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PvP PvE discrimination, armor etc..

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

To this day there is discrimination between PvP and PvE, where as PvP’ers have access to all PvE armor skins, we as PvE’ers don’t have access to all PvP skins.

Anet, please look in to this as we EXPECT all types of players to have access to all types weapons and gear cross border game play style.

We don’t have access to the new raid skins. But you’re offering a false equivalency: PvP is dynamic with 8,001 possible matchups (Math provided below) and many different classes with different players and different psychological makeup (such as INTJ vs. ESFP and different combinations of the rest) and therefore values leading to different playstyles. PvP is therefore more prestigious and its mere existence dictates that it should receive balancing priority over PvE. The AI isn’t going to feel slighted and like you’re cheap for picking a good build whereas people do and have and is inherently competitive.

(9 nCr 5)² / 2 + (9 nCr 5) / 2 =
9C5=9!/(5!*(9-5)!)
362,880/(120*(9-5)!)
362,880/(120*4!)
362,880/120*24
362,880/2,880
=126

126²/2+(126)/2=

So 126²/2 + (126)/2= 8,001 potential matchups.

Finally , Thief is well balanced

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

Haha people are really complaining about Vault and Unload? This game’s population has to be full of f2p keyboard turning skill clickers at this point.

L2dodge basilisk venom and/or steal and thief is most likely dead meat. Oh L2P while you all are at it.

Yeah, a suggestion to dodge ability with no activation indications other than requiring you to constantly observe what boons/effects are currently on thief.
+baseless insults
= average thief player.

L2 predict, I dodge steals all the time. If any of you actually PLAYED thief it becomes very obvious when a thief is going to steal. Have you ever even played a fighter game like super smash or street fighter? Being competitive is like 20 percent reactions and 80 percent prediction. .

Yup. A good thief will predict your predicted dodge, and wait, baiting it out. So that leave you to predict his prediction, to which he’ll predict your prediction, and that prediction will need to be predicted.

It’s that simple!

You know you’re a true pro when you predict the 1200 range insta teleport steal coming from behind LoS while stealthed. Just got to play thief, you’ll see how easy it is!

Rofl

And now you have a boon strip, daze on cooldown, and could even be feared due to a passive proc and the only really reliable interrupt to earth overload on cooldown.

People talk about specs and builds but there’s another thing that is overlooked: psychologies. If two people are equally skilled then psychological rock paper scissors could come into play and our psychological makeup determines our style/approach. Someone that’s a pusher (overextends and sometimes play like they’re winning even if they’re on equal footing in the matchup) could seem oppressive to a waiter/reactionary (someone who prefers playing black in chess or charge characters because they want to see what the opponent does first before committing) assuming they open with the correct decision but a waiter could shut down another style. You have small stable advantages and also watch for tiny windows to turn the table (tactical sense), you can play mind games or be a technician. Some classes may be good for some people but not others due to their general psychological makeup, which influences their values and approaches as gamers. Most people run metabuilds, so that means most will assume you have that build unless perhaps you’re running an unusual weapon set. You will be approached like you have the weaknesses of that metabuild, but you don’t have those traits and utilities, you have something else and that could leave them in an awkward situation.

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/the-attackers

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/the-turtles

Race-Change Item in Gem Store?

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

If they introduce a new race I think giving a discount on a character slot would be a better idea. Skins and ascended gear are account wide anyway.

Best of a Bad Lot

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

Esports are an admirable and ambitious goal but that just means they should really polish things up before pushing it. Their competition is League of Legends, Overwatch, Street Fighter 5, and lots of others with polished, up to date code and server tech resulting in a smooth relatively bug free experience. Even when Guild Wars 2 was released it still felt somewhat dated but the combat mechanics showed lots of signs of potential.

Having an incentive would be a really good idea. A legendary item for the teams to gun for would be good, but I get the feeling we’ll see complaints from solo PvPers saying they want the team reward and it should be available for solo queue :P

Just respect that it’d be a team queue prize and try finding teams.

Finally , Thief is well balanced

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

+18K damage with unload in less than 1,5 sec to guardian in spvp.
“Balanced” in what? Being crazily OP?

Thief have unbalanced DMG a dodges

First Unload withou stacked might and Lead Attacks make 8k dmg (marauder amulet,pack runes) vs Guardian with Demolisher amulet.

Vault is next problem in team fight Thief only use dodge with boundng dodge and Vault 5x in row, every single Vault make 8k+ AOE DMG and Bound 4k+ AOE DMG.
Yesterday I lose with 19 game win streak on P/P Staff Thief.

Tone down the damage and dodges and you’ll have to give thief more passive defenses to balance them. Thief was out of meta for the previous seasons. Even Toker, perhaps the greatest thief in the game’s history due to his amazing reflexes and initiative management, switched to revenant (which admittedly takes more skill since it has cooldowns on top of energy on top of the moves charging longer than thief and no shortbow 5 and Shadowstep to get out of town when needed, but) as it was objectively better (so long as you can time the skills right) and perhaps still is.

