Guild Wars 2

Overall Strategy Synopsis
Apex had a better opening start but lost the team fights in both mid and home which resulted in a tri-cap.

After a full wipe on home, Apex rotated a war and thief, towards far which was a great strategy because it not only lured Abjured off home/mid but also because these two classes could litterally kite the whole map if they had to.

Thereafter, Apex sent the rest in mid, the Thief went back to mid, and the Warrior went back to 1v1 an Ele at far

This 4 mid 1 far (4/1) strategy resulted in a quick 2 man wipe in mid on Team Apex

During the mid wipe
Apex’s Thief started to rotate off towards far, then their guardian soon after. The tanky warrior with half health did absolutely no damage against the ele on far for the thief to +1 and gank quickly. Abjured’s Ele went on defense mode and tanked both classes until the rest of his team got there (which wasn’t long).

Rest of Abjured rotated far and wiped the rest of Apex.

While far was getting cleaned up by Team Abjured, Team Apex slowly sent respawns to Home. Abjure’s Mesmer who scouting mid, saw the rotation and got to home first. (The Mesmer actually pulled off a burst that brought ele down to 50%, forcing him off point for a few seconds)
The heavy sustaining bruiser classes that Abjured is, got to home 1 by 1, engaging the rest of Apex team until the timer ran out.

Conclusion
Apex’s biggest mistakes were rotations. They weren’t able to win any 4/1 or 3/2 team fight. Nor could they ever 1v1 that Ele on far point unless that War was a Mesmer. The

Thief could have +1 far sooner to help the Warrior or simply rotate off to decap home.

If Apex did a 1/2/2 split the moment Thief and War initially trolled far, the game would have looked a bit differently.

GW2 has the best PvP in any MMO…I find that reason enough to play.

Unranked Queue

The good: it’s the natural hot join evolution. Finally people have a place where there is no auto-balance. It’s a true conquest mode, so people try to learn how play conquest correctly and it’s a good mid step before ranked matches. It’s really better than hot join. Same money amount and rank points for ranked matches, it’s possible to have a progression in rated matches achievements.

The bad: it suffers matchmaking issues like ranked matches.

Suggestions: in general it’s fine, i like to see a spectator mode in unranked queue, it would have a huge impact on people gameplay.

The Queue system

The good: i really like the new UI, is really clear and easy to use. Now people need to accept the queue pop so it minimizes the AFK issues at beginning. The map selection is really good, everyone has a chance to keep their favorite map. In general I’m not a fan of RNG system but i think in this case it’s fine as it is.

The bad: people need to stay in HOTM, waiting for their queue. It helps to avoid or minimize afk at beginning but it’s really boring now.

Suggestions: at least, let people to do hot join or custom arena. In alternative, add more stuff to HOTM (JP with rewards, 1vs1 Pavillon Style etc.)

Dishonorable system

The good: it’s a system that punish people if they quit early the match or the queue so it’s good. It needs to be balanced about length.

The bad: you gain dishonor and loss if you have a DC. Many times people can come back very fast in a match so it’s not a really good way punish people if they can come back fast in the match

Suggestions: add a grace time window (like 1 min max) for short DC.

Conclusion

In general i think it’s a good patch for some aspects but really bad for others. Matchmaking and leaderboard are main issues and need to be fixed quickly. After that, there is always the balance problem, basically a 6 month meta is too long, we need a more dynamic scene.

In other words, this is me. Doesn’t matter what you pit me against. Be it mesmers with their Kage Bunshin No Jutsu (illusions), Rangers hunting Big Stupid Fighters with their longbows, theives that fillet me and serve me with some garnish with their cutlery, or other Guardians that actually know what they’re doing.

SO I’ve come to the conclusion that my “build,” which is pretty much, “Use weapons that set things on fire with runes, sigils, and traits that synergize with setting things on fire and throw in some consecrations” isn’t really working for me in the PvP environment.

For the specifics, I’ve been mostly using Scepter/Torch as my first weapon set and the second set is just whatever I feel like putting there. Recently it’s been Sword/Torch.

The traits are 6 points into both Radiance and Zeal, with two points in Virtues because I don’t know where else to put the little buggers.

Major trait slots include Scepter Power, Fiery Wrath, Amplified Wrath, Searing Flames, Right-Hand Strength, Radiant Fire, and Master of Consecrations.

Skill slots are Signet of Resolve, Wall of Reflection, Sanctuary, Purging Flames and Tome of Wrath

I’m using a Rune of Balthazar, a Sigil of Corruption on the Scepter and Sword, a Sigil of Smoldering on the Torch, and a Carrion Amulet.

My “tactics” in combat can be boiled down to, “Try and hit them with every ability I have before they do the same to me. Mash heal and dodge buttons at low health or when big red circles are beneath me. Use Purging Flames when many angry red condition symbols show up on my HUD. Use Wall of Reflection when many projectiles are flying towards me. Use Sanctuary around downed allies, objectives, and when I just need some personal space. Press F key when enemy is downed. Mash 1 while downed and hit 2 if enemy gets too close. Wait for respawn.”

So are there ways I can improve this build? If not, what are some other Guardian builds I should try? I’d be interested in just about anything.

Furthermore, some tips on what I need to be ready for when going up against other classes would be greatly appreciated.

TL:DR. I suck at PvP. My sucking might be partly due to my build and is definitely due to my tactics. What can I do differently?

Identify the philosophy of your team-mates and react accordingly based on whatever class you are playing (although if you really want to boost your win rate you’d do your best to counter comp the enemy and bring the class that would most benefit your team).

There are many games where no matter what you do, you will lose by no fault of your own, and just disregard those games or at the very least consider if there was anything else you could have done to put your team in a better situation.

