Guild Wars 2

Sigil of Water should be one of the non-weapon swap options, cooldown based. It would be an easy to balance and predictable hp/s option that should scale well with healing power.

Renewal for pbaoe healing was also something worth considering.

These are legitimate decisions, you sacrifice pressure for sustain or the ability to assist allies.

Also I don’t know that the condition duration sigils were really that bad. In some cases it was the only way to squeeze real DPS out of some condition types for some builds. I suppose this is mitigated by the fact that duration is available on amulets now vs years ago when these sigils were the only way, though.

The SAB brought us a lot of prototype technology that later appeared in content. One technology we never saw again was the raft ride. But given the jungle atmosphere it seems only natural if that tech reappeared. It could also make for an interesting pve mechanic to prevent skipping in a dungeon or an adventure. So how about some white water rapids and waterfall rides?

PVP wise this may be a good start for moving the meta. I am hesitant to call it enough, but too much reduction would bring the apex predators back out, and I prefer the bruiser meta to the spike meta.

PVE wise I think this will hit a few targets it wasn’t aiming at like might stacking flamethrower engineers and beastmasters with 25 might pets.

Might want to revisit some traits like juggernaut, or weapon skills like ricochet and increase them a bit. Those skills were just buffed, were hardly popular or competitive and are getting caught in the crossfire.

I am also not sure class stacking MMR hits are really helping very much. Right now it feels like if you’re playing the popular class of the night (due to dailies or whatever) you get a longer queue, and eventually you hit a threshold that overrides your class penalties and you get thrown into a game. This seems like a way to encourage people to play another class, but it is completely opaque to the average user. This is what happens to the average user:

- User A queues as class of the day, let’s say warrior. Others do this as well.
- User A experiences a lengthy queue. This widens their MMR band, meaning that when their game pops it is likely to be with players outside of their skill range.
- User A has a MMR penalty applied to try to prevent class stacking/etc.
- User A gets a match with the MMR penalty where they are clearly out of their league. This is exacerbated by the fact that this player is probably not a good warrior. They’re just here for daily, and may not have played this class since the last daily.
- Users B through J play a game with User A. They are of a natively higher MMR playing classes they are not rusty with.
- User A is likely to get stomped. So is their team.
- User A requeues to complete their daily, as they failed, perpetuating the problem as the queue becomes more saturated with this class, until eventually games are 50-60% of this class.
- User A eventually wins and moves on.
- User B through J are frustrated because they’re playing games with players not of their skill bracket in games that are not reflective of the current meta because a high % of players are playing a single class at any given time on rotation.

There are three problems. One is that there is a daily incentive for playing a class, which overrides any/all penalties for playing that class in the queue. Two is that any/all information on how popular a class is in the queue, and how that will impact a player’s experience is completely invisible. Three is that the players do not go away. Between 1 and 2 there is no reason to swap class. You will follow your goal through the matches no matter what. A 1 minute queue difference is negligible while alt tabbed.

So the queue MUST process these players. Since they don’t decide to drop out of the queue they must get put into games. But because they’re getting wide band MMR pops and being hit with MMR penalties they’re likely to get very bad games. The bad games that they then experience are likely to be bad game experiences for the other players. Or in a best case scenario both teams get players our of their depth, and it may be balanced, but it is still far from the current meta, and thus not reflective of true competitive GW2.

I don’t understand why the players are even held back or hit with a MMR penalty. If they’re going to get games put them in good games at the correct MMR skill level. If the three premises above are true then all players MUST be processed and put into a game. If that is true then they should be put into games with their skill depth without any queue time penalty. At the very least then they’ll have a better chance to get their business done and move on.

As someone who initially had a terrible experience with the launch and relaunch of the system where I was placed in 80% losing games, I’ve managed to swing that since then to a 60% win rate. I had a 58% win rate before the change, and I only solo queue.

The matchmaking takes time to settle into a good experience in terms of volatility, and there are some nights where it drops you into blowouts because the queue is imbalanced, but all in all I think it is a more accessible system.

I have images of myself queued under the old system for 19 minutes at primetime (8 PM EST.) The longest queue I’ve ever had under the new system is maybe 3-4 minutes.

I run into premades more than I’d like, with maybe a 2-3 loss per win record against them. Most of the games are not blowouts, so the matchmaking is trying to balance them, it’s just giving too little credit to being a premade. If being premade had a bigger MMR hit I think this would be fairly even.

Can anyone post an ANet source that it lasts 4 weeks? Historically it lasted 2 weeks and we had empty time I thought.

There was another thread discussing this same thing. How they had nearly tripled the grind to cap out the achievements. It appears it was deleted.

What is going on? These aren’t progressive changes, and the criticism is fierce. Can’t we scale this back somehow?

Tis the season of giving, c’mon Anet. Please.

24.9k ap here, I was hyped about hitting 25k this patch. But oh man is it going to be hard.

Kitt.2567:

Just don’t care leaderboard rank if you are soloq person. Anet started not caring solo users I guess.

That’s fine to say. To be frank my leaderboard position was less about me trying to be #1 and more about me very much enjoying the game.

But the problem is that the new system is not providing me with very many enjoyable games anymore.

I don’t want to win 75% of the time. I would hate to be in a world where the competition was so far below me that I could influence a game to that degree by myself.

I also don’t want to lose 75% of the time and be surrounded by players tremendously below my peerage.

I want good even matches, with close scores, where I feel like my skill and my decisions actually matter. I don’t want to win and feel like it wasn’t in part due to me, and I also don’t want to lose and feel like I just scored 300+ points and absolutely dominated but we still lost 500-150.

But this new system is not delivering that. It is putting me into a vast majority of games which I’d rate as abjectly miserable. I just want to know if this is somehow explicable, and if this is somehow intended behavior. Because if I am supposed to lose 75% of the time because I am solo queuing from a high skill level then there are more questions to ask.

Let me start this by saying that I am a big fan of this game. I play all formats, and I play all classes. I am also not interested in blaming teammates, or putting blame on the new system. I just want to understand what is going on with this system and I want to know how long I will have to continue experiencing what I am currently experiencing.

