Guild Wars 2

Doesnt just happen in pvp for me. Procs randomly at times ever since the last patch. Game freezes for unknown reasons and goes to a “not responding” state. alt- doens even work for it. you have to ctrl-alt delete to get out of the stuck screen and manually stop the gw2 process in the task manager.

What amuses me the most though is how Anet never learned from their mistakes. Initially, this game was considered lacking an “end game” due to how uninteresting dungeons were. They lacked the very same thing we are talking about here; mechanics that made dungeons interesting. Dungeons initially couldn’t hold a candle to Denova in SWTOR or WOW calibre raiding. To think of it, most players participated in those raids for the sheer satisfaction of being someone who was able to complete the raid. The rewards were just secondary. Again, here we see that the game is the reward itself. If it weren’t for WVW back then, players would have easily left this game. I mean I went from SWTOR to GW2 then went back to SWTOR for sometime till i took GW2 again since for me, GW2 seemed boring. WVW just wasn’t interesting enough for me to stay anymore. Until they started adding stuff that had mechanics like fractals, living story dungeons, etc, people had nothing to occupy themselves with. Right now, they are shooting themselves again in the foot for not learning from that aspect of the game. Im gonna call it now. Give it a few years. If the stick with this current mentality there will come a point that adding item progression, living story, and more fluff to the game wont be enough for them to keep their player base. The game will die a slow, steady death.

Appreciate it folks.

@Adian
Buffs, nerfs, rewards and modes by themselves are good and dandy. But if we look at the current state of the game what it fundamentally need is a proper competitive set-up with regards to its skills, traits and other related stuff. The only way you can do that is by properly introducing mechanics to both individual skill and combos in the game. Only then can you build up the rewards system, wisely tweak the numbers and introduce better modes. You must have this set up right before you do that. If you do it the other way it will be a waste of resources. I sure hope Anet listens to this, and wake up on what the game is truly missing.

LOL Red its so prevalent, you have to be such a simpleton to miss that trend.

Anyways, adding on to the mechanics issue, in order to optimally introduce such changes, Anet really needs to look at each class from a holistic perspective (i.e. how the traits and weapon sets interact ). Each trait line must have a central idea as to how it should be played. For every trait line there must be a purpose behind it. If you don’t, you’ll have a hodgepodge of trait lines that are a mess.From there, you can work on the weapon sets that tie in well for that trait set.

For example ranger skirmishing trait line. This trait line has a central idea as to how it would play. Ranger will use traps to enable him to keep his distance and kite his enemy while relying on power based damage and critical hits to deal damage with it. It has a lower DPS output on it to make it balance. This is a very good set up on trait- weapon set (longbow) set-up. The trait-weapon set relation is as follows: trait line – set of ideas, weapon set – implementation. The player must go into the full trait line if he wants to fully take advantage of the “idea” Which means proper tier-ing is needed. The tier-ing must have a set-up such that the player has the option to not take the full trait line. If he does, he gets the full package but if he does not, he is will not be optimizing the benefits from the trait line’s “idea”. At the same time, a specific weapon set must be “focused” for good implementation of the trait line.

If they can somehow focus the design of the traits -weapon sets relation set up such that they follow a certain idea then its easier to maintain traits and weapon sets.

Unfortunately, what happening is like this: " Oh I see that this weapon set is weak. What buff can I add to the skills in it to make it viable?" Same pattern goes on with traits. The problem I see right now is that the current balance team cant identify the line in the middle to guide them from which they can properly approach the issues, which is why a year after release the game still has the feel of a beta and Anet is still fumbling its way how to structuralize things – at the expense of its player base.

@Rieselle

Good point. Unfortunately our current meta is infested with such risk/reward patterns. Condi cleanses vs condi application, Stun breaker/stability vs stuns. These things need to be re-examined because whats going on is turning to an arms race and its not good for the game. It will just go on a descending spiral that end up in the game being dead after they have exhausted their resources in their PVE based business model. The game has so much to offer and yet they are wasting it so bad. Nothing frustrates me more than opportunity wasted.

@ Red
Exactly the point I was trying to drive home. What Anet seems to forget is that competitive games don’t release monthly content to keep their players. The game works for itself to keep players. Make the gameplay a reward in itself. You dont need some complex reward system. If you can reward players for just learing to get better, they will play and keep playing. Thats what drives pvp and thats what drive esports

I am not saying having passive elements is bad. I’m just saying that passive elements like RNG based stuff must only be there as a starting point for casuals. However, the passive elements must, in some way or another, be inferior to the elements that require mechanics. Design the game such that it has “passives” for entry level players, “moderate mechanics” that encourage the casual to get better, and “hard mechanics” that reward the guys that master their stuff.

