Guild Wars 2

Hi all,

As a follow-up to my post from last Friday, I wanted to give you a run-down of the changes we’re looking to make to the engineer’s turrets:

• Engineer turrets will be able to be critically hit. (Edit for clarity: this change means the turrets can take critical hits against them, but they still cannot deal critical hits themselves.)
• Engineer turrets will be able to be affected by conditions.

Considering most minions/summoned pets are already susceptible to the aforementioned changes we feel that this is a fair way to bring turrets more inline with the rest of the game. These changes should only slightly affect the viability of turrets in PvE/WvW (low creature crit chance/condition application), while providing for more counterplay against turrets.

We’d love to hear your feedback on these changes. Feel free to respond below with your comments.

-Grouch

There’s some really cool ideas in here! Considering nothing like this has really been done before, I’d keep discussing the ins and outs of the structure and rules until you land on something that works for everyone. There will be a few obstacles for you guys to hash out, such as streaming the event and determining winners, but I think you’re on the right track.

I’ll keep this thread bookmarked and check back in. I’d be really interested in seeing how the invitational mentioned above would pan out.

-Josh

/shines a bright light on himself interrogation style

We’ll be talking about upcoming WvW stuff starting next week. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what we’ll be talking about quite yet, but I figured at the very least I’d give you folks a timeline to go off of.

As an aside, we’re also expanding our bi-weeky livestream (Ready Up) to cover WvW in addition to PvP and balance. WvW will be the main topic on our next episode (1/31). I’ll officially announce the stream with a post next week sometime.

Anyways, I hope this helps!

-Josh

“This is a constructive thread.”

Friendly neighborhood Grouch here (oxymoron?). Starting in early January I’ll be working more closely with the Skills and Balance team and with you all as well. While our Skills/Balance designers do read the forums quite often, they don’t have as much time to post and drive discussion – and that’s what I’ll be stepping in to help with.

There are a lot of valid concerns with the elementalist right now and we’re going to be working on addressing those points. Once everyone gets back from holiday vacation we’ll be posting up our proposed balance changes and we’ll go from there.

(Please don’t hurt me.)

Streamers

Official Guild Wars 2 Twitch Channel – The official ArenaNet Guild Wars 2 Twitch channel.

Storm – North American Shoutcaster

Jebro – European Shoutcaster

Phantaram – Elementalist on World Champion team the Abjured.

Noscoc – Necromancer on World Champion team the Abjured.

Five Gauge – Engineer on World Champion team the Abjured.

R O M – Warrior for the World Champion team Orange Logo.

Helseth – Mesmer gameplay and captain of the Civilized Gentlemen

Youtube Channels

Jebro – PvP shoutcaster, profession guides, and variety vids!

QQMore.Net – One of the best resources for PvP-specific guides.

Introduction

Player vs. Player in Guild Wars 2 is an exciting game-type that pits you against other players from across the world in the ultimate test of skill. Whether you’re looking for casual skull-cracking or competitive domination – we’ve got you covered. While you play you’ll earn ranks, gold, and if you’re playing during a league season – you’ll earn prestige!

There are three main avenues to choose from to participate in PvP in Guild Wars 2:

• Custom Arenas – Duel your friends or setup scrimmages with competing teams! With the customizable settings, you’ll have your very own playground to make your own. Custom Arena owners are also able to play on an exclusive death-match style map – Courtyard.
• Unranked Arena – The perfect place for getting your feet wet in structured PvP – this is the main arena we recommend for new and veteran players. All conquest maps are available in this queue.
• Ranked Arena – During PvP League Seasons, jump into the most competitive version of Guild Wars 2 PvP. Those who perservere and conquer can join the elite few in the Legendary division.

Conquest

In the Conquest game-type, two teams of five players each are matched up against each other. The objective is to be the first team to reach 500 points. Points are awarded through holding capture points and kills. There are 3 capture points on the map, and when captured, each location grants one point every two seconds. Each player kill grants five points. If neither team reaches 500 points, the team with the most points will be declared the winner after the 15 minute time limit. In the event of a tie, the team with the highest total player score wins.

Each PvP map (listed below) also has a secondary objective:

• Forest of Niflhel – NPC monsters spawn after some time and then after every 3 minutes in the north-western and north-eastern corner. Defeating them grants your team 25 points and a short-time buff (+50 to all stats).
• Legacy of the Foefire – NPC guards and ‘guild lords’ spawn at the beginning of each match in the starting zones of their respective team. In order to get to the guild lord, the enemy team has to take down a wall first. Walls can only be damaged by direct damage. Defeating the Lord grants 150 points.
• Battle of Khylo – Each team has access to a trebuchet which can bombard any enemy or area on the battlefield. It causes massive damage to enemy players and causes knockback to players who get caught in the area of effect. It does no friendly-fire damage or knockback.
• Temple of the Silent Storm – Four ‘meditations’ spawn periodically through the map. After completing the channelling for each meditation, the respective team acquires the buff granted by that meditation.
• Spirit Watch – Capture the Orb of Ascension and bring it to any of the three shrines for bonus points.
• Skyhammer – Calibrate the Skyhammer to your team to do massive damage to the areas you select.

Conquest Tips

• Your personal score doesn’t correspond to the amount of rank you gain. You get fixed amounts of rank for winning and losing. Play to win!
• You only need one person to stand on a point to capture it.
• You cannot capture a point if you’re stealthed or invulnerable.
• Try not to take part in uneven fights. Use numbers in your favor.
• Watch your mini-map! You can see the location of your teammates and any enemies that they can see.
• Each capture point has a unique name. Learn them! Players will often refer to the specific name rather than the location of the point.
• Home is the closest capture point to your spawn, mid (or middle) is the capture point nearest to the center of the map, and far is the enemy team’s home point.

Rewards and Leagues

For information on PvP Reward tracks, please visit this Wiki page.

For information on the PvP League system, please visit this Wiki page.

How do I participate?

The Heart of the Mists is the central-hub for all things PvP-related.

• To access Heart of the Mists, click the crossed-sword icon in the top left-hand corner of your in-game interface.
• In the top left-hand corner of the PvP panel, select “Go to Heart of the Mists”.

Way to go, Jon…making me look bad!

We’ll be reducing the maximum amount immobilize stacks in the near future.

Perplexity Runes are definitely on our radar. I talked with our designers about this and you can expect some changes to this rune-set in the near future. I don’t have specific details on what changes we’ll be making, but I figured I’d let you guys know that we are looking at it.

Thanks guys!