I no longer feel like I am playing a competitive format when I solo queue. I am frustrated because I have played what I consider to be a fair number of games (over 30) since the change, and my experience has only gotten worse and worse as I seemingly continue to sink lower and lower.

I’ve got 2,848 games played, 1,829 of them being ranked.
I’ve been top 100 NA solo Q with 6 classes, top 10 with 2.
I held a steady 57-58% win rate in solo queue with over 1200 games.
I don’t recall my team queue, it was mostly from way before the split. Over 500 games, over 55% win rate.

Since the change I have played 32 or so games. I have won 6 or 7 of them. One of those wins was a 5v4. One of the losses was a 5v4 as well, that’s how bad my luck is.

I have been paired with afks, with people who have to stop mid match to change their bindings because they “haven’t played gw2 in months.” I’ve fought frenzy bulls charge warriors, I’ve fought staff guardians who only staff 1 and shout, like they’re in WvW.

I am used to a world where people had 80-100 personal score and the games were relatively even. 500-300 was a blowout.

I now live in a world where I die maybe once a match. Where I score over 300 points sometimes. I live in a world where people freak out and get upset over the fact that I have a dragon finisher. “How dare Anet put me against a rank 80!?” But I still lose 75% of my games, frequently with scores of 500-150

I live in a world where I can’t evaluate the game flow anymore. Teammates see 3-4 enemies on a point on the minimap, they run in and die 4v1. The match starts and people rush lords, or go 4 man to Svanir, leaving me to run from a 3v1 at mid.

I don’t want to put the blame on my teammates. I am not interested in doing that. I just want to know what is going on?

How did I get here? How did I go from having a wonderful competitive experience where I played even games against skilled opponents and struggled to come out ahead on a nightly basis to this?

Is my MMR from the old system so high that the game is somehow expecting me to carry that hard? Is anyone else experiencing this? Has it gotten better? Was my unlucky streak at the beginning so bad (5 or 6 games) that it tanked my new rating permanently?

vincecontix.1264:

Are you guys sure you are vsing a full premade team?

I suppose there was a small chance that matchmaking assembled a team of 5 individuals from the same guild.

But I’d say I am pretty sure it was a premade.

Jomo kenyatta.7351:

the only difference on courtyard is if you got a bad team then you dont have to painfully draw out the lose, you just die and then finish quicker, dont try and pretend this new map is going to be different. great job arena net best patch for a long time

If we reach a point where the best option for a player is to repeatedly go out and let themselves be killed so they can “try again” to have fun then we have hit a major problem.

Never mind the fact that this behavior is indistinguishable from griefing/botting/match-fixing, which is only going to make it worse. All it takes is one player deciding they don’t want to try and they can feed all 500 points alone.

Also it occurred to me that the team losing 500-0 is frequently going to score 0 personal points and thus receive no personal reward. There are so many problems with being put into a hopeless situation on this map.

I was a pretty big solo queue player. I’ve hit top 10 NA on two classes, top 100 on 6. I never complained about Skyhammer, and I am willing to give these new matchmaking parameters a try, but there is one thing I am absolutely not okay with.

It is not okay to be put into a PUG vs premades and then have them vote for Courtyard, resulting in a 50% chance or better to play it. This is going to result in absolutely terrible landslide victories and minimal fun.

I’m on the fence about facing premades. If Anet makes it worth my while I won’t be upset. I enjoy challenges.

I’m on the fence about Courtyard. It could be fun to spice up the meta.

But I am absolutely, 100%, not okay with them both at the same time. Premades can be outclassed by dividing and conquering on conquest maps. This is not possible on Courtyard. The level of communication required to play 5v5 is much different. Especially when the gains/losses will be tied to score/performance. This map will be a 500-0 factory, meaning massive ladder swings. This could very easily be the fastest way to climb the ladder, if my understanding is correct.

Please consider removing the map from the vote pool when a premade is involved.

Crystal Reid.2481:

Conski Deshan.2057:

Proposal Overview
Potential Raid Mechanics: Part 6 Profession specific interactions

Goal of Proposal
To make use of the unique abilities of specific professions.

Proposal Functionality
I see two levels of functionality:

Soft Profession requirements and Hard profession requirements, soft, its ideal to have this class but at least one other class can carry out the same task. Hard: only one class can carry out this task and is based on the classes theme.

Soft Profession mechanics
-Stealth, Example: You must make it from one end of a corridor to another while stealthed the whole way or an instakill occurs. Can’t be bypassed by mistform or other invuln mechanics.
Another possibility is a stealth portion of a raid where you want to make it through an area unseen with patrols and the like.

-Elements and fields: Water/heal fields to douse flames or activate effects, Fire fields to ignite traps or activate explosives, Holy fields for god statue activations etc.

-Reflection: To shield from an explosive blastwave or redirect a magical blast to blow open a door etc.

Hard profession mechanics
Necromancer: Raise a corpse to get information/password/open a locked room from inside etc.

Guardian: Use holy magic to activate a god statue/complete a ritual/ seal a passage preventing reinforcements.

Ranger: Can make use of a fixed position sniper rifle to hit a switch/take out a target of opportunity at some point to assist in progressing.

Engineerer: Can activate disabled golems/rig a door to blow etc.

Elementalist: Can make use of magical reagents, Activate elemental doors, converse with elementals etc.

Mesmer: Can jedi mind trick some goon into opening a door / reveal a disguised illusion, do the kasmeer portal trick.

Thief: Can Identify a trap, bribe for information , locate a weakness.

Warrior: Kinda at a loss for this one since a warriors kinda meant to be the generic everyman. can use brute strength to open something/ force their way through something at some point?

Associated Risks
-Hard class requirements can result in the same lf healer issue in other games.

There’s some very cool stuff in here, including a few I may or may not have prototyped out in my spare time. This specifically touches on Chris’ note about mechanics.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Can we get back to talking about the two main topics we are focusing on please.

Specifically:

1: Progression
2: Foundational raiding mechanics based on the core combat and movement of GW2.

