Guild Wars 2

If people have to change more than utility skills, you’re making players change way too much. I don’t play necromancer because I want to play a power build sometimes and a condition build most of the time. I play a necromancer because I like its condition style and how it fits into the metagame. I’m OK with having to change some utility skills around, but I don’t want to change the fundamentals of the playstyle and build I ended up picking my class for. (Thankfully, my class and build isn’t much affected by this. But if I played any other class, I wouldn’t be queueing at all until this map falls off the rotation.)

If you insist on keeping this map, here are some ways to fix it:

1. The destructible platforms have to go. There’s no way they can exist without putting too much of an emphasis on knockbacks, fear, immobilize and stability.

2. It should not be possible to knock people off the edges of the map, for the same reasons destructible platforms can’t exist.

3. The turret should be easier to defend, but it does way too much damage and should be easier to avoid — perhaps by giving it a smaller radius and probably making it possible to dodge.

4. The map has way too much line of sight. It’s obscenely easy to avoid getting hit when both defending and attacking a node. This forces melee range even more so than the general point-capture system, which further dilutes class, build and playstyle diversity.

With all that said, I have to be honest with you: If you keep this map in the rotation, I will seriously consider quitting. I really love you guys and the overall direction the game has been heading in, but this map is, in my opinion, the worst competitive PvP map I have ever seen in any game. Keeping it in the game shows a level of design incoherency that no competitive PvP player should support.

I think having a lot of CCs and stab should be important in this map, but not to a point where spamming it is more effective.
what about railings around the cannon platform to prevent from being knock over, railings that go down after while or say after the cannon fire (using all the energy) and come back after 5-15 secs,
The disappearing floors could have a long timer before they pop, or a CD before they can be popped again. What i’m seeing is as long as you knock your target back onto those floors and immobilize them there, the target has to use a stun break and a cleanse to not fall.

As for the cannon itself, i don’t have an issue with the damage all to much, but not being able to block or dodge it is imo, why not be able to do that? Plus this map has a lot of elevation to it, might be an cool idea to prevent getting hit by the cannon, if it can only hit one point of elevation at a time. Like in Point B, i could target the middle of point, but the people on the ledges wouldn’t get hit. random ideas >_>

I would advise:

A) Changing how the cannon works

• 1: Making the AoE dodgeable
• 2: Reducing the cast time of the attack by around 25-50%
• 3: Reducing the size of the AoE by 25%
• 4: Increasing the damage by around 15-25%
• 5: Increasing the cooldown by around 22-33%
• 6: Allow the attack to be avoided through terrain (Such as ducking underneath point B )

B) Changing some of the environmental advantages

• 1: Adding a cooldown to jump pads
• 2: Increasing the time it takes to break glass by 50-85%
• 3: Making it so that Teleports will not allow you to return to the top if you fall
• 4: Increase the size of some of the areas/platforms around point B and some of the middle sections, so as to promote less vertical kiting and to allow for horizontal kiting. Currently it is far too difficulty to avoid many Melee opponents without completely removing them as a threat with the vertical platforms.

C) Changing the Cannon platform

• 1: Add a cooldown to the Cannon portal so that players cannot enter/reenter so quickly.
• 2: Remove some of the breakable glass from the platform
• 3: Make ‘Communing’ to take control of the cannon take 100% longer, and cannot be done through invulnerability.

And yes, I would suggest this map is better played in a ‘team deathmatch’ style of gameplay. There definitely needs to be a new gametype, hopefully one with player transforms, MvPs, and Liches. kittenes love Liches.

I think to remedy some of the CC related issues, just do the following things:

• Make the cannon dodgeable
• Remove some or all of the glass panels in the cannon room, and at A and C
• Eliminate invulnerability capping the cannon, and make attacks interrupt cannon use

This would slightly lessen the importance of controlling the cannon and reduce the amount of “cheese kills”, thus making CC builds less strong and other builds/classes more viable.

Wait a sec……CC in PvP is good? Who woulda thought?

Pro tip= Don’t stand on breakable glass, don’t stand next to the edge.

Pro tip #2= Make opponent stand on breakable glass, make opponent stand next to edge.

Confusing stuff right?!

It really isn’t anything to do with modifying your build. I have 4 necros, each with a different build, that’s my ‘template’ hack.

The problem is that the map turns CC skills (or passive traits) into instagibs. I don’t have a problem with it on ground level, where if you die to anything but a stealthed pull, it is indeed a positioning problem. The cannon room on the other hand is a mess. That would be fine if controlling or contesting the cannon wasn’t absolutely mandatory due to its strength.

You don’t even need a larger cannon area, you could put a second floor below it with some way back up, so that knockbacks and fears still buy you more time, but not a whole kills worth of time.

