Guild Wars 2

Kidel.2057:

Stop saying this. It’s terrible in PvE too.

Kidel.2057:

32k DPS is nowhere near what the new elite specs are, and also pretty far from Tempest already.

You know that a staff tempest does 36k dps (without power infusions) and that only on large hitboxes, and a condi tempest does 35k (and that only with FGS)? So that’s 3-4k difference that won’t matter to most peple anyway. Srsly how much dmg do you wanna do? Back to the good ol’ days where a staff tempest did 49k and nothing else was viable in a raid? headdesk

Also, I really have to ask this, did you play a Weaver with a sword?

Yes, a holosmith does incredible dps atm, but the feeback threat for it is full of “this dmg is OP, pls nerf it”. Same as the replies for Dhuumfire on the Scourge btw. because people actually notice and would rather have balancing now than nerfs of doom after release.

For me as a player that usually doesn’t like playing engi (I dislike the kits) this felt awesome. I find the heat mechanic to be very interesting, especially in how the utility skills and the traits interact with it. From all the new specs I played so far (6), this is the one that feels the most completed and in sync to me.

The only issue I see is the damage. The holosmith on Marauder amulet + Hoelbrak runes did more damage than the Weaver on Berzerker + Scholar. The damage ouput of the Weeaver’s sword is underwhelming obviously, but the one of the holosmith might be a little too good.

I like the concept of the spellbreaker. The 2 daggers have a nice feel to them, though I would do something to the 3 or 4 skill or maybe both. Maybe give the 3 skill a longer range (450) and make it a gap-closer. I like the skills 2 and 5 as they are, but 3 and 4 are a little bland. Yes, you are supposed to hit them in a row, I get that, but the range is really small on both.

The damage ouput should be higher, both on the outo attack and the 5 skill. It’s called “Bladestorm” for a reaoson, make it hit hard. I had no problems with the heal and the utilities, especially “Featherfoot Grace” is a really nice skill. The elite skill feel a little weak however for that long a CD. It has projectile negation and removes boons on a 90 second CD. Either shorten the CD or give it something more (superspeed?) to make it count more.

Spellbreaker is definitely more of a PvP and WvW spec than a PvE one, but I don’t see a big problem with that. Berzerker is in a nice spot in PvE atm, so maybe this spec can fill other niches. Also I hope for more upcoming content (bosses in the new maps, raids etc.) where the mechnic of boon stealing becoms more important and makes the Spellbreaker viable.

I played Renegade in WvW, with Malinx and Jalis, Carrion armor and shortbow/mace/axe.

I like shortbow as a weapon, including the skills. They take a little too much engery tho, because I had a lot of cases where I just stood there with 0 zero energy left after a few skills. It’s mildly annoying.

Renegade stance itself feels unuseable to me both in WvW and PvP. The spirits you summon are strange in the sense that they a) feel like they don’t fit as ultility skills at all, and b) aren’t actual ghosts but NPCs that are subjective to things like CC. Popping one of those things in a zerg fight is just silly.

This feels like pure PvE spec atm.

Enigmoid.1264:

Adding a weapon swap button that instead swapped the positions of the active attunements would help things. So if you are air/water (air 1,2 mixed 3, water 4,5) weapon swap would switch you to water/air (water 1,2, mixed 3, air 4, 5).

This. Absolutely this. Otherwise the 4 seconds of global CD just kill it. I’m an ele, half of what I do is an instinctual reaction to my surroundings. I’m not an ele to be locked into my elements, that’s not the playstyle of the class. I’d say it’s either the normal 1.5 s CD or a weapon swap.

Traits

The first 2 of the traitlines all seem fine to me.

The 3rd however is bad in every line. They are supposed to be defensive skills, but for being a melee class with lowest armor & health… they just don’t cut it. A whole set of traits for being “a little less squishy” is a waste.

“Mater’s Fortitude” – with zeker amulet and scholar runes I go from 11.645 to 14.035 HP. It’s almost 2.5k HP, that’s nice in theory… but it won’t make much of a difference with lowest armor class. It’s still squish. You would need to run full sinister or something to get the full bonus and even then I doubt it’s worth it.

“Bolstered Elements” + “Invigorating Strike” – as mentioned before, the barriers are simply too weak. Make them stronger pls (and last at least a little longer).

Sword

I like the sword skills. They fit the ele’s overall playstyle, they are fast, they make me feel like a bruiser ele. Yes! Good, they even look fantastic! Props to the dev team that designed this, it’s a job perfectly done.

The problem unfortunately is with the damage. I specifically mention this here. The sword damage is low. It’s not the weaver’s damage, I saw videos of people getting really good dps out of the weaver… with a staff. Pls, make this spec viable on sword. It’s suppsoed be melee, make us melee!

A lot of people mentioned it already: High risk, high return!

That’s what sword on an ele should be like as play-style.

Utilities

Hm. “Unravel”, “Primodiral Stance” and “Twist of Fate” (Jeff Hardy says hi) are decent skills. Their CDs feel a little bit long, maybe a few seconds less on each, but I get the idea beehind them. The stunbreak is nice and could work well with the swiftness/superspeed traits. Damage trait is ok and going back to the “base” ele of one element makes for nice combos.

“Stone Resonance” is sadly, as I mentioned under Traits already, a waste. A waste on a long CD. I recognize the idea behind the barriers, and I really like it, but the implementation is very clunky atm.

“Aquatic Stance” …doesn’t fit. It’s a heal skill for a spec that is supposed to be a squishy melee. If want a support heal I go Tempest and take “Wash the Pain Away”.