TL:DR
Mechanics > Number tweaking, Blunt additions
Number tweaking and blunt addition make the game shallow and lacking (no skill -reward) Start with the mechanics. Mechanics rewards players which makes them wanna play more and get better. You don’t need content every 3 weeks to drive players to play. Give them something where they feel they can be better and rewards them at a competitive level at and they will keep on playing the game.

Good cases to study:
Drow Ranger Ultimate fix in Dota2
Fungal Growth Fix in SC2:HOTS

Same issues here. Tested both ping and connection and no problem at all. It occurs sporadically for me at certain times of the day. Stuttering a lot in both spvp and pve. Game has just become unplayable. PVP server is Attached my results from the ncsoft game advisor below. Its akittens worst when it i cant even view the pvp server list at all.

@ the Boz and @ ensoriki

It seems that both of you are implying that since skills that inflict damage via condition and skills that apply damage via power needs to land to do damage, both are at par with each other since they can be blocked dodged, etc. Indeed this assumption is correct how ever you are forgetting one important difference between the two mechanics.

The reality is things will land in this game. No amount of skill can stop things from landing. Even thieves with lots of evades will get hit. But there is a big difference when a power based attack lands from a condi based skill. A power based attack requires a full combo for them to deliver their full damage attack. I cant prevent the initial parts of the attack from landing initially but I can stop them from delivering the full damage they can deliver through good reactions. This is not the case in conditions as its simply delivers its full guaranteed damage capability at the initial application of the skill, albeit ticking over time. When an 8 sec burning gets applied by one single attack that’s guaranteed 6k damage unless its removed. The only way this can be reacted to is through cleanses. The very nature of conditions, coupled with the spammability of the skills delivering them is what makes things very difficult for players.

I personally dont mind it 1 v 1 but in the case of multiple opponents, this gete very one sided.

@ensoriki

Yes you are correct when you point out that damage from multiple players is intended to do such however, in the case of power damage, you can actually do counterplay based on skill. Create distance, split them, use position, etc. In the case of condi specs what counter play is available once the cleanses have been exhausted? To reason out for such occurence to be ok since its meant to be that way simply doesnt make sense.

@The Boz

Indeed they are tied to attacks but if you have n number of skills that apply condition do you think the amount of dodges, blocks and defensive capabilites you have can handle it? Lets be realistic here.

How can we resolve this issue then? There are multiple ways to resolve this. One possible way is a complete overhaul of the game where we make most of the damage mainly power based and treat conditions as auxiliary damage source/utility. This is good but can be very resource intensive on the part of ANet. Other players proposed to the toning down of condi specs. I will have to disagree with this since it does not resolve the problem itself. It’s a band-aid fix that will simply nerf certain specs to oblivion, all the while, the stack-chain problem is still there. Finally there are the ones who advocate the increase of cleansing capabilities of certain classes. I dislike that since it will lead to chaotic gameplay based on an arms race. What I propose is a fundamental change to the way conditions are handled by the game.
Sinply stated, if the amount of available counter play is only sufficient for a singular source, limitations must be placed on the potency of multiple condi sources. The game can be made such that if player A applies condition X on target 1, only player A can stack-chain the said condition on target 1. This can be done by making target 1 invulnerable to the application of condition X by other players apart from player A as long as
1. The condition X applied by Player A is in duration or
2. An N number of seconds has not yet passed after the condition X applied by player A expired/ was cleansed (The amount of time can be scaled according to condition potency)
Note that I only propose the invulnerability to the condi application of the skill, not the power damage done by the skill.

In addition, the game must have an established cleanse prioritization. It can be argued that some conditions are more deadly than others. Most cleanses available have a “chance factor” to them since it can only cleanse 3 of the 8 conditions already applied. I personally think that damage dealing conditions should be prioritized by cleansing skills first but that is open to argument. For one, it allows defensive conditions to linger so that the condi player can play defensively in certain instances but this is another discussion.

What Im advocating is simply this; make condition gameplay a dance, not a one sided spamfest. If the counterplay available can only handle so much, make it so that the incoming stuff scales to what is available.