Instead of less platforms at the cannon room , we should use our immagination to alter it a bit :P
For example based on the pic , there are 2 small ion generators , or something under the Cannon ( see in the bottom)

Maybe a orb will spawn every 1 min , and give :
1) 10 points to ur team (more secondary aims = better)

2) its creates 2 platforms at the generators (under the cannon) , that protect if u fall from the destructible platforms , but not from the edges .
U take -50% loss from the fall (-25% if u have the reduced falling trait) . So both players aims are :
a) kill each other with their spells in a 5-8 secs , 1v1 fair fight
b) try to half their oponent health to half and then knockback them in the destructible platorms (and pray they dont have the reduced falling trait)
c) try to lure them near the edge and then kkittenback them for total anihiliation

3) in order to escape from those 2 platforms (under the cannon) some newly created jumping patforms have been created in a long circular way (in order to waste 7-10 sec before u can join the others , or go ahead once again for the cannon)

Edit: Instead of extra points = -15% damage taken by Ion cannon

But i would the map to stay the same way as now

The cannon platform is the most poorly designed room in multiplayer video game history.

What’s sad is developers will likely take this to be highly subjective and emotional, when I’m being perfectly calm and serious.

Lopez.7369:

The cannon platform is the most poorly designed room in multiplayer video game history.

What’s sad is developers will likely take this to be highly subjective and emotional, when I’m being perfectly calm and serious.

I’m sure they respect your opinion more than almost anybody else in the thread. I definitely do.

google.3709:

People who like the map
They learnt to play the map

People who DON’T like the map
Havent learnt to play the map

it’s sad how people rather QQ than simply adapting their build (which is prob meta and copied off sombody else) to be more effective on the new map, everyone class has CC’s and it shouldn’t be too hard to understand not to fight by edges.

Skyhammer is amazing for bringing a different and fresh new playstyle which allows for creativity

But then it isn’t really pvp anymore is it. It has become about pulling people off a cliff. I don’t really see how that is more fun than actually testing your skill against another player.

KooB.6503:

If they had made this an spvp map only first before forcing it down our throats to at least see its issues people wouldn’t b going wild. I mean Jesus Christ wtf is the meaning of spoiling team runs in tpvp js to show this stupid map. They could have at least let us try it in spvp alone first.

Maps should see a beta stage where they are run in hotjoin/custom arenas before being approved for tournament rotation.

Yes please on templates! I want to have 10 different builds saved.

Every time I fight on this map, I’m just amazed at how much line of sight there is, particularly on Point B. It’s so easy to cause a giant stalemate just by running around in circles.

Can’t believe this map just got released and straight away its the tournament map. Would it not make some sense to get more feedback from players before taking it to tournament level?

This map like pretty much the whole pvp infrastructure does not feel polished yet, and definitely not enough for tpvp. Adding in build templates will help for sure so people can switch to a more cc/stability friendly build for skyhammer but by design this map feels like it belongs in a FPS game and not an MMO.

I felt like the layout is similar to a map I played in Quake 3 deathmatch (minus the portals and really large jumping pad leaps). It works for FPS because its much more fast pace and practically every weapon is a ranged weapon, which is essential when pretty much every area has a way to avoid line of sight. I got the feeling its even less favorable for melees (if that was even possible) then all the other maps because of the multiple z-axis areas, pace and line of sight – not to mention the skyhammer itself means staying mobile and out of range is important.

So my idea would be to definitely tone down the hammer (as others have suggested). Also maybe have some sort of power up (15-30 second stability?) placed just before you enter the portal to the skyhammer (maybe directly under the skyhammer so it can’t be targetted – needs to be some sort of counter to the skyhammer area imo – a way to make it fair for those entering the portal), or a power up that grants a shield that is immune to the skyhammer for 10 seconds or something. This could have also been a great chance to trial something different then conquest, I think the map could almost justify a deathmatch mode with some tweaks or at the very least something different then conquest. I’m hoping it becomes something totally unique, else in the end its like a battle of kyhlo with one shared super treb.

What kitten ing me off the most is 1/3 of the time I survive the fall and then just have to hope that wurm will kill me fast… Pathetic map.. shame on you Anet.

Maximka.4128:

What kitten ing me off the most is 1/3 of the time I survive the fall and then just have to hope that wurm will kill me fast… Pathetic map.. shame on you Anet.

lrn2fall

Allie Murdock.8152:

Someone mentioned making it harder, but not impossible, to knock people off the edge. Would something like that make you feel better about sticking to your class?

One little thing, juming over a needle trap should activate it like walking over it,
not deactivate the trap, and ignore the imob. That’s not nice imo.

Well I love the map though.~

Allie Murdock.8152:

Keep discussing, but I’m curious: Would having templates alleviate the issue of not wanting to respec for certain maps?

We do see teams shift their comps around for certain maps (and it seems to be very effective), would this not be along the same lines?

Keep the feedback coming, this is great!