I don’t wanna support people on a weaver – I wanna save my own kitten kitten !

Overall

I love weaver. I love the idea of it. It’s kittening awesome! I wanted this since the specializations were accouned for HoT. Those skills make my mouth water looking at them.

Personally I however think adjustments need be made to the barriers the ele uses, some of the skills and especially the damage output on the sword.

You let us get close. Now actually give us to means to be beat the kitten out of the enemy while we’re there (and in mortal danger)!

Astralporing.1957:

If those hours of yours were to be spent doing things other than fractals (say… WvW?), then you’d have much, much less ascended gear now.

I also have quite a number of drop boxes i used to gear up my characters. Almost all of them were from fractals. There were few weapons i got from pvp, wvw and Teq, but, for example, all armor pieces as far as i remember were fractal rewards.

If i weren’t doing fractals, i’d have needed to craft every single one of them – and at the moment, crafting is prohibitely expensive.

I’m not a WvW main player, but I have rank 1050 (or something), so yes, I played WvW. I took part in every PvP season. I have 7 map completions, and 9 more for the HoT maps. So let me assure you, most of my time in Gw2 was definitely not spent in fractals.

I dropped the second most ascended boxes from PvP actually, both weapons and armor. Also some stuff from Tequatl and a few boxes from WvW level chests.

Of course the most drops always come from fractals, but the drop rates especially for PvP or Tequatl/Wurm aren’t that bad from what I personally experienced. I don’t know if I have a vastly different drop rate from most other people, but since I generally don’t drop much good stuff (I still have that dream of dropping a pre once) I just can’t imagine it being that bad.

Jack Angelfoot.2697:

[…]But mostly the Ascended Tokens were wonderful, not because they were ridiculously cheap, which admittedly they were, but because it was an opportunity to acquire Ascended items without grinding my crafting up to 500 and then having to daily remember to slog through crafting enough material to make something.

Perhaps ascended gear is not an appropriate reward for people who are as casual as me. I have only put 4,067 hours into this game and ascended armor seems to be something for more serious people[…]

I have played 5,980 hours.

I have 9 characters that are complete ascended (gear, trinkets, weapons) – though only 1 has ascended trident + aqua breather and 2 still have exotic back pieces.

Of 10 ascended armor sets (one char has 2) I crafted 2. Of 32 ascended weapons I crafted around 5-10.

The rest – ca. 48 pieces of gear and 20+ weapons were drops. Heck, even many of the trinkets I use were drops from fractals or achievements, or bought from raids.

Added to that is another set of ascended armor and some more trinkets I salvaged + 5 armor boxes & 2 weapon boxes currently on my bank + 1,200 ascended shards of glory (equal to 5 more gear pieces).

So I got ca. 60 ascended gear pieces + 25 weapons without crafting.

Yes, I play fractals regularly. But heck, my drop rate isn’t even good. I know people who have characters whose inventories are overflowing with ascended boxes and they played a little less fractals than me.

Don’t get me wrong, if a new players makes the case that getting ascended armor is too expensive for them because they have craft it I wholeheartedly agree. Because it is expensive if you are starting the game and have neither gold nor are you doing/able to do anything that gives good ascended rewards (higher level fractals, raids).

But if you say you’ve played 4000k+ hours of this game and have problems getting ascended gear I’ll really have to ask you how much of that time was spent afking.

nicknamenick.2437:

Ashamir.9574:

Yes, a Symbolic DH runs 3 Meditations. A Meditrapper genereally uses 2 or even 1 as the more “offensive” variant uses Dragon’s Maw over Renewed Focus (which is on a 72 sec CD on a Meditrapper as the trait for the heal also lowers the CD).

So it’s more like 1,960 heal every max 16 sec from Smite Conditions for the Meditations.

Why do ppl always forget to mention there DH Wings? use the kitten Wings :-) its not just a leap.

Gwaihir.1745:

DH have f2 which is around 3.9k […]

No one “forgot” about the wings. I was just posting a correction regarding the heal of the meditations on the DH. You should have read the original post first.

Gwaihir.1745:

Healing traits. Meditation are 1.9k heal each. DH will run usually 3 medis so 5.7k possible burst healing but 1.9k of that is behind a 90s cd […]

Yes, a Symbolic DH runs 3 Meditations. A Meditrapper genereally uses 2 or even 1 as the more “offensive” variant uses Dragon’s Maw over Renewed Focus (which is on a 72 sec CD on a Meditrapper as the trait for the heal also lowers the CD).

So it’s more like 1,960 heal every max 16 sec from Smite Conditions for the Meditations.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Not enough full parties play to keep an entirely separate 5-man queue healthy 24/7. However, that doesn’t mean teams shouldn’t have a structured place to participate in PvP. This will be part of the the discussion around the followup poll regarding solo/duo queue.

I honestly don’t understand why now, in season 5, when it finally seems like the whole matching system has actually been really overworked a lot, teams are suddenly prohibited from joining the fun. As a player that has always been playing in teams to me this feels like a slap to the face.

Yes, you announced that there will be another vote at the end of season 5, but…

d) instead of testing the option before the season actully started you just put that in and exluced us from ranked for the whole season.

b) we all know how that poll will turn out. I’m not dillusional enough to think that people will vote for team-queue in this.

It was convenient to blame teams for the losing streaks of solo players when in fact the whole system was what was screwing people over. If the new system works better, those solo playes will just say “Team queue was removed and suddenly everything is better! See, we told you teams in ranked were the reeason our experience was so bad! Ofc we won’t have that kitten back!”