I almost never cap home pt. on my thief, but if at the start 4 people head towards mid… I’ll cap home, and then move accordingly. If you won home and won mid and 2 idiots decide to rush far… or better yet all 4 of them push far… you need to play smarter and do your best to re-enforce mid or home depending on how they split—if you’re lucky the enemy will send 4 to their home to 4v4 and you’ll be left with the only other competent player in the game to shut him down depending on where he pushes.

I think the worst thing you can do is engage in a negative form of communication in any way—especially blaming someone. Not only does it COMPLETELY destroy morale, but it throws everyone off their game and some players are going to be more hellbent on pvp’ing in the chat box than doing basic things to win.

If you lose a team fight, move on. If you see someone lose a 1v1 move on and focus on adapting to the ever-changing situation. If you call him out on losing 1v1 then he’s most likely going to either retaliate or play even worse. Just because he lost a 1v1 doesn’t mean the game is over, maybe he held the point neut for ~20 seconds before he lost—that’s more of a stale-mate if he went far and you’re not really behind in points because of that effort.

The time to debate movements, strategy and tactics is -after- the match via whispers. That’s not to say you shouldn’t communicate, because obviously communication can be vital. Small comments can make a big difference. For example if you lose mid on temple and people keep pushing it while they have a bunker guard play mid say something like “Play sides, let him afk mid.” and if someone argues with what you’ve said, don’t engage them just adapt. If all 4 of them blatantly ignore you, adapt. If they keep rushing mid then justify in your head: ok we have home, and the enemy has a guy sitting far and mid. My team is incessantly pushing mid even with a bunker established on point and I can’t change their minds…. so let’s push mid hard and see what their far pt camper does—if he does nothing, great we should win mid 4.5v4 (someone coming in and out of the main fight to make sure you’re not losing home… probably you since you can’t rely on other people).

etc etc etc

There’s obviously so many possible variations and rotations and I haven’t even scratched the surface, but it’s this sort of awareness and mental engagement that will give you the edge.

Honestly in many games 1 key fight early on can create a land-slide for the rest of the match, even if the teams are typically evenly matched. Helping win the initial mid fight is CRUCIAL—especially on some maps more so than others.

I’ll stop rambling now. GL

May I present, my new Ele. I’m not too sure if I keep the colors of the armor like this or if I even change out the armor as a whole. Need to look at it for a few days to decide.

why isn’t there any good loot from bosses? the boxes they drop mostly contain junk, and the more often than not the loot is disproportional to the difficulty of said bosses.

i did AC story mode,p1,p1 & p3 – got a ton of blue items with no value, a few greens and thats it. the only rare item was from the chest you get (the one that pops on the bottom right side of the screen).

Arah dungeon – you’d think that the dungeon that wraps the PS would give an awesome reward at the end – nope. more blue items.

and what about CoE? the last boss isn’t the easiest one, and yet the loot you get from the 3 stages is worse than what you could’ve gotten if you were just killing mobs in <enter_zone_here>.

so come on – bump the reward from dungeon bosses and get rid of the coffers/boxes/backpacks they drop which have nothing valuable inside.

aelfwe.4239:

TCG were guard\ele\mesmer\thief\war

but without video i cant say anything about builds and i dont find any video xD

I think these are the builds (hopefully I copied them down right):

Helseth – Mesmer
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQJAWRlknpWtlpxUNcrNipxg6yObOSGQDlMkxB-TJBFwAl2fYxlAoaZAAPBAA

Denshee – Elementalist
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAoYhcMKc25wxBd0AiAB5ukqRBlfHTB-TJhIwAAOBAX2f47DAQYZAA

Rum – Warrior
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAT3cjMdUFahHmhwJaghgC9KUCxgpAQ9ZE7dBA-TpBFwAIOCAOuAAl2fwaZgFPAAAHEAA

Sizer – Thief
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAsYVl0MpwpVOx7J8PNBNB5dY+SZ0KAdfko0XA-TZBFwACOCAl2fYxDAoaZAAnCAA

Tage – Guardian
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNApeWlsApVo1CxeI8DNhDBldKq/9xuCd4DXFAA-TJBHwALLDA4JA0b/hBnCAA

Well for any build using hammer the biggest two changes that transitioned warriors to their current state is the change to brawn for cd reduction and the increased access to adrenaline through cleansing ire, burst mastery and berserker’s stance. Then you have the added sustain for healing signet.

Before the patch if hammer was one of your weapon sets you had a very hard time using both burst skills on cd. Now we are honestly able to do so fairly reliably on a 7.25s cd as opposed to 10s unreliably. With this adrenaline influx burst skills become ‘cheap’ and no longer require precise timing to make sure they land. Basically negating what was once the draw back to hammer.

Now post patch we are losing burst mastery and some cd reduction in order to get the 50% crit chance. This will help the spamming issue a bit but hardly make the hammer play how it used to. Personally brawn giving cd reduction needs to be axe’d in favor of something else and adrenaline gain sources needs to be reworked across the board. That, along with healing signet and longbow use has dumbed down the class.

Right now I find warriors in the higher tiers of skill slightly too strong while at lower tiers being extremely over the top. So the objective should be to have a slight net nerf while adjusting the skill floor.

TL;DR version:

Went against a guild team in SoloQ, wait time was too long, something about not being able to farm PvP except for Dyes (?).

Next thread.

WTF. My main weapon isn’t any good unless I’m far away. I have a CD on the good melee attack and warriors, thieves and engineers can stun, vanish and bomb the hell out of you 3x before any of your cd’s are up. Oh yeah, the bird does great as an elite skill against the thief who summons two more thieves. Seriously… I guess you just stand on rooftops and blast anyone who happens to wander into range.