What happened to improving upon stuff players loved from guild wars 1? This should have been there at launch..

There are two obvious things that the team is blinded to, or keeps on pretending they never heard it from the other millions of posts we have made.

First… we need templates. We wanted it back in September. We wanted it back in 2007 and got it in Guild Wars 1, but somehow lost it in the not-so-advanced sequel…

Secondly, no minds changing their play styles and builds. What people mind, is being forced to play a certain way in order to be viable. If you do not own the cannon in Skyhammer, you lose. If you do not come with loads of stability and loads of CC, you lose. Tell me on ANY other map, if I didn’t bring a certain type of skill, would I lose? Which map DEMANDS that I must play the secondary objective to be victorious? I certainly don’t need the Orb on Spirit Map. I have won numerous games on Khylo without any of my teammates taking up the trebuchet. Don’t even get me started on the buffs at Temple. So why is it that on these maps, the secondary objectives were there to flavor the map and add uniqueness, yet on Skyhammer, we are all forced to completely play by the maps rule?

BTW, if we’re just talking about fun factor and not balance, the map is pure win. I was laughing so hard my gf could hear me from the other end of the house.

Regarding Skyhammer as a map: Love it. Absolutely love it. the emphasis on staying mobile and making good use of CC for instant kills is incredibly rewarding, and the fact that death comes so quickly makes it less frustrating when it happens (a reduced waypoint cooldown could make it even more frenetic, but i’m not sure if that would encourage suicide bombers). as a thief, i lack traditional defenses against CC, but a proper spec allows me to not only get rid of the stability on my enemies, but take it for myself.

however, i wouldn’t mind if the edges of C and A were slightly bigger. as it is, a guardian’s hammer 4 will, 9 out of 10 times, kill anything it hits. the skill doesn’t deserve a nerf, but it’s really strong in that specific scenario. that’s just one example skill though. being able to dodge the cannon would also redude the amount of QQing a lot, i imagine. not that it’s hard to walk out of the AoE when you have almost 4 seconds to do it, but that essentially means a cannon can scare people away from a capture point with no defense other than “hey go do something about it”

IMPORTANT: MANNING THE CANNON SEEMS TO MAKE YOU IMMUNE TO PULLS. i’ve used my scorpion wire about 4 times on enemies that were manning the cannon with no stability, and all it would do is stutter them a little, without actually pulling them. i’ve also been feared while manning the cannon, but the fear didn’t take me out of it. it was only when i left the cannon to fight back that i fell down (point blank shot to the face).

EDIT: also worth noting, i’ve been immobilized and got stuck in midair for entire seconds. i can’t help but wonder if a longer immobilize would’ve actually saved me from falling down the map. maybe it’s something to be looked into?

regarding build templates: yes. that’s a must. it should be a priority, and not just templates, but a streamlined buildmaking tool like GW1 had. for reference, gw2skills.net has an excellent editor (which i’m pretty sure is the standard buildmaking tool for everyone), and you should feel no shame in borrowing a concept or ten from it.

encouraging buildmaking with better tools while having your favorite builds nicely tucked in a template list would, IMO, allow you to bring out more maps that rely on different skillsets from each class. personally, all i had to do was change a single utility from my build, but my build is what would be considered “way off meta” under normal circumstances, and it worked wonders in the new map (not that it was bad on other maps >.>). i’ve also noticed quite a few successful warriors running around, landing some interesting combos.

TheMightyAltroll.3485:

I would advise:

A) Changing how the cannon works

• 1: Making the AoE dodgeable
• 2: Reducing the cast time of the attack by around 25-50%
• 3: Reducing the size of the AoE by 25%
• 4: Increasing the damage by around 15-25%
• 5: Increasing the cooldown by around 22-33%
• 6: Allow the attack to be avoided through terrain (Such as ducking underneath point B )

B) Changing some of the environmental advantages

• 1: Adding a cooldown to jump pads
• 2: Increasing the time it takes to break glass by 50-85%
• 3: Making it so that Teleports will not allow you to return to the top if you fall
• 4: Increase the size of some of the areas/platforms around point B and some of the middle sections, so as to promote less vertical kiting and to allow for horizontal kiting. Currently it is far too difficulty to avoid many Melee opponents without completely removing them as a threat with the vertical platforms.

C) Changing the Cannon platform

• 1: Add a cooldown to the Cannon portal so that players cannot enter/reenter so quickly.
• 2: Remove some of the breakable glass from the platform
• 3: Make ‘Communing’ to take control of the cannon take 100% longer, and cannot be done through invulnerability.