Will you be doing anything about that in the sense of clarification, i.e. telling the people that better matchmaking makes for better quality in matches and that team-queue won’t suddenly make their pvp experience kitten again?

I understand that 5-man queue isn’t feasible, but why not for example have a (2, 3, 5)-man queue and a pure solo-queue? Are the people in charge of that actually thinking about other options than the one we have currently?

It honestly just boggles my mind how there atm isn’t a real team option in a team-based game and no one from the devs seems to care about that at all.

I didn’t buy BLC keys before and I see no reason to buy them now where I basically get 1 drop less for the same money. It wasn’t worth it before and is worth it even less now, since an EXP booster for example is still better than a ToT bag.

Honestly, who thought that this would be a good idea?

It’s stuff like this that makes me think people at Anet think that their players are ridiculously stupid monkeys who will never notice that they were slighted.

+1 Agony Infusions
Tomes of Knowledge
Mystic Forge Stones
Vision Crystals
Lesser Vision Crystals
Tenebrous Crystals
Shimmering Crystals
Fractals Research Pages
Ectoplasmic Residue
Golden Fractals Relics

Fortune Scraps (have 199 left. The moment I’ll deleate them they’ll come back into the game. Happened to me with permanent finishers suddenly becoming account-wide non-items, won’t happen again.)
Milling Basins
Blood Rubies
Petrified Wood

LinseyMurdock.4165:

There is no way we are getting out of this pet project without adding Blade Shards to Material Storage. I’m comfortable saying now that Blade Shards will definitely make the list of things to add to Material Storage.

3 kittening years too late. I’m not putting blame anywhere here, but that should have been a thing from day 1 they came out.

If you play SoloQ that means that you account for roughly 10% (1/10) of the outcome of the match (if we ignore unpredictable factors like sudden DCs, luck etc). What this means is that your performance doesn’t matter as long is it isn’t overly good or bad compared to that of the other players. Unless you are leagues better than the other players, afk, feed, troll massively, or have no idea about how to play pvp you just do your thing.

How do you “move forward” in a game were your personal performance if it isn’t extraordinary in some way doesn’t make a difference to the outcome of the match?

MMR decides matches. Class stacking decides matches. Often enough the match making process itself has kittened someone over before the game has even started, be it by giving them a low MMR they don’t deserve, putting them with people that have a high MMR they don’t deserve etc.

It’s a 5 man vs 5 man team content. Yes, it’s competitive. Some people actually like to play a competitive team game as a team. Surprise surprise.

No matter what, this is a game. I don’t understand the entiltlement of some people here who tell others that they aren’t allowed to play ranked anymore just because their premade team has a higher chance of having better teamwork and therefor winning the game.

I usually play ranked in groups of 3 or 4, sometimes 2 people (we aren’t enough for a 5 man grp). We’re friends playing together. Our group usually looks something like: ruby, ruby, sapphire, emerald.

Most groups of 3 and more people don’t all have the same rank. They are simply friends playing together. In all honesty, I don’t even remember facing a group of 5 in ranked that didn’t consist of players with at 3 different ranks.

You are matched by the highest ranking player in your party. So if that player is ruby it’s maybe 3 ruby + 2 lower ranks (1 sapphire, 1 emerald) vs 5 single rubies in the enemy team. Even if the 5 man team has voice communication the odds are pretty even considering that their group has to cover for the 2 weaker players with teamplay.

Yes, it can occur that a 5 man team that all have the same skill level + voice com face a full solo team of the same rank in ranked PvP. In this case they have an advantage. But how often does this actually happen?

I honestly doubt that this kind of match up is the reason so many people have a bad experience in pvp. Honestly, there don’t even seem to be that many parties since from what I gather ANET did say that a big majority of people play solo.

Prohibiting teams from playing ranked will not change the bad match making we’re having atm. I won’t make games any better, it will just turn more players away from the game mode.

+ In the end everyone wants the shinys, the backback, the tag, the title. Why play unranked if you can play ranked? Say “competitive” all you want, as long as you can’t get all of those in unranked there will be lots of people playing ranked just for the rewards. Both solo and team players.

And the poll doesn’t even work properly…

Seriously. This is a 5 vs 5 man game. I wanna play this in a party. In SoloQ my contribution to the match – as 1/10 – is ca. 10% (unless I’m a very good player, very bad player or a massive troll). It’s roulette decided by factors like MMR I don’t know and therefore can’t even remotely calculate.

How does anyone think it’s a good idea to make this SoloQ only? You’re just making the problem worse, not fixing it. If this gets through there will be even less active players in season 5.

People while whine anyway, but now their whining will stop me from playing pvp. GG I guess.

Malediktus.3740:

Nothing will ever get a super majority in GW2, not even if you would ask if everyone should get free 1000 gold or legendaries.

People voted for world linking in WvW among other things.

Josh Davis.6015:

Hiya,

We’re looking for a majority for the trial step. The permanence vote will require super majority.

If the trial vote passes, the entirety of season 5 will be solo/duo.

Thanks for the information.

Josh Davis.6015:

Hi all,

I’d like to take a moment to address some of the concerns posted since last Friday regarding the possibility of solo/duo queue.

The poll we’ll be running this week will simply ask if we should trial a solo/duo queue system during season 5. Assuming the poll passes and Season 5 is solo/duo only, we’ll monitor feedback throughout the season and then run another poll at the end of S5 to ask folks if they’d like to see the change become permanent.