Ruby vs Diamond quality

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Agemnon.4608

I thought that the higher you got, the more skilled players there would be. Being in Diamond must mean you know simple things like rotations and having map awareness. Nope. It honestly felt like people were throwing the match.

The higher you get the more skilled players there would be in general yes. But that also means the opponent is more skilled.

Chances are you’re just not in sync with players in Diamond in terms of rotations and map awareness.

There’s lots of “rules” and “guidelines” that many lower-tier players follow that higher tier players don’t always abide by. Things like how/when to watch a node. Where to rotate and why. roadfighting etc.

To a lower-skilled player who isn’t used to this sort of play, it may look like throwing because you just don’t understand.

Like engaging a guardian or necro on the way to a node to avoid their marks or traps being stronger (from a positional standpoint as their mere presence on a node means they get free decap progress) as you could work around them without effecting the point?

Best of a Bad Lot

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

Any man noted for his feats of courage or nobility of purpose; especially, one who has risked or sacrificed his life.

I could go on typing. Note that the individual is emphasized time and again. Not once does this passage mention a group.

You can perform feats of courage and risk your life in a group too, you know.

Second, if the game is not to be directed by it’s own narrative, then how will it be directed? If the storyline and the actual game are out of sync, you lose one of the principle attractions of gw2 and it becomes another “streetfighter” type video game.

Well ideally the narrative should fit the gameplay, which is a bit late for a game that has been out for almost four years. For all intents and purposes, sPvP and WvW exists outside the narrative and is only flimsily explained with “the Mists”.

Personally I think that the idea of having a developer made story arc for your character in an MMO is a bad way to do it and is better left for single-player games. Instead the players should dynamically create their own story through interaction. EVE Online is a good example of how to do it, in my opinion. But, that’s very off-topic and a discussion for another time.

I imagine sPvP to be a program like Super Adventure Box where teams of people face off against each other. It’s one big Asura or even Forgotten virtual reality simulator that people watch for sport. Yes, there is television or at least entertainment in Tyria. “My transient relay will revolutionize the industry” could be heard in the crafting area in Lion’s Arch, and “the industry” references show business. So we know there are things like movies and TV shows in Tyria.

"Insert Dev Bait Here"

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

Skills split between different game modes should not change how a skill works, for consistency reasons.

However, it’s so easy to just change a few numbers that will not at all change how/when a skill is properly used.

I agree with only changing numbers such as damage and duration and maybe conditions that accompany skills. Like something in PvE can do many many conditions but due to powercreep have that skill do fewer or even no conditions in PvP (I don’t mean all skills) if the skill is powerful enough without them.

Best of a Bad Lot

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

I don’t think there’s really dissonance since we’re all the big hero/heroine from our end but from everyone else’s perspective we’re Pact grunts. So we are commander yet private at the same time depending on perspective.

Looking for BURN build

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAodn0XC9XiNYCeOAcYiFBALIAUAKiERhkwRwt1ObztA-TJhAQB97EAAj9HAwDAQilBAA

Might be okay. Though if you really want to focus on burning then swap to offhand dagger though focus has some great utilities.

Battle of Kyhlo

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

Khylo is my favorite map.

This is one of the maps in ranked that isn’t PvE.
It’s alot about teamwork in lower tiers. In higher tiers they never use the treb and I think that is becouse you will loose one cap defender or attacker. You need to have all players on the field.

Treb does alot of damage but there is good tactics to outmanuver the Treb.

As many have said, if 1 is on Treb and one or two is defending it, then you should just let them bomb. If you can’t rotate that fight then it is not the maps fault. Sorry.

It’s the biggest PvE map there is. The environment is what causes all the terrible camera obstructions and the map annoying overall. I like Temple better since it’s bigger and still a map without NPCs.

Finally , Thief is well balanced

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

Yeah… “balanced”

1.It’s a crit
2.Could have had 25 stacks of might
3.Likely ran Berserker’s Amulet
4.Could have been on a squishy target with a squishy amulet with no defensive boons
5.Fury increases crit damage.
6.Scholar Runes and the thief being above 90% HP

"Insert Dev Bait Here"

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

Action House…I think you’ve stumbled upon another great map idea! It could be modeled after a dormatory with an important outdoor courtyard in the middle and long corridors with lots of LoS and random traps that randomize so they aren’t the same traps in the same spots for all matches with it and players can trigger them via charging (if a trap goes off it needs to be reset). Could be a capture the flag type of event and has lots of vantage points. Since it’d be a largely indoor map the camera would need serious improving however. Instead of straight hallways they could twist, turn, and wind to enrich tactical and strategic possibilities.

I also totally agree with you on splitting PvP and PvE balance. A veteran mob with a huge HP sink getting hit with a 4 second stun seems fair in a 1v1, it will get up and still have way more HP than you, and champions have breakbars and typically need groups of people to down. Use that same 4 second stun on another player however and they need to use a stunbreak (assuming they slot one and they’d need to consume the resource for it but hey, that’s why it’s there but he might not be the only one with a big stun in the team fight) and if it isn’t up then you can blow an invuln, if that isn’t up you’re getting downed. Not all classes have invulns so that particular example really illustrates the need for a PvP and PvE split. Something that seems fair and balanced to stun waves and waves of creeps with more HP than players isn’t going to feel fair against other players themselves.