The proposals I stated above allows condi specs to exist. They are still viable, however a certain skill set is now required of them. They are punished for spamming or other form of poor gameplay. Most of all this also puts a limitation to the stack –chain phenomena, which not fun. Ask anyone who has been chained feared by multiple necros or chained burned by a group with a spirit ranger. GL HF
Regards,
Joonhyung Hiraishin

A general agreement within the PVP community is that the current metagame is bad. We hate it, we want it resolved and we want to do away with it. But before we proceed to picking up our pitchforks and chasing the ogre known as ANet, let us take a close inspection of the problem. It is important to clearly identify the roots of the problem. What is it all about? Perhaps we can find a resolution that will not require nerfs on the part of Condi classes after all.

I firmly believe that the problem lies not with condi specs themselves but how the game itself handles conditions. To elaborate on this point, let us review the mechanics of conditions in the game. There are two principles that govern condition application in the game:

Stack – Conditions stack, either in duration or intensity, from multiple sources. This means that if you apply a condition on a player, the condition you applied will tick on top of what’s already applied to him by other players

Chain – Once a condition expires or cleansed, the same condition can be reapplied by a different source without limitation

For counter play, there are 3 main methods:

Cleansing – A set number or type of condition is removed by specific skills or traits.

Duration Decrease – Certain rune sets and/or traits lower the duration of conditions applied to oneself.

Increased Health Pool – The vitality stat increases your HP pool in order that the effects of damage type conditions are lower generally.

If we examine the mitigation methods available in PVP, we see that these can deal with a single condition source. Versus a singular condition source, it can be argued that the amount of counter play available in the game can be considered as balanced. The problem now is that this amount of counter play does not scale when we have multiple condition sources. We just don’t have enough counterplay available if we face multiple sources that can stack or chain conditions. We can’t do anything against being chain feared by multiple necro compositions. We can’t do anything against that burning since as soon as we cleanse it, another one is applied on us again by another source. The amount of condition counter play available is able to handle a singular source but unable to handle multiple condition sources. This is why teams with multiple necro/ranger/engi compositions simply dominate other classes. In those cases, it’s no longer a matter of if you die or not. It’s a question of how long will you be able to stand before you die.

I coined the term stack-chain effect to name this phenomenon. This is what I think is the root of all this mess. Surprisingly, this has been present in the game from release. In fact, I have observed this prior to the big July PVP patch. How many of us have been dominated by multiple condi engineer compositions in PVP prior to the patch, especially grenade condi specs who chain their condis at you? How many of us have been messed up by multiple confusion spec mesmers in WVWho chain their confusion after you cleanse? However this issue has been thoroughly observed only recently when the patch came due to the sudden influx of condi specs, not to mention the increased potency of these specs.

I used to run the full trait 11 however the existing meta prevents me from effectively using it, not to mention you will need trait 3 for it to be maximized. I think of it this way. Here I am happily doing my attunement dance and just a split second right before I swap to water a necro procs 2 weaker non damaging conditions on me. Seconds later, the dhuumfire procs and my other condi removals are used up. I try to use trait 11 by poping one cantrip. The result? Cantrip wasted with no cleanse at all. This happened to me more than once before and considering the condi spam meta, more often than not, that will happen. Thats why I opted to go with SDR and the lowered cantrip cooldown. At least with that I have better management of my condi removal. Trait 11 just felt to expensive for me for the trait cost it requires, not to mention its unreliability. It is good though with team fights.

Hi folks. Just wanted to get some feedback on this anti condi build that I’m running . Ive had relative success at it in tpvp for the most part against the condition meta so if you’re one of those who are at the point of rage feel free to test it out. Feedback and suggestions are very welcome.

http://intothemists.com/guides/guide.php?id=188

I was actually in the same position as you were. I like to be survivable (really tanky) but still pull out decent damage. I tried permutations of zerker -PTV combinations but didn’t like it at all. Too squishy for my taste. I found out that what works for me best is a combination of PTV gear, valkyrie and cavalier.

Heres my Set up atm.
0/10/0/30/30

Armour:
Full PTV with full 6 rune of earth. Got this from either WVW or Karma vendors

Trinkets:
2 Valk earrings, 2 Cavalier rings with Beryl jewels, Cavalier amulet. Cavalier are from the Balthazar karma vendor and Valk is from the TP

Back item:
PTV back brace with soldier crest. Karma vendor again

Weapon:
2 cleric daggers -I just use this since i couldn’t afford the invaders dagger yet.

Combined with the use of perma fury through zephyrs boon, maintenance oils and precision food (bowl of butternut squash), I can get the following stats:

armor: 2643
HP: 18.9 to19k
Crit chance: 41% (thats with fury)
Crit damage: 53%

Its quite decent I must say. I run dungeons, fractals and WVW with only this build and it quite works well for all 3. Problem though is its for my D/D so you might wanna tinker with it a bit.