when you win. Remember when Radioactive ran the Mercy Warrior with the Power Necro? You’d likely end up in a situation like that. The comp would include damage, sure, but it would be based around abusing game mechanics, not skillful play.

Lol really? More than 2 bunkers is pretty much guaranteed loss.

Can’t believe people are upset to see this amulet go, so glad it got deleted. Also the implication that a teams sucks (The Abjured) and avoids fair fights by out rotating is pretty lol. I always thought of The Abjured as a team fight oriented group while teams like TCG were out-rotate teams.

Wasn’t the Minstrel amulet removed from sPvP? Why would they maintain threads that continue to discuss something that doesn’t exist?

Maybe because even this thread about those threads has devolved into team-bashing drama. If you really want to stick it to Abjured, go beat them at their own game. Use their exact comp if you want. Put them in their place, or sit back down, because no one is impressed by the fat guy yelling at the professional quarterback through his TV.

I remember when radioactive won a match with the 2 power necro comp. That was the best match ever. helseth said they wouldnt win due to the gimmicky nature of their comp. my was he wrong.

You know if the problem was abuse of one amulet they could put rules in ESL like they did for Vampire Runes or not more 3 of same class rule.

A team can only have one person with Ministrel Amu but no, instead a team who is running 4 hybrids/1 glass (which boring as hell also) refuse to the change it comp to deal with the problem but just complains it will make the game more boring. Wuttttt?

And for this bunker guardian is shafted that is what ticks. me

And for the guys who just wants to play pew pew builds and blow people off, there are also other people in the game that does want to play other play styles.

Support builds are already not wanted in PVE cause insta kick and now you say we don’t want them PVP also, so why we just don’t delete the steorotype and be done with it.

If you don’t respect what other people want why we would respect your wishes.

trytonianYeti.4389:

I remember when radioactive won a match with the 2 power necro comp. That was the best match ever. helseth said they wouldnt win due to the gimmicky nature of their comp. my was he wrong.

He said many things.
And we know the outcome.

Kappa

Crinn.7864:

Tman.6349:

snip

Can we please stop talking about multi-minstrel comps? You’d never be able to win with such a comp. Even if you stalled all three nodes, you’d still lose because you’d have 0 ability to kill anything, while an opposing team that had dps would still be able to get occasional kills and win on the timer.

The great thing about hard bunkers is that they are one of the few if not the only role in the game that does not stack with itself.

kdaddy.5431:

Back to the topic, the EU scene though i dont know for sure but i do recall people being unable to kill druids in many of the matches. Which is a terrible meta. Bunker wars 2 if anyone remembers was god awful.

…Which is why druids where nerfed hard. People keep bring up druids and using druids to justify the amulet removal.
If druids are unkillable, then druids should be nerfed. Removing a amulet that several other non-OP builds relied on for viability, just to get at druids is total kitten.

Your 2nd point about chaith saying bunkers are cancer is a little taken out from your mouth then his. His team usually consists of bunker/boon comp and i think the difference is that even d/d had a limit.

From page two of the now locked “Bunker Guard is dead” thread.

Some just either don’t know the cancer it brings, or play Bunker Guard. -Chaith.8256

Naturally that’s a cherrypick, but if you read all of his posts in that thread, he spent of much of implying that bunkers are somehow inherently bad, and it’s rather obvious by his commentary that he has a pet peeve about Bunkers so his word should probably be taken with a grain of salt.

Pure bunkers is a hard point to push across here. Your saying more build options which im fine with but just 1 week ago i could go 1 vs 3 and be confident no matter what they were running i could survive on a s/f ele.

If a team wants to run glass they have to make up the survivability somewhere else. Conversely if a team wants to run bunkers they have to make up the lost dps somewhere else

If you want more options for builds you really need to ask anet for more amulet and rune options. That amulet was not fun to fight against and it was kitten when team ran 3 of them. Having a combination of ele/druid/guardian with that amulet on 1 team was a what is the point type of fight.

Except in the long run you’d never 3 three of them because you can’t win with such a set up. Plus given time people would invariably develop ways to counter/bypass hard bunkers.