Fix PvE Parking

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

Since we can’t have the convenience of a place to craft in WvW, lets also fix some PvE issues like parking toons at the end of jumping puzzles.

Make it so when you log out, you are teleported to the nearest waypoint stone if you don’t log back in to that toon within 15 minutes. That way if you want the PvE jumping puzzle rewards each day you need to actually gasp do the jumping puzzle.

Then all the toons parked at jumping puzzles that used to craft in WvW can be moved back to the cities to give the illusion of civilization.

If you reached that point then you already know how to complete it anyway (unless you had a Mesmer port you).

4 Things Anet Could do to Improve GW2 and PvP

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Agemnon.4608

As far as stronghold goes I think we need to have a gamemode where both sides try destroying gates and the gates can be healed and it would have a maze like layout with plenty of dead ends. Then at the end of the map whoever charges for the full duration on the flag wins. You’d have areas where thieves can’t shortbow 5 up to and others where they can to avoid making thieves too overpowered. Since it isn’t a point holding map tanky sustain builds won’t be as important and the emphasis shifts more towards mobility and damage. You’d have choke points, vantage points, and other features that make for a great map.

Suggestion: Priority for condition-clearing

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Agemnon.4608

I suggested this awhile back so I agree. Different priorities should be set from character to character so chill could be top priority on a druid but second tier on a rev or elementalist due to Riposting Shadows and Stop, Drop, and Roll while last on a daredevil due to dodge cleansing chill and cripple and a sigil that refills endurance.

An untested build: predictions?

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

I’m not typically a fan of condition play but this looks like it could have some potential:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVl8MhymYpTwqJw/ELIF1c7X/7PXDEAPQXVlBfAA-TphBQBOsMAEOEAUZ/hO8AAAwJAIAHBAA

Tripwire slows people down on their way to a node (stairs near the mid node in Legacy or up Khylo’s Clocktower stairs seem like ideal spots) while the venoms can be shared. The elite venom is an unblockable stun whereas the Ice Drake venom inflicts chill. Adventurer runes are for endurance regen on heal in addition to the power and condi damage. Since you’ll be evading a lot I figure the extra initiative from trickery will be made up for, though you lose the daze on steal (but gain a potential backstab and the speed to catch up to them). Yes, there’s reveal in the game but I’ve rarely ever seen reveal be a huge deal whether on revenant or thief and even won duels when I was revealed at some point (using the typical metabattle build not the linked one which I haven’t tried yet).

Best of a Bad Lot

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

I don’t care for SoloQ only or team only because you never know what you’re going to get. You could face three necros but everything you know how to play decently well is weak to condi while you could wind up with three guardians in another matchup who may be good players but due to the importance of inter-class interaction and environmental factors would really drag down the team. There are 8,001 potential matchups as there are 9 classes and multiples of a class are permitted (I’ve won against 5 necro teams in ranked by playing keep away and one was on Khylo in season 2 too) and most of those are going to consist of bad comps.

Team vs. team is better because two teams are organized with what they figured out was a good comp and why, but is less practical since you won’t always be on with your team and you’d have to find approximately skilled players. Sometimes on a team you know a great time to do something but the team wants you to do something else, you do that something else and stat losing then do your own thing and start winning again.

A good solution is SoloQ but no class stacking.

In Unranked

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

Summon bullkitten ele. Lol

He was legitimately new though. He’d summon elementals and immediately get blown up at mid…or to a mesmer at far. I mean tornado might not exactly be meta but it at least has some situational use. Big losing streaks aren’t typical but when they do happen can be quite frustrating.

That was easy.

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Agemnon.4608

Age, you as a thief should love khylo, it’s like a playground

It’s too small though. I shortbow up mid at the start, start capping, then two seconds later slower classes come up and contest it. There’s also the ish where so much stuff gets in the way of your camera and if you cap then mid is close enough to either node where a slower class can easily catch up to you while capping. If you’re faster than someone and reach a destination it’ll take them longer to reach you. Let’s say you run 10 miles an hour for a mile, so you take six minutes, but someone runs 5 miles an hour, they reach the same destination in 12 minutes. That’s a six minute difference. If they go half a mile then it takes three minutes for the rabbit and six minutes for the turtle, a three minute difference. In Guild Wars 2 terms you could take 5 seconds to reach a node 2,000 units away but the other guy takes 10 seconds, but a node 1,000 units away will be reached in 2.5 seconds by the fast and 5 seconds by the slower. Since 5 is greater than 2.5 you have a little more leeway.

Sometimes Khylo feels good but I hate seeing teams die to treb at mid and I’m the only one who engages the trebber, really bad news on a guardian if I’m on thief. Most guardians are trivial on my druid though but I have ran into some tougher ones.

Since I tend to play medium-fast (ele with the proper utilities, and staff druid traited for switftness upon heal) and fast classes and don’t have the patience for dealing with tanks I like bigger maps. Plus Legacy has some spots where less experienced players would assume shortbow tries would result in no valid path like near mid the ledge leading to the bridge near the stairs and then shortbowing to a rocky place to cross the metal bridge (though a tree could obstruct your retical you can zoom in for better aim).

