Guild Wars 2

I had a shaky start this season due to 3 matches with a player going AFK and that definitely impacted my placement. I’ve seen similar behavior in silver/gold tiers – I was super skeptical about the whole bot thing (I took the last 2 seasons off) but I’m starting to really notice odd movement.

I’ve observed similar things as you – holding 2 at far and teammates somehow all wiped. If it’s a skill thing that’s totally understandable and excusable, but it actually seems more like scripted behavior.

My biggest issue with it is the AFK thing – I’ve observed the same player going AFK at nearly the same point in every match. If the team isn’t winning at about 2 minutes in, they go AFK and sit at spawn. I’ve reported it several times since I’ve personally seen this same account do it 3 games over a 24 hour period. I’m actually starting to wonder if some of the AFK grief is scripted.

I don’t understand how there is dishonor for accidentally missing a q-pop. I’ve now been in 2 games in a row with someone who starts flaming and goes afk 30 seconds into the match and verbally abuses the team throughout the entire match. If he’s not dishonored and continues to be able to throw matches but someone who accidentally misses a pop gets hit with it is dishonored really working as intended?

I was in a similar situation with finishing the legendary. Didn’t play since Feb 2016 and came back for this season.

In regards to the question about reward tracks – the Heart of Maguuma one may be worthwhile because if you complete the Ley Armor achievement you can get another Ascended Armor item. Since this season is 1 item short of a full set of Ascended Armor, you could use this achievement completion to finish that set.

@Archon, interesting sigil choice with Agility! I never thought to try that on GS.

During last season I occasionally ran Crusader over Cele- are you finding that when you run it instead of Paladin that you’re too susceptible to condis, or is your cleansing holding up with Soldier Runes + Verdant?

If you’re ever having trouble getting any of the CAF skills off, try swapping pets right as you enter so you have quickness- or even CAF 3 and then start casting CAF 5 and pet swap to give you the quickness to finish it. if you’re running Glyph of Tides, you can also pull them in during that combo.

Glyph of Equality can be cast while doing other actions since it’s a stun breaker, but the other Glyphs can’t. You can use this to combo some stun chains.

Druid support is definitely in a great place right now, whether the paladin gs version with glyphs or the mender w/ full shouts.

Archon.6480:

I’ve been using GS/Staff with NM/BM/Druid and Soldiers. This makes for a nice support build that can deal moderate damage. I’ve had no problem getting into Diamond with this.

Interesting! I haven’t tried this combo yet- I remember seeing Rom run this awhile back (I think?)

How do you find your ability to 1v1 with this? Or do you mainly stick to teamfights with it?

I switch between both. If I run GS/Staff, sometimes with Crusader over Cele if there isn’t a lot of condi dmg on the opposite team.

For the last 40 or so matches I’ve run Sword/Torch with Nature Magic and triple glyph. It’s less effective in setting up bursts for the team because you don’t have MoC but you’ll have more sustain and AoE with bonfire. It’s a tradeoff- I find I’m more effective 1v1 with Sword/Torch but GS/Staff better in 2v2 or 3v3.

Try both and see what works for you- I’d recommend trying Geo/Doom on Sword/Torch over Energy/Leeching if you’re finding you have trouble with damage. The key is to bait out condi removals and then melt them down with Sword/Torch. I switch between running Allies Aid and Instinctive Reaction. If I’m planning to do more teamfights, I take Allies Aid but if I’m looking to push 1v1 I run Instinctive.

Hope that helps some.

Summer 2014 was really fun. Had a great time playing s/d thief.

Other than that I actually really enjoyed the Spring 2015 meta before the June 23rd trait change, especially at the point in Spring before vamp runes became really popular.

Midway through Ruby and I just soloQ- I tried a few matches (less than 10) with a friend but I don’t have a lot of time to play and soloQ is just more efficient.