And yes, I would suggest this map is better played in a ‘team deathmatch’ style of gameplay. There definitely needs to be a new gametype, hopefully one with player transforms, MvPs, and Liches. kittenes love Liches.

if i may…

A)

• 1: yes.
• 2-5: actually, no. part of what makes it not absurd and OP right now is that it gives players plenty of room to deal with it, but punishes really heavily those that don’t. the cannon is something that’s supposed to be used to apply heavy pressure on a combat zone, allowing your team to take a capture point more easily. if you make it faster and stronger at the cost of an increased time between hits, you’ll just be downing whoever’s down there.
• 6: i thought that was already a thing, but if it isn’t, yes.

B)

• 1: what’s exactly the purpose here? the jump pads are there as facilitators for the verticality, adding a cooldown would only get in the way of chasing someone (poor melees)
• 2: that would kind of defeat the purpose of the shattered glasses, which as i see, are kind of traps that you should always be very wary of, because you can’t stand long on top of them, and someone might have laid a trap there, or maybe someone plans to pull/immobilize/knock you down when you’re there. it forces you to stay focused on what you’re walking on and when, as well as staying mobile. no such thing as a comfort zone when you’re in a floating platform.
• 3: i hadn’t even thought about that, but definitely. it makes certain classes instantly more viable because they can counter the map mechanics with a “get out of jail” card.
• 4: i think they’re fine. having to use the map to avoid your enemy (read: run away) because you can’t outrun them is a change i imagine many warriors are happy about. you can’t horizontally kite melees, which gives them dominance on the ground, but melees can’t hit you from up there without chasing after you (via jump pads), meaning ranged get the vertical superiority. it’s a nice balance.

C)

• 1: i guess. i’d like it if i didn’t require pressing F to go through the portal.
• 2: i like the platform as it is, it makes manning the cannon something that requires you to pay extreme attention to your surroundings (and to that portal on B ) to make sure no one’s going to walk in, and it’s up there that i’ve had some of the most intense 1v1s on the map. i wouldn’t mind it being a bit larger though, you can barely dodge, and i imagine sword rangers must hate not being able to use their skills.
• 3: take longer? don’t see why, but not against it either. definitely agree that no invulnerability should be allowed.

So I’ll start off by saying that I main a Guardian and therefore I love this map. I’ll attempt to remain objective. I have two guys that I regularly pvp with and honestly I can’t stand them raging so much after this map came out. One of which plain out refuses to do tournaments whilst it is in the rotation. I lost hope with him at this point.

The reason why people hate this map, it forces the players to change their builds and their playstyle. ArenaNet have done a fantastic job I must say at doing exactly this, and for this I commend them as they haven’t done any balance changes in this patch yet they have increased build diversity. People don’t like change, I personally love this change irrespective of the significantly less amount of love us PvPers get compared to the PvErs.

The map has been out for a couple of days now, how about you give it awhile before you take to the forums? Half the feedback given is by those who are thinking irrationally.

This map shifts the meta towards CC, the previous patch shifted it towards condi necros (still OP mind you – nice whack a mole balance imo). The only issue I have with the map is that you cannot evade the blast which seems entirely ridiculous.

Let’s look at some previous “balance” fixes: Mesmer focus pull has a 1 second cooldown before you can pull someone. This was done so that it allows the player to react and evade accordingly. New map comes out which makes it impossible to evade the main source of damage which is ultimately the game winning cannon. I know you can walk out of the way of it but seriously you decap a node in 5 seconds which therefore makes the cannon the most important objective.

The fact that people don’t like the new CC meta need to adapt and learn to play. Learn to play, that is all, learn to kittening play. Tournament play, you should recognise CC skills and evade them accordingly. Lets take my recent tournament experiences as an example. I have taken on two relatively decent necros and two relatively decent hammer guardians successfully as a hammer guardian on my own. Could it be luck, or could it be the fact that I am watching their stability and cancelling my skills when appropriate? Or even evading their CC?

This map is bloody brilliant, it forces players to actually care about CC skills instead of only evading burst. They now learn about common CC skills and tactics. How about we allow the meta to adjust and then adjust accordingly? Which is very much ArenaNets stand point and for once I’m glad that it is. (Unlike OP necros)

The only thing that I would suggest is that you should be able to evade the cannon blast, it makes sense as it adds skill in the fact you have to count down the blast. (the aoe ring should be removed potentially or make the blast less telegraphed).

I’d go off on a rant about how I think that this patch has been very much casual friendly but I’m going to bed (UK). (I’ll probably correct the English in this post tomorrow)

Edit: 1 more thing, the camera is horrible when you’re looking at B.

It’s a silly and out of place map. PvP’ers already have it hard enough in this game the last thing needed is a map where necro’s are even stronger and mesmers can kill 4 people with 1 skill. It’s guardian or death in skyhammer

Allie Murdock.8152:

Ok, that’s fair! Do you have any suggestions then, to maybe change the map a little to make up for classes that might not be as good at CC?

Someone mentioned making it harder, but not impossible, to knock people off the edge. Would something like that make you feel better about sticking to your class?