(edited by Agemnon.4608)

4 Things Anet Could do to Improve GW2 and PvP

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

That’s not what I’m saying at all. What I am saying is, regardless of what build is made, the player is sacrificing something they would normally take just to make that build. This guarantees there will be holes, or weaknesses and weaknesses can be exploited.

This change wouldn’t be that crazy but that’s just my opinion.

As an example, if something was extremely overpowered in lots of matchups, but still had a counter, that’s not very comforting.

It should be! Isn’t that what technically won TCG the matches they played? Rotating to give themselves the best match-ups?

I’m not going to deny that there won’t be builds that need nerfing. Increasing choice comes with it’s problems obviously, but it’s really not going to change the status quo all that much. We are still dealing with what people consider to be “OP” classes here, there and everywhere and everytime I play what I consider to be the counter class to said profession, I notice a huge uptick in my chances of winning that match.

So you can say “We don’t want OP set-ups” but there is no getting away from it, no matter what weapon or Elite spec they create. The best Anet can hope to do is create counters, create openings, and give every class an opportunity to be in the meta. And this change, that I suggested in the OP, could do that.

I think a good measure of if a build is OP or not is how many 1v2’s it wins even accounting for hardcounters.

(edited by Agemnon.4608)

In Unranked

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Agemnon.4608

this is just sad that u have a list like that….

Especially where he keeps track of players that are clearly better than him.

Ranked is a zero sum game with clearly defined MMR zones where those of similar skill get lumped together on a team, you lose a pip they gain a pip. If you duck such players then they’d advance without it being on your back.

Missing unobtainable armor pieces.

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Agemnon.4608

Here’s the full Heavy Scale set and some might not tell the difference between it and worn scale. I’ve taken a picture with both for comparison.

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That was easy.

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

That’s because mostly only the really bad are playing. If you have a decent MMR you will get the best players on your side and you’ll face moronic trash the vast majority of the time all the way through. Most of the better players made legendary weeks ago and stopped playing. Even most of the average players have stopped playing. What is left is the worst of the worst and a small minority of better players.

I think this applies across the board and here’s my reasoning: due to the matchmaker’s nature the higher you go the harder competition you face (which should be the case). The problem starts however when you have one group of players grouped against what the MM deems inferior or superior players depending on which end of the fence you land. This would lead to more losses than wins at some point especially where you can lose divisions. As worse players get fed up with being consistently outclassed they leave, thus the standard for the worst players goes up. People who were average before are now bads, then they will get trounced and quit afterward.

People then go to unranked instead, but the toxicity and reasons for avoiding ranked have seeped there too. What’s the big glaring problem with the picture? Right! No Legacy! Sometimes it didn’t even come up as an option and there were more Khylos than I cared for (I never, ever vote that map my vote priority is Legacy-Temple-Forest-Spiritwatch-Skyammer-Khylo just subtract Spiritwatch and Skyhammer for ranked) Later however I queued as an ele but had three druids on our team and the opposing team had three druids so I rerolled druid for that match and we won it. It was actually quite a fun game lol!

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(edited by Agemnon.4608)

Post a pic of your character only if your armor is mix-n-match

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

I gave my thief another makeover and really like the look. Helmet and torso are Stalwart, shoulders scarf, pants I forgot, boots Viper. Dyes are Gold Fusion, Enameled Generation, Enameled Sacrifice, Enameled Solitude for the pants, and some Gold Sheen I think.

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In Unranked

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

They aren’t blocked (that list is reserved for gold sellers since there are so many) just on a duck list and some are friends I team with. I don’t wanna be responsible for losing just in case someone says something in chat that I’d need to know. “This guy said something in chat that could have saved the game, but I had him blocked so I couldn’t read it and it costs us” yeah, no.

Since ranked deliberately takes people who are higher or lower and places them against you (rarely have I seen someone from the other team on mine in the next game or vice versa in ranked soloQ but it does still happen) then you increase your odds of winning by waiting for someone too good (or just play in a way that really annoys you) to queue or not be online. Likewise, the MM will pull from a noticeably lower MMR pool if it searches long enough.

Then you have unranked and its forced 50% winrate. If you want to stay significantly above it then you’ll have to duck new players who consistently find themselves on your team, rarely ever the other (the good players however tend to be between your team and the enemy team). At least unranked doesn’t have pips at stake.

Bad team, good team, bad, good, ...

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Agemnon.4608

I’d normally recommend unranked but that isn’t fun anymore either.

In Unranked

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Agemnon.4608

Please get rid of the forced 50% winrate. My friend list is already full of triple digit AP people who I know I won’t be facing on the other team unless I lost enough. I had a big winning streak last week and now it’s tanking. Everyone is either too new or too good. I put someone on my list just for being a base game thief (you can tell from the dodges). I blocked out the names and even the AP (not all of them low) but wanted to show why I have the list if you read the nicknames. The ones without a nickname I blocked out since this isn’t a shaming post but a what I have to deal with post.

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Why is it ok for guardians to be so OP?