Chris

How do others feel about this? Are these types of mechanics are the way to go to circumvent the lack of Trinity in the game? It’s not about tanks/healers, it’s about condi/reflect teams (similar to the Jungle Wurm).

I am very late to this but why can’t we have tanks or healers? Just make it optional or active. Example a boss who is encouraged by your cowardly dodging who gains health, or who swings for the fences and if you take a full combo via tanking each hit raw he is temporarily exhausted and vulnerable. Like an overconfident Norn who thought he could knock out anyone and has a confidence crisis when he fails but gets more confident if you run.

Or add npc allies with heavy degen, at 0 health they deactivate. If healed they turn on and fight offering positive effects. Or make a fight where players can hold a dangerous Asuran laser that hurts a lot to hold and charge. The longer you hold it the more dps out and in. The more hps on the longer you can hold it.

Please don’t write off tanks and healers. There is so much that can be done to make them active roles. And all those solutions can be optional, you don’t even have to force them.

I have a full cleric ascended necro I used to enjoy. 10s of 1k a second burst healing plus constant 400 hps regen. Toss in transfusion and use some minions or rebuff wells and it was my goto support.

Now a water ele auto attacks for more hps.

Well of blood was the lynchpin of necro healing. I am so depressed.

If this had been accompanied by support buffs like lifesteals heal in a 600 range and some more vulnerability, blind and control options I could deal. Also more friendly condition control. But necro support is just horribly outclassed now.

You do gain more master bonds from killing players. Or at least you did last I played it in spvp.

Some more ideas on this:
Sigils of Battle to swap weapons to trigger more mights (arguably unnecessary.)
Run magi gear and use crit based procs to feed more might, especially with might proccing food. Also good as an alternative dps option with air/fire or lifesteal pies. This will be high hp and hps but very glassy, vulnerable to spike but strong vs conditions.

Runes of the Noble are also pretty good options for additional might stacking/instant ramp-up.

There are really a lot of ways to take this build. The pet provides for good baseline DPS/survivability and lets the ranger go in many ways. Only downside is you are tied to axe mainhand, but it is a fairly versatile weapon now.

I think I’ll be sticking to Apothecary and playing the build as a composite DPS with the ability to let my pets act as an ablation tank (drakes are very good at this) while providing good healing and buffs.

@Diesel Stelar.3709
Don’t overreact. Things have changed. Ele burst and ranger DPS are now real threats to a glass thief. It’s time to consider options which don’t evaporate when caught out.

The goal of thief has always been to secure kills, and to turn any fight they’re in to their team’s advantage.

Venom share is an option to pursue that. Instead of 5k damage larcenous strikes with procs you do 4-5k damage unloads or pistol whips that also give your teammates thousands more damage. Plus the healing. It still generates surprising spike and also provides healing. Even better it ignores toughness and damage immunities which are even more common as DPS rangers with Signet of Stone show up, beyond the stance warriors still being plentiful.

It’s like spike condition damage that can’t be cleansed.

Meanwhile you apply a ton of control with basilisk venom stuns and more importantly high levels of immobilize lockdown which makes it easy for your team to tunnel targets with venoms.

It’s after a new patch. It is time to experiment. Dismissing new ideas after 2 days is only going to keep the meta stale.

I’ve been playing a soldier based venom share p/p s/p build.

It’s involved a shift from playing full executioner to playing judge and jury. It’s more about securing the kill or setting the table for allies to get the kill (especially stomps.)

Less hopping onto 1v1s and getting random proc based kills. More jumping into existing fights and stunlocking/8+s immobilizing an enemy with venoms and leaving the stomp to an ally when possible. A good unload channel is delivering almost 5k damage between raw damage and venom procs. If you drop multiple venoms across 2-3 channels you can deal a solid 10k in 5s from range while having 18k hp as a thief, plus all of the healing on yourself.

And don’t forget that your allies get the damage/healing bonuses too.

And maybe more importantly that venoms ignore endure pain. Though on the flipside they’re consumed by blocks/invulns (making bunker guardians a much harder fight.)

Just wanted to highlight a subtle interaction that not a lot of people are noticing with the recent update to Ricochet.

Ricochet now gives 3s of might base with each enemy struck.

The 3 point Nature Magic trait, Fortifying Bond, works in that any time the ranger gets a buff that buff is shared to the pet. But the sharing mechanic is not 1:1 copying. Instead it triggers a buff instance off a table. That table gives 10s base might to the pet for any might the ranger receives. In other words when a ranger ricochets and hits 3 targets the pet gets 3 stacks of 10+s might. This means the pet can achieve 25 might in 7-8s of ricochet autoattacks.

This means that it becomes very easy to stack very high levels of might on a pet, which allows them to maintain decent DPS. This allows the Ranger to spec defensively to provide support for the pet/party while also maintaining some DPS. A sample build can be found here:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRBHfdG2JjKUxitCivgQ0iBOEKWBw7h9YbW33QOUzZ8zJzeA-TxRDAB8p/xhnUQmq/olyvo2fAgTqggKBJFgTLrA-e

Offensively this build allows for cat pets which auto for over 1k, critting for almost 2k 68% of the time base, can achieve basically 95-100% with master bond stacks and warhorn 5. In addition you can activate “Sick ’Em!” with Signet of the Wild and see some 5-6k auto attacks as well as some 8k bites. It’s also worth mentioning that the cat will bleed targets constantly for 86 a tick, with nearly each swing getting 6s of bleeding bringing the auto attack up to almost 2500 a crit swing (every 1.1s or so) plus the bleeding on maul at 40 ticks of 86 for over 3.4k bleed damage. If you need AoE the drake pet brings cleave and a devastating F2. The ranger’s dps options are not terrible either, with potent bleeding and burning options due to might you can expect to keep up decent bleeds due to splitblade for 100 a tick, 500 for a point blank and burning for 600 on top of ricochets for around 300.