“But Josh, what about people that like to queue as premades, do guild missions, etc?” An overwhelming majority of players already play as solo/duo in leagues, but that doesn’t mean we’re not thinking about the groups and the guilds. That said, unranked arena will continue to accommodate roster sizes of up to 5. Guild missions will still be able to be completed in unranked arena. Assuming the post-season 5 permanence poll passes, we’ll evaluate the need for another environment where teams can compete (based on your feedback).

Hopefully that answers some of your questions!

How big a majority will the solo/duo queue need to have to get voted in? Can I asssume that it will need 75%+ to pass like the WvW polls?

And does “trial” mean that if the solo/duo queue get’s voted only this system will be played throughout the complete season 5 no matter what?

I’d like to know that just to be clear.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Second, in the next few weeks we’ll be running a poll that asks if you’d like to see PvP Leagues switch to a solo/duo queue only system, rather than allowing rosters of any size (1 through 5 players).

I’m honestly abashed at how many people don’t get this.

It won’t be solo/duo queue AND 5 man queue, it will be ONLY solo/due.

If this goes through I’m done playing ranked. Playing with 4 pugs in ranked in this game is roulette at best. I won’t waste my time and sanity on it.

K THEN.5162:

I recommend trying condition hammer scrapper due to the ridiculous condition pressure it places on its enemies!
#condihammerscrapperbestmeta

Seconded. It is ridiculous.

sophiewhite.3149:

Ashamir.9574:

As a Necro just kite the dragonhunter with staff. Unless it is your point and there is no other team mate there to keep it capped just stay away from the DH. “You can’t kite a DH” only applies if the DH doesn’t need to hold the point. If they have to they are rooted in there, can’t port to you as then they leave the point open, and so 1 of their weapon sets as well as their traps are petty useless. Apply condis to them from the sidelines and once they run ot of cleanse byebye.
If you have to engage then wait for the traps to be on CD, go shroud, 5+4 and nuke them down. Don’t stay melee. Don’t let them knock you back with the LB.

you do realize the goal of the game is to hold a point right? so if the enemy is always holding 2 points on a 3 point map they win. since your forced to kite the dragon hunter and he never has to leave the point because hurr necro cant force me off.and since they can just pull you into their traps what good does running do?

Did you read at all what I said? Serious question.

You don’t force the DH off. You kite them with condis and at some point they will go low or down because they don’t have the cleanse to deal with constant condis. Then you go melee with shroud to kill them.
Their most effective weapon are their traps. You stay out of them = they can’t do kitten to you.
And please don’t tell we that you can’t dodge one simple Spear of Justice – because if that’s the case all the advise here will be useless for you.

Nice how OP never once mentions the word “scrapper” in their post.

Scrappers are cancer to Dragonshunters. They can block projectiles, they have tons of sustain, they have easy stuns available, they can either moa DHs or go invis, and they also pack tons of condis.

Condis kill a Dragonhunter.

A Meditrapper has 3 condi removes: the F2 (Wings of Resolve), 1 ultility (Smite Condition or Contemplation of Purity), and the healing trap (Purification; heals only through trait that grants Smite Conditions on healing ability). That’s usually 6 condis cleansed.

Since they are running Marauder’s amulet they will die from condi if they can’t remover them or have a healer nearby. Blocks work on physical damage, but condi ticks on.

As a Necro just kite the dragonhunter with staff. Unless it is your point and there is no other team mate there to keep it capped just stay away from the DH. “You can’t kite a DH” only applies if the DH doesn’t need to hold the point. If they have to they are rooted in there, can’t port to you as then they leave the point open, and so 1 of their weapon sets as well as their traps are petty useless. Apply condis to them from the sidelines and once they run ot of cleanse byebye.
If you have to engage then wait for the traps to be on CD, go shroud, 5+4 and nuke them down. Don’t stay melee. Don’t let them knock you back with the LB.

Druid was already mentioned here. A good bunker Druid laughs in the face of a DH. They have too much sustain, they can disengage with stealth if necessary, they stun you like a kitten, and ofc some taunt you with their HoT pets that deal enough to damage to be potentionally very dangerous to a marauder. Not to mention the stability to walk through traps.

What else? A Mesmer packs a good ammount of condi and one well-placed shatter can be the end of the DH. Again, blocks are useless to condi and they have all the daze to make your life hell. Also moa.

A Dragonhunter is easy to predict: they place traps on the point, they wait for you to come in range, they pull you with Spear of Justice (F1) and then knock you back right away with LB. Test of Faith does the most damage if you cross it’s border, that’s why that combination hurts so much.
If they are good or simply lucky their traps will off CD again at that point, so they port to you with Sword 2 (Symbol of Blades) or Judge’s Intervention and put them right beneath your feet this time. Game over.

Dodge through the point initially, go into there invuln (distortion, blocks, whatever) or send a pet/minion there to activate the traps. Only go melee after they placed their traps and they were activated. All traps have 20 sec+ CD so that’s your time to burst them down.

The Symbolic DH differs to the Maurauder only slightly.
They lack the “virtues” trait so no stunbreak and stability on F3, and a weaker F2 that doesn’t heal condis of their allies. Also they cleanse condis with blocks and take less damage if they don’t have condis on them. Be aware that their symbols are larger, last longer, and heal allies.

Symbols and traps are where their damage comes from. The sword symbol gives fury, the scepter symbol might. Don’t stand in the symbol, and try to not fight them while they are standing in it.

If you know how the class works a DH isn’t that hard to kill (unless you are a thief or ele).

Yesterday moring (EU) I killed an enemy DH with my DH 1 vs 1 in 15-20 seconds (mid-sapphire). Why? The person didn’t have experience with the class. They knew the mechanics of block, pull and play traps, but their utilization was sloppy. You can easily tell the difference between a person that knows how the class works and a guy who just picked it because it’s an easy, viable build now.

