Guild Wars 2

I can see your point-of-view as someone who pugs, but in order for this game to reach “e-sport” status this system needs to be in place.

Why so? bloodline champions is a perfect example. Its almost entirely based on individual technical skill and not so much working as a team (but still important on a secondary note). Its a viable e-sport, just low population due to server issues and learning curve.

Uh no? I’ve beaten 4 people with only 2. This is entirely not true.

I’ve flipped 40 coins and they all landed on heads. Just because something can happen doesn’t mean it will often. The down system prevents out numbered fights in most cases.

You won’t get that feeling in pugs for a while. At least not until others who share your same mindset snap out of it. I’d suggest friending people you have fun with in pugs and go from there.

I only do Tpvp, but its with 2 players I’ve played with for 10 years. I don’t normally play with random people I meet online due to the fact that my schedule is so erratic. So we have to deal with two pugs that wont want to work with us half the time. Its just frustrating when we could be having so much more fun in a 3v3 format.

There are so many games from so many different genres that prove this is NOT the case. (I.E. LoL) The number of players by no means is the cause of the problems. The real issue is that everyone lacks experience. Of course, this goes hand in hand with the fact that there are no rankings to seperate the experienced from the inexperienced either. As the population as a whole learns to adapt and grow, we’ll see a much better(smarter) meta.

I was referring to this genre alone. LoL is actually pretty similar though. You need 5 coordinated people who play their roles too succeed. In a sense it’s worse. I remember playing top for a few months and I would have good/bad games. Sometimes in the bad games I was the sole reason we lost even if my teammates played well.

I like the ability to overcome slack if I get really good at something. In LoL it was pretty hard. The exception was two extremely good players duo queuing in a sense could carry games efficiently up to a point.

I mean this is my personal opinion (the reason I made the post). I was really looking forward to gw2 being arena based and pvp on technical skills rather than another LoL. I left LoL because of the reason im debating here.

This entire paragraph just hurts my brain, it couldn’t be any less accurate.
1. You have 5 players on the field so do they, use your 5 wisely. If 2 of you are holding up 3 of them, you have an extra player for the other points/objectives(lord). It’s not a number game for this sole reason.
2. The teams that rotate and hold their points win? saaayyy whhhhaaatt?!?!? Seriously though, it sounds like you couldn’t adapt so you blame it on “lack of depth”. In reality, your downfall is not percieving that depth in the first place.
3. Downed state sucks, agreed.
4. COUNTERS, COUNTERS, COUNTERS – bunkers aren’t really that strong. Most people (pugs) either don’t know HOW to counter them or don’t BUILD to counter them. We only run 1 because the HUGE lack of damage is too detrimental against good teams.

That’s a bit harsh don’t you think!?
#1. My point on the first part wasn’t about the strategic approach. It was more about how 3 people will almost always beat 2, or 2 people will almost always beat 1 even if the smaller group played far better. This is in relation to #4 and #3.
#4. I agree they are counterable, but to what measure. Either you have to rock paper scissors them with specific mesmer/necro builds (what if you dont have one!) or you have to overwhelm them with force and lose more objectives because you sent 3 people to kill 1. That’s just not a fun way to play imo.

Secondly, you are forcing people to go bunker in conquest, what makes that any better than the forced healers in other mmo’s.

2. Haha, you’re exactly right. I’m a bit reluctant to play the way Anet wants me to play. I’ve been trying to change my mentality to have fun, but its not their yet. To me it feels like im playing a board game instead of a pvp game. What makes it worse is I LOVE the combat, yet I hate the format we have to fight in.

The issue here is highly skilled players like gamemodes with more depth, where on the other hand casual players would rather just kill people. This game is too team-oriented to simply throw in deathmatch to appease the casuals. Obviously a deathmatch based PvP system would have been the easy way out for Anet, but it wouldn’t have accomplished much in regards to “e-sport” status.

That’s part of my problem. When you do larger groups and games based around them, most of the skill factor is about playing as a team and coordinating perfectly together to achieve good results. This creates a fun environment only to people who have many hours to get a good system going with 4 other people. I’m partially biased because I will never have that. But in smaller pvp I can practice by myself and when I can play with my friends we can still do well.