I would really like to hear your opinion on how you think the amulet helps game play. Especially from a person using and not using it aspect.

There is the obvious point about hard bunkers supporting glass builds. Which is significant because since glass can’t hold a node, and hard bunkers can’t take one, it promotes team play over skirmishing, and would ultimately lead to more variety in strategy.

Actually the last few parts about my comment had to do with queing vs the community and not in league play.

Druid was nerfed but i have a friend in my guild who can still 1 vs 2 in a cap point and not die. They were both cele so to me that evens out but that doesnt change the fact we ran 3 pure bunkers and were frustrating the crap out of people.

With match making being unpredictable we had pugs and team groups face us and get very frustrated. Also were not new players so being that we knew what we were running we overloaded one side to win that cap point and simply out sustain them.

Also if something is bad for the game people will abuse it. For instance after the wts people started running 4-5 d/d eles in tourneys. I wont say who but a NA team ran 2 bunker guardians and 2 bunker staff eles in a ESl tourney at one point and it was like a movie from 1915 since nothing happened till 8 minutes in.

I wasnt joking at all when i said i could go 1 vs 4. In legeacy i would go mid and we send 1 druid home. Then the other bunker and 2 dps players far. Our 3 bunkers wouldnt die and our dps players would just pick and choose there places. Imagine this at all levels and it would be abused once more people would see it.

posthumecaver.6473:

kdaddy.5431:

Crinn.7864:

kdaddy.5431:

Another thing is chaith explained why it was a good thing to remove the amulet for many different reasons and the heavy majority of the community attacked him as if they were all dodo birds walking off a cliff and thinking they had won.

Can we please stop saying anything was “explained”

If you go read Chaith’s posts and boil down what he said, he made two points:
1.) The EU tourney had slightly longer match time.
2.) Bunkers are cancer.

He never actually explained how longer match time is a bad thing, nor did ever even attempt to explain how bunkers are “cancer”

Moreover neither he nor any of the removal backers even attempted to counter the point that hard bunkers allowed for more build diversity allow allow teams to use the hard bunker to compensate for glassier builds.

Alright so let me try to understand both sides. I wont go back and read it since i think it was deleted but from what i did read it went on even more then that and i wasnt gonna read everyones comments since they were writing the Iliad.

Back to the topic, the EU scene though i dont know for sure but i do recall people being unable to kill druids in many of the matches. Which is a terrible meta. Bunker wars 2 if anyone remembers was god awful.

Your 2nd point about chaith saying bunkers are cancer is a little taken out from your mouth then his. His team usually consists of bunker/boon comp and i think the difference is that even d/d had a limit.

Pure bunkers is a hard point to push across here. Your saying more build options which im fine with but just 1 week ago i could go 1 vs 3 and be confident no matter what they were running i could survive on a s/f ele.

If you want more options for builds you really need to ask anet for more amulet and rune options. That amulet was not fun to fight against and it was kitten when team ran 3 of them. Having a combination of ele/druid/guardian with that amulet on 1 team was a what is the point type of fight.

I would really like to hear your opinion on how you think the amulet helps game play. Especially from a person using and not using it aspect.

You are only telling one side of story, what ANet did first when people start complained about the bunker meta 2 years ago , they buffed condition classes because that was the correct way of killing a boon bunkers, overwhelm them with condition damage/corrupts they will die.

So we got Terrormancers/Dhuumfire and etc, but that community whined so hard about it, those are nerfed to oblivion and even doesn’t even exist anymore.

So know we have hybrids can’t do enough power damage to kill a boon bunker and also doesn’t have the condition pressure to do anything about.

Instead of adapt and bring condi builds (which I think will be awesome and ‘healthy for the game’) whine and say ‘we can’t kill bunker with our hybrids, please remove them from the game.’

Yeah, right……

yeah the meta change is impossible and the cele ammy is a easy way out for many builds. Im actually all for them getting rid of cele ammy and maybe bringing some more 4 stat ammys.

