Guild Wars 2

Ok this has come up too many times now and I’m not sure if there’s a thread on it in this section yet or not but I believe if A-net wants E-sport out of their game these two must go.

1 – Thieves and spamming their stealth ability in stealth until it lands.

Currently a stealth thief has the option of spamming his stealth opener attack with no regard for whether the target is currently blocking/dodging/evading/etc. They remain stealth and are able to spam the attack over and over – for ZERO initiative cost – until it lands or the stealth timer ends.

If you want competitive play, a stealth attack on a blocking, dodging, etc player must reveal the Thief. He made his attempt, it missed, he should be punished and revealed for the mistake – not given 100% free chances to spam the skill until it lands.

2 – Warrior’s and not losing Adrenaline when they miss.

Currently a warrior with a full built adrenaline bar can go for whatever burst skill they want – if they miss, its blocked, person dodges, etc…once again there is almost zero punishment for missing – and likewise zero reward to the player who avoided the attack. All that happens is your burst skill goes on its 7-10s CD and then you use it again…or even better you can swap weapons and use that burst skill with full adrenaline.

This is actually causing side issues for the profession. The Longbow is gaining popularity mostly bc of its AOE dmg and reliable proccing of Cleansing Ire.

The only reason Cleansing Ire works so well with LB is bc it is the only Burst skill which actually dumps your adrenaline – hit or miss. If all burst were reworked to dump adrenaline on attempted use, then we could see cleansing ire cleansing before the burst skill actually swings/leaps at the target.

Basically I just feel that both of these mechanics are very hand-holding and do not reward skillful play in any way.

I’m sure many people will agree and many people will disagree. Before the rage – I play my Thief and my Warrior especially plenty and have lvl 80s of both professions.

While we are on this subject – if anyone can think of any other glaring hand-holding mechanics like this please feel free to point them out. These are the only two I can think of like this.

Hand-holding mechanics are all over the game.

I guess the same can be said of some escapes: they are not punishing because they are on a short cooldown.

However, I don’t have a problem with the fact thieves can stealth when blocked, and I don’t play a thief.

Wait, did you just say that Warriors are OP or something? Since they don’t lose adrenaline when they fail their bursts.

The fact you mention those two tiny facts about how thieves and warriors work while the former is very uncommon in high level and the later is plain impossible to find, and say this is the reason the game isn’t esports itself it kind of baffling.

Don’t you have more relevant examples?

Lol with the hate.

So you think these mechanics make sense? They absolutely do not reward skillful play or punish poor play. I’m sorry you can’t see it.

Just because it’s not an issue for you personally doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist within the game.

Also, I didn’t want that to be the thread title – but my titles that directly mentioned the two issues were too long for the forum to accept and I want a-net to actually read it so I mentioned E-sports. I do believe these have no place in there if they want to go that route.

Now in regards to did I call Warriors OP? I think you can go re-read the post and find out for yourself. I never called them OP or insinuated it in any way. Warrior still need sPVP love, we know this….but this would actually buff more than hurt IMO. The change to the bars spending immediately upon activating your burst means we could get the cleanse at the beginning of our animation – instead of at the end only if it lands.

This is a big issues we Warrior’s have with Cleansing Ire currently – it feels like it should be better than it is bc with melee weapons, you don’t get the cleanse if you don’t connect, because if you don’t connect you don’t spend any adrenaline. Well we need to cleanse in order to connect usually.

I’m not hating. I agree they are hand holding (and I have less problems against thieves only because I don’t play glass cannon). But they are not the only ones.

Reward-Punishment ratio should be fair for everyone. Considering some classes (warrior) are already more punished than others when it comes to animation prediction, we should probably need to balance it all around the table.

Ah yeah, I know that problem with Cleansing Ire. Still making it always spend the adrenaline doesn’t feel to me like the right option somehow.