This game is pretty much a numbers game at the moment. There’s not much you can do to sway the tide of a 3v2 or a 1v2 ect. So the team that responds quicker usually wins. That’s hardly depth, and takes a ton away from the combat aspect. The down system is partially to blame. The other problems are the bunker specs being incredibly strong in conquest as well.

Move the skill focus toward the individual factors and bring it to combat. in a small group setting, you can easily switch out and play with a lot of different people with and have similar results. In larger groups its pretty much a time sink to get good at playing as a team. So you’re right, casually would like the small settings better, but that doesn’t mean it lacks depth.

I agree entirely. The downed state has way too many faults and rally/class downed state imbalances are a huge driving force.

I just wish we’d here a dev say why they think this will help esports. Its so counterintuitive.

I actually concur in that I would love to see 3v3 and 2v2 (it’d be much much easier for me to field a team that way) however I do not believe ANet will officially support it as in balance for it since 5v5 is their stated esport model.

That and it really would solidify the faceroll nature of thief/mesmer/guardian for all to see and mock (more than we already do).

I think that will be a good thing. The more apparent balance issues are, the more obvious they are to control. ALOT of problems are going unnoticed because they are hard to pinpoint.

If the game was remodeled to attempt balance around 2v2/3v3 arena style pvp, it would be incredibly fun.

Any 5v5+ arenas I’ve ever done feel way too chaotic, and the general rule of thumb I have is.

The less amount of people on your team, the more YOU directly affect the outcome. Also allows you to create great synergies with a small amounts of players.
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So how I see it is
1. Its easier to balance, and would make 1v1 balance far better. (1v1 balance is a pretty big deal even in 5v5, yet the balance is just not there. It’s realistically rock paper scissors at the moment.

There are many builds that are just plain weak/strong against other builds in a harsh manner. What’s worse is the game seems to support this with specific traits/skills rather than deter it.
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2.The chaos of larger scale pvp just increases luck factor was well and randomness.

A) In small scale pvp, every ability counts. If you miss a spell or get baited in to a cc combo you can get behind quickly. This means you always have to be on your toes, you have to learn animations, and maximize the usage of your class

B) I’ve played with rank 20+ who have no idea what most combo fields do . Most players don’t even know other classes abilities either. It feels like the current state of pvp players can just go in blindly and do well without much thought.

C) If you’re involved in a small group fight and you come up on top you know you played well and did well . If you are in a massive group fight and play poorly, you can still win, as other pick up the slack
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3. 5v5+ technically limits the amount of people you play with.

If I play with 4 other people consistently and we get good, I won’t want to run with another team. Its too much of a time investment to structure around 4 other players.

In 2v2/3v3 you can rotate a lot of players and get similar results as long as they are at the same level as you.
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Why I made this post

Just my thought process. I really loved the style bloodline champions had even if I wasn’t the greatest at it. I knew if I lost and had a bad score that I played bad and can improve. To me that’s a huge driving force for enjoying competitive gaming. The fun comes from striving to improve and eventually getting there….not just winning

The whole casual point system has so many problems first of all

1. While points show that you’re participating, it hardly determines skill.

—You could be defending a long time with no action (no points!)

—You could be playing extremely well and down 12 people in uneven fights and get 0 points shown for it because downing means nothing if you cant finish them off.

—you can run off a cap when you know its secure and get less points than the allies sitting there waiting for it to fully cap.

2. There should be a multitude of stats on the scoreboard, and you should be able to see everyone’s stats as well.

—the best scoreboard a pvp game has ever had was bloodline champions. If you did well, nobody could tell you otherwise. It was pretty much apparent on your scoreboard screen. This is how sPVP should be.

