Guild Wars 2

What is this “high level” PvP everyone keeps talking about and how many of us are really participating in it on any given day? Really? How many of you are participating in tune group vs. tuned group match ups on a regular basis?

Also, why am I seeing high MMR players getting rekt by condition builds? Are the condi builds that good? Are high MMR players not adapting? What is the reason for this?

Embolism.8106:

Bumy.8057:

Embolism.8106:

Bumy.8057:

choovanski.5462:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Bumy.8057:

choovanski.5462:

evades, blocks, and most invuns work against condi damage, and you have resistance

I don’t know how delusional you are but, evades and blocks do nothing against condition damage. You can’t evade conditions nor block them once they are applied to you the only way to get rid of them is through cleanse.

You could try avoiding the application. It’s no harder than avoiding a Power based attack.

For example, Grasping Dead is no harder to avoid than Maul, but I bet I know which one you dodge and which you ignore at the time.

no wonder these players think condi is OP. they aren’t smart enough to think of blocking or evading the attacks that apply the condis

You do know why condi builds are so prevalent? Because its a foolproof and mindless gameplay, something the carebears / casuals adore. It doesn’t matter if you attempt to ’ evade or block the attacks that apply the condis ’ because the relevant condi builds APPLY CONDITIONS ON AUTO ATTACK ontop of the ’ condi burst skills ‘. So even if you use your defensive abilities dealing with just the condi burst, then you’re kitten out of luck because in 3 seconds your gonna have another 10+ confusion stacks and 10+ torment stacks killing you regardless of if your moving / not attacking.

Ether Bolt: 2s Torment (it tickles). Ether Blast: 3s Torment (stop that!). Ether Clone: nothing.

Winds of Chaos: 33% chance 7s Bleed (yawn). 33% chance 1s Burning (wow so OP). 33% 5s Vulnerability (I am undone!).
.

Wow! Great response! You really proved your point by saying things like ’ it tickles ’, ’ yawn ’ and ’stop that! ’. Just another delusional nutjob trying to justify his abuse of over the top condition damage scaling.

Okay. Then please state for the record that you believe 2/3s Torment and 66% chance to apply 7s Bleeding or 1s Burning is OP and is what condition builds use to kill you after you mitigate their burst.

I was trying to explain this to Bumy the other day. He wasn’t able to understand that the confusion/torment stacks that were killing him didn’t come from auto-attacks, but instead, from shatters, the same source of massive damage in power builds. The auto-attack damage is marginal compared to the conditions applied from the shatters, which can and should be dodged, avoided, or what have you, the same as when up against a power build.

Those condition shatters also have to be timed to be effective. That condition burst has to be stacked to really kill you. And… because it’s primarily based on Confustion/Torment damage, that means the target also has to contribute to making the damage effective enough to result in a kill.

So, follow me on this… If a Mesmer using conditions to kill you is bad because doing so takes no skill, then, because the only meaningful damage comes from Confusion/Torment applied via shatters, and requires the target to also contribute by continuing to attack/move to result in enough damage to kill, then what does that make the target? Worse?

I’m seeing more players whose nameplates are showing up underneath their character in PvP instead of above the head of the character.

100% support for this post. I am tired of matches where either team is stuck with players who clearly have no business participating in ranked play. It’s not fun for anyone, including these players, as not only do they get crushed, but they also end up receiving massive amounts of verbal abuse, often from me. It’s simply not good for the game from either perspective.

I’ve been digging Blinding Ashes. I’m running a 6/2/0/0/6 staff build with Blinding Ashes, Burning Fire, Burning Precision and Elemental Surge with all Arcane Utilities and Arcane Mastery. The Burn/Blind up time is excellent, especially given the passive Burn application from Burning+Arcane Precision, Flame Barrier and Burning Fire. I love the synergy with Elemental Surge, giving me access to two AOE Burn/Blinds on 24 and 20 second cool downs and a single target Burn/Blind on a 16 second cool down.

Next patch? This better be hotfixed before this evening.