Don’t whine about something that kills you simply because you don’t know how it works.

sanctuary.1068:

Anet didnt you say soloq never will face 5man premades?

Arenanet said that a full premade will never face a full SoloQ in PvP.

Please a look at your screenshots and understand that this isn’t the case here.

Why do people still not get this? The wording on the original anet post was extremly clear in that aspect.

Regon Phoenix.8215:

And i am on my way.

Regon Phoenix.8215:

We ravaged enemy team like it was nothing (sapphire 2).

You made my day

Regon Phoenix.8215:

Ashamir.9574:

Regon Phoenix.8215:

If Anet aren’t going to nerf thieves, then i found my new main.

My question, though, how other thieves perma-dodge everything and why other thieves don’t view that as broken?

And which part is asking for a nerf?

imply
verb; implied, implying.
to indicate or suggest without being explicitly stated.

Regon Phoenix.8215:

If Anet aren’t going to nerf thieves, then i found my new main.

My question, though, how other thieves perma-dodge everything and why other thieves don’t view that as broken?

Regon Phoenix.8215:

Who is bashing what?
And i am on my way.

Thief is too op, thief needs to be nerfed etc.

Seriously, the only class worse off than a thief in current high game is a DH.

The thief is at the same time both the most overpowered and the most useless class according to this form. If the thief wins the thief is God, if the thief loses they are trash.

This constant thief bashing gets boring, you know?

Get to legendary playing thief and we talk again … oh, right, you won’t.

Thanks for the help. I honestly had no idea what was causing the crashes.

The thing with the EU servers is that there are 4 language groups:

14 EU
7 GER
5 FRA
1 ESP

Those server groups however do not include the Dutch, Italian, Swedish, Polish etc. players. On the EU servers the most spoken language is English, simply because that’s the only language most people can talk in other than their native one. There are guilds from every European country and some from non-European ones.

There are German, French and Spanish people that are on EU servers indstead of their “intended” ones. Also on some smaller servers a bigger majority of the population is from a specific country (one was mainly Swedish for example, but I can’t remember which).

When EU players lfg they are paired with all other EU people. You can select a “group language”, but most people don’t bother. Yes, from my experience both the Spanish and the French are often not happy about speaking English or simply lack the language skills. That’s true for Germans as well, though on a smaller level.

I have talked to people from German servers and while a lot don’t want to “bother” speaking English, many would take the chance to at least try a merging of EU and GER servers. It’s a matter of convenience mostly.

On Elona Reach for example most of the vocabulary the commanders use is already English: “Stack, empower, small blast, big blast, push, rez, engage, disengage…”. Someone who plays WvW regularly uses those terms anyway – seriously, a few weeks ago I had a com (Austrian guy) who used the German word for Empower (“Ermächtigung”). Half the zerg spent 10 mins in utter confusion until someone explained what it meant. I’d never heard that word used in WvW before.

Linking EU servers is not striktly about language. The fat majority of us can speak English. We have community organized Tri-Wurm runs with 100+ players of dozens of countries reaching as far as Australia or Saudi Arabia.

In my opinion matching some GER servers like Abbadon which is currently on last place as they are completely overrun, with EU servers like Vabbi which for whatever reason was paired with Desolation, would have been a far more balanced concept. This was a beta, if it hadn’t worked out another pairing could have been formed. That’s what a beta is for, imo: trial and error.

I’m not saying that the Germans wouldn’t have complained, but honestly we’re very good at complaining. Maybe pairing us with EU servers would have alleviated the extreme rivalry among the German servers somewhat – which would actually have been a good thing.

Isn’t it nice that the reasons for the NA linking system were explained while, despite it being obvious that this system won’t ever work properly for EU servers, they still implemented it here as well?

Nobody ever asked: would you consider the linking of EU and GER severs a possibility?

Nobody seems to have thought about that the world linking as it stands puts most of the non-linked servers at a disadvantaged. (Which ofc isn’t a problem in NA, where all servers are linked.)

Nobody seems to care that sever’s like Abbadon and Dzagonur were kittened over, because pairing Desolation with Vabbi was more important.

I personally am only slightly negatively inclined towards the principle of world linking, but I understand why a lot the EU players think they are being overlooked. It just feels like the people in charge couldn’t be bothered to come up with fitting solution for us and instead slapped the NA system on the EU servers because it was the easiest solution.

It seems to happen throughout every season. I just played a match on Khylo: no pip and it doesn’t show at all in the match history. My team mates got both the win and the pips btw.

By now it’s really annoying. Pls someone fix it, it’s not like it’s a new bug.

Dare I say… it’s actually nice playing pvp right now. I honestly didn’t expect that.

Last season I was at a point where I just quit pvp because it was blow-out after blow-out. Now I’m playing games with people that are at least somewhat around my skill level, and oh-wonder it’s a) fun and b) my team is winning the majority of our matches.

I’m not a high tier player and I don’t aspire to be one, so it’s nice not having to listen to people anymore that win 500-xx and tell me “l2p”.

And we also had few matches where a complete pug group was matched against the 3 of us. Usually the premade groups in both teams were pretty evenly distributed.

Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318:

Shadow Bane.9362:

RIP Burn Guard too? It was a fun distraction. In the right comps it could even work. More of a toy build but now less fun options for guardians again. I have a swell of pity for everyone who mains guard right now not necessarily because of this but in general they’re in such a kitten situation in almost all game modes.