I haven’t had much trouble with the process other than I don’t have a whole lot of time. I’ve maintained over 60% winrate throughout but I sometimes can’t play for 2+ days. Just gotta keep at it but I definitely have already noticed increased queue time, sometimes hitting 8-10 minutes already. I’m not sure I’ll be able to progress through Diamond based on what people report about soloQ wait times…

I just hit Ruby as soloQ and here’s my experiences- I don’t have a ton of time to play, so in trying to maximize my playtime/lower my que, I currently set my que for both. When I did this in Sapphire during the week the Stronghold matches were super easy to carry as a Druid. Basically you just keep the doorbreakers alive and fight off any defenders. It’s not super fulfilling but you can carry as long as your team has a basic awareness of the gamemode.

Last night I had pretty terrible luck with it as nearly every game was against a premade. When this is the case, it’s basically impossible to carry a win. Premades tend to do a full rush down your lane and it snowballs from there.

I’d suggest trying it during the week as weekends tend to have an increase in guild groups. Also maybe try Druid or Reaper as those can have a pretty huge impact even as a solo player.

I just soloQ’d up to Ruby and I’m already feeling bad longer times. If I can tolerate enough punishment to keep going I guess I don’t have great things to look forward to :p

Didn’t have too much time to play last night but went 4-1 in Ranked SoloQ. The loss was the first match and it was within 100 points and I didn’t play optimally as I made a stupid build mistake. Overall matches have seemed rather solid- I’ll know more as I get more games played.

I’ve had a great run this beta with D/P thief. I use Crit Strikes/Deadly Arts/Trickery. No Shadow Arts. I prioritize fast damage with mobility.

I find D/P works great for getting the quick initial kill on the guards, and then moving back to defend your lane if no one else on the team is doing it.

This has worked very well for me soloQ this time.

Ele is also great.

Well that explains the totally sweet 16,900 dmg Grenade Barrage I ate earlier in a match.

Super fun!

Super fun build. Way higher dmg output than you would think from looking at it. I been using Sleight of Hand instead sometimes since I miss it a lot if I don’t run it.

I play Celestial/3 Cantrip staff like I mentioned earlier. The damage isn’t as low as you’d think. If you run doom sigil with Pirate, you do a lot of damage over time. You can outsustain like crazy, and the more sustain you have, the more doom really starts to shine.

Hoelbrak, as mentioned earlier, is another great choice.

Thanks for the response. I’m not super raging or anything. My Ranked experience has been really strange though. I take responsibility for a certain amount of bad luck/play myself, but I’ve never had such a horrible win/loss record. I recognize joining solo is super risky but it still hurts to lose so much more than I used to, ha.

In my experience it’s not been in Unranked. Before the Tuesday update I had a solid win rate in Unranked solo and it’s certainly dwindled but has been rather decent. I’ve just been falling deeper in deeper into losses in Ranked since Friday. It’s all good though- just losing a lot more often than I ever did. I’m okay with it as long as I can eventually climb out/there is another reset at the end of season.

I’ve had a string of really bad luck and I’ve had a horrible win/loss rate since Friday. I’m not really raging or anything, my only question is whether or not mmr and win/loss rate is reset when the season ends, or if I have to work reaaaaaaaaaly hard to climb out of my now probably low mmr.

Irikami.6270:

It was not bad at the start, lot of good matches, but now the ppls are staying far from pvp and like 75% of my matches are against high rank teams, playing with a friend atm but it’s not like two persons can win against five coordenated when your team is from most low MMR rank. It’s not a exclusive problem, as i can see most of the solo or duo players are facing more defeats now.
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My experience has been about the same solo joining in Unranked. Before the 12/16 update, I had about a 70% win rate solo in Unranked, now I’m struggling to maintain 50%, and that’s generous.

I like Pirate because the bird helps boost my damage a little- since we have so many aoe heals it tends to stay up rather well.

I run Celestial amulet with Pirate Runes- 3 cantrips and Ether renewal. sigils I usually use battle/energy or doom/energy.

Good balance of support and damage. I have good success with is soloQing.

I can speak for soloQ in Unranked. Have had about a 70% win rate with it all solo. Don’t really care for Ranked at the moment.