Fix this. Thanks. Some of my favorite open world 1v1 fights are against good thieves, not because I completely roll them, but because they are engaging and intense fights. As of this change, not so much.

Fix it. Thanks.

gesho.9468:

twitch is dominated by couple of players who are set in their opinions. so are tournies. is it possible that opinion of few players dominates spvp and we are missing on richer actual game that is out there?

Yes. Most definitely. I’ve been playing somewhat of a hybrid staff ele build for the past few months, so naturally, you could imagine the random tells/comments from other players as a result. They range from “I’ve never seen anyone rock a staff ele like that, what are you running?” to “why are you running staff, it’s useless” even after a great performance resulting in a win.

Most of the time, when I question this assertion, I receive rather general replies such as “no top teams run staff ele” or “it’s not the meta” with little to no detail or specifics as to why the build/weapon set I’m running isn’t effective, even though the match play proves otherwise in most cases. When pressed for details, or once I start sharing the logic behind my choices, I rarely receive any intelligent response, but instead, just more parroting of things players have read and heard.

My opinion is that PvP MMOs, especially those with many different class/ability/build combos, offer too many choices for the average player who simply wants to plug in and play. Figuring out how different skills interact with one another and how these combinations may be effective for various situations is not something the average player is interested in doing. So, this ends up with most players emulating other “popular” players/builds, with little to no thought or effort put into anything other than that. Once comfortable, and this goes for the “pro” as well, there isn’t much of a desire to deviate from this. Thus, the perception becomes the reality for the vast majority of players.

Meanwhile, there are players who are constantly tinkering, adjusting, refining and most importantly testing other “non meta” builds. Although you see them less frequently, you still see them. Eventually, some of the higher end players start to notice, become curious, and decide to step out of the comfort zone to find out how some dude playing some underrated class with some crazy kitten build was able to beat them. They start tinkering, adjusting, refining and testing until we start seeing more and more appearances of “off builds”, until they eventually become part of the “meta”, the most overused and misunderstood term in existence right now.

The main problem with this is that the “top end” players start to migrate to these underrated classes/builds just prior to the class/build receiving a buff due to the general lack of appreciation of said class/build by the community at large. Even though in many cases the core mechanics of the class/build which allowed for this potential in the hands of a solid player existed before the buff, it’s almost always the buff itself that is singled out as the reason for this new “meta build” by the average player, resulting in the class/build being dubbed “OP”.

Of course, there are a variety of other reasons for this perception, not the least of which are e-ego and differences in player ability. Some players value their e-status to the point where deviating from the accepted norm is simply too risky, as they open themselves up to criticism from both their peers and the masses. As a result, they aren’t willing to take the time to evolve or adapt, as this could result in at least a temporary drop in their public persona value/leaderboard rating while they work out the kinks.

For the latter, the fact of the matter is that most players simply have an overinflated perception of their own ability. Although the theory behind a given build may be rock solid, most players aren’t going to be able to effectively apply this in competitive play. This greatly limits their options, which leads them directly to the current status quo, but that’s gaming and that’s life in general. Some people are just better at games than others.

This is the reason I enjoy MMO PvP over other options. It’s the build diversity and constant evolution of the game which keeps me interested. If you have the capacity to experiment and learn as well as the ability to move that knowledge from theory to practical application, you are rewarded. Things change in life. Those who are able to adapt, especially ahead of the curve, typically excel relative to those who are constantly catching up.

This demand for a tutorial as a solution for improving poor game play is amusing. I’m not sure a tutorial showing bad players to play well will make a difference. Why don’t most players need this and why are they able to pick it up on their own? What makes these players different from the rest? Trust me, no amount of tutorial will make a bit of difference. If a player can’t figure out a simple game mode and use their own noggin to figure out where they need to be, when they need to be there and what to do once there, they are well beyond the assistance of anything other than someone else playing their character for them.