This is great feedback, btw. We really appreciate the constructive nature of these threads.

The biggest thing I would recommend would be adding a map to hotjoin for AT LEAST two weeks before it goes into the tPvP rotation. That will give the community time to discuss whether or not it’s appropriate for a competitive environment and will allow the designers to tweak the map as necessary to make it competitive.

Specifically for skyhammer: the two main issues are CC effectiveness and the cannon effectiveness. Currently CCs are too effective on this map in that they can result in a one-shot kill. In general the availability of CC has always vastly outweighed the availability of CC-counter, but this has been acceptable because proper team play could compensate for CCs that sneak through and it would be rare for enemy to force a kill through in the period of a single CC (though they still made excellent tools for causing pressure and pushing kills). Once a single CC can result in an instant death, this dynamic becomes a problem though, as one-shot kills are very bad for a competitive game in which a player’s skill and coordination with his team should determine the outcome of a fight. In order to fix this on Skyhammer I would recommend increasing the length of time it takes a platform to shatter and decreasing the number of platforms around the A & C nodes. This way the map will still carry the characteristic that CC is more effective here (in order to spur build diversity) but CC will not be the deciding factor in a match.

Currently the hammer is a fun mechanic but it plays too large a role in deciding the outcome of a match. It has very large damae and is very easy to quickly target multiple capture points in a very short period of time. Combined with the fact that it is undodgeable, and the weapon becomes TOO important. In order to fix this I would recommend increase the amount of time it takes for the cannon to rotate to a new position by 150-200%. This will prevent the owner of the cannon from being able to completely lock down 2+ locations (as is currently possible) and will force the owner to focus on supporting a single capture point. Additionally the AoE blast should be dodgeable and the ability to capture the cannon while invulnerable should be disabled. This will help bring the cannon in line with other secondary mechanics (like treb on Khylo) while still remaining an important tool for supporting team fights.

Until these changes can be made the map MUST be removed from the tournament rotation, as it is VERY noncompetitive at the moment and promotes a style of gameplay that is bad for the longterm health of the game (i.e. CC-button mashing in order to win the race between knockbacks + knockback prevention).

I think that knocking someone off the edge should teleport them back to their spawn. I think that this would help to refocus this map as a PvP map and not a PvG (gravity) map.

I was debating whether or not KB kills should be deserving of points.

Errant Venture.9371:

snip

the reason maps go first into tournament and then decided if it’s balanced or not is that tournament play is completely different from hotjoin play, and you’ll never be able to emulate the tournament meta on a hotjoin (or get enough tournament players to try it out enough times to form a solid opinion).

they’ve done that with temple, they’ve done it with spirit watch, and now they’ve done it with skyhammer. and it’s the best way to get feedback. they’ll probably leave it stuck as the tournament map for a few days, then go back to the old rotation, and depending on feedback, skyhammer either stays on that rotation, gets pulled back so it can be reworked a little, or suffers the same fate as raid of the capricorn and is forever relegated to 8v8 zergfests (what a waste that would be).

still like the map.
for me its great job from anet here!

i also love to see a dev is speaking to us.
(more love to rangers! oh wrong forum :P)

to skyhammer map.
i think there is the only problem the fights at the cannon.
there are many lame ways we can do on enter portal (guardian sanctuary behind enter portal when my team mates say “enemys comming” and then hammer them down to worms after perma knock back from sanctuary and dont forget the necro fears)

i think the problem is that the cannon is to important, because its so powerful and not dodge able.
so there are rly important fights at the cannon and this fights end rly fast, because low area and knock down to worms.
also there are many lame ways to defend cannon. the team which have loose the fight for cannon need to go again there, because no point is able to become back or defend when cannon can fire.
at same time the team which won the fight for cannon, have it more easy to defend it, because enter portal and one scouting player who say “they come cannon now”.
if the team dont go for cannon again it loose the teamfight always.
to become cannon back it need to be a 3v2 or something, because its easy to defend on small area and enter portal.
most time when ppls go throw portal they become dmg from some ground target skills, yes the necro ones :P

i think the map is rly cool and ok, just the fights for cannon are a bit strange

sry for engl limits :P

Oidmetala.8426:

still like the map.
for me its great job from anet here!

