Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone, was just reflecting on ranked and my overall experience for PvP this season and was wondering what everyone’s experience in terms of difficulty throughout the League divisions was. To be more plain, which division was the most difficult to cross and why (from hardest to easiest)?

1) Emerald: Lot’s of AFK players and teammates who just had no clue what they were doing.

2) Ruby: Again very similar to emerald, mostly players running around chasing people off points and sacrificing themselves mid. Many refused to rotate or defend.

3) Sapphire: Slightly less bad players for some reason, didnt have any afk issues or dcs, was also fairly easy to carry matches throughout sapphire.

4) Diamond: Overall decent players, teammates generally listened. Diamond was a lot of fun as most games were fairly competitive, did have a lot of blowout matches in the last 2 tiers. Ended up with roughly a 70% win ratio through Diamond and completed the entire division in 3 days.

5) Amber: Can’t remember much aside from being able to carry every match due to starting late in the season.

6) Legendary: only played one match once I completed diamond so nothing to comment on, I could guess very similar to diamond.

Played Marauder Druid and Thief throughout every division, solo q and duo q in diamond.

How about you?

Really enjoyed it overall even though I got stuck in Ruby for the last few weeks, I probably belong there. I’m living proof that you can’t grind your way to Diamond with a 50% win/loss.

Sapphire was the best division for fun games IMO, had some crackin sub 10 point matches in there.

Soloq is unfair, ranked will never be truly competitve and rng for the solo player. The worst part is that Anet cherrypicks feedback and dodge this question, all we want is then acknowledge the problem. We have been at a stalemate for over three years, we’ve been patient, why not treat us properly by communicating more accurately.
I can understand if soloq is impossible to implement at this stage, but we need a system preventing/lowering pip loss vs premade, as with afkers.

Elite specs are overpowered, to much powercreep that nerfing amu’s wont solve. I miss the old meta around june 2015 where u had more options in roles/builds. Old core specs needs to be on par.

It felt more fluid/more fun/less rng to get to legendary as a soloq starting from 2 weeks in from season start till early january. Idk why.

Leagues makes us care more about win losses, though i hope to see more pvp types instead of just stronghold. Add dueling cages to hotm or let us queue outside, was boring waiting there for matches.

Chronobunker made pvp a horrible experience.

The overall negative feedback I read made me not want to enter leagues at all. So i didn’t. From what I understand, I am the last happy person in PvP.

eh. I’ve had to play against full diamond teams after they changed the matchmaking while still in emerald (never left it as i just don’t have that much time for gw2 anymore, but my pals are legendary). its been ok, but I’ve been seriously missing my warrior & can’t shake the feeling that the game is dying.

the whole game seems to be about downed control, & diamond & legendary players seem pretty poor at that. the res nerfs should hopefully help, but we really need the downed health degradation that pve & wvw have.

still, i feel gw2’s golden age was pre specialisations & i would love to go back to celestial bombs, & pre nerf caviller shout warrior.

Solo/Duo’d to legendary mainly on reaper. Amber-Ruby was pretty simple. Diamond was stressful because 7 tiers is 35 pips, and you can lose them all (hours/days of progress) on any day with any long losing streak. I relaxed and played fun builds after legendary.

For me it was one hell to diamond. Stopped playing once i got there because i wanted the wings :> Hardest was ruby. Oh god, it was just like playing unranked, but with people who think a little more. Once i got to diamond (and got the wings ofc) i just couldn’t see HotM or any pvp map anymore. I think i’ll have to take a month or so away from pvp, because it was just annoying. I had nearly no fun at all.
(Btw, the wings look adorable on my ele!! It was as if they designed it for her to use lol)

Just made it to Ruby last night after playing ranked casually (a couple of night’s a week) since beginning of January. Played entirely SoloQ with my vanilla ranger.

Some frustration along the way with occasional team mates disconnecting/not playing, occasional landslide defeats and general one step forwards two steps back progress.
But overall I didn’t find it too annoying, although I will be pleased to see the back of this Bunkerish meta (I’m looking at you ChronoMesmer and Diamond skin Tempest).