Defensively the build brings an incredibly resilient pet. Signet of the wild will provide over 600 hps, regeneration will also provide over 400 hps, Natural healing will add another 125 hps bringing you to 1.2k HPS. This will make it very easy for your drake to facetank even in dungeons, even if your cat can’t hang it. Remember to use guard to proc an almost permanent protection state on your pet and you’d be amazed how survivable it can be. You’ll also be able to share a lot of healing, condition removal and swiftness with your teammates.

Supportively you can generate decent might by using concentration trained jungle stalkers to give 5 might stacks with 80%+ downtime. It will also let you keep the cat pumped up to 25 stacks even if you’re fighting single targets. You can also use bonfire + warhorn 5 to generate more aoe might (remember your pet gets 6 stacks 3 from combo 3 from bond,) or use warhorn 5 + healing spring for a burst heal.

Variants:
There are a lot of good options to consider.
Carnivorous Appetite can be traded for Nature’s Voice if the player doesn’t want to go shouts.
Nature magic can be entirely rebuilt into a spirit build, and the utilities can be swapped too (I don’t recommend dropping Signet of the Wild.)
Master’s Bond can be swapped for Shout Master if you find yourself losing pets or swapping.
Natural Healing could be overkill in many situations and swapped for many options.
Signet of the Hunt is another multiplier that can be stacked. I actually saw a 11,700 damage bite from my cat pet. There may even be harder hits possible with a F2, or by combining the Greatsword’s hilt bash.

This build can also be made to work with nearly any stat set. I recommend a healing set only because of the team healing options and the need to maintain a pet for this to work well. I chose apothecary for the bonfire benefits to further solidify team support.

Monk runes are a great benefit due to the healing synergy (your pet gets the modifier) and it provides additional boon duration.

Anyone else have any ideas on how to further make this build work?

Really want to see something changed. Had a recent death breakdown with claw (bird) at top contributor at over 6k damage. After seeing that I immediately adopted using them after not using them for months as a matter of pride.

Bird does decent damage but the biggest gains are defensive. Birds eat projectiles, distract other ai, especially mesmer roll clones which ruins shatters. Birds even do subtle things like eat warrior bursts when I roll, using up enemy adrenaline and intelligence sigil charges. Necro marks, ranger traps, so many things it just triggers or wastes.

Rock dog did all of this too but bird being an effective DOT means you compete with or match offensive runes while keeping great defensive disruption.

As someone who has been hanging around the top of solo queue for a good long while I am glad to have a chance to vote for the players who have impressed me with their skills and consistency.

I’m sorry I don’t have the same experience with the EU players.

I think it is great that ANet is engaging PVP like this. It makes me feel like I should actually take the plunge and start looking for a steady team.

Congrats to the all star candidates, I know I am probably not memorable because I multiclass but I think I’ve played with/against you all in NA. I’m glad to see some of the best recognized.

As a player with 10 level 80s, 7 map completions (working on #8), 7 personal story completions (working on #8), almost 5 pvp champion titles, and multiple ascended characters I am not averse to repeating content.

But the living story is not something that should be designed around this. Replayability should be account bound, a single character completion should allow targeted desired gameplay experiences.

This mistake has been made repeatedly in the past and then undone, there is no need to once again retread this path.

Examples:
- Fractal level was character bound. Anet wants this to be a character based progression. End result, players felt locked into a single character. Anet reverts this decision and makes fractal level account bound.
- WVW experience is character bound. Anet wants this to be a character based progression. End result, players felt locked into a single character. Anet reverts this decision and makes WXP account bound.
- Ascended equipment is intended to be the final crowning equipment growth of a single character. Anet wants this to be a character based progression. End result, players felt locked into a single character. Anet reverts this decision and makes ascended gear transferable across the account.
- Legendary items.
- Skins.
- All currencies in the wallet, especially Karma.
- Gathering tools (really all gem store items.)
- Living story rewards/toys.

Account bound has been and remains the correct way to handle progression.

Don’t encourage single character lock-ins. It is what sets GW2 apart from other games.

Anet makes more money by encouraging more alts to be played. The new Living Story content is absolutely fantastic. I am a huge fan of the direction they’re taking. But I enjoy building characters with themes and sticking to them. My tanky venom share thief is a much more capable duelist than my glass cannon max range staff elementalist. I would like to duel on the rock for the achievement with my thief. I did the story with my ele.

I won’t be terribly upset if I have to repeat the story, but it will certainly result in it getting stale.

My 7 100% characters were built over nearly 2 years, one at a time with breaks between the activity types that kept it fresh. The living story is going to be 2 weeks where I redo the story 3-4 times to get the correct characters unlocked to do the achievements (which I find fun, I have almost 22k AP.) The downside is that the pace of repetition will make the content stale much faster.

Account bound LS chapter unlocks, please. Just review the past. This lesson has been learned and the game is better for moving towards account bound in every previous example.

I think a lot of people underestimate turret engi because most people playing it are running inflexible builds. 4 turrets and crate with reflect and rabid is terrible.

I have been running 2/0/6/6/0 cleric rifle monk runes with healing turret, bomb kit, thumper, and rocket. It is a hyper flexible build with healbombs, bomb radius, turret armor, turret self repair, turret boons and strong self protection. Very easy to sustain 800 area hps with regen and bombs plus boons so it is a strong teamfighter. Backpoint defense is huge, and you can rapidly heal anyone who peels out by bombing them and slapping regen on with toolkit or healing turret. It is also a competent far assaulted as it has thumper, big old bomb and rifle 4. You can fight anywhere and even leave your self sufficient turrets with a teamfight while still holding home.

I’ve been playing this top 100 solo and team queue when my team is on. It is a devastatingly good build with surprisingly good dps from bombs and turrets while putting out 2 healing signets worth of healing.

This build also nearly autowins vs any other ai due to the sustained area dps, goodbye minions, turrets, spirits or clone spam.

Awbee.8405:

Account wide pet box

How could I forget minis? They definitely qualify for the same treatment.

As an alt enthusiast thank you so much for the Wardrobe. I hate to ask for the world but could a toybox or toolbox be next? Something that lets you share toys like balloons, instruments, kites, or tonics across an entire account? Maybe the torch from the jubilee? How about special event items like Tassi’s communication Golem? There are so many cool knicknacks that get lost in the clutter. I would probably buy an instrument or two if it was accessible on all characters.

