Guild Wars 2

We’re working hard in EB for the PPT!

Leaderboard rank means nothing. PvP rank means nothing. It’s really sad to be a GW2 PvP player right now.

Please disable this map from the tPvP rotation until it’s fixed.

Lost a solo arena game because of lag on Legacy of the Foefire. Not even 1 second lag. I completely lost control of my character for 20 seconds then I was disconnected.

Not doing tPvP until this is fixed.

Not much you can do about the matchup. Some classes are just much better against others right now (ex. warrior vs necro). As others have pointed out, the ele has problems keeping sustained damage. The problem isn’t actually sustained damage it’s how reliable is your damage. Since most D/D damage is easily telegraphed (attunements, burning speed, fire grab, etc.) it’s easy for rangers to use their numerous evades while doing decent damage with conditions.
You just have to hope you massively outplay the ranger otherwise you’ll lose. I believe with very specific conditions, you could possibly kill a ranger. The biggest factor would be if their Spirit of Nature Renewal is on CD and they’re really bad/laggy.

Even though I think an ele trying to fight a bunker 1v1 is a bad play in itself, here’s some advice that will help you kill some bad rangers:
- If they’re running shortbow, try to stay facing the ranger so crossfire bleeds don’t proc.
- Constantly run through their body to force them to constantly turn their camera. Some players are terrible at adapting to this.
- Dodge torch sklls, storm spirit activation, and wolf fear.
- Save RTL to leave whenever you want. Only use it when you are close to dying and NOT for getting in melee range or doing damage.
- Use Air Elemental for CC
- Wait for them to use Concussive Shot before you use Ether Renewal. With zerk amulet, you should be worried more about mitigating damage instead of healing yourself.
- Signet of Air is more for moving around the map and has very little combat use at least against rangers. I recommend replacing it with Lightning Flash or Mist Form.
- Don’t be afraid to reset fights. If he uses a lCD like Healing Spring, go ahead and walk off point to stand behind a pillar or something. You have another 30 seconds before he can heal himself again.

Honestly, I just rerolled instead of spending days theorycrafting a new build that will have even a slight chance against rangers. I’ll revisit the class after PAX.

My favorite map!
100% win rate!

I’ve been playing lots of solo queue tPvP lately but throughout the day I’ve have queue times of 5 to 10 minutes. Because I get frustrated easily from hotjoin players, I just alt-tab and surf the web with half of my GW2 screen visible so I can see the tournament pop-up.
Adding an audible alert when the queue pops would really help us players that have GW2 sound enabled as a background so we know when we can enter games. Preferably something loud and obnoxious like when champion select is ready in League of Legends or when a full group is found in World of Warcraft.

Congrats on the gaming coma. I sorta did the same thing so it was nice to see some of the points you made because I can relate to them.

Batmang.5421:

-Engis are amazing.

Agreed. They have such a large influence in solo queue because of their utility and raw DPS. When I see a good engi and a necro on the other team I cry a little inside because I know I can’t bunker them for long. Plague signet+bombs+grenades makes it so hard to cleanse things like the 10 stacks of bleed or 5 stacks of confusion.

Batmang.5421:

-Eles are just as bad solo q as they are in team q and competitive play.

I’ll agree that eles are kinda weak right now and that’s evident in their competitive representation. The input-out for playing an ele in tPvP is just not worth it. But respect for those eles keepin it alive! Shout out to Vain, Zoose, cmc, and the other eles I saw in solo queue late at night. I only have the balls to play ele on very specific conditions like on Battle of Khylo.

Batmang.5421:

-Random map rotation is awesome.

Skyhammer’s still pretty annoying. I still win a lot on that map because I play a gimmicky Skyhammer guardian build. I always feel so dirty in the end. I think I’ve only lost one game where I controlled the cannon the whole game and that’s because the other team was just way better. Skyhammer’s probably the biggest counter to spirit rangers. The cannon instagibs all their spirits in one shot so it’s a love/hate relationship with that map
I still think Spirit Watch has the same problem with rangers running the orb nonstop. I remember someone saying they’d rather play Capricorn than Spirit Watch.