i also love to see a dev is speaking to us.
(more love to rangers! oh wrong forum :P)

to skyhammer map.
i think there is the only problem the fights at the cannon.
there are many lame ways we can do on enter portal (guardian sanctuary behind enter portal when my team mates say “enemys comming” and then hammer them down to worms after perma knock back from sanctuary and dont forget the necro fears)

i think the problem is that the cannon is to important, because its so powerful and not dodge able.
so there are rly important fights at the cannon and this fights end rly fast, because low area and knock down to worms.
also there are many lame ways to defend cannon. the team which have loose the fight for cannon need to go again there, because no point is able to become back or defend when cannon can fire.
at same time the team which won the fight for cannon, have it more easy to defend it, because enter portal and one scouting player who say “they come cannon now”.
if the team dont go for cannon again it loose the teamfight always.
to become cannon back it need to be a 3v2 or something, because its easy to defend on small area and enter portal.
most time when ppls go throw portal they become dmg from some ground target skills, yes the necro ones :P

i think the map is rly cool and ok, just the fights for cannon are a bit strange

sry for engl limits :P

So cannon is not so Power like you Said, you Can easy win all fight without cannon! You need only to be lucky and push down your enemy down the wurms! I won with my guardian a 3 vs 1 fight cause with hammer and shield i pushed them all down

The map is awesome. The cannon is easy to read pre fire, and I look forward to more creative content along these lines.

danilod.6502:

So cannon is not so Power like you Said, you Can easy win all fight without cannon! You need only to be lucky and push down your enemy down the wurms! I won with my guardian a 3 vs 1 fight cause with hammer and shield i pushed them all down

come to think of it, that shield skill on such a small arena is bound to cause some ragequits.

nothing that can’t be solved by just making it slightly wider than it currently is (keep glass pads on the edges though, to add risk to people trying to use them as free kills).

Unthinkable for warriors.
This class canot stand face to face with any other class. PvP its done for warrior.

- Necros can spamm fear and 5-6 summons at same time.
- Engineer can spamm bombs, turrets and a lot of live sheld and automatic atack, control and condition dealind.
- Guardians can summon weapons and just blow out of skyhamer.

No coments more.
Good game to who play this map.

:D

That cannon just ignore my 3200 thougness, and rip 7200 dmg in a single shoot.

The question is:
- If he hits 7200 in 3200 thougnes, why he dont kill thieves of elementarist in a single shoot?

JETWING.2759:

:D

That cannon just ignore my 3200 thougness, and rip 7200 dmg in a single shoot.

Actually I don’t think it does ignore toughness. My Thief got hit for 12.7k

Warrior is indeed working on this map. Try berserker stance and stability stance. It is too easy to roam through all these necros trying to fear you in berserker stance.

However this map is very stale and supports CC heavy classes so hard that I have to stop with tournaments till Saturday. I mean the only thing you see are necros, guardians and engis. A map that forces to go completely in one spec. Too restrictive, too random and not dodgeable cannon.
Horrifying map.

PS: It feels more like playing Mario-Party on Nintendo than GW2 on my PC.

All I’ll say is watching Teldo play this makitten ome of the most hilarious gameplay I’ve ever seen.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Ok, that’s fair! Do you have any suggestions then, to maybe change the map a little to make up for classes that might not be as good at CC?

Someone mentioned making it harder, but not impossible, to knock people off the edge. Would something like that make you feel better about sticking to your class?

This is great feedback, btw. We really appreciate the constructive nature of these threads.

To be honest, I don’t think this map needs any change.
I found each profession to have enough tools to shine in this map.

Making it harder to knock people off the edge means making this map just like the other PvP maps, which is what everyone who is complaining about the map want.
They just want the new map to be what they were used to know as a tPvP map.
People will fight far off the edges to not be pushed off and it will all end to become Kyhlo with Skyhammer instead of a Trebuchet.

This map brought another way of play PvP which was needed. Conquest gets boring after 6 maps with the same theme and some secondary objective, fighting the same way people in every map to get a node gets boring after a while.

Also, I found this map to be incredibly skill-friendly, way more than the other maps. Good positioning and right-timed dodges never mattered as much as they do in Skyhammer. Having a bad positioning and not dodging at the right time will kill you, why, in the other maps, they will just cause you some extra annoying you can easily overcome.
Added to this, the map is much more fun to watch compared to other maps, another thing tPvP needs.

That’s why it should be a tPvP map and why other maps should have a such inspired design as this one.

I am all Ear to see how Eles can shine in this map with our CC we have, Updraft at 40s CD and only hit for a small area in front of you. Sure we can stay alive by giving ourself stability every 10s if trait and other Class can bring 4,5 CC and spam it….Oh and did I forget bout the Cannon that cover large area, deal dams equal to 80% of our health and undodgable ?

Tornado, Armor of Earth, the trait for 50% activation, Arcane Shield blocks CC, Signet of Earth, Water, Glyph of Elemental Power, Focus Air 4, Earth 4, Water 5, among others…

Stealth.9324:

I am all Ear to see how Eles can shine in this map with our CC we have, Updraft at 40s CD and only hit for a small area in front of you. Sure we can stay alive by giving ourself stability every 10s if trait and other Class can bring 4,5 CC and spam it….Oh and did I forget bout the Cannon that cover large area, deal dams equal to 80% of our health and undodgable ?