Glad I’m not the only one. Wow. There goes my kittening burn guard. Had some promising results in unranked. I was like maby. Just maby this could work. But nope. Guess i won’t get the chance to find this out in ranked. On the other hand necro’s and mesmers are a lot squishier now. So yeah. And how funny, to do change this right before the season starts.

I played burn guard for the complete last season. Yes, it was never meta but who gives a crap? I always played guard in pvp, and I seriously fell in love with that build. It just so feels so kitten good killing the same power rev three times in a row because he dodges the traps and doesn’t realize that the burn is what is killing him.

With the necro I can just go back to playing vipers amulett, but a guard with vipers is just dead meat. Mercenary already felt incredibly squishy at times, with medium health pool and all. Now I have no idea what build I could run with a guard what will still be somewhat viable. Any suggestions?

As an EU player who is not one of the severs paired with a lower tier server:

We have 18 servers still in the ranking and 9 that you basically scrapped. That could be fine in theory, but the moment you are on a sever with a moderately high WvW population and paired against a server with the same WvW population that was plused you will we fighting in the minority most of the time.

I’m Elona Reach (DE) and paired against Desolation +Vabbi. Yes, the Vabbi players aren’t as good as the Deso people. The problem I have atm is that it doesn’t matter how good they are if it’s 3 vs 1 in their favor.

I was trying to capture a camp today and two Vabbis came along. As a moderately skilled Wvw and PvP players I could hold my own against them … until a Deso popped up and I was dead. A variation of that scenario happened to me a few more times until I just gave up doing the daily solo and joined the 40 people queue for the Eternal Battlegrounds.

It’s a saturday so that’s fine, but what do I do on a weekday where I don’t have the time to queue or there is no map with a zerg to begin with? I understand that this is a beta, I’m just kinda scared that it will stay that way and WvW won’t be doable for me anymore unless my sever is the plused one.

And why is Deso that is listed as a “full” sever +1 with Vabbi vs. Elona and Riverside, which both only have “high” populations? What factors decide on the sever pairings? Is the actual WvW population taken into account or just the general population of the server?

I would appreciate a little transparancy on this.

Now that I think about it … why are severs that have a relatively high population paired with another server anyway? Wouldn’t the mid-level populated severs profit more of this?

Lukas.7159:

If we give reveal to every class, thief will be unplayable

I meant that every skill that uses stealth automatically also gives the player reveal when it ends, no matter what class you are, i.e. reveal if the stealth from the sneak gyro or the mass invisibility runs out etc.

Nerf stun-meta.
Give every stealth skill reveal.

We have too many stuns and dazes in the game since HoT, or at least too many with a relatively short cd.

Those are the stuns/dazes that came with HoT:

Scrapper skill 5 on hammer does stun, leap finisher with hammer 3 into into the lightning field gives daze. Also all gyros daze on self-destruct + Engi has a trait for 25% less stun/daze duration on you and 25% more outgoing duration from you.

Revenant has daze on the Shiro elite skill and staff 2. Also a trait for dazing when using an elite skill.

Druid has daze on one glyph, avatar skill 3 and also traits for daze on swap to staff, and immobilize for hitting a stunned or dazed person (not counting the 50% duration increase of daze/stun on the normal ranger traits).

DH has a trait for stun on traps.

Reaper has stun on Chilled to the Bone and shroud 5. Daredevil has one stun and one daze on the utilities + daze on impact strike. Chronomancer has stun on shield 5. Berserker got an elite skill. (Tempest got nothing btw.)

If we take metabattle builds, because everyone and their mother is playing them in pvp, we get this:

Chrono: 1 daze (38 sec cd), 2 stun (40sec cd) [not counting Signet of Illusion and Alacrity]
Druid: 1 daze on glyph (24 sec cd), 1 daze (5 sec cd while in avatar) + 5 sec immobilize and bleed for hitting someone stunned or dazed [1 more daze with gs 5 if equipped; counting trait for glyph cd reduction]
Revenant: 1 stun (50 sec cd), 1 daze (15 sec cd)
Necro: 1 stun on warhorn (30 sec cd), 1 stun on shroud 5 (30 sec cd) and 1 on elite shout (90 sec cd without trait, 81 sec with, 57 sec if 5 enemies hit)
Scrapper: 1 stun on hammer 5 (24 sec cd), 1 daze on bulwark gyro self-destruct (20 sec cd) [1 daze on sneak gyro self-destruct if equipped (40 sec cd)]
Daredevil: 1 daze on pistol 4, 1 daze on elite (40 sec cd), 1 daze on steal (25.5 sec cd) [counting cd reduction on steal via trait]
DH: 2 dazes with traps (both 24 sec cd) + 2 more stuns in the other utility (20 sec cd) and the elite trap (60 sec cd) if equipped [counting trap dc and cd reduction via trait; ignoring that traps go on cd after being placed]

I ignored Berserker and Tempest here. Ele got no daze/stun and warrior is rarely played this season. If you are in lower tiers (till ruby I guess) you have less revenants and more DHs. Thiefs are kinda rare in general. Still, the stun/daze is everywhere.

Being dazed to death while you sit in front of your computer unable do to anything against it isn’t a good mechanic to have in a pvp mode.

Make stun/daze affect you less the longer you were exposed to it, hard cap it if that’s the only thing that works, I don’t know. That and reveal for everyone so engis can’t out-stealth thiefs with 1 skill anymore and we’d have already taken a big step in a better direction imo.

Yes, there are a lot of bad thiefs out there. Of those at least 95% believe that they are good players. I’m not denying that.

What I hate however, is if a match hasn’t even started and people start ranting against the thief in the team like OP did here. You don’t even know how bad/good the thief is yet, but you nontheless immediately flame the player that could win you game if they know how to play their profession.