Diamond was a mess, joining a ranked pvp game was like flipping a coin, if your team was 4 points of kitten and enemy was only 3 points of kitten then it meant you’ll most likely lose.
Legend however my winrate went up to about 75%-80% with solo queue. People just simply know their class well and know how to play conquest, there are exceptions tho obviously.

Amber was easy, emerald was a mixed bag, seemed easy in the first few tiers but the last tier I ran into rubies (this was early season so rubies then eventually became legendaries) and I got past that into sapphire. Sapphire was similar but not as bad in the last tier. I solo’ed and duo’ed most of it. Ruby seemed like it was going well until the patch hit and I went from 7 pips to 0 :( I then played more and stopped at four pips and just did unranked. Yes, the risk of getting Skyhammer was worth not dealing with the broken algorithm.

Overall while there were some close matches (even 500-500 one time, “lost” technically, but still gained a pip) it was mostly blowouts from one end or another and had lots of AFK’er and MMR tanker issues. A druid even ran around saying to kill him.

I did some light stronghold and remember having to completely carry since people really didn’t know what to do. My last stronghold was a complete blowout against a premade so I stopped queuing for it.

A bit frustrating due to Dragonhunters and scrappers( as Thief S / SB, soloq ).

started only after xmas, and nearly achieved ruby ( 4 pips left ).

Mainly, really below expectations ( matchmaking, afkers and disc, stronghold, premades vs pug, changings with season ongoing and season’s start with no test at all, etc etc… )

S2 “must” be better.

Got 3 pips away from diamond about a month ago (reaper), got bored with the lame meta and OP elite specs. Stopped playing for 3 weeks, then made a f2p account so I could play a base spec at low MMR. Even fighting newbies with elite specs as a base ranger could be an uphill battle. Game balance/power creep is at an all time low.

Far too much sustain going around. Before elites ele had the best sustain being almost unkillable and then Guard. After elites it been ele, druid, scrapper, and bunker mes. Hasn’t been fun fighting for 3-5 mins a time as a full high risk zerker against low risk builds that require 2-3 people to take down. Definitely the worse PvP season I can remember, that I would rather sooner forget. As for DH, I can’t believe they released such a broken elite, unblockable traps with dazes + obscene ranged damage. Their attitude is you guys have to put up with this broken stuff for a whole season before we can be bothered to do anything about it, is the worst PvP policy ever. One we can look forward to from the next patch as well.

The league had no real thought put behind it. MMR abuse, the bizarre pip gain/loss system, and I felt no sense of achievement on reaching diamond because it felt more luck based than any measure of my individual skill. We still have premade vs pugs, why? Because Anet’s PvP drive and balance is centered solely on trying to create an esport brand.

Overall, I’d say I enjoyed my S1 play. I made it into Ruby. When the season ended last night, I was 4 pips away from diamond. Much further than I had actually thought I would make it considering I didn’t even jump into the pvp season until after Christmas.

I can’t say that I’m looking forward the to the balance patch today, as I’m concerned (given anet’s balance history) with the outcome, but balancing between the classes as well as between elite vs normal specs is absolutely necessary.

Season 2 is going to be….interesting.

Amber: Matches were very easy. Dont remember much specifically to mention something about matches in that division.

Emerald: Was frustrating at first when losing a match meant losing of pips/points but eventually I got used to that. I remember getting frustrated a bit at the beginning when losing just because of my mistake or some other teammates’.

Sapphire: Breezed through the first 4 tiers and seemed easier than emerald until I hit the last tier. It took me almost 5 days to get past the last tier after getting to 4 pips of t5 4 times only to lose the next match multiple times due to reasons.

Ruby: The early matches were very competitive with our (mine and opponents’) teams staying in the 400+ points when we either won or lost for most matches. As soon as I reched t5, the problems started, having a series of losing streaks. Losing tiers was very stressful and caused more frustration. Later I found that in t5-6 of ruby I was getting matched with/against diamonds and a few legendaries which kinda angered me but got used to it. Finally on Sunday (24th Jan) I ascended to diamond division with a smile on my face

Diamond: Played just two matches in total before I stopped playing PvP for the season. Not much to comment.