I run the meta Celestial Staff build with Ether Renewal and 3 cantrips and can hold well/delay with solid cc and heals. It also works great in team fight supports.

Lately when I actually have a chance to play and start up a que it takes 5-10min so I just solo join teamQ. It’s hard for me to justify waiting for a match when I have a limited amount of time to play.

I played in all the betas for Archeage and wasn’t impressed with the combat. All negative things/opinions aside regarding GW2, I certainly love the fluid combat system and every other game that comes out just seems to pale in comparison. Plus, not being able to really enter into the pvp in Archeage w/o level/grind was a definite turnoff.

Just did it on -mostly- zerk thief. Just set my traits for healing based survival. I did:

CS: 2 (VI)
SA: 6 (III – V – XI)
Acro: 6 (VI – VIII – XI)

I used Hide in Stealth, Blinding Powder, and Shadow Refuge. Just time out your stealth heals to maximize your hp/s and you can get it.

Been lagging a bunch last two days or so. Tonight though I lost connection during match and couldn’t get back on.

Once this kind of thing became widespread in gw1 it lead to complete deterioration of a community and it was considered illegal then too.

I highly recommend playing Guardian or some other build with some decent sustain and support especially at the lower end of the leaderboard. I’ve had great success with running a symbol based Guardian build that has solid DPS and sustain. I’ve found at the lower brackets of the leaderboard (800-high %) you need to be able to really do everything.

I run a build that I can reliably win 1v1s but can also sustain in a 1v2 incase your teammates aren’t doing anything productive. Being able to do this will greatly turn matches in your favor. Until my horrible match record this week (12-13) I had a win rate of roughly 60% post MMR shuffling update.

Thanks for posting this!

For me it’s a matter of perseverance and not taking it super seriously. I recovered today from a nasty 5 loss streak and had some extremely close matches today (all within 5 points).

I feel where you’re coming from as I keep seeing myself fluctuate quite a bit. I’ve learned to accept it and keep playing and you really will just gradually climb. For me, the key is consistent playing. I dropped the hardest after not playing for a week (and not only due to decay). Last night I was raging pretty hard after the worst losing streak I’ve had, and I just went 5-0 right now. It’s really uneven seeming, but finding a build that I enjoy and is solid at winning 1v1s and lasting in 1v2s is the most enjoyable and helps me slowly climb.

Don’t give up!

Oxygen.5918:

2) Prevent games from starting as anything but 5v5/limit.

For me, this would be such a remarkable quality improvement and would have prevented quite a lot of rage for me in the last week.

Regarding moving out of low rank: I had no issue with carrying/climbing prior to this last patch and did it several times without complaining. I accepted that this is the nature of a soloQ style and that the leaderboard is actually a measure of one’s ability to do so.

However, since the 12/10 patch I’ve been completely unable to do this. I didn’t start as low as before and I tanked tonight due to several lopsided matches, including a 3v5. I went from decent ranking to now very low, and now will have to work even harder to recover from ridiculous matchups. It seems that this is becoming far more common, and whereas before I wouldn’t complain about carrying myself out of lower rankings, now it seems extremely disheartening to try to do this when you get people just purposefully afking.

I really enjoy the pvp but I just had several mismatched soloQ games including one where someone quit right at start, and then even though we were only down by 10 points someone decided to purposely go afk. Things like this just totally make me rage. The interesting/fun nature of the pvp itself (barring uneven matches) is the only reason I keep playing. A simple fix like not allowing 4v5s to even begin would be such a huge boost to the experience.

I’m doing pretty well with s/p at the moment. Venom share or tankier trickery build actually works you just need to use pistol whip effectively and not spam it. You can channel it and walk into position during the channeling time and if you practice juking with it you can land it rather well.

I very much was enjoying soloq post November update (shuffling teams) but prior to the reset and definitely prior to the 12/10 patch. There are too many 4v5s and when they’re not it’s a blowout match. I don’t personally enjoy a match if I win by a blowout either, so I’m not currently enjoying the soloQ climate anymore.

If you’re fighting a comp such as that your team will probably be getting dropped during teamfights. If they have that comp and it’s 5v5 at the node, it will be hard to survive it.