I’m mid level ruby and I only que in groups of 2 or 3, always with a thief friend of mine. He barely plays anything else than thief, and he rocks the class. I’ll always take him over any “meta” class from someone who you copied a build form metabattle and thinks that that makes them the kittenz.

Also: you usually recognize good a thief by the fact that if there are too thiefs the good one will immediately offer to relog, or do it without even saying anything the moment they see that there is a second thief. The bad ones are the ones that insult you when you ask them if they could change to something else.

Gator.5729:

Fractals are not only level 80 content, get that out of your heads. It’s the players claiming it to be. Being level 80 only makes them quicker. I provided proof its not designed for only level 80’s in a post above, where is yours?

It can be done by characters with level lower than 80, no one is denying that as far as I understood. What we are denying ist that it was designed for anything below level 80.

There is a gap between upscalded 80 characters and normal 80 characters.
1) You have no propper build when upscaled because you lack traits.
2) If you are below level 60 you have no access to Superior Runes.
3) If you are below level 62 you have no access to exotic gear.
4) If you are below level 80 you have no access to ascended gear.

Upscaling works best if your gear matches the level of your character. A level 55 character for example gets the max out of upscaling if they wear level 55 gear.

Therefore a player would have to be above level 62 (Superior Runes + exotic gear) and also have said gear on the exact same level as they are currently to come close to a full exotic level 80 character in stats – if you ignore the build that is.

That means an upscalded player in fractal is a subpar player at best, and permanently dying glasscannon with no damage at worst.

How high is the chance that if groups would allow <80 characters to join them in fractals to get the first categroy of players, and how high is the chance to get the second? I can guess, and it’s not pretty.
Also: from level 10 upwards you need agony resistance to survive in a fractal. Since a character below level 80 can’t have AR they will die instantly. That kinda makes it obvious that they are not supposed to be in there.

So yes, you can go in there … but you can’t expect other people to take you with them when they most likely will have to carry you.

Fractals are bad enough to pug as it is (which is why I usually don’t do it).

If you join a fractal party with a <lvl 80 character you want to be carried. Why? Because it’s level 80 content. You won’t do the damage a fully leveled character does, not even if you had exotic gear – and no kiddin’, who has exotic gear below lvl 80 if it didn’t drop from the story?

You do about nill damage, you die easily, and the other players basically have to do the work for you.

If it’s a party of friends/guildies it’s something else, but I won’t carry people who can’t be bothered to level in other game modes like everyone else does. I’d rather do a low level frac with 3 or 4 people than carry a lazy random.

Same goes for people without AR btw. No AR = instant kick.

team > skill > class > build

I had a game a few nights ago: 3 man guild team + 2 randoms VS me and a friend, another guild team of 2 + 1 random.

We lost 393-500 because our second group of 2 decided that they didn’t have to communicate with the rest of the team at all. We discussed tactics before the match started, their mesmer said he wouldn’t go close. Fine, thief goes close and rest mid … only that suddenly the 2 guys leave us 2 vs 4 in mid to go far, we get wiped and then the other team moves to faceroll them 5 vs 2. Didn’t get any better after that.

At around 200-400 they decided that we needed a lord kill, both went lord and left us 3 vs 5 on the map. They got the lord kill, we lost.

Skill-wise our team was not significantly worse than the enemy team (I would even say that we were a little better). Class distribution was pretty equal as well, if I remember correctly. The deciding factor in that game was team play.

My team deserved that loss. We didn’t play as a team and we paid for it. It just made the rest of us pretty angry as we lost due to those 2 guys refusing any communication whatsoever.

Random Weird Guy.3528:

Ferocity’s been gone since the start of the season – was wondering how long it would take everyone to notice.

My thought exactly xD That was what, over two weeks ago? Nice to see that no one noticed that …

Personal guess: it was taken out so people wouldn’t be able to compare their queue time to the average anymore i.e. complain about why they were waiting 1 h+ when the average queue had a waiting time of 2 min 50 sec.

And yes, it was taken out, that’s not only you. No one sees it anymore.

It feels shady to me because, as you said, it wasn’t in the patch notes. You get the feeling that they wanted to silently take it out and hope that no one notices…

I would be interested what a dev says to that, just to know if they realize that it feels like they are taking their players for fools.

Btw: party members, illusions, minions and gyros don’t appear blue to you anmore in matches. Also even if you represent the same guild, guild members are not yellow anymore. I don’t know about ranger pets.

Suffice to say that that confused the hell out of my mesmer and engi last night. Wasn’t in the patch notes either…

I stick to daily now, because everything else aside a game should be fun, and this season is anything but. Losing xx-500 isn’t fun, winning 500-xx isn’t fun, playing with random people who don’t understand the basic mechanic of gw pvp isn’t fun.

Personally I liked the fights more, the games that even when you had lost 498-500 everyone left saying gg, knowing it was a game well played. In this season for me it was just stomps on either side mostly with a lot of flame & hate in teamchat during the match (no matter if we were winning or losing).

Thank you very much for the chart, it helped me a lot.

I have atm played 589 matches.

I didn’t play much PvP before Season 1, and then it was only in groups of 3+ people because frankly playing solo holds no appeal for me. I like playing with my guildies, and that was also what I did when the Season came around last year.

I don’t know how much I was carried in Season 1 as mostly we were playing as two weaker guys and a pretty good friend. He won us some matches, but I guess even he wouldn’t have been able to carry two total noobs. So honestly I can’t say anything for that.