Legendary: Didnt reach…

Thanks for reading

/Edit: Bring back SoloQ for next season please…

I enjoyed it, have a new resolution for PvP, must thank your random teammate when they won the match together with you. I only hope they stay to see me type it.

Vague Memory.2817:

Far too much sustain going around. Before elites ele had the best sustain being almost unkillable and then Guard. After elites it been ele, druid, scrapper, and bunker mes. Hasn’t been fun fighting for 3-5 mins a time as a full high risk zerker against low risk builds that require 2-3 people to take down. Definitely the worse PvP season I can remember, that I would rather sooner forget. As for DH, I can’t believe they released such a broken elite, unblockable traps with dazes + obscene ranged damage. Their attitude is you guys have to put up with this broken stuff for a whole season before we can be bothered to do anything about it, is the worst PvP policy ever. One we can look forward to from the next patch as well.

The league had no real thought put behind it. MMR abuse, the bizarre pip gain/loss system, and I felt no sense of achievement on reaching diamond because it felt more luck based than any measure of my individual skill. We still have premade vs pugs, why? Because Anet’s PvP drive and balance is centered solely on trying to create an esport brand.

Actually dragonhunter was likely the best thing about season 1 because it had a clearly defined role as a bronzestomper and one’s relationship to it was a clear demarcation line: lesser skilled players complain about them whereas good players know their counters. Their bronzestomper role was a sign that Anet was starting to balance for skill (thief already had this treatment from the other side) but had lots of major tweaking to do on other classes. Being “OP” in lowerleagues but underpowered in higher leagues apparently wasn’t their intention however.

I would do a whole division in a day, get burned out, and not play for a week. i ended up doing all of diamond the day before the league ended. i feel sick.

Agemnon.4608:

Vague Memory.2817:

Far too much sustain going around. Before elites ele had the best sustain being almost unkillable and then Guard. After elites it been ele, druid, scrapper, and bunker mes. Hasn’t been fun fighting for 3-5 mins a time as a full high risk zerker against low risk builds that require 2-3 people to take down. Definitely the worse PvP season I can remember, that I would rather sooner forget. As for DH, I can’t believe they released such a broken elite, unblockable traps with dazes + obscene ranged damage. Their attitude is you guys have to put up with this broken stuff for a whole season before we can be bothered to do anything about it, is the worst PvP policy ever. One we can look forward to from the next patch as well.

The league had no real thought put behind it. MMR abuse, the bizarre pip gain/loss system, and I felt no sense of achievement on reaching diamond because it felt more luck based than any measure of my individual skill. We still have premade vs pugs, why? Because Anet’s PvP drive and balance is centered solely on trying to create an esport brand.

Actually dragonhunter was likely the best thing about season 1 because it had a clearly defined role as a bronzestomper and one’s relationship to it was a clear demarcation line: lesser skilled players complain about them whereas good players know their counters. Their bronzestomper role was a sign that Anet was starting to balance for skill (thief already had this treatment from the other side) but had lots of major tweaking to do on other classes. Being “OP” in lowerleagues but underpowered in higher leagues apparently wasn’t their intention however.

Well according to Anet DH have too much burst and disruption hence why traps are receiving a nerf. People were saying this from early on in the season, but nothing was done about it, which means Anet were happy to allow an OP spec to continue for a whole season. That doesn’t fill me with confidence for subsequent seasons.

It was not a pleasant experience overall. It was filled with tons of exploits for starters. Also, I didn’t feel like the level of skill increased at all from amber through diamond where I finished. Probably because of the exploits and the fact that any moron could grind to at least ruby. The meta itself was grabage I participated in more timed out matches in 6 weeks then I did in two year before hand. I am hopeful though (silly me) that if they stick to there guns and implement the matchmaking changes as described which is being teamed with people your MMR level and facing people based on league placement only season 2 will be much better. I can hopefully feel like I am actually progressing while facing better competition along the way. Hopefully there will be no more so called “diamond” and “legendary” players pinging Chieften and Svanir at start or rushing the Lord in Foefire right at the start of a match.