—If people win games and do badly with no statistics to show that they are playing poorly, they will naturally think they will be good. (This just happened to me. I started a ranger and I blow at them, but I won the first two tournament rounds and I thought I was playing great, just to get destroyed in the third. I had a lot of points, but in all effectiveness I was probably more of a negative factor to our team).
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i love my necro, i have over 400 matches on it, but when it come to the tons of bugs, lack of decent damage(even with condition build) aside from DS making it quite tanky, its lacking, and insted of focusing on one of the most bugged classes, they decide to make heartseeker more accurate T___T, i made a thief, went into pvp, 4 heatseekers over 8k damage each, its just dumb

I play a necro/thief. I agree necro’s are lacking, but at the same time thieves cant beat any defensive class to save their lives. (against good players at least). Any build that does an 8k heartseeker is not viable btw. Thats wayyy too glass cannon.

I agree elementalists have a high skillcap. I do however think they are somewhat unbalanced with the defensive builds they can do (as with guardians). Being a 75% offense, 25% defense thief (I dont run haste atm). I can’t bring a good one under 40%. They will always outlast me due to my limited survivability. I can last quite a while with stealth and withdraw, but my pressure is not enough.

guardians are worse because its basically a defensive elementalist with permanent retaliation, but overall it seems to be getting to the point where in a 5v5 I have to literally just avoid both classes and hope they arent stacked on the enemy team.

thief burst builds are really bad for teamfights, so its a high risk high reward thing. Played it last night and it was really fun vs lone targets and weak guys. The moment an even team fight came I worthless though. Also have to wait around a minute for my burst cd’s to come back up. I don’t see it being very practical vs good teams.

The balanced builds seem more solid.

I have a post about pistol whip and heartseeker in the thief forums, go read it and tell me what you think.

A good thief will almost never just sit there and spam an ability unless its under certain conditions.

ie. healing tree from rangers and hearseeker for heal
-condition thief using death blossom (its utterly worthless on any other build)
-Dazing steal from a guardian then bursting
-jumping into a fight after an enemy used their stunbreaker to burst down.

I don’t agree with how its designed, but the overall system is entirely counterable and not a problem once you get used to playing. If a thief spams the same ability in most situations its bad play. I constantly kill these players in 1v1 because all it takes is a stunbreaker and a dodge roll. They just lost everything while you barely lost anything.

That’s not a balance issue, that’s how the thief is designed. Thieves are designed to jump in, take out a weakened target, and jump out. The entire class is based around this concept. You are alone and weakened against a fully rested thief. This is precisely the scenario where the thief was designed to reign supreme. To try to destroy this would be to try to remove the thief class from existence. If you don’t like how it is designed, perhaps guild wars 2 pvp isn’t the place for you.

I’m not at all suggesting destroying it, I’m suggesting they need to put more thought into it. I can make a pistol whip build and wait for fights, and it can go 1 of 2 ways.

Either my allies correctly make them use a stunbreaker then I go in and its so one sided its hilarious

or my allies fall behind and no stunbreakers are used and when I go in my pistol whips are all evaded and i’m near useless.

It feels almost out of my control, thats why I dont like the setup. Thats ignoring how poor it is in a 1v1. So I try to utilize builds more in my control.

Its too powerful in situations you can control, and its too weak in some situations you cant control. So it comes off as a bad balance scenario.

First lets look at the main reason people have been complaining about these abilities (even after the HS nerf). (read everything before posting)
1. They have no cooldowns as they are fueled by initiative
2. They are both high damage dealing abilities, allowing spammable burst scenarios
3. They are incredible coupled with haste

Now im going to go into two short parts

1. Is there a problem? if so what is it?

A) the problem is not as obvious as stated. In a 1v1 situation both skills being spammed are actually a deterrent (this is not a bias but a fact, ill go into it). The problem comes from how mobile the thief is and how it affects winning a fight that’s already been started.

If I’m fighting someone and I see a thief spamming pistol or heartseeker or even pops everything to do a backstab burst, I will die. If I’m aware of the thief and have my cooldowns up, it will not work. When they get the jump on me and I have my stunbreaker down from fighting someone else, it becomes fairly ridiculous.

—So the “no skill” technique against good players will be overpowered in a correct roaming scenario, but underpowered in a direct assault or defending scenario. Making it balanced but in a bad way.