As someone who plays staff pretty much exclusively in solo PvP, I’m pretty happy with it at the moment and really have no complaints. The only thing I would really like to see is a blast finisher added to Ice Spike. Other than that, I think staff is in a really good place. Over the past few months, I’ve been seeing more and more staff eles in solo PvP, with quite a few of them performing very well. I would expect to see this trend continue as I really feel this class and specifically, this weapon, are very much underrated.

It’s a stance class, so naturally it’s going to be perceived as inferior as the average player would simply prefer not to put in the extra key strokes to manage stance dancing and definitely prefers to have relatively unrestricted access to skills on demand. However, for those who enjoy a more engaging and challenging game play experience, the class is great and it pays dividends for those who can really squeeze the most out of the mechanic.

As for the general assertion that the staff ele is useless outside of large-scale WvW encounters, I hear that a lot, especially at the beginning of a match when someone notices that I’m staff. In most cases, this is simply an example of players parroting what they hear and read, not a player who has really explored the weapon and the play style, as I really think the staff shines for point control, which is the only game mode right now. I’m almost always able to land just about everything I throw down if the opposition is interested in contesting or holding a point. If so, they are going to be forced to eat everything. If not, they aren’t on point and I am.

It’s about positioning and stance management for sure, but if you do it right, you can easily keep up a pretty consistent burn/bleed combo. With cripple/chill and the CC available to you, good positioning should allow you to set up additional burst on top of the burn/bleed which for me ticks for about 1200-1300 per second. I like to use Carrion and stack might so I’m also getting more out of DD attacks on top of the bleed/burn. Eruption>Fire>Lava Font>Flame Burst>dodge in>Flame Retreat>Meteor Shower + Armor of Earth hurts like crazy. Following up with Air/Water can also add to that burst during the tail-end of your Meteor Shower. Throwing all that down on top of someone right in your face while you have Stability up is comical. When Stability isn’t available, Lighting Flash at the beginning of your channel also helps to give you enough time to finish.

I know some will still insist that combos like this can’t be landed, but the fact is that they can be as I’m seeing it done every day. It just takes practice. And, like I said, it’s about point control in sPvP, and if they have to move off point to repeatedly miss your attacks… they aren’t on point and you are. Outside of point control, like around the Orb in Spirit Watch, landing attacks can be more challenging, but you are still able to control a general area and dictate the positioning of the fight to some extent. In both cases, it’s about positioning and timing. Lay things down where you think the fight is about to be, not where it is.

Either way, I’m happy with staff and I think once people give it a good solid look, we’ll be seeing more staff users in all areas, but specifically in sPvP. I’ve seen quite a few doubters turned believers after watching how it can perform in match play. And, yes, I understand that someone will say “but X class can do this better” or "but you don’t see any in “high-end” tourney". As to the former, all classes have their unique features and it’s more about how you build and play. As for the latter, who cares?

Here’s my build set up for anyone who is interested:

Smaul Volcker Staff Ele

I’m still working through different variations, landing here after starting with a beefier condition-focused bunker, but I found that with just focusing on condition damage alone, I wasn’t as effective taking down targets. With this, I still have decent survivability, but the damage is much better, allowing me to better maximize the utility of more abilities.

Have fun!

I understand the frustration as my first game of the night was against top 50 players while I’m currently in the 400 range. However, I’m not sure which solution doesn’t ultimately end up in much longer queues for everyone, which I’m sure nobody wants.

It appears the system is looking for players of similar rating and forming groups, then it next seeks out another group of similarly rated players to match them up against each other. However, if you think about the number of players queuing up at any given moment, my guess is the population isn’t big enough to get the match just exactly perfect every game.

For example, if the system brings together 5 top 50 rated players and then seeks to match them up against a comparable group, but all other players nearest in rating are currently in matches or perhaps not even playing at all, then I’m assuming it keeps moving down the list until the “best” match is found. Furthermore, once the match is over and all 10 queue up again at about the same time, then it’s likely to happen again. It’s simply a function of who is playing and when really.