I got to the last tier of ruby last season. That’s pretty average I guess. The people I played with were a mix of ruby and diamond. When the new season started, we finished Amber in a few hours in the first night. The second night we made the first 2 tiers of Emerald. Everything was ok, lost some, won some, had some short wining streaks.

Then on Thursday/Friday night we started getting randoms that were … difficult. They ususally didn’t play with the team and started flaming as soon as things didn’t look good. We lost more than we won, and then the randoms started getting really nasty and it went downhill from there.

Finally I just wanted another win, but then managed to get one more tier in Emerald last night. By solo-queueing, and suddenly also with competent team mates. I don’t know what is the difference between team-queue and solo, but it was so refreshing to actually have people that talk strategy before the match, who defend points and try to rez you when you are downed.

It didn’t stay that way unfortunately, but at least every second match in solo-queue you lose because the other team is better, and not because your team is bad

I’m certainly not the best pvp player there is. I make mistakes. Sometimes I could have used my skills better, sometimes I should have rotated/anticipated better. Sometimes I attacked the wrong player, ran away where I should have fought or fought where I should have run. I try to get better with every game.

I know I could be better, but what do I do…

…if my teammates ignore downed enemies instead of killing them?
…two people cap close bc they can?
…one goes creep on Niflhel and leaves the team 3 vs 4 in mid at the start of the match?
…four people cap mid and I’m the only one rotating back to close to hold the cap?
…3 guys each run into mid alone to feed the 4 enemies who camp there?

At least I’m Emerald now. I know a guy who was easy Diamond last season and is still stuck in Amber because he started this season a few days late.

What I want to say: no matter how experienced you are, once you are paired with the kind of people that flame constantly, give up before the match is lost, or/and don’t know the basics of pvp gameplay you have a serious problem trying to get back into the good graces of the match-making. Then it’s not about your skill anymore, but about the lucky draw.

Nice to see that some changes will be implemented.

Rune of Durability needs to be nerfed. Remove the +125 vitality or replace them with something else, for example. As it is the rune is just too strong.

The Bristleback needs to be scaled down. I personally can live with the Smokescale, but the Bristleback just does too much damage considering it’s still a rather tanky pet.

Something has to be done about the stun on the Dragonhunter traps. At the moment the traps are an extremetly skillless kind of play imho. The DH just jumps on a point, places the traps and watches something die. Even good players can fall to those things when they are unlucky.

The Scrapper sneak gyro is just too overpowered. It’s stealth is better than the stealth of the thief, who is supposed to be THE class for invisibility. The duration of 30 seconds is too much compared to the 20 seconds cooldown. At least swapp cd and uptime of the skill. Also a player should be revealed when walking out of the gyro’s invisibility.

meow one twenty.4376:

Ashamir.9574:

meow one twenty.4376:

Ashamir.9574:

I lost a game 497 – 500 yesterday. Lost a pip.
Our team: 3 man grp (1 emerald, 2 sapphire) + 2 sapphire randoms
Their team: 2 man grp (ruby, sapphire) + 2 man grp (ruby, amber) + 1 sapphire random
I gave up trying to understand that system, srsly.

YOU LOST THE GAME. HOW HARD IS IT TO UNDERSTAND THAT LOSING A GAME LOWERS YOUR STANDING IN A LEAGUE. HAVE ANY OF YOU ACTUALLY PLAYED IN COMPETITIVE SPORTS?

Ya’ll acting like a bunch of freeloaders. This “grind” you guys complain about is saving your butts from the embarrassment of realizing you are inadequate for competition.

I maybe should have made clear that my problem was not that I lost a match. It is just that I don’t understand the matchmaking system that pairs 2 ruby against sapphires with emeralds in there.
I have no problem with losing. That was the first game I lost after a 10 game winning streak. Just how the match-ups are made doesn’t really make sense to me.
This was not the first time I played against a few ruby with a group of sapphire/emeralds only.

The game was 497-500, aka a close game. Typically that means the teams were about equal in abilities. 10 game win streaks also increase your MMR, they could be on a 10 game loss streak lowering their MMR.

I know that. I think that it shouldn’t be able to work that way. That’s my point.

meow one twenty.4376:

Ashamir.9574:

I lost a game 497 – 500 yesterday. Lost a pip.
Our team: 3 man grp (1 emerald, 2 sapphire) + 2 sapphire randoms
Their team: 2 man grp (ruby, sapphire) + 2 man grp (ruby, amber) + 1 sapphire random
I gave up trying to understand that system, srsly.

YOU LOST THE GAME. HOW HARD IS IT TO UNDERSTAND THAT LOSING A GAME LOWERS YOUR STANDING IN A LEAGUE. HAVE ANY OF YOU ACTUALLY PLAYED IN COMPETITIVE SPORTS?

Ya’ll acting like a bunch of freeloaders. This “grind” you guys complain about is saving your butts from the embarrassment of realizing you are inadequate for competition.

I maybe should have made clear that my problem was not that I lost a match. It is just that I don’t understand the matchmaking system that pairs 2 ruby against sapphires with emeralds in there.
I have no problem with losing. That was the first game I lost after a 10 game winning streak. Just how the match-ups are made doesn’t really make sense to me.
This was not the first time I played against a few ruby with a group of sapphire/emeralds only.

I lost a game 497 – 500 yesterday. Lost a pip.
Our team: 3 man grp (1 emerald, 2 sapphire) + 2 sapphire randoms
Their team: 2 man grp (ruby, sapphire) + 2 man grp (ruby, amber) + 1 sapphire random
I gave up trying to understand that system, srsly.

Thank you for that.