And I still do not agree with your title because some stuff in classes that are nearly irrelevant to the current meta cannot be the problem for esports validity of the game.

To make it clear, sometimes I’d like to use a burst skill to remove conditions even if I don’t hit anyone and I deplete my adrenaline. So I won’t be too sad if this will be changed.

It’s just about the reward-punishment philosophy: first of all it should be fair. I only wanted to argue the game is full of hand holding mechanics.

I totally agree with you, the thing holding back GW2 esports isn’t matchmaking, ragequiters, small amount of spectators per game, solo que, people farming rank in hotjoins, IT’S THE FACT THAT thiefs don’t get revealed when you do something like PBAE knockdown/knockback, or block them when they strike you and when warriors don’t lose adrenaline when you block them, daze them, knockdown them and dodge them.

Yes, exactly correct. Warriors not losing adrenaline when they miss is the reason this game isn’t competitive. Because it’s skillful to indiscriminately spam blinds constantly.

Yes, warriors are indeed gamebreakingly OP in sPvP and tPvP. That’s why you see so many teams stacked with only warriors.

Where have you been all these years?

I completely agree with the OP.

I hate how I can know a thief is stealthed right next to me but there’s nothing I can do about it. I can dodge/evade his attacks, but it’s essentially like avoiding an auto attack. I can throw out aoe cc to hope to knock him back, but this just delays the eventual opener.

I can chain all of this together, hoping that the thief runs out of stealth before I run out of evades and cc, but then what? The thief has full health, full initiative, can more than likely stealth again depending on his build, and I have wasted evades and some cooldowns.

The lack of target nearest player enemy is another.

If they would turn down the blind spam I could see this would affect the warrior’s adrenaline bar. But at the moment there are just too many blinds being thrown around for there to be any sort of penalty on a missed/blocked adrenaline strike. Technically, there already is a penalty as it enters a CD, but you can just swap weapons and use the adrenaline strike for that one anyway.

Well, I didn’t think I had to clarify this specifically. But here goes…

These are just two things I see that have no place in a game striving for E-sports.

That in no ways tries to imply they are the only two problems.

All better now?

While it’s worthwhile and legit pointing these issues out and even disliking the features involved, things like 1v1 capability and AoE prevalence or even issues as overlooked as the RNG involved in battles are way higher on the list of reasons why the game will never evolve past the desire for elevating it to competitive gaming of a few individuals.

This thread, i like it, give me another!

I agree on all accounts Velron. This game’s PvP definitely needs more risk/reward, failure/punishment scenarios for certain classes.

Yep, agreeed. I should be able to headshot a guardian out of shelter, sanctuary and renewed focus.

In most warrior builds burst skills you intend on using are so important to land, and will often dictate a fight. Failure to do so immediately puts them on 8-9 second cooldown, which is a long time in tpvp. This is also overlooking the usual need to swap weapons before then.

Trying to argue a lack of risk/reward to the warrior class is absurd to anyone with any class knowledge.

I agree with this post. I have refused to play the game recently because while the warrior changes they are making are a step in the right direction the way the mechanic is implemented is flawed. Cleansing Ire should cleanse before the burst, in order to do this the burst must be consumed at the beginning of the animation and if you miss now or get blocked then the other player deserves it. For a thief, if you are stealthed and hit someone who is blocking, you should be revealed. It makes no sense that you can hit someone, them block it and them still not know you are there.

Chrispytoast.3698:

I agree with this post. I have refused to play the game recently because while the warrior changes they are making are a step in the right direction the way the mechanic is implemented is flawed. Cleansing Ire should cleanse before the burst, in order to do this the burst must be consumed at the beginning of the animation and if you miss now or get blocked then the other player deserves it. For a thief, if you are stealthed and hit someone who is blocking, you should be revealed. It makes no sense that you can hit someone, them block it and them still not know you are there.