One alternative is to have rating ranges and if there isn’t a match within the range, then the system waits until there are two teams within the range before matching and starting a game. As mentioned above, that will result in longer queue times. Personally, I’d rather have a shorter queue and take the risk that I’m going to run up against higher rated players on occasion than waiting 20-30 minutes or more between matches.

The other alternative is to simply match players at random without taking rating into consideration at all. I don’t think that will be fun for anyone, especially those with higher ranks as exhibited in the first day or so of solo queue where you could end up with just about anyone on your team, in many cases, players who were trying out tpvp for the very first time.

My suggestion would be to simply play and enjoy the experience of going up against some of the best players in the game. Take a beating, learn from it, and get better. Every once in a while, you might have a great match against these players and in some cases, you might just win.

One other thing to consider… I’m assuming you are playing to improve your rating, just as many of the other players you get grouped with are doing. What happens if you eventually succeed in reaching top 100 or top 50? Won’t you be playing against the same players you are complaining about being matched up against now?

This has nothing to do with an “e-mail hack”. I also received a message that my e-mail address was changed and I haven’t been able to get in game since. Account restored through support, password has been changed and is also unique, 2 factor authentication, no possible way for someone else to have my serial number, etc. I’m also getting the message that another client is logged into my account after getting kicked trying to get beyond the character selection screen.

There is a bigger issue at hand here. Anyone remember a similar problem with Rift? Trion insisted that this was a local problem over and over and over until a player found the hack and assisted them in identifying and fixing the problem. This is starting to sound very familiar. Anyone know if “Manwitdaplan” is playing GW2 or how to contact him? I think ANet needs some help.

Gaile,

I used the restore option where I was asked to provide additional information which included the serial number, e-mail, game account, last 4 digits, etc. I was sent a temporary password, which I promptly changed. Authentication e-mail was sent and I was able to log back into forums and game.

When logging into the game, I get to the character selection screen, but once I select a character to get into the game I get the following message:

Disconnected. Another client has connected to Guild Wars 2 using this account. Please try again later. 35:5:1:793:101

When I log into “My Account” through the website, under “Security” and “Current Logins” it shows some other IP address as logged in and with a “Disconnect” button under “Log Out”. Clicking on this button brings met to this:

Page not found

Host
account.guildwars2.com
URL
/account/security/disconnect

JsSrv3/5541601.16917 Instance/16.374218032

As stated, my mesmer has picked up about 36 levels over the last 36 hours without me logging into the game. My credentials have never been shared with anyone and the new password (unique to GW2 and used nowhere else) was not transmitted via e-mail. It appears that the hacker is still in the account and my attempts to log in are not automatically disconnecting the other client.

What does the “disconnect” button do in the Security section of My Account? Why can’t ANet disconnect this other client?

I predict “Rift style” hack in the works. More of these are popping up. Someone changed the e-mail on my account so I had to submit a ticket to have it restored. Restore was successful and I was able to change my password, authenticate via e-mail, and set up the mobile authenticator. The problem is that the hacker has been in my account for a solid 36 hours now and I’m now getting an error message that another client is accessing my account of course. No help from ANet on this specific issue after submitting ticket, only a similar suggestion to use Pingplotter to check on connection issues which isn’t my problem.

Similar situation for me as well. Check your e-mail to see if anyone requested a change to your login credentials. I was able to get my account restored by submitting a ticket, and can access the character screen, but when attempting to get a character into the game, I get a message that another client is accessing the game with my account.

By the way, I have not logged in for two days now and somehow my mesmer went from level 6 to 42 as of this afternoon. Like me, your account has likely been hacked. Under the account management/security option, I show another IP address as logged into my account for 36 hours now, yet I am not able to disconnect them.

I have changed the password as well as set up and verified e-mail authentication, yet the hacker is still in my account. I have submitted a ticket, yet no help from ANet on this specific issue.

I’ve seen several of these pop up in the last two days. I remember Rift players experiencing a similar problem where Trion insisted it was a local problem only to later find out they had a serious flaw in their authentication process.