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Agemnon.4608

I thought it was elementalists that were unkillable? Now its guardians too?

Only on thief guardians seem unkillable. I’ve beaten guardians on warrior, druid, ele, and revenant before.

GW2 needs new gamemode

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Agemnon.4608

Yes it does especially considering how a full defense build can hold a full offense build while requiring less skill to do so. Since it’s a node holding game this skews the value of defensive builds. A mode like Voidstar would be good where you need to keep going through gates and to the center while stopping the opposing team from advancing while trying to do so yourself. This puts a higher value on mobility and can ignore the tank more often. How are you supposed to ignore a tank (who can 2v1 for at least half a minute if not longer) when the game requires you to capture and hold nodes? You could ignore him leading to a 5v4 on home and mid but you could have teammates who try engaging him. A problem arises here however since someone could lose a 2v2 at home leaving the other 2 to +2 mid when they should have won the 3v2.

(edited by Agemnon.4608)

Why is it ok for guardians to be so OP?

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Agemnon.4608

Only trapper runes need to be removed since guardians weren’t balanced around having stealth while traps should still have some subtle tell of being there but buff core guardian damage and range to compensate for it.

SURVEY regarding MMR Hell - please answer!

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Agemnon.4608

updated to this point. current results:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eWgyYRZILttZDnmbMZgsjnNbieU1Ywlqq7gWrYRv-Sg/edit?usp=sharing

Yes there is a MMR hell (you ever see 4 people rush home at start)
some type of color (i’m hoping amber)
where ever i choose to stop.

So suppose you played every single day and you had an infinite amount of time, where do you think you’d end up?

I honestly don’t know but at least Ruby since I made it the previous two seasons too and did beat an exalted legend 1v1 on point once with a thief but they might not have been ideally built for 1v1’ing and I got a backstab in so I don’t know how reliable of a measure that is.

So you think you’d hit Ruby – what’s your current division?

Currently Ruby T3, waiting to team.

SURVEY regarding MMR Hell - please answer!

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Agemnon.4608

I honestly don’t know but at least Ruby since I made it the previous two seasons too and did beat an exalted legend 1v1 on point once with a thief but they might not have been ideally built for 1v1’ing and I got a backstab in so I don’t know how reliable of a measure that is.

4 Things Anet Could do to Improve GW2 and PvP

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Agemnon.4608

Get rid of the forced 50% win rate in unranked. I’m tired of most of the new players being on my team just because I have a plus score. Got my wings by the way but still hope to at least make Diamond haven’t done ranked since I updated my progress (still have the 5 game winstreak and one win from T4 Ruby). It’s to the point now where I have a headache from screaming at my monitor because my teammates would double camp nodes and wouldn’t care if I’m being focused down (when you all complain about people not playing healers, whose mobility relies on limited actives with cooldowns combined with being prime focus targets now you’ll know why). I don’t care I won’t switch from thief even with four other thieves in the team because the slowest gazelle gets eaten by the lion, and if four other people have shortbow 5, three dodges, Signet of Agility, Shadowstep, and stealth then I don’t want to handicap myself by being a back packer. Better to run with the rabbits than the turtles.

Also the problem with more build diversity is you’d have far more to keep track of and passive defensive stats in a game like conquest are heavily favored, even moreso on small maps where a warrior can plod along from clocktower to windmill in a timely enough fashion to contest the node, where with his defensive powers and actives (blocks, invulns, the passive invuln, etc.) will ensure teammates will have enough time to join and help the tank, and that’s a major problem with conquest. Might has stacks and isn’t percent based whereas protection gives 40% more toughness. Why not scrap might stacks and make it percentage based? It could be just like protection and boosts could be traited. Might can give 33% increased base power. This will also ensure that tanky builds don’t scale up too much (especially if weapon skills already scale too well).

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What if the RPG Mechanics

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Agemnon.4608

Making the game even more simplified? What could possibly go wrong lol

Much less than now and that’s the idea. The more complicated something is the higher the probability of something being broken down the line and the more there is to keep track of. Elements also aren’t isolated so with each new element you need to test and compare how it interacts with everything, and it’s easy to overlook stuff as has happened many times in many games in the past.

What if the RPG Mechanics

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

are the core problem for Guild Wars 2’s competitive ambitions? Way back in the day tabletop games came out that were turn based and people would optimize their builds for their roles. Game Masters would dictate the flow of play and everyone would work with it. Then turn based RPGs would come out for the 8-bit systems. They were so vague yet give just enough to stimulate the imagination. Your characters were your own and could imagine how the world was. There were lots of blanks to fill. Maps were complex and the mechanics seemed well suited for turn-based combat. Then the 16-bit games came out and it was largely the same deal. Buffs and conditions were stuff you took into account and had to manage your resources marathon style, and you could die a lot due to RNG factors (instant death spell proccing, etc.) which was of course bad. Then the prospect of 3D made everyone hopeful for even deeper, more complex gameplay. Instead of opting for deeper gameplay and more sophisticated dungeon layouts developers opted for voice acting, linearity, and fleshing out more story, many strikes against the RPG genre. This is what X character emphatically and unanimously sounds like and this is how the world is, no real room for your imagination to operate. Those cool gritty robots you imagined? They’re actually cartoony and non-threatening. Think your endgame level knight is on par with Batman? Nope, a cutscene logically implies otherwise. The spoonfeeding of dissonance canon via cutscenes can really make a game less enjoyable, but that’s a topic for PvE.