The minstrel was so bad though, s/f earth-water-tempest rune of the solider. Condi clear on water attunement-shout-cantrip also shared auras. With the ability to make range damage not hit you and go invulnerable for 5 sec.

side note comment about chaiths comment- I never agreed with all what he said and i pointed out that the abjured run sustain boons builds which is a product of the cele meta and continues to be. I only agreed with that minstrel ammy was bad and unwatchable. The other thing i agreed with is unkillable characters are terrible for the game. Nothing else, i also just feel alot of people started to take shots at him for Anet not making the changes they need to make for more build diversity.

kdaddy.5431:

Actually the last few parts about my comment had to do with queing vs the community and not in league play.

Druid was nerfed but i have a friend in my guild who can still 1 vs 2 in a cap point and not die. They were both cele so to me that evens out but that doesnt change the fact we ran 3 pure bunkers and were frustrating the crap out of people.

With match making being unpredictable we had pugs and team groups face us and get very frustrated. Also were not new players so being that we knew what we were running we overloaded one side to win that cap point and simply out sustain them.

the probability of getting stacked bunkers in pugs is extremely small. Tank-like roles are always unpopular no matter how strong they are. I’ve never seen a MMO where the support roles are even a quarter as common as the DPS roles.

Also again please stop bring up druids. Druids scale absurdly well with healing power and are effectively broken in that regard. Ammy removal is a bandaid fix to problem that has nothing to do with the ammy.

Also if something is bad for the game people will abuse it. For instance after the wts people started running 4-5 d/d eles in tourneys. I wont say who but a NA team ran 2 bunker guardians and 2 bunker staff eles in a ESl tourney at one point and it was like a movie from 1915 since nothing happened till 8 minutes in.

People only abuse things that allow them to win. Stacked bunkers don’t win. You’re also assuming that people won’t devolpe counterstrategies and ways to break bunkers. (hint: they will)

And to hell with “watchability” Anets job is too make good gameplay, not good youtube videos.

Competitive players should abuse any comp they can get their hands on. If you’re in a competitive tournament, your goal is to win. When you abuse something that the developer feels undermines their design philosophy, it’s a brighter spotlight on what they need to act on.

Plus, it should force other teams to try to figure out ways to beat it, even if they bring their own crazy comp. Nothing should be taboo.

hackks.3687:

What’s the point of whining about something that won’t come back?

Oh, because Abjured keeps winning, so haters gotta hate. I get it.

It has nothing to do with hater’s hating. I could care less whether Abjured wins or loses. I mostly solo queue I could care less about the e-sports aspect of the game. What I don’t like is that a few of these people have a-net’s ear enough that one week in they geot an amulet removed that wasn’t even working properly (the buff duration was broken) without any kind of real explanation. To me if the healing power of a certain calss aka Druid was the problem that should have been nerfed not a amulet that is not all that much different then Cleric. This was a good choice for bunkers guardians to deal with the ridiculous burst damage that was added with A-nets poorly balanced HoT expansion. 5K extra vitality is somehow broken? It the healing ability of a new unbalanced class that is the problem so other classes take it in the rear. It annoys me that in a game where thousands of people pvp a handful of people are the only ones that are listened to for balance purposes. It’s a shady process and quite frankly I could care less what Chaith’s opinions are. He is one person. You can be a toady and just do the father know’s best routine but quite frankly I think its pathetic.

brannigan.9831:

hackks.3687:

What’s the point of whining about something that won’t come back?

Oh, because Abjured keeps winning, so haters gotta hate. I get it.

It has nothing to do with hater’s hating. I could care less whether Abjured wins or loses. I mostly solo queue I could care less about the e-sports aspect of the game. What I don’t like is that a few of these people have a-net’s ear enough that one week in they geot an amulet removed that wasn’t even working properly (the buff duration was broken) without any kind of real explanation. To me if the healing power of a certain calss aka Druid was the problem that should have been nerfed not a amulet that is not all that much different then Cleric. This was a good choice for bunkers guardians to deal with the ridiculous burst damage that was added with A-nets poorly balanced HoT expansion. 5K extra vitality is somehow broken? It annoys me that in a game where thousands of people pvp a handful of people are the only ones that are listened to for balance purposes. It’s a shady process and quite frankly I could care less what Chaith’s opinions are. He is one person. You can be a toady and just do the father know’s best routine but quite frankly I think its pathetic.