When I face something like that in soloQ I would try to encourage my teammates to not trickle in and die repeatedly. It’s better to regroup and try to make sure you can hold your other point and if they have all of their team at one node and there’s no chance of survival, it’s probably better to retreat and backcap. I’m speaking only from a perspective of dealing with this during soloQ where it’s a matter of salvaging whatever you can.

If they are a hard comp to beat and you’re fighting them on a node they own, they’re already winning and there’s not much you can do other than trying to not yield more points.

When I use d/p in wvw or tpvp I run trickery burst that was posted. It works very well once you get to know your skills and rotations well. You just have to know when to back out of fights and when to engage. Subbing in smoke screen sometimes is good too.

I’m back to playing S/P again but not really using sword 2 which makes me rather upset with it. I still run 10/30/0/0/30 with it. Perhaps not optimal anymore, but I don’t know.

That’s pretty much what I ran except that I used a soldier amulet and runes of the ogre. The venoms are shared to the rock dog. I used to use s/d with it but haven’t since the change to sword 2. I will probably attempt it with the new poison and s/p.

I absolutely loved the combat in GW2, especially right after launch. It was fast paced and reminded me of what I enjoy from fighting games. However, in the last six to eight months I would say that I’ve lost a lot of that enjoyment. I still would rate it as interesting and is what keeps me doing pvp.

I wouldn’t say it’s particularly fun to watch. I think it’s too cluttered at this point and someone who is interested in learning how the game works would be completely lost. If I’m specifically watching a video for pointers/strategy and know what I’m looking for, then yes it serves it’s purpose. As far as being interesting to someone who isn’t already familiar with the mechanics, I would say no it’s not great to watch.

Thank you for the response on the issue!

I would love for a quick join format that demonstrates your skill/progression as an individual. I know Team Arena is the best place to gauge and monitor your skilled pvp play, but I have a strange schedule and enjoy the convenience of soloQ. This is why I loved rated Hero Battles in GW1 – I knew for every win it was because of my playing and every loss was equally because of my playing. For all the negative feedback/flaws of the Hero Battles system and ladder, it certainly was an awesome outlet for solo play. And I agree, if we’re talking about a comparison to GW1, soloQ is simply Random Arena and it is strange to have a ladder for it.

I’m super excited to get any gold/pve reward from pvp. I don’t care if it’s not on the same payout scale because for me the bonus of not being mind numbingly boring is a huge plus for pvp gold earning.

Yup – same issue. same guild as Cynz. I should probably have known better considering the tpvp chest reward bug. When I didn’t get it at log on yesterday I pretty much assumed that was why. Bummer

I haven’t received mine yet either. Switched maps a few times too. Not sure what’s up.

Lux.7169:

sometimes I wonder if they just reset the leaderboard and not personal MMR. My mule account is getting ridiculously easy matches constantly and my main account seems to have the games stacked against it. Of course I am expecting the MM system to be wonky for a few weeks but I wouldn’t be surprised if they just reset LB and not actually our MMR.

I’m not sure what’s going on either, but something seems a bit strange. I dropped pretty far after two losses and now just went 5-1 yesterday and barely rose at all. I know it has to do with MMR and all that, but I don’t understand the lack of movement for winning so many games in a row. Something just feels slightly off, especially since I know a few people that I’ve seen play just 1 or 2 games and are sitting at the top 100 even after not playing since Weds.

I think it may have to do with a smaller amount of people playing right now and the fact that it’s just not stabilized yet. From what I can see, the top 1000 starts at maybe 50% or so whereas before it went to 90-91% before hitting top 1000. There just is way less people to draw from so the matches may seem to be lopsided again.

I think it seems fine too. I think the perceived decay has more to do with people moving up and down a lot. If the placement range for 0 matches played is roughly 500 on the ladder, it makes sense to see a ton of movement based on people winning their first or second match. I’m not sure why there is placement on the ladder after only 1 or 2 games though. I was expecting at least 10 or 11 before people would show.