Then in the mid zeroes MMOs came on the scene when emo bands roamed the earth. They were real time and open world but still kept lots of the old mechanics: evading was stat based, conditions not rebalanced to account for a real time open world, and monsters gained weird immersion breaking invulnerability if you tried hitting them from safe spots or vantage points. Voice acting and cutscenes also cut deep into a game’s budget, meaning less money for the real meat of the game.

What Guild Wars 2 did right was remove stats for evading instead making it active, getting rid of mana, and simplify the skill bar limiting it to only 10 abilities. However, even it still has vestiges of the old Pokemon style RPG, conditions and boons give extra damage or stats otherwise but have their roots in turn based games where the environment can’t be taken account of. Am I saying remove boons and conditions entirely? Of course not, Dark Souls does them very well. They’re an action game with some trace RPG elements. Guild Wars 2 needs to emulate Dark Souls better with fewer abilities being gamepad friendly, and for ranged classes to optionally play like a shooter. Dark Souls has this mode although pad is terrible with aiming due to the thumbstick properties not being sensitive enough if giving a light push but too sensitive past the threshold. Everyone says that Dark Souls’ PvP is fun, but there are problems with it:

- Soul and gear level give players advantages over others.

Another plus for Guild Wars 2 was gear and level scaling to max in PvP (once you get into level scaling you should consider not even bothering with them since they could further screw up balance and scaling creates empty levels that make progress feel illusory). Perhaps the world is evolving past the need for RPG mechanics? Story is considered a strength of the genre but games that aren’t RPG’s like Mortal Kombat and the Street Fighter series have incredibly rich, deep, and solid stories without compromising their core mechanics. To accomplish a shedding of the negative parts of an RPG we need to consider simplification.

For example: what can a thief do?

-Stealth
-Traps
-High burst damage
-Great mobility
-Venoms

What if we simplified it down to:

-High burst damage
-Great mobility?

Would that be better? Why or why not? The same type of simplification could happen across classes so other classes won’t feel left out. If everyone can do everything then those who can’t do those roles quite as well will be left out. Every class can therefore have its core focused on. This would trim the power creep. This is especially important given the game’s competitive ambitions. With games like Street Fighter 5, CS:GO, Overwatch, and League of Legends Guild Wars 2 has some big competition with very well balanced, polished games.

Tl;dr: Tabletop and Pokemon mechanics were made with those systems in mind, trying to fit too many into an action game just creates too many complications that detracts from the core gameplay.

(edited by Agemnon.4608)

Don't belive in MMR hell

in PvP

Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

Losing to ESL players isn’t going to “tank” your MMR nearly as much as my losses to ruby players mid season. Based on my experience the system seems to match you with matches that are a little above your level for a while, then it gives you matches at your level. I’m sure if you played the account as much as I have mine you would play yourself out of it.

imagine that. let me rain on your parade a bit. of course its easy to get diamond this late into the season. all the good players have already got legendary/high tier diamond.

the mmr hell is real. i have 1 account where i made legendary quite easy in the first 2 weeks of the season. on my other account im stuck in ruby. win a game lose a game win a game lose 2 games. i can never progress. i can play warrior/ele/and druid proficiently and switch according to team comp. i know how to rotate and counter rotate, i know how to communicate and i try to impress these ideals on those around me who have no clue. in the end you can only carry so much. i was legendary on both accounts season 1 and 2 as well.

on the said account stuck at ruby i was unfortunate to come across several FULL premades and went against many pro league players and it tanked my mmr. the mmr hell is alive and well.

This was exactly my experience.

I got stuck in a losing streak, a big one, so hopped in a 5 man party and to no surprise found myself fighting against a few ESL players. However, because my 5 man party was chosen, the game couldn’t stick me with garbage. The MMR bias had essentially been bypassed. I actually won a few of those games.

The thing about MMR is if you win against players with higher MMR, your own personal score will skyrocket. If you lose, it will hardly change.

After that, SoloQ couldn’t have been easier. The enemy team got all the garbage and I didn’t have to deal with it anymore. This was early during the first 2 weeks long before the good players stopped playing.

It’s not an issue for me anymore, but I certainly wouldn’t be stupid enough to deny that MMR hell doesn’t still exist. Season 2 and 3 matchmaking have been utter garbage, especially season 2.

What they should have done is change the way pips were handed out for season 1. The matchmaking was perfect, but the pips simply didn’t reflect ranking and made matching more difficult as time went on.

MMR give you a score that reflects where you stand among everyone else. They could have geared the # of pips awarded to be based on reaching equilibrium with the MMR rank players had. For example, lets say you’re in the top 5% of MMR score but your pips are in amber among the bottom 5%. Each win simply gives +5 pips and each loss -1 until your pip percentile gets close to your MMR percentile. This way, matching is based on one solid proven matchmaking system and not conflicting with a second.