If one amulet is tailor-made to bring a class above and beyond, and you nerf the class, what does that mean for their diversity? You’re balancing a class around an amulet. Is that good design?

Got private messages that posts were deleted by moderators in the locked a few days ago bunker Guard is dead thread for some reason.

Cogbyrn.7283:

If one amulet is tailor-made to bring a class above and beyond, and you nerf the class, what does that mean for their diversity? You’re balancing a class around an amulet. Is that good design?

It is good design. Players are always going to choose the amulet that synergizes best with their build. tough+vit+heal power will always synergize best with support bunkers, therefore all support bunkers are going to go for. Removing Minstrel’s didn’t increase bunker diversity, it just shoehorned us back into Cleric’s amulet.

It would be like trying to balance engis without accounting for the existence of the celestial amulet. You’d be a fool to do it because most engi builds go for the cele amulet.

Crinn.7864:

kdaddy.5431:

Actually the last few parts about my comment had to do with queing vs the community and not in league play.

Druid was nerfed but i have a friend in my guild who can still 1 vs 2 in a cap point and not die. They were both cele so to me that evens out but that doesnt change the fact we ran 3 pure bunkers and were frustrating the crap out of people.

With match making being unpredictable we had pugs and team groups face us and get very frustrated. Also were not new players so being that we knew what we were running we overloaded one side to win that cap point and simply out sustain them.

the probability of getting stacked bunkers in pugs is extremely small. Tank-like roles are always unpopular no matter how strong they are. I’ve never seen a MMO where the support roles are even a quarter as common as the DPS roles.

Also again please stop bring up druids. Druids scale absurdly well with healing power and are effectively broken in that regard. Ammy removal is a bandaid fix to problem that has nothing to do with the ammy.

Also if something is bad for the game people will abuse it. For instance after the wts people started running 4-5 d/d eles in tourneys. I wont say who but a NA team ran 2 bunker guardians and 2 bunker staff eles in a ESl tourney at one point and it was like a movie from 1915 since nothing happened till 8 minutes in.

People only abuse things that allow them to win. Stacked bunkers don’t win. You’re also assuming that people won’t devolpe counterstrategies and ways to break bunkers. (hint: they will)

And to hell with “watchability” Anets job is too make good gameplay, not good youtube videos.

A few things,

1- this did happen when we were testing out builds.

2- 1 player on me 4-5 man premade was a druid. I did the s/f ele and another did a guardian bunker. We didnt die in 3-4 games we did together. ALL 3 OF US IN ALL OF THE GAMES.

3- Radioactive did do this and i didnt want to shout them out for it and if you want to APex also did this going back a few years earlier. Maybe they didnt win the whole thing with these bunker builds but placine in the top 5 in NA with old builds. Then anet has only made them much stronger ummmm please like we wont see that.

4- You say who cares about esports…………. UMMMMMMM ANET, which is another reason to kick the ammy.

Crinn.7864:

Cogbyrn.7283:

If one amulet is tailor-made to bring a class above and beyond, and you nerf the class, what does that mean for their diversity? You’re balancing a class around an amulet. Is that good design?

It is good design. Players are always going to choose the amulet that synergizes best with their build. tough+vit+heal power will always synergize best with support bunkers, therefore all support bunkers are going to go for. Removing Minstrel’s didn’t increase bunker diversity, it just shoehorned us back into Cleric’s amulet.

It would be like trying to balance engis without accounting for the existence of the celestial amulet. You’d be a fool to do it because most engi builds go for the cele amulet.

I don’t necessarily disagree, but I’m not sure I’m firm in an opinion yet. I personally think “diversity” in the top level of competition is a myth that people hang tightly onto for whatever reason, though. If every class had only 1 viable build, I think that’d be pretty nice, personally.

However, I’m not sure the Minstrel stats look healthy for a game like this. There’s probably a reason Dire stats aren’t in sPvP. Are Minstrel stats not very similar? At least with Cleric you don’t get the triple threat of survivability stats. You could probably make a similar argument for Zerker as an amulet, but there’s some risk involved with that amulet. I guess the risk for Minstrel was that you’d never kill anyone?

brannigan.9831:

hackks.3687:

What’s the point of whining about something that won’t come back?