One word: Tornado.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Keep discussing, but I’m curious: Would having templates alleviate the issue of not wanting to respec for certain maps?

We do see teams shift their comps around for certain maps (and it seems to be very effective), would this not be along the same lines?

Keep the feedback coming, this is great!

Templates are important. I barely respec cause I’m to lazy… taking too much time and I just want to play and not respec and stuff(espcially if you also have to take different equip, runes an stuff). Maybe pros are still doing it even if it takes time. I don’t want it. In PvP we want to play…

Allie Murdock.8152:

Med.6150, great points! To piggyback a little on what kirito.4138 said, are you also fine with having every map be a conquest map? Or do you think that new game modes would/should not require respecing as well?

Secondary mechanics already are nice… unfortunately most people don’t want to play the more interesting maps like Spirit Watch and now Skyhammer(cannon being OP is just what makes it interesting and the falling damage and pushing people down stuff). Only good map with no whine at the moment is Temple of the Silent Storm – which is the best map in game atm.

I guess people want plain conquest without 2nd mechanics or just deathmatch or free for all.

Edit: Cannon is fine. If you don’t like the dmg then control it to use it against others instead of having the others use it against you.

Falling seems bugged? Someone mentioned it is possible to not to die and having to go to a sand wurm to get killed. Needs a fix. Also falling death could port you to WP with a lower waiting/respawn time than usual.

Alternative: As suggested making it a bit harder to push people down… but not too hard.

I’d prefer lower respawn time after falling death… OR(only one of that stuff) maybe some powerups to get a 5-10s stability after one CC… so you can move to another position and no fast “double knockback/launch” is possible which is the biggest problem.

Edit: Also bring back Spirit Watch soon please… or don’t remove Skyhammer until Spirit Watch is back… I don’t think it is a good sign if you removed both 2 maps… at least 2 always should stay in rotation while other maybe gets worked on to improve it. It only will show that you have no confidence in your ability to improve the map… scaring players away from sPvP.

Templates
Templates would be a good idea, if (and only if) they include changing the runes, amulets, weapons and sigils.
It should work in the prepare phase on every match, to adjust to the current map.

Playing only one spec or different
Personally I like to play different professions and different builds. I already have two mesmer both with a different built on my account, to change the char accordingly. As an esports viewer, I’d love to see more different tactics / play styles. The only problem is, that it’ll be more difficult to see the builds from the top esports team, since it take up alot of time, to review their builds. Is it necessary to show the builds? No, have you ever seen the skill tree of a top-player in league of legends? No.

Maybe we could also see an option to change the character within an match, without the need to relog in tpvp, and without getting kicked out of the server in spvp / without getting kicked out of the custom arena.

Current Meta
It may be difficult to play Skyhammer with the professions and builds from the current Meta, but personally I don’t think, that’s a problem, but i can see, that it’ll be a problem, when your profession gets useless or even a slight handicap can hurt. I don’t think this will be a problem for the top teams, but maybe for the more casual players, loving their profession, and maybe only playing one.

Laser Canon
I like the high damage / high risk factor. In think in the damage aspect we’ll have to differentiate between 8vs8 SPvP-Zergs and TPvP. Before changing anythink, I’d love to see f.e. Team Paradigm fighting against The Civilized Gentlemen, and see if the small place is really a problem in a coordinated TPvP Match.
I love it to be an important and fight changing mechanic.

Class balance and viability on Skyhammer
Every class have some skills, that either fear, pull or push you down. If you have to be a lot more careful where you stand. In combination with the laser canon immobilize and freeze matters even more. Let’s wait and see, if the meta on this map will change, that the teams will only try to kick the other team down, and use the laser canon for additional damage or not.

General eSport-Viewing
There is a lot going on around the map, and of course you can not show all. But I think especially on this map it’ll be very interesting what is going on on the laser platform. Let’s see how the shoutcasters are able to manage this. Maybe with an little screen in screen?

TPvP vs SPvP cs Custom Arenas
For custom arenas I could see an option, to turn off the breaking ground. For TPvP I’d not touch it, until we can see it’s first appearance in a tournament.
SPvP is quit difficult, some people are playing SPvP to prepare for tournaments, while other just play SPvP for the more casual attempt, to jump in quick, whenever you have a short time window. Maybe other just like the zerging. Would a disabled breaking ground or maybe a bigger laser canon be more helpful for them? I don’t know.

Please don’t change anything yet, and wait for the first Skyhammer Tournament!

Teutos.8620:

Class balance and viability on Skyhammer
Every class have some skills, that either fear, pull or push you down. If you have to be a lot more careful where you stand. In combination with the laser canon immobilize and freeze matters even more. Let’s wait and see, if the meta on this map will change, that the teams will only try to kick the other team down, and use the laser canon for additional damage or not.

Warrior has fear. He is useful now. Lol.