In the same vein, how about a toolbox? It could hold boosters, revive orbs, repair cans, instant merchants and the like. It could also hold infinite gathering tools.

I feel that these two boxes would add very much to the quality of life of players as well as greatly incentivize purchasing these items, most of which are cash shop or living story rewards meant to be cherished.

S/P is very near to my heart and I feel that the time has come to see S/P takes its true place as the thief’s defensive melee set, no different than a warrior using mace/shield or a guardian using mace/focus, etc. To me a sword/pistol thief should be the ultimate duelist, trouncing enemies by parrying, riposting, anticipating and counterattacking.

Do you main Thief?
I play a S/P + SB venom share thief in spvp as well as running a 60% ascended venom share thief in PVE. I consider it my second best character/second main. I desperately want to run a defensive thief built around hanging in there and socking it out with leeching venoms and eroding my enemy’s offense.

When do you feel that Pistol Whip is unbalanced? (scenarios would be great)
The issue is that the damage scales with offensive stats but the defense is universal. A berserker turns the temporary invulnerability into a much larger return, meanwhile take a not glass thief into consideration. For a tanky built thief pistol whip is a critical DAMAGE MITIGATION skill. The problem is this skill is too rewarding for glass thieves.

How does it feel unbalanced compared to other class mechanics?
The problem is that it has no cooldown. The ability to deliver almost your entire offensive payload with no danger.

What would you do to change Pistol Whip to better fit the class/game?
I would reduce the power coefficient and increase the base damage so that tanky built thieves could utilize pistol whip as a damage mitigation skill but not a damage dealer with invulnerability.

In general I believe S/P needs to be reevaluated. It needs to stop being so hybridized between damage, control, mobility and recovery. It should reduce focus on damage and mobility and become the flagship weapon set for thieves who want to fight it out like roughhousing brigands, who fight dirty and in your face. The theme of a S/P user should be “ATTACK THE ENEMY’S OFFENSE.”

1 skills: These are IMHO almost flawless. This is exactly what a tanky/control based duelist needs, AOE cleave control and weakness to reduce incoming damage and limit enemy mobility options.

Stealth skill: This should stay weak. Stealth access should not natively exist in this set, and should actively be discouraged to reward the infighting mindset. I recommend changing the CC effect to a lengthy chill as a way to further erode enemy offensive potential, making stealth a niche counterpick which is effective vs specific enemies.

2nd skill, Harrier’s Strike (rename): This move used to be too strong due to the disengage. I say get rid of the disengage entirely. Remove the followup skill. What this skill needs to do is allow the thief to enter into infight range, keep the short range teleport. It also needs to act as a way to cure conditions. Instead give this skill a condition convert on hit if successfully landed, converting one condition into a boon. This maintains the theme of attacking the enemy offense. Is the enemy’s offense entirely based on kiting you while spamming conditions? Stick to them and cure yourself while doing minor damage.

3 skill: Completely drop the CC on this move. That should belong to head shot. Cut the animation startup time (no pistol whip just flurry) and maybe even extend the evasion. Make this a pure evasion/stand your ground skill. It has AMAZING synergy with signet of malice as it can generate a lot of health. It also has synergy with leeching venoms as a rapid healer. These are key utilities for tanky thief types. Drop the damage coefficient on this move and raise the base damage. Make it do less than auto attack chains.

4th skill, Head Shot: If head shot interrupts a skill it should apply some kind of bonus effect. The intention should be to reward successful interrupts. Perhaps lengthy vulnerability stacks. It may be worth expanding the CC duration as this is now the ONLY hard CC in the set.

5th skill, Black Powder: It represents the ultimate in thief style dirty fighting. You literally lay claim to an area and make it your own, any enemy foolish enough to fight you inside of it should lose horribly. This is no different than fighting a guardian in their symbols or consecrations.

That is what S/P should be, the ultimate defensive infighter who can stick to anyone and ideally survive. This would help open bunker style roles to thief and give them new niches to explore without letting glass builds maximize payload delivery.

This also is a wonderful set up for PVE. Black powder is your go to tank style for hordes of weaker monsters that can be blinded. Meanwhile when fighting massive champions you could actively engage in the fight by using the third skill to evade, or escaping red circles only to reengage immediately with 2.

Please Anet. I love this set. Not all of us are running zerker glass thieves who want to dodge while killing. Some of us run cleric thieves, and this set is critical to tanking as a thief.

Exact same bug as described here. Sapphire Sanctum, completed on 2 characters, key parts retained, no achievement credit.

Infuriating.

(Continued)
Ranger- I play an apothecary beastmaster ranger focused on being very tanky and ablatively absorbing damage for my groupmates through my drake pet or my greatsword evasion/toughness. This character is map complete and 5 slot ascended.

Wilderness 5 Natural Vigor. Reduced the increased endurance regeneration from 50% to 25%.
This was way too much for far too little.

Wilderness XII – Bark Skin Increased the damage reduction from 30% to 50%.
Wow, what a buff when combined with the hp boost from recent patches. My pet will be a juggernaut.

General Spirit Nerfs:
I think this is warranted, but in light of this lost potential can we please consider making them easier to use for less investment?

Thief- I play a super-survivable cleric’s venom share/tank sword/pistol + shortbow thief in PVE and in PVP. This character is map complete and 5 slot ascended.

Anet let me first say that I am 100% aware of how survivable thieves can be with signet of malice, venom share and healing power.

Increased the base rate of initiative gain from .75/second to 1/second.
I don’t really rely on Initiative to accomplish much in my build, but I appreciate the implications. S/P could use an offensive initiative dump.

Shadow Return on Sword. Renamed to Infiltrator’s return. Added a 1/4s cast time.
Not really a fan of this. I think it should be unable to escape CC but as a tank thief with low vitality I rely on this as a condition cleaner. Please reconsider.