Oh, because Abjured keeps winning, so haters gotta hate. I get it.

It has nothing to do with hater’s hating. I could care less whether Abjured wins or loses. I mostly solo queue I could care less about the e-sports aspect of the game. What I don’t like is that a few of these people have a-net’s ear enough that one week in they geot an amulet removed that wasn’t even working properly (the buff duration was broken) without any kind of real explanation.

What is the actual evidence that this occurred?

lol guys it’s not like they care about this kind of constructive feedback.
They’ve shown to be very reluctant in admitting mistakes i.e.skyham
Even tho for once conquest had strategy and teamwork I guess throwing hybrids everywhere and trying to match numbers validates as “skill full play”
Capping points actually mattered with minstrels other than pseudo death match where it was chaotic af and the points didn’t really matter as much

Cogbyrn.7283:

However, I’m not sure the Minstrel stats look healthy for a game like this. There’s probably a reason Dire stats aren’t in sPvP. Are Minstrel stats not very similar? At least with Cleric you don’t get the triple threat of survivability stats. You could probably make a similar argument for Zerker as an amulet, but there’s some risk involved with that amulet. I guess the risk for Minstrel was that you’d never kill anyone?

Dire stats don’t exist because of the difference between how condi specs and power specs work. Conditions are only affected by condition damage. Power builds however need power, ferocity, and precision. Dire amulets would allow condi builds to be almost as offensively effective as a berserker, while retaining the defensive capabilities of a soldier amulet. Basically dire would make condi builds the only valid choice.

Ministrel’s don’t really push anything out of meta. They might potentially discourage "hybrid" stacking, but they aren’t going to render bruisers worthless, nor are they going to cause one type of bunker to be radically more effective than any other type of support bunker. At least no more than already is. *cough* druids *cough*

Minstrel is to bunkers as zerker is too DPS. The difference being instead of pure offensive, minstrel is instead pure defensive. It’s all armor and no teeth.

Crinn.7864:

Minstrel is to bunkers as zerker is too DPS. The difference being instead of pure offensive, minstrel is instead pure defensive. It’s all armor and no teeth.

Yeah, this is the specific reason for my hesitation. Is it really so bad to be the inverse of the Zerker amulet? From a gameplay perspective, is it more fun if everyone is Zerker and people are dying left and right, or if everyone is Minstrel and never dies? Is there something about Zerker being incredibly flimsy that is healthier for the state of the game than someone being incredibly tanky? Both have their risks (dying quickly/never killing anything).

I’m on the fence about it for sure. From a spectator perspective, watching a fast-paced match where people may die at any moment sounds more interesting then a super slow chess match where no one ever dies on points.

And yes, I know gameplay should trump spectatorship. Just trying to think of everything.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Yeah, this is the specific reason for my hesitation. Is it really so bad to be the inverse of the Zerker amulet? From a gameplay perspective, is it more fun if everyone is Zerker and people are dying left and right, or if everyone is Minstrel and never dies? Is there something about Zerker being incredibly flimsy that is healthier for the state of the game than someone being incredibly tanky? Both have their risks (dying quickly/never killing anything).

You have to be careful because there is such a thing as dying too fast. Nobody likes spending half the match in downstate.

There is a equilibrium between too fast and too slow. But there are more ways to achieve this outside of a bruiser meta. I would guess that hard bunker + zerkers would be equivalent pace of play to the current bruiser meta.
My problem with this whole thing is we basically have no idea what might of happened because it got removed so fast. We literally saw like what a couple teams on the EU tourney even attempt it? We have no kitten idea what might or might not have happened.

Also I think people are being shortsighted. Anytime you introduce a mechanic that prevents killing, people start to look for strategies to bypass the mechanic and get their kills.
I saw this happen firsthand in TOR the mmo I played before coming here. I played in season 1 through 6 of that game. In the first season matches nearly always went to timer. By the sixth season matches almost never went to timer despite the fact that healers and tanks had been buffed considerably going from s1 to s6. Why? Because in s1 nobody had developed a effective manner to bypass the tanks, by season 6 there where half-a-dozen canon strategies for breaking a tank-healer combo.