I enjoyed s1 a lot. Didn’t play much of pvp for year and half. But I wanted wings, and I liked badge system so I gave it a shot.
SoloQed every single game since start to legend. I didn’t care about mmr, premades, meta or anything. I just kept playing and getting better each day. When I reached legendary it felt super good. Best moment of gw2 for me till this day. Cant wait for season 2.

Overall, I enjoyed it a lot, even if I had very little time to play. The only real problem was the balance, and people insulting me when I played my thief (come on guys, you’re not in the pro-league, thief works fine in saphire-ruby). But having a feeling of progression in pvp was really nice, as well as playing with my guild team and trying to make a name for ourselves in the guild leaderboards.

On the negative side, balance of course, and the MMR exploits. I’m looking forward to the s2 changes, but I fear that Anet was a little extreme in the way they implemented the anti-exploit system. My real life friends are less experienced, and I fear that they’ll get completely destroyed if every player on the other team is on my level.

Short: none.

After HoT went live and after i realized how short was the end of the stick for thieves i pretty much quit pvp. I started to queue for ranked again during xmas holidays thanks to my BF (he plays gw2 as well and watching him pvp kind of motivated me) so around that time i was still amber.

Diamond was stupidly easy: after BNS came out i only logged in to do daily 3 matches, got through half of division by doing classes achive for backpack, last 3 tiers i pretty much grinded on last day of the season because i thought might as well get legend.

Fun fact: a lot of players in diamond/legend definitely wouldn’t be there if exploits didn’t exist and leagues weren’t so grindy but more about skill. Why?

1. most of the games i played as vanilla dp thief, it is really worrying how many players lost 1v1 fights vs my thief and they were using elites…. not saying i am amazing but this simply shouldn’t happen in diamond/legend (i am not even going to mention absolutely horrendous map awareness and rotation i saw from players).

2. every single diamond/legend player i met while being in emerald/sapphire myself was really really really bad

Bottom line: leagues are nothing but just same farmboards with new UI. You don’t need to be amazing to get to high tiers just maintain about 50% win rate and invest some time and patience.

Positive: devs definitely improved algorithm and i didn’t get premades every second match like before leagues.

Negative: meta just sucks, it is boring and has nothing to do with skill. Also i am really buffled by the fact that exploiters and afkers left unpunished.

If customer support actually were banning people for verbal harassment, fair amount of EU pvp community would probably not be able to play game right now: amount of harassment i had to endure simply because i play thief was mildly said ridiculous – i was called names, told to kill myself, told to uninstall etc. I have to say though somewhere in diamond people stopped doing it. Ruby was definitely the most toxic.

Cynz.9437:

Short: none.

After HoT went live and after i realized how short was the end of the stick for thieves i pretty much quit pvp. I started to queue for ranked again during xmas holidays thanks to my BF (he plays gw2 as well and watching him pvp kind of motivated me) so around that time i was still amber.

Diamond was stupidly easy: after BNS came out i only logged in to do daily 3 matches, got through half of division by doing classes achive for backpack, last 3 divisions i pretty much grinded on last day of the season because i thought might as well get legend.

Fun fact: a lot of players in diamond/legend definitely wouldn’t be there if exploits didn’t exist and leagues weren’t so grindy but more about skill. Why?

1. most of the games i played as vanilla dp thief, it is really worrying how many players lost 1v1 fights vs my thief and they were using elites…. not saying i am amazing but this simply shouldn’t happen in diamond/legend (i am not even going to mention absolutely horrendous map awareness and rotation i saw from players).

2. every single diamond/legend player i met while being in emerald/sapphire myself was really really really bad

Bottom line: leagues are nothing but just same farmboards with new UI. You don’t need to be amazing to get to high tiers just maintain about 50% win rate and invest some time and patience.