The thing is though garbage is relative. To qualify as garbage in Ruby for example you don’t even have to double cap home at start or engage a point 1v3.

For the next expansion (poll)

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

I want a healing elite spec for thief. Or maybe something stealth related with reveal immunity (too much? you wouldn’t have three dodges to go along with it)? Maybe a wand and called a Shadowmancer where the thief becomes a master of shadow magic. Not just for attacking but also a general utility and healing spec too and can be traited for good heals, those you stealth also have reveal immunity, etc., for grandmaster traits.

Tier list (for now)

in PvP

Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

I agree with the list overall but would place Shoutbow Druid in A-tier at least (running Glyph of Equality, Signet of Stone, Protect Me, and Strength of the Pack) with Sigil of Transference and Water on staff and the one that does chilling on crit (in place of blood) on longbow.

Best CPU?

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

first of all, i5 6400 demolishes the i3 6100 in gw2, the real price/performance king right now its the i5 6500 (costs a 10 $ more) wich i highly recomend for gw2
the diference between i5 4460 and 6500 is around 5%
as for GPU, if u dont play other games i will pick the gtx 950, but if u also play newer titles like doom for example, you should go with gtx 960. both these cards consume around 120W and you dont need a big psu. you can wait for polaris to launch at the end of this month and take a look at price/performance ratio
and of course go with at least 8 gb of ram

The RX 480’s are going to be out at the end of the month, though AiB cards will be out mid July since we all know blower fans underperform.

The GTX 1070 is a great card (the new Nvidia generation is out) but if you want a lower price range then the AMD 480 will have between 390 and 390x performance for $230. If you want Nvidia but don’t want to spend much on a 1070 then I’d wait for the GTX 1060’s.

What is the Deep Sea Dragon's Name?

in Lore

Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

Since the ocean is the most dangerous biome with the most dangerous animals it should be saved for last. Then again we would have hit Jormag second if that were the case as jungle animals are more dangerous than tundra. Or maybe second last since underground and lava are even more dangerous.

Pride March Tyria

in In-game Events

Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

Would be nice to see a few gay male couples though. I feel like every corner I turn I’m running into a lesbian couple.

There’s that norn in HoT.

Typically F/F is less taboo.

Show me him !

Sometimes I think lesbians are less taboo, because of bunch of men who watch lesbian porn and their dreams that are not going to happen – Then it seems to me like we’re under some kind of their dictatorship. We still have a long way before us, sadly.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Norn_Savage

As far as why it’s less taboo, that goes a long, long way back. Even biblical references explicitly define only gay male relationships as contemptible in Leviticus, mentioning nothing of women. Some would argue two of the thing you like is often better than one as well :P

Old habits are hard to break, I guess. My philosophy is that it’s none of my business to care to interject on another’s preferences so long as such relationships are responsible ones and all parties understand and the significance of intimacy and agree with it.

Yes us mortal flawed human beings have been making up arbitrary rules to justify oppression for quite some time. The reason it was seen as less taboo is likely because women in those days were seen as little more than cattle. Women were considered property in those days.

Matchmaking Blacklist

in PvP

Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

If you are suggesting this because of Overwatch then don’t because they also use it to avoid good players which is causing Blizzard to take it out (if its not been removed already)

Dying way out of your league isn’t exactly fun though.

How to Engage a Guardian?

in Thief

Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

I can’t really ever deal with them since they have long blocks that seem to chain long enough for certain traps to go off cooldown so you can’t really wait them out. On revenant or druid they seem easy enough usually but on thief I’d rather not engage but sometimes I have to if my team is elsewhere on the map. I want to keep a dagger/pistol build while standing a chance too.

They can always seem to heal up and I’m not too familiar with DH. I usually start by stripping aegis with a shortbow autoattack or headshot and save steal for stability.

6th playable race, what's your top 3 pick?

in Lore

Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

Dredge would be way OP because they’re immune to blind.

Agree with you on Tengu game needs playable birdpeople.

Season 4 Nerf Wish List

in PvP

Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

Oh..you’re talking about staff zerker ele..oh well it simply never worked..since launch?

So what kind of “sustain” you would give to this glassy ranged caster? Given how easily anybody can close distance in an instant and short CD, I’m really curious to see what you come up with.

And about this “skilled” usage of this ranged dmg, how much skill would be required? because certainly it takes zero skill or practice to close distance on a rev or thief, even dragon hunters can easily close distance from 1200 range and all it takes is one skill

Different blocks and invulns, disengage, CC, and damage fields where to be near you they’d eat damage. Skilled usage of a big nuke would be knowing you can be interrupted so you see an opening to use the skill, use it, then the other team feels despair since the skill was used when the caster knew they couldn’t do anything about it (stunned, evades on CD, etc., but in bigger fights can be harder to keep track of, and a reflect could be put up to avoid a surprise interrupt). Air overload would qualify but its damage is too low and cooldown not much, but Mender’s isn’t a full offense amulet so it might hit hard with Marauder.

For Steal the skill comes into play with the timing. If you steal when they have no boons and aren’t casting anything then it’s a waste since you’re wasting the skill’s potential. Phase Traversal has a caste time so your target could be out of range (you’d still be spending the energy of course) and isn’t really that great of a gap closer.