If you can manage to immobilize/stun a mesmer, then you deserve to kill him. Instead he just needs to use phase retreat. On 10 s cooldown. And it will create enough gap to act like a stunbreaker. Reduce the range of phase retreat, too. It looks like a get out of jail free card to me.

If we fix risk for only one class, then this class has no rewards against the others. Talking about warriors. The hell with thieves.

Like: the enemy deserves to deplete our adrenaline bar if we miss him. We don’t deserve to kill a mesmer if we immobilize him, because he has phase retreat on an extremely short cooldown (or any hand holding thing of your choice). Is that fair?

Same might be said for other classes.

two issues holding back e-sport?
1. ANet doesn’t care about PvP.
2. Not many people care about this game.

“let’s nerf the entire warrior class mechanic to make one trait work properly”: the thread.

This might be my favorite thread of the day. Let’s keep ’em coming, folks!

3. If Mesmer misses a clone-summoning skill, he summons a copy of himself that attacks him instead.

4. If an Elementalist misses his Burning Speed he slams into a wall and gets stunned for 5 seconds.

5. If an Engineer steps on his own Slick Shoes oil paddle he slips and snaps his neck for 100k damage.

Better idea: we lose the adrenaline if we miss.

But our burst skills should be buffed A LOT: If I hit the enemy with Arcing Slice, I should be rewarded with much higher damage, right? Same with Flurry, Skull Crack, Earthshaker. Maybe also Eviscerate and Longbow Burst.

Man people can’t really separate stuff. Just because I’m saying these mechanics are silly doesn’t mean I think warriors need nerfs or don’t already have harsher risk/reward than other professions. Sure this could be seen as a nerf to many, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be made up for elsewhere.

Personally I think a cool idea would be to make warrior burst skills immune to blind and unblockable.

The two points you brought up are not in any way affecting the progression of E-Sports.
It’s more about infrastructure.

Med.6150:

While it’s worthwhile and legit pointing these issues out and even disliking the features involved, things like 1v1 capability and AoE prevalence or even issues as overlooked as the RNG involved in battles are way higher on the list of reasons why the game will never evolve past the desire for elevating it to competitive gaming of a few individuals.

That

+infrastructure
+better map designs, kitten (many are downright horrid, with ranged classes pooping all over a node from a safe distance/spot above the node as well as the issue of small node size, allowing aoe happy classes to mindlessly nuke them into oblivion)
+regaining the playerbase lost so far, as to foster actual competition (gl with dat)

And knowing A-Net if adrenaline were to be used up despite missing they would not make it up elsewhere.

You talk about risk vs reward, but where is the reward in using adrenaline if it is going to be blocked or blinded more than half the time and just be used up for no reason? It would promote adrenaline hording to the max which is an inherently bad mechanic which goes against having a burst skill to begin with.

And I disagree with you, missing a burst skill is punishing enough being put at a 7-10 second cooldown because weapons like the Hammer, Longbow and Axe rely heavily on landing burst to be effective. Without it these weapons become almost borderline useless. If you play a warrior in tPvP you would know it is extremely punishing because 7-10 seconds is a long time. Missing a burst is very often the difference between winning and losing a fight. It is just that vital.

And you are talking about 2 classes who are at the bottom of the food chain when it comes to s/tPvP holding back the e-sport just based on two mechanics.

There are so many other mechanics that other classes have that by the very definition promote very bad gameplay and have no risk/reward.

Just look at Phantasms, just summon them, let them unload 5-6K damage on you and forget about them. Now Phantasm Mesmers aren’t the best in tPvP but having AI do the work for you is by the very nature low risk high reward and unskilled gameplay. If they die so what? They will just inflict more conditions on you.

Or hey, let me just go melee kamikaze and just throw AoE kitten on the ground and watch everything melt.

If you want to talk about risk vs reward, Warriors are the wrong class to pick a bone with. By their very nature they are very high risk/medium reward in most fights while other classes are much safer picks who bolster higher reward.