But rather than seeing if that happed Anet just went full handholding and removed the minstrel because changing strategies is hard.

Crinn.7864:

You have to be careful because there is such a thing as dying too fast. Nobody likes spending half the match in downstate.

There is a equilibrium between too fast and too slow. But there are more ways to achieve this outside of a bruiser meta. I would guess that hard bunker + zerkers would be equivalent pace of play to the current bruiser meta.
My problem with this whole thing is we basically have no idea what might of happened because it got removed so fast. We literally saw like what a couple teams on the EU tourney even attempt it? We have no kitten idea what might or might not have happened.

Also I think people are being shortsighted. Anytime you introduce a mechanic that prevents killing, people start to look for strategies to bypass the mechanic and get their kills.
I saw this happen firsthand in TOR the mmo I played before coming here. I played in season 1 through 6 of that game. In the first season matches nearly always went to timer. By the sixth season matches almost never went to timer despite the fact that healers and tanks had been buffed considerably going from s1 to s6. Why? Because in s1 nobody had developed a effective manner to bypass the tanks, by season 6 there where half-a-dozen canon strategies for breaking a tank-healer combo.

But rather than seeing if that happed Anet just went full handholding and removed the minstrel because changing strategies is hard.

I agree 100% that you have to be careful with pacing. TTK is generally an important metric when trying to design gameplay, especially in an MMO-style game. I don’t think all-Zerker PvP would be healthy, and I don’t really think teams would go all-Minstrel had it still existed.

Also, I agree that it’s odd that this knee-jerk change was made so quickly and, in general, people are too short-sighted. People don’t understand that games need time to develop. When you throw new things into the mix, teams need time to incorporate them, fight them, and generally grow. Everyone always assumes they have everything perfect after a week, or even just a few days, and it never ceases to amaze me.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Competitive players should abuse any comp they can get their hands on. If you’re in a competitive tournament, your goal is to win. When you abuse something that the developer feels undermines their design philosophy, it’s a brighter spotlight on what they need to act on.

Plus, it should force other teams to try to figure out ways to beat it, even if they bring their own crazy comp. Nothing should be taboo.

I’m in total agreement with this. Well said..I feel the same way in FPS tourneys and sports among other things.

remember, anet has ambitious esportz dreamz. it’s pretty easy to manipulate them once you have their ears. just say a certain amulet will prevent them from reaching their esportz fantasies and they act on it pretty fast.

JEFFARR.8163:

lol guys it’s not like they care about this kind of constructive feedback.
They’ve shown to be very reluctant in admitting mistakes i.e.skyham
Even tho for once conquest had strategy and teamwork I guess throwing hybrids everywhere and trying to match numbers validates as “skill full play”
Capping points actually mattered with minstrels other than pseudo death match where it was chaotic af and the points didn’t really matter as much

Why would they ever admit a mistake when you people constantly show how incapable you are at acting as a rational people?

They gain nothing from it because people here will constantly use that apology to bash them. So pretty much nothing changes. Apology or not. It is better to not show weakness to a crowd incapable of acting above high schoolers.

PlatinumMember.5274:

JEFFARR.8163:

lol guys it’s not like they care about this kind of constructive feedback.
They’ve shown to be very reluctant in admitting mistakes i.e.skyham
Even tho for once conquest had strategy and teamwork I guess throwing hybrids everywhere and trying to match numbers validates as “skill full play”
Capping points actually mattered with minstrels other than pseudo death match where it was chaotic af and the points didn’t really matter as much

Why would they ever admit a mistake when you people constantly show how incapable you are at acting as a rational people?

They gain nothing from it because people here will constantly use that apology to bash them. So pretty much nothing changes. Apology or not. It is better to not show weakness to a crowd incapable of acting above high schoolers.

I hope I don’t need to explain why screwing over the game just to spite a narrow portion of the forum community is bad design.

Plsplssspsppplspslal