(edited by Agemnon.4608)

Season 4 Nerf Wish List

in PvP

Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

Yes, teammates all dying in 2 seconds isn’t quick enough, lets continue to nerf everything that could possibly keep something alive for any amount of time, since I guess last patch’s nerfs to sustain clearly wasn’t enough. We need to be 1 shotted quicker yup totally. And while were at it lets add more daze, stun, and knock backs, 2 whole straight minutes of that isn’t anywhere near enough. Brilliant ideas here, some one make it happen.

I’ve been in teamfights this season where a fight would last like forever due to ludicrous sustain. You want to get away from the druid + ele or scrapper + ele but aren’t on a class that can disengage and reach another node in a practical time (You’d also be on ele or druid).

As for my suggestions:

- Nerf Unload and Vault by 15%

- Nerf Ele sustain but give it more elsewhere making offensive builds viable

- Nerf scrapper hammer damage

- Nerf revenant autoattack by 10% but buff the AA speed by 15%

- Increase staff 2 speed, maybe reduce damage appropriately.

- Nerf warrior adrenaline regen, replace the passive proc that gives invulnerability.

The ele community has only been asking to play an elemental mage dpser….for the last 3 and 1/2 years since launch, it’s clear to me and others that anet won’t/can’t do that and the reasons are quite simple

What kind of burst/dps ele would be and how would it be its sustain respect to other dps builds?

The answer is…there is no dps role left, all taken:
-Stealth burst?- Thief/mesmer
-Evade burst?- Thief/revenant
-Blocking dps with teleport?-Mesmer/Guardian
-Mix of range/mele and condi? revenant

Sure you guys can keep asking for this and that but..in the end of the day * a team will only pick 5 professions* so….how do you guys propose to create this dps role for ele? give them blocks? stealth? evades?

Anything less than what other dps builds offer and the buffs would be pointless, now unless you guys want to play the same build but different skin( class ) then the only way to make something “meta” is to overbuff it or overnerf something else

To sum it up you forum folks want a game with 5 dpsers vs5 dpsers that don’t die too fast and don’t do too much dmg…so have all 9 professions with a dps build.

Are you guys sure that a MMO is for you?

How about the reason I picked the class since near launch and be willing to trade off passive defenses (HP and toughness) for good charged ranged damage, some CC, decent utility, and big AoE nukes that can be used at pivotal strategic moments where the skilled usage comes from its timing? The damage doesn’t have to be as high as thief or revenant but more spread out for zoning purposes.

Why I don't have any sympathy

in PvP

Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

give me wings for free without completing the tasks im supposed to, i cant complete them and its only anets and whoever is on my teams fault its not my fault i lose every game even though i am the common denominator they should give me wings for free because i paid for game and they should give me legendary weapons free i paid for game and should give me all skins i paid for game and give me all dyes i paid for game and i should have all achievement titles i paid for game

………..

entitled brats

Even if you do all the PvP requirements like I did it still likely won’t be free because you need the Gift of Fortune. Yes, you can get a Gift of Fortune for free but it would require serious grinding to do so. It’s more practical to earn gold then buy the T6 mats, ectos are good for getting free from Silverwaste (make sure you save them for when you have the Silverwaste buffs active). If you do it once per day you should have the ectos in two or three weeks.

Season 4 Nerf Wish List

in PvP

Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

Yes, teammates all dying in 2 seconds isn’t quick enough, lets continue to nerf everything that could possibly keep something alive for any amount of time, since I guess last patch’s nerfs to sustain clearly wasn’t enough. We need to be 1 shotted quicker yup totally. And while were at it lets add more daze, stun, and knock backs, 2 whole straight minutes of that isn’t anywhere near enough. Brilliant ideas here, some one make it happen.

I’ve been in teamfights this season where a fight would last like forever due to ludicrous sustain. You want to get away from the druid + ele or scrapper + ele but aren’t on a class that can disengage and reach another node in a practical time (You’d also be on ele or druid).

As for my suggestions:

- Nerf Unload and Vault by 15%

- Nerf Ele sustain but give it more elsewhere making offensive builds viable

- Nerf scrapper hammer damage

- Nerf revenant autoattack by 10% but buff the AA speed by 15%

- Increase staff 2 speed, maybe reduce damage appropriately.

- Nerf warrior adrenaline regen, replace the passive proc that gives invulnerability.

remove unranked during seasons

in PvP

Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

No way, I can actually play an original build without people hating me for it. “You’re running Air and Water with warhorn and scepter?” Me: “I’m still running Sigil of Transference and Monk Runes with Mender’s so I’m not forgetting my healing potential. Besides my main ele is pretty much the metabattle build to the letter be grateful I’m not running experimental stuff while risking your pips.”

I originally was drawn to ele because I was willing to sacrifice passive survivability for mostly balanced versatility skewed towards properly timed AoE damage and CC anyway. But in those days everyone said ele was weak then the Whirlpool nerf hurt an already “weak” class but did feel strong in WvW. How ele is played has changed so much over the years.