Batmang.5421:

-The classes mix consisted of about 25% necros…

Lots of them are pretty bad. I just think they’re the class with the lowest skill floor so most people pick it up easily. It’s those really good necros that I’m scared of.

Batmang.5421:

-The team with the most combination of spirit ranger and necro won every single game.

Not gonna agree or disagree but I did win a game where my team had 4 necros and 1 bunker (me). We ended up winning. Still wondering if we won because my team had the better comp or had the better players.

120 games here! If I didn’t have a research paper due Monday, I’d be doing another all-nighter. I have over 2,000 games solo queue in League of Legends and a majority of my Team Arena games were solo so I think I’m more used to the solo queue mentality than new players.
My advice to my yolo queue friends is to find a balance between having fun, trying to win the match, and personal growth as a player.
Having fun/Staying Positive: You have to realize that at the end of the day you’re playing a video game which people play for fun. If you’re not having fun, I recommend taking a break or changing your attitude. I found the greatest players are those that can reset to a neutral state of mind quickly so they perform consistently throughout the match.
Player growth: This ties in to staying positive because it’s hard not to feel good when working out at the gym, right? When you’re seeking to improve your personal skills, a lot of the stress is taken off your shoulders especially following a loss. In fact, I’d recommend doing solo arena instead of hotjoins to learn how to play your class. The quality of the enemy team in solo arena is always going to be better.
The important thing to do is learn from your mistakes. I have this mentality that if I die, it’s mostly my fault. Yes, my teammate could have tried to res me. Yes, my teammate could have interrupted the stomp. But if I can look past all of their bad plays and realize what I could have done better to not get downed in the first place, I just grew in to a better player.
Just remember that it shouldn’t be “My team could have done better. They’re so bad.”, it should be “I could have played that better by doing _______.”
Trying to win the match:
For the general playerbase, play the class you’re best at, communicate well, and make smart decisions. I personally like to play all classes. The advantage that brings in solo queue is that I can fill in different roles for my team. I’m not saying to go out and research every class’ internal cooldowns but it definitely helps if you can play at least one other class. Teams are usually missing a bunker but sometimes we’ll need burst or a bruiser Warrior to counter multiple necros. Before the match has even started, you’ve shifted it in to your favor by creating an ideal team composition.
Communication is almost like cheating but it can be hard if you’re like me and play during asian primetime (not many english speakers). At the minimum, use your minimap to ping and draw routes for teammates to go. Ideally, you want your team to communicate before the match starts and say who’s going where. “I’ll cap home then come mid” etc. Then during the game you have to realize what your team’s doing wrong and what your team’s doing right. Example: My teammate said “WTF is this necro doing at far point. [He’s] so bad” but I just reworded it into something positive like “Necro come with me mid” Then after the fight ended I asked him to help close point.

To answer your question, compared to solo release day (Tuesday 8/13) I’ve noticed people have stopped playing dramatically. It feels like most of the people since Tuesday have stopped playing and I’m now stuck with the 8-15 people who solo queue during asian primetime. On release day, the queues for solo arena were 3 minutes max and during the weekend, they were about 8-10 minutes average and 15 minutes max (again, late night PST). The first two days of solo arena release, I saw a lot of PvE players and some old players logging in for the first time in months to try out the new solo arena. That probably explains why the queues were so short at the time. For some perspective on how many people were playing actively, when the solo arena leaderboards came out it only went up to rank 200 or 300 and you need something like 11 games played to show up on the leaderboard.
Hope that helps. I’m just waiting for an official blog or something by ArenaNet addressing not just Solo Arena, but tPvP since PAX is coming soon. Honestly, it’s still too early to be making conclusions on how I feel about Solo Arena. It’s like getting a new music album, listening to it once, and saying I don’t like it.

Sorry for the wall of text. (?????

Excited to see GW2’s first major LAN event! Will there be anything special for players who drop by Anet’s PAX booth – like a skin or title?