Pistol Whip. Reduced the after cast on the first half of this skill by .25 seconds.
Can we please get some kind of bonus for completing a pistol whip on an enemy? Extra damage perhaps?

Acrobatics X – Assassins Reward. Increased healing scaling by 35%. Moved to Grandmaster Tier.
This is cool. It actually makes straight tanking without venom share more viable. But the math must be done. At 1 ini/s this is still only 150 selfish hp/s for a thief. This just loses to venom share and would be more appropriate without the increased scaling and dropped a bit in tier.

Acrobatics in General:
Acrobatics is a line which rewards active fighting and that means visible fighting. This line needs a way to reward players who are not stealthing and instead relying on evasion, momentum, mobile attacks and initiative use for survivability. The problem is that you only need to be caught once to go down fast in both PVE and PVP. The line needs some mitigation.
As a cleric venom share I often suffer from similar issues due to not relying on stealth but instead combat prowess to survive.
Can you guys please look into adding some mechanics which -reward- thieves for not stealthing in this line? For example adding an Acrobatics trait like:

“Performer’s Swagger: Gain Level/2 Toughness for every 5s you are visible and in combat. Maximum 5 stacks Stacks expire when leaving combat or entering stealth.”
To really enforce “thriving on combat.”

“Rolling With the Punches (Adept Major): When an attack would do more than 25-50% (numbers for Anet) of your maximum health take 25-50% less damage (numbers for Anet), lose 50% endurance. 5-10s cooldown, requires 50% endurance to trigger.”

Thieves need help in PVE where a single hit can mean death. A 5-10 point Acrobatics trait that helps thieves stand their ground (but can not be used with stealth as an active defense) would go a long way to improving thief melee capability.
Also being the boon tree I’d really like to see a way to apply group regeneration to allies, potentially in the 5-10 point range to round out venom share.

Warrior- This is my 7th class and as of yet is still only in alpha stages.
As a PVP player I am just glad to see Hambow tweaked.

Hello. Thank you for opening this dialogue. I will follow your prescribed form as best I can. I will only comment on changes that impact my playstyle and I feel qualified to judge.

Elementalist- I play a DPS Berserker staff ele, and I have since near release. I earned Champion Magus running 30/30/0/10/0 and 30/20/0/0/20 and have world completion on this character. This character is 100% ascended. I never bought into arcane as a necessity, but I do greatly appreciate the cooldown reductions.

Burning Rage 25 – Increased damage dealt to burning foes from 5% to 10%.
This is a good buff to the fire line as it translates into other specs. It gives Earth DPS builds some more oomph with Signet of Fire applications and combined with the duration buff option it is a nice trait change.

Air V – Soothing Winds. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%.
I actually use this in PVE for lack of a better air trait. Not a bad adjustment, but I’d consider this going to 10% like some other trait changes.

Earth XI – Diamond Skin. This trait has been redesigned. Conditions cannot be applied to you when your health is above the threshold. 90%.
This is interesting. I’m a little concerned that this trait may not play out well in PVE with either some content being trivialized or it being inconsequential most of the time.

Water I – Aquamancer’s Alacrity. Moved to Master tier.
Given the other changes to Water I feel this is the one that is a bit too much. Majority water players are going to be paying too much in the 20/30 tiers. Keeping this adept at lets the water players get more DPS from their 2 skills without trading it for the main water focus.

Water V – Cleansing Wave. Moved to Master tier.
While moving it to Master can we please add to this? Maybe make it so Soothing Mist removes a condition if applied for 10s? So those that stay in water pulse removal?

Arcane VIII – Blasting Staff. Moved to Adept tier.
This is a tremendous buff and will likely convince me to move 10 from air to arcane, or 10 from water to arcane.

Engineer- I play a DPS Rampager Engineer with high precision flamethrower and elixir gun. I have map completion on this character. This character is 5 slot ascended. I do not see any particularly major changes to my playstyle.

Guardian- I do not currently play this class. It will be my 8th project.

Mesmer- This is my current project. I play a DPS/Support hybrid mesmer with healing mantras and a focus on reflection, control and phantasm stacking. I am over 50% world complete on this character. This character is 5 slot ascended.

Illusions 25 – Illusionist’s Celerity – Moved to Master tier.
This will help almost every Mesmer build.

Necromancer- I play a Cleric’s Healer/DPS build specced 30/0/10/30/0 with a focus on dagger/focus + staff, well healing/dps and I occassionally retrait within the same spec to vampiric minion master which I can support with my extremely high healing. This character has map completion, soloed Aetherblade Retreat including Mai Trin, and is 5 slot ascended. My favorite playstyle, just unnecessary in most content.

Spite 15 – Death into Life. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%
I’ll take it. I’ve topped out at 410 hp/s regeneration on this character. This will get me near 420-425.

Death 5 – Reanimator. Decreased cooldown from 30s to 15s.
With enough healing these guys can actually soak some hits in trash situations.
Death 25 – Deadly Strength. Increased conversion from 5% to 10%.
This is a fair buff and has me considering builds to utilize it as a DPS variant of my current setup.

Blood Magic 25 – Blood to Power. Decreased health threshold from 90% to 75%. Increase Power from 90 to 120.
One of the secrets of this super high HPS build is that it actually does good power DPS when supplemented by wells, vulnerability and flesh golem. Rewarding my healing with power is great.

I am speaking as a pretty high end player with over 13,700 achievement points, 5 characters with 100% map, almost pvp rank 41 who has reached top 200 solo queue (though I have dropped recently playing staff ele) and never farmed a singly bit of rank/glory via Skyhammer. I also have a guild with people just like me except they positively refuse to PVP, even though they’d enjoy it. They don’t want to look like a noob and/or “waste their play time.”

First things first, the most rewarding thing that can be done to your PVP population is improve the population. It doesn’t matter how good or rewarding PVP is if no one is participating to bring value to the overall system.

To do this it is imperative that players be allowed to bring their appearances from PVE to PVP. I have countless friends who simply refuse to PVP because they refuse to self-identify as new players. Let’s be honest, when you join a PVP match and see someone in the starter gear they are usually easy targets. This identifies these players as instant easy targets who tend to get dogpiled and destroyed. This takes a highly impressionable player who already feels ignorant, vulnerable and embarrassed and piles another bad experience on top which is discrimination.

