Guild Wars 2

I’d like to put forward the idea that 1v1 shouldn’t be balanced at all. This game isn’t tailored for 1v1 (which is evident by the lack of dueling ability) but rather for team combat and just the act of balancing 1v1 could actually destabilize 5v5, 8v8, or 30+v30+.

In a recent thread about Kill Shot, I realized that these “OP” threads were getting out of hand. Your necro should probably go down if she tries to melee a warrior or, rather, let’s a warrior melee her. I would argue that this combat went exactly as it should and what you should have done is kited or run or both. Likewise, if a warrior tries to 1v1 with a skilled mesmer, he’s probably gonna end up having a very bad day.

So to all these threads asking “Should this class kill me so quickly??? I have 7,000,000 Armor and 600,000 health!!!” the answer is generally “Yes. Yes they should.” and the fact that players who are better than you or me come in here and say that this kind of stuff doesn’t happen to them because they see it coming is the reason why it should. More often than not, even I can see you missed a big wind-up animation or behaved in an ill-advised manner. And even then, sometimes it just happens. You don’t see it coming, you take it, realize that you can just respawn, and move on.

I want this game to be tailored for the super-skilled and learned. That way I have somewhere to go, animations to learn to recognize, and skill to gain. I watch some of the high level matches on youtube and I’m floored by how learned these guys are. They can instantly recognize animations for any skill of any class with any weapon and react accordingly with their own skill bar and weapon. Hearing them say, “I notice [X] class winding up for [Y] action so I hit my dodge and kite while hitting my [Z] and now it becomes a 3v2” when they are in the middle of a 3v3 and [X] is not even the target they are focusing on really impresses me and I want to be that adept some day.

If You find yourself in a situation where you get slaughtered quickly or don’t know what happened, look at the combat log, see what combo or skill got you, roll that kind of character in your last character slot (which you have left empty for sPvP character of choice, right? Unless you have 8 slots, that is…), and see how that combo or skill works for yourself. Find the weakness of it, learn to recognize it, and then be a little bit better at the game so you can rock the next guy who tries that little trick on you.

People are too quick to complain about something being too difficult when what they should really be doing is making themselves better at this game. I am not a pro here nor do I ever think I’ll be able to invest enough time to be a pro but that doesn’t mean I want something nerfed just to bring it down to my skill level.

Take a step back, look at what you really want this game to be, and ask yourself, “Would I really be making the game better for everyone if I had my way here?” I think you will, more often than not, find the answer to be a resounding “No.”