Regarding spectating/eSports: Is there a fixed cam point near the cannon room? The 1 time I spectated at an hotjoin I only found near the mid point and down near the portal?

I think the floors that you fall too should be changed to a platform made of Electricity around the map so that when you fall on that you instantly take a megaton of damage from the constantly pulsing floors.

Wow this turned into a great thread. IMO still i think making the cannon dodge-able would be a huge help to the map. it would reduce the pressure in the cannon room, which seems to be where alot of players have an issue, and it would cause players to choose between using endurance to avoid the cannon or using endurance to avoid the next possible CC. Aside from that i have wanted Templates since Day 1 and i think it would be fantastic if we saw that.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Keep discussing, but I’m curious: Would having templates alleviate the issue of not wanting to respec for certain maps?

We do see teams shift their comps around for certain maps (and it seems to be very effective), would this not be along the same lines?

Keep the feedback coming, this is great!

but what would happen when random map in rated match is introduced? if you want to ever introduce it, because lets say the truth, actual map rotation is a poor placeholder… teams should be made for any situation with rock/paper/scissors idea, just like the builds (thats the reason why you forbid changing of builds and armor in tournament or?), not builded just to own on one map, at least this is my opinion

on the topic…

i agree with most of the suggestion, cannon needs to be toned down, not able to cap while invul etc… another thing to consideration could be made glass windows similiar to Temple hole, just let you fall to lower floor instead of killing you, i personally thought it will be like it before i saw a map… instakill is a bit weird in a game like this

Scrye.9278:

I think that knocking someone off the edge should teleport them back to their spawn. I think that this would help to refocus this map as a PvP map and not a PvG (gravity) map.

This. They should make it work like fractals: place an invisible killzone barrier below the platforms/glass, so that people who fall die in 1s instead of having to wait that 5-6s bonus to the 14s respawn timer.

Right now it’s really heavily punishing to die to falling, just for the basically ~40% increased time it takes to respawn.

On the first day of implementation all people ran their preferred, general specs for the other established maps. The maps before did not have such sudden death mechanics and having bunkers, DPSers (condi) and bursters in good ratio seem to work. We would on occasion use the cannon, fight for it back and forth with an emphasis on defensive 2 node strategy, etc.
However the glass panels and potential to fall off the side, how quick and powerful the cannon was made people realise they should spec for the map… and there were an increasing number of clutch teams and clutch kills. If you don’t spec to counter or mirror them, you cannot accuse of a poorly planned map entirely… you will be against players using the map as an advantage.
That said, how quick you can capitalise on the cannon could use some toning down.
I believe once the complaints come in the map will improve and the suggestions made here can potentially be used to make improvements…

I do believe if someone knocks/fears/pulls you into a hole you can do the same to them… you just have to build accordingly and counter accordingly, think about what CC a class has, how will he use it, will it have tells, what position should i take to avoid being CC’d effectively (i.e. not having back to edge of map/glass panel), and call for assistance if bunker v bunker is going on forever…
It’s not that the map forces you to change spec… it’s the players capitalising on Skyhammer’s mechanics forcing you to counter. Some CC do require less skill to execute than others, though (Toss Elixir S → Magnet pull, Scorpion Wire, Tornado at cannon, Master of Terror + condi duration + Fear).

Solo que might not be a great indicator, but teams running lots of bunkers to utilise cannon can go both ways… not able to hold cannon and relying on massively outplaying your enemy; or relying on cannon to take down clumped enemies in a 3v3 on point. Different builds, different strategies… we will need time to find the perfect compromise in terms of CC and damage.

All im getting from this discussion bar the few people that can eloquently put across ideas is complaints about this changing the meta requiring a new build. I wouldn’t be surprised if these same people are the ones that complain about the stagnancy of the other maps and how the meta is there. My suggestions….build templates hells to the yes. That would definitely alleviate some issues with change of maps etc.

The PvP community atm is too small to split it with multiple game modes. We can’t afford to do that yet. For now look to add the infrastructure to warrant newer gw2 players trying pvp and enjoying it as well as the veterans giving them purpose to continue / come back to pvp. Said infrastructure includes but is not limited to further balance changes, solo q split, revamp of PvP rewards, and to be brutally honest…SOME form of overlap for rewards from pvp and pve. As others have mentioned PvP doing absolutely nothing for your PvE based character is a draw back. No legendaries in PvP also drawback, there needs to be some overlap of character progression from PvE WvW and PvP.

Lastly the map has only just come out, don’t act on complaints just yet. I think you’ll find the addition of build templates as well as a week or so to actually learn and test builds in the map people will wisen up etc. Even then I actually see builds that can generally run pretty well change out a major trait or 2 and a change of utilities which CAN be done on the fly and your all set…Its not hard to adapt but people seem to not quite comprehend what changing major traits and utilities can do.