Guild Wars 2

Hi all!

I’ve been meaning to start regularly reviewing my experiences in PvP as a way to identify my weaknesses and to get feedback, while also sharing the lessons I learned from my mistakes with others. Starting a stream might also be a good way to accomplish these goals, but I have serious doubts about the capacity of my hardware and connection to support a stream. I’m running a standard shatter mesmer build.
link

Having started focusing on PvP a month or two ago, I’m now getting matched up against top players, so I’m looking forward to the challenge. Here’s my current assessment of my abilities, 1 being a casual PvPer, 5 being a godlike no-scoper:

Mechanical skill: 3/5 I can read a fight and land a burst well, though my reaction times aren’t always on point and when this happens I might fumble a play
Map awareness: 3/5 The benefit of going solo Q most of the time
Team communication: 1/5 I would need a team to actually work on this
Team synergy: 1/5

Any other categories I’m missing?

Now, tonight:

Between lag spikes, horrendously lopsided matches, the queue bug, and trying to get Twitch functioning, tonight was interesting and I only stuck around for a few matches. I’ll start with the stupid stuff:

My first two matches saw me getting repeatedly 100-0’d by DPS guardians and thieves, with zero reaction on my part to getting spiked. I also got myself called out for backpedaling in a 1v1 (rightly so), and neglected to use portal when I could have saved myself in one instance too.

In the third match I put a portal on top of a downed Denshee, proceeded to travel through my own portal, where I ate an arcing arrow on the other end (a warrior was recapping his node), then portalled back to finish the hard res. Some would say that I should uninstall the game at this point, I can only make promises that this hilariously bad maneuver will not be repeated.

Good stuff:

Won a 1v1 against a good d/p thief. Can’t remember what I did right, he stayed close so I managed to drop chaos storm and land my shatters. I also got a useful !! portal stomp off at some point tonight, I guess I should keep a running tally of those (1). I wanted to take the portal after that but there was too much pressure and I had to back off. Stole a boss on Forest while kiting a necro around some LOS.

My main issue was getting 100-0’d in situations where I had cooldowns and didn’t use them in time or appropriately. This isn’t always an issue, but I’m curious what strategies you might have to make sure you can deal with that hard pressure intelligently. I do know my situational awareness was also lacking at times, but there were occasions where I would have anticipated being focused.

Ideas? Questions? Gripes?

Honestly, the amount of feedback anyone can give you based on your own rather spotty retelling of what happened is going to be pretty minimal. I’d recommend trying to hunt down some sort of recording software that you can run while playing so that you can get feedback in a more reasonable manner.

I think it’s great that you’re looking for comprehensive feedback on your playing. You just really can’t get anything useful like this.

I understand that, hence the question towards the end that is more about your individual approach rather than a specific error on my part. Part of this is just a record of my mistakes (I want to get better at catching them) and an invitation to others to share their experience. It’s not so much, “Help me solve these issues I’m struggling with”, as it is an opportunity to learn from each others’ experiences in the game.

I have been trying get some recording software working, in which case I could include that along with my own thoughts.

Dear Diary,

That power ranger wrecked me. Masterful reflection only takes you so far. I adjusted by finding some good spots to use LoS, and had some effective escape portals, although it wasn’t enough. Moa would also have helped, but since this was solo queue I was still finding myself in 1v1/1v2 situations and couldn’t count on allies being present to focus the target.

How do you deal with power rangers? Do you call in allies? Is it enough to LoS them? Go in aggressively? Do you try to get dueling experience?

//

Fay: If I’m able to identify on my own the kind of issues I have, and if these are issues that other players have encountered, then at least I can take from other players those strategies or methods they used to deal with those issues. There’s plenty of feedback that gets tossed around without someone giving video replay, and I’m not looking for a definitive answer, it’s more like brainstorming before I tackle the problem by myself.

Bertrand.3057:

How do you deal with power rangers? Do you call in allies? Is it enough to LoS them? Go in aggressively? Do you try to get dueling experience?

You get up close and stay in their face. Long range is the ranger’s friend, and they will tear you apart. Stay close, dodge PBS, and apply constant pressure. They’re glassier than you, so make use of it.

Bertrand.3057:

Dear Diary,

That power ranger wrecked me. Masterful reflection only takes you so far. I adjusted by finding some good spots to use LoS, and had some effective escape portals, although it wasn’t enough. Moa would also have helped, but since this was solo queue I was still finding myself in 1v1/1v2 situations and couldn’t count on allies being present to focus the target.

How do you deal with power rangers? Do you call in allies? Is it enough to LoS them? Go in aggressively? Do you try to get dueling experience?

//

Fay: If I’m able to identify on my own the kind of issues I have, and if these are issues that other players have encountered, then at least I can take from other players those strategies or methods they used to deal with those issues. There’s plenty of feedback that gets tossed around without someone giving video replay, and I’m not looking for a definitive answer, it’s more like brainstorming before I tackle the problem by myself.

I agree with Fay but if they’re good and if you start a long way from them it’s quite hard to get up in their face, why did they get stealth god kitten it… Interrupt (if you have that) is fantastic against their channeled LB thing that takes half your health. I find it hard to NOT use stealth against that channeled hell.. it comes so naturally and I swear every time.. one day I will learn.

Against longbow Rangers your best friend is going to be confusion, not the condition, but actually confusing them, I tend to find popping decoy and blinking ontop of them works great, most will likely open with rapid fire so your ethier have to eat it threw your stealth, or dodge, after that your generally have to bait out signet of stone witch makes them take 0damage, a cry of fustration shatter and a few autos is usally enough to do this considering how squishy they are, from there your free to go in for your full burst, Ofc situations change and such tactics are not always optimal, but, generally staying ontop of them/behined them and always moving I find to work best

Fay.2357:

Bertrand.3057:

How do you deal with power rangers? Do you call in allies? Is it enough to LoS them? Go in aggressively? Do you try to get dueling experience?

You get up close and stay in their face. Long range is the ranger’s friend, and they will tear you apart. Stay close, dodge PBS, and apply constant pressure. They’re glassier than you, so make use of it.

Not really: You are both probably running zerker amulet and he is in medium armor

jenzie.4083:

I find it hard to NOT use stealth against that channeled hell.. it comes so naturally and I swear every time.. one day I will learn.

Haha, I get what you mean. I was fighting a shoutbow warrior and knew he was watching my dodges so that he could land pin down and… I still burned them needlessly. So I ate pin down.

These ranger fights were on Legacy and Temple, I probably also need to be less obvious about focusing the ranger because a head-on charge requires me burning all my cooldowns to even engage. Of course, this gives him plenty of time to pew pew my allies.

Korusef.3714:

Fay.2357:

Bertrand.3057:

How do you deal with power rangers? Do you call in allies? Is it enough to LoS them? Go in aggressively? Do you try to get dueling experience?

You get up close and stay in their face. Long range is the ranger’s friend, and they will tear you apart. Stay close, dodge PBS, and apply constant pressure. They’re glassier than you, so make use of it.

Not really: You are both probably running zerker amulet and he is in medium armor

Mesmer has a comparatively massive amount of active defense though. The ranger basically has the one transfer skill…and that’s it.

For me I need los to beat a good power ranger assume we both start fresh with all the cds. Or else I moa them kittens.

Mogar.9216:

For me I need los to beat a good power ranger assume we both start fresh with all the cds. Or else I moa them kittens.

Kited a power ranger like hell last night, landed some solid shatters, just moved into a safe spot to heal up before landing the finishing blow when I got steal + backstabbed by a thief. Such is life