The fact of the matter is that cosmetic gear is not working as a PVP reward scheme. Cosmetic gear is about player identity. As soon as PVE players lose their appearance they lose their connection and they drop out of PVP like flies. Take the locker and make it universal.

That is step 1. Tear down the wall which isolates the playerbases and allow single unified identities.

Step 2 is giving PVP unique rewards that allow players to customize themselves in all game modes. Taking the existing Tribal armor or Rubric armor for example and making it cost a set amount of glory. Make this the equivalent of a PVP karma armor/equipment.

Add some kind of karma-esque vendors for glory spending. Add the equivalent of jewelry boxes. Include gold, karma, crafting materials and other cross-gameplay rewards as a way to channel glory into other game modes. In addition to these random boxes also bring in things like obsidian shards, ascended crafting materials and other end game progressable collectives. There are literally hundreds of options here. I’m not picky.

Make PVP matches into dynamic events. Each one should award significant experience (10-20% of a level minimum), gold and karma for participating in. Players may now level in PVP. Alternatively make these awards liquid so they can be passed to alts.

Now that you’ve mixed up the game modes enough that PVP is a continuum of the GW2 universe you can add PVP exclusive rewards to take back to PVE.

• A medal by your character name on any class you’ve earned your champion <class> title for.

AND/OR

• A PVP rank display that shows up by your PVE level.

• Launch a PVP season like the WvW season. Award serious achievements. This will cyclically keep players involved.

• Improve all other achievements in the PVP pane.

The simple truth is that for PVP to be appealing long term it has to plug into all of the other reward systems.

I like Guild Wars 2. I like to PVP. I like to PVE. I like to WvW. I like dungeons. I like fractals. I like my guild.

I can do all of those things. But when I go into pvp now and someone sees my world completion star or sees my achievement points I get “Oh boy a PVE scrub.”

When my guildmates see my /rank Tiger pop up I just get laughs.

Let’s bridge the gap Anet.

Josh Davis.6015:

This issue should be resolved. Let us know if it strikes again on the next go-around.

Please, no! This was the best thing to ever happen to keg brawl! As the timer ran the kegs kept spawning faster and faster. There was a war on, people were forced to toss kegs to keep pace, kegs were sailing through the air! I found myself carefully positioning under lobs for catches, found myself anticipating and intercepting passes, blew timers to kick enemies out of my team’s passing lane.

I played keg brawl like it was intended. I earned 4 or 5 achievement checks because with all the kegs I had something to do the entire match. Assists were OKAY because I could get another keg!

Instead of 8 people balling up and chain ccing each other over a single keg resulting in a slow and miserable experience it was spread out, fast and comical.

Keg brawl went from a chore to my favorite minigame in GW2. Don’t undo this!

I suggest a compromise: no point limit, 7 or 8 minute long game, the game starts at the equivalent of 7 to 8 minutes in now, which is 4 or 5 kegs active at a time.

Disabling the current skins is a terrible idea.

The game will change.

Once upon a time players couldn’t convert skins into PVP skins. They slapped them on pve weapons and then a few months down the line Anet did the right thing and made a PVP/PVE conversion function.

But if your skin was on a pve weapon already you didn’t have the option.

But do you ever see anyone rocking island skins or tiki shields in PVP? I PVP everyday and I’ve never seen it.

Stuff gets lost. Stuff gets obsoleted. Stuff goes extinct. Please let the stuff stay out there.

At some point in the future we are very likely to have a PVE locker. People will want to fill it.

At some point a vet will reroll, or a newcomer will come along and they will be be unable to scrape together the resources to get the perfect skin for their new character because who knew that next April Fool’s 2014 Anet would release a super rifle? And who knew that 3 years from then Anet would give Mesmers rifle? Who knew that at that time a player would be inspired to create and roleplay an Asuran bounty hunter who shot a laser rifle and used holograms to entrap their prey?

Progression keeps players in the game. Lack of progression causes boredom. Why take away the checkbox for progression? Especially when it comes via a unique gameplay method in SAB?

Compare it to a television show. Everyone loves new episodes, but without reruns it is hard to get new fans.

At the very least the items should be seasonal or rewarded appropriately for the originating content (world 1.)

I’ve finally managed to resolve this.
I tracked the problem down to a hardware interaction with my logitech 5.1 speaker system.
A combination of factors was causing all output destined for the central channel to be replaced by a composite from the side speakers.
Turns out all the information for character vocalization is central speaker only I guess.

Just adding that a full uninstall, reboot, reinstall also does not fix this.

I’ve scanned the registry and can’t find any entries for GW2.

I can only assume that GW2 is storing my settings configuration on their server as my hotkeys and graphics settings are maintaining through fresh installs.

I’ve got nothing left but to submit a support ticket.

I tried posting in the bugs forum and got nothing:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Player-Character-Vocals-Not-Playing/first#post1562868

I have now tried:
Deleting local.dat (GW2 auto-rebuilt this, no fix.)
Deleting GW2.dat (GW2 redownloaded this, no fix.)
Deleting GW2.exe (Downloaded a new exe from website, no fix.)
I have done every possible manipulation to in game audio sliders to no effect.

This is a serious issue as far as I am concerned. I do not feel involved in combat and the feedback I receive is weak at best. I feel disconnected.

And now I am not the only one.

Where else does GW2 store settings? There has to be an easy fix for this.

Bumping for help.

I posted in the audio forums hoping for an answer there but none was forthcoming.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/audio/My-Own-Characters-Stopped-Combat-Vocalizing

So now I am trying game bugs.

Any character I play, regardless of race, sex, class, server, map, etc does not vocalize. Period. My characters don’t do hit vocals, combat grunts, condition/boon responses, anything.

If I pick a class with shouts and use one, I hear nothing.
If I play elementalist and change attunement I never get an attunement vocal.
Play a necro and lose a minion? Nothing.
If I take 90% of my HP I don’t have the low on HP warning.