Positive: devs definitely improved algorithm and i didn’t get premades every second match like before leagues.

Negative: meta just sucks, it is boring and has nothing to do with skill. Also i am really buffled by the fact that exploiters and afkers left unpunished.

If customer support actually were banning people for verbal harassment, fair amount of EU pvp community would probably not be able to play game right now: amount of harassment i had to endure simply because i play thief was mildly said ridiculous – i was called names, told to kill myself, told to uninstall etc. I have to say though somewhere in diamond people stopped doing it. Ruby was definitely the most toxic.

Would love here to hear how you “grinded the last 3 divisions on the last day”. That’s around 90 pips in 1 day in divisions where you can lose pips and tiers.

lol mistyped 3 tiers for 3 divisions… i think i would have died grinding 3 divisions in 1 day xD

i think it would take fresh account and legendary esl premade to get 3 divisions in 1 day

Amber to emerald was honestly easy cause you couldn’t lose tiers. Emerald was frustrating because it seemed like people either communicated and put up a fair fight or completely ignored what was said and ran to the middle over and over no matter what. Ruby has been a mixed bag. I’ve had some nice matches that were very even and then I’ve had matches where people seem to be roaming the map with no clear objective or organization.

I assume it’s due to the matching system needing to be revamped and look forward to it being fixed. I feel like there should also be an afk report button because there were a couple times someone assumed we would lose not even a few minutes into a match because we were behind the other team and openly said they gave up/were going to afk for the rest of the match.

My experience is mostly with soloQ, I’ve joined as a team only 4 times or so.

1) amber - got through fast, took like an hour.
2) emerald - pretty easy except for the vast number of leavers
3) sapphire - I don’t remember having any issues. Got through with out a hitch
4) ruby - there was no real improvement in player skill from amber to here probably due to how grindy it is to get here and I got here after my Christmas break
5) diamond - appropriate skill level mostly. A few players there from when taking an amber got you pips that didn’t belong.
6) legend - usually good games. Still some bad players, like a druid that kept going far and dying far to a DH trap burst....

I noticed the pip system made no God kitten sense I hope it gets better s2

Oh also the meta was absolute trash. It was boring to deal with

I soloQ and only made it to Ruby. I did however start playing ranked pretty late because of work.
Ruby was a nightmare. I cant even remember how many games i played in that division but most of the game went as following:
- 1 close, 1 rush far, 3 rush mid. Mid wipes and then far gets backup and its bascially gg from there.
- In another scenario team start rushing mid. Gets a cap and then leaves. Oppoenent team easily takes it back with only 1 person defending it and from here, the game is over.

I like the league system overall. SoloQ is tough and i accept that. I do however find it kittened, that youre able to change class in “pre-game”. Im with 4 randoms which as default isnt easy but on top of that, the opposit team, often premades or semi-premades gets to reroll classes to counter even further. I play Necro so alot of my games was against 2 Diamond Eles. Was just a waste of time tbh. If i could change only one thing i ranked pvp, that would be it.

Anyways, looking forward to next league

High MMR players that YOLO que’d really got the shaft at the start of the season.

Ruby, was by far the absolute worst. A lot of the players in this division had absolutely no business being there, still the only way they got there was through sheer grinding. Queue’n ranked in the past you knew you’d get a decent match. Now? Holy guacamole it’s like these folks have never played this part of the game before.

Had I not spent so much time up and down in that division I would have made it through to legendary, but ultimately ran out of time. I was happy to make it into Diamond, in that division at least 90% of the time folks knew their class and played like they wanted to win.

With the META the way it was this season, the league overall was NOT FUN at all. There was almost no counter play, 2 classes were kitten near useless no matter what spec they ran. Winning was more about dumb luck, you didn’t get a poorly played thief or war on your team, or someone DC’d or flat out refused to play and AFK.

That behavior alone is enough to make even the most seasoned vets say KITTEN this and ride off into the sunset.

Hoping season 2 is better.