2. How I counter thieves abusing said mechanics in the current state.

A) First of all, in this game you really have to be aware of your surrounding and conditions. The moment I see devouring venom hit me (immobilize) I use my stun breaker (shadowstep) and port away. They just wasted haste and 2 full blown pistol whips. They are left with no endurance and low intiative. I have literally won every 1v1 vs a pistol whip thief in the last week.
On my necro its a bit harder, but I just use spectral armor and DS efficiently to block burst and get out of the roots/stuns.

B) Heartseeker spam is just hilariously bad in a direct assault. If they couple it with devouring venom and haste its relatively similar to the pistol whip function. It will do less damage but allow them to somewhat gain distance with it. Again stunbreak the immo and dodge roll a couple times, then destroy the thief.

I do however tend to spam heartseeker whenever I steal a rangers tree as the water aura heals me for a lot. I dont like the overall idea, but thats one of the only times its effective.

This also goes with hundred blades. Warriors overall are in a worse position than thieves so it doesn’t get as much whining, but the concept remains the same.

Keep in mind thief fear is low range with a 2 second cast time. High risk vs high reward in a sense.

Coronach.6792:

I havent played so much on live yet but I did play a fair bit during the beta, all I can say is that thiefs are fun as hell to play and the “issue” you have with guardians/mesmers aint really a issue. They’re probably the best anti-thief classes in the game so it’s simply your counter, what I could advice vs them is to play smart, if you see the guardian put up retaliation simply stop attack with physical dmg, if you use a bow put down some venom on the ground and wait it out or get a skill to strip boons (think swords flanking strike got a boon removal added for live).
As for the mesmers, once you learn to see which one is the real they’re fairly easy to kill, just keep a condition removal for their annoying confusion stack

Rock paper scissors balancing will not work in this game. The open 5v5 conquest maps require too many 1v1’s for that to even out with teamplay.

I appreciate the advice you’re trying to provide, but its really just common sense that i’ve ruled out a long time ago. They can have retaliation up around 50% or more it seems. The fact that it takes me a solid minute to bring one down without stopping my attacks, just make me disgusted thinking how long it would take if I avoided damage with it up. The knockbakcs and defensive shielding is the problem, as well as the ridiculous elite healing tome.

The sword/dagger build (flanking strike removes boons) is jut not viable. The damage is far lower than dagger/pistol without an interrupt. No backstab from stealth as well makes it less sought after. It just does everything at a mediocre level compared to other options.

mesmers are dealable, but man they are rough. A good one will always beat me . Its easy to tell which one is the real one, its not easy to deal with all the damage coming from 50 different sources though.

It does seem like a weird implementation. I would think it should slow down initiative gain or something.

So after playing a bunch of sPVP here are my thoughts.

The ups!

-our ability to escape is pretty good, and I love the ability to come in and out of a fight.

-our damage is good, and burst is high with certain builds. I dont like playing all in burst builds though. I can see their appeal in roaming and changing fights, but they are far too counter-able.
As long as I have shadowstep up, no hundreds blades or pistol whip build will come close to beating me. Mid-high burst and a lot of stealth with a mix of shortbow and daggers seem to be the most fun.

The downs I see, and class balancing.

-it seems to me that high defense/skilled guardians are a game ruiner. I have tried quite a few different approaches. Even if I get a boon steal and a good 4 sec daze they can still last and easily beat me if I try to kill one defending a node. I’ve had situations where me and another player burned both of our elites and the guardian can still outlast and do quite a bit of damage back with retaliation until friends arrive.

I think the defensive guardian is a good idea, but as a thief at least, it feels like my chances of winning the game and contributing a high amount are reduced 30% per skilled defensive guardian.

-Mesmers are also a problem, but I’m having a better time against them now that I’m running shadows embrace. It seems kinda kitteny on paper, but mixed with shadow step and hide in shadow, it gives me a lot of control over conditions.

Other thoughts: I wish the trebuchet was removed in battle of kyhlo as manning a single ability siege weapon is hardly a fun way to play pvp. You’re at a huge disadvantage if you don’t utilize it.