However I hear other players combat vocals just fine. Nearby allies who receive my buffs respond accordingly. They buff me, I never hear my own character respond (but the other players say they hear my character responding in their games.) The files that the vocalizations should be calling are definitely there and work as I hear other people.

I’ve tried rebuilding my local.dat and launching GW2 in repair mode. Neither fix worked. I’ve even tried putting my audio language on foreign languages, nothing. I’ve tried adjusting all of the audio sliders multiple times.

I’d rather not reinstall if I can avoid it. If anyone has any ideas how to fix this please tell me.

Should I post in tech support on this?
My character doesn’t even do the “I need healing!” or ANYTHING anymore. No matter what race/sex/class combo I use I can’t get a single voiceover.
Warrior shouts don’t work.
Necro minion comments don’t work.
Elemental attunement announcements don’t work.
Nothing works.
But they work just fine from other players.
My sound sliders are all 75% or higher.
Please help me out here.

My own character never vocalizes during combat anymore. I never hear “Feeling mighty!” or “Not the leg…” or “Exhilirating!” or “Going hypothermic!” any of those kinds of voice overs at all. Not a single buff, debuff or health trigger seems to cause them to go off any more.

How do I fix this? I really miss them. I can’t find any options I may have broken.

Still waiting for an answer. Of my 8 planned characters only 3 can use the current ascended gear.
The best option for my is my 3rd favorite class.
See a problem here?

I let my original threads die because I figured there was no way Anet would “forget” it in the next ascended item patch.

Not letting this thread die. Anet’s “forgetfulness” has moved from being forgivable bumbling to malicious negligence.

If you’re terrified of option shock or RNG rage where people open vendors and see too many items to dig through or there are too many items in the loot tables that people only have a tiny chance of getting what they want then modify the system to compensate.

Ascended should’ve been a quality tier that could’ve been given to any exotic item via mystic forge. That way exotics retained value and all stat sets were available. We’d also completely avoid the insane quantity of named items.

I am furious about this.
I play a stable of characters.

My main and favorite is my cleric built necromancer. She can not continue in her stat path for ascended.

How about my apothecary built ranger? Nope, he can’t progress past exotics either.

Maybe my rampager’s flamethrower engineer? Nah, she’s stuck.

My berserker ele? Yes, MY ONLY OPTION.

1/4 of my characters can progress due to Anet’s negligence.

Sorry, forgot to mention. I also want to fight heroically large groups of enemies that require teamwork and area control to overcome odds in PVE.

Example being grawls rushing the rock in the Volcano fractal. Using snares/aoes and cleave at the base of the rock means effective battling.

I absolutely hate throwing attacks at a single colossal enemy until the hp bar goes away while 1-2 people kite it in circles.

AOE shapes GW2 combat. It is AoE that encourages us to dodge roll more than anything. If it is weak then we will soak it more.

The whole movement game is highly rewarding when it involves area control. Clump and control enemies, aoe them for high reward vs divide and conquer via single target DPS. The danger of having multiple enemies together is they can counter aoe (like Ascalon warriors in Ascalon fractal cleaving everyone.)

I don’t want this game to be more about single target DPS. I’d much rather dodge rumbling eruptions of stone that will shred my internal organs than have to pick out the solid black armor miniature Asura’s kill shot and dodge it or die.

I want this game to stay about the shape of the battlefield and be about positioning. Yes I could change the fleeing thief but then I run into the enemy engineer’s turret’s range and there’s an enemy warrior engaged with a friendly guardian, if I get close I might get cleaved.

I want those things to matter. The last thing I want is to spend all my time scrutinizing the area for thief backstab combos or kill shots because single target rules the day.

AoE allows reaction time, rewards movement, rewards positioning, rewards teamwork to deny/control/etc.

We’re running into multiple major patches now after fractals and still Anet has not itemized a large number of stat combinations in the Ascended tier such as cleric, apothecary, etc.

This is ridiculous and negligent. You have created a game where a large portion of the playerbase is incapable of vertical progression without changing playstyle.

You added a vendor. You have no reason to keep trying to foist these terribly named and confusing “uniques” on us anymore. It ALMOST made sense when they were random drops and you wanted the “majority” of people (DPS) to be happy with their random drops. A smaller pool meant more happy DPS not raging they got a healing ring.

Ascended <Stat Combination> Ring/Backslot is all we need. It shouldn’t even take an intern an hour to generate items to cover all of the stat combinations and slap them on the vendor.

Until then I am completely without motivation to participate, as are many other players.

Signed.

I consider this hotfix worthy.
I play Ranger and Necro and neither of them are welcomed to high end fractals due to pets screwing up mechanic everywhere.

This is ridiculous.
We asked to have this removed because it makes us a liability in a lot of fights.
Now that the duration of these things has been buffed I’ve somehow managed to start stacking them on my support necro who naturally generates a lot of healing.

I had two of these terrible things out during a jade maw fight and the little rats managed to absorb 5 beams in a row, slowing down my entire group and putting them at risk and causing my group to rage at me.

At one point a CORPSE of one that had just gotten BEAMED got targeted and SHOT AGAIN.

Now instead of it being a fast dying single liability I have two liabilities to make my group rage out at me.

DISABLE THIS TRAIT.

I am also very much looking for this answer.

It is negligence on Anet’s part that they have not itemized healing items.

You can’t “replace” cleric gear.
Apothecary and Cleric gear should both exist just like power/crit and condition/crit gear should both exist.

This is just negligence on the part of Anet. It has to be an oversight. If not then what’s next?

Even if you don’t use cleric gear (or any of the other missing stat sets) don’t just sit on the sidelines. Your stat set could be next.

If they’re going to put it out there they better support it all the way.

I’d settle for being able to go to anyone else’s level, but this still isn’t as good an option. If you’re used to running fractal level 15 are you really going to be able to enjoy playing on training wheels again?

There is no subscription fee in this game.
DO NOT DUPLICATE KEY GRINDS.

Also would like this to be once per account.