Conditions are affected by Dodge, blind, block, invulnerability, condition immunties, evade the same way power damage is.
the skills that apply the conditions might be subject to those things, but the conditions themselves are not.
Bad semantics.
The conditions themselves ARE affected exactly the same way as power damage, as long as you’re using the correct definition of “The Conditions”.
“The Conditions” are the conditions you receive from the “The Attack”. If you dodge or block “The Attack”, damage from “The Conditions” is reduced to 0, because “The Conditions” are not applied to you. This is exactly consistent with damage from power attacks.
Dodging and Blocking does not mitigate damage you’re currently taking from “Previously Applied Conditions”, in the same way that Dodging and Blocking do not mitigate damage from previously landed power based attacks.
Dodging or Blocking or causing your opponent to miss via Blind doesn’t do anything for attacks that already hit you previously, nor should it. I wish people would stop lumping in this terrible, brain dead argument with all the valid concerns about conditions as a whole.
Conditions are affected by Dodge, blind, block, invulnerability, condition immunties, evade the same way power damage is. They stop the application of conditions. Blinding and evading is how i’ve always fought necros before as engi without any cleanses or condi immunity and done fairly well if i play good/perfectly, even tho necro is pretty much hard counter to engi without AR.
Condition damage isn’t really all that different from Power damage beside it being unmitigated, it’s just slower but more sustained But it can also be removed completely which makes up for that.
A 10k power burst is worth more than 10k from conditions through a burst application since it can’t be removed.
Aslo 10k power damage delivered over 10seconds is exactly the same as 10k condition damage delivered over 10secondsThe problem is not really Condition damage(or well it was during first release of dumbfire) alone, it’s the amount of control a condition spec brings to the table at the same time, but if they didn’t they would be pretty much useless.
Back before cleansinge ire(when i found warrior fun to play) and all the other warriors buffs for example i never found condition damage from a necro to be the issue for example(it was annoying to slowly die after i killed a necro though!), it was the high amount of chill and cripple…Condition classes NEED to be more naturally tanky than a power to use it’s damage effectively(this goes for any other game out there with damage over time abilities)
There is too many ways to apply alot of different conditions, but there is also too many ways to remove conditions for some classes(anyone here actully played at a higher level as necro during the double/tripple ele meta with cantrips and remember how frustrating it was?).
If you nerf condition application, especially damageing conditions, without nerfing the amount of cleanes some classes have then necros and possibly engis will be the new mesmer and ele again.
Best way to balance conditions would be to either reduce damage alot by condis and increase control conditions applications or the other way around.Conditions/DoTs/whatever is generally more annoying to die from since it’s more agonizing and slow than getting bursted and this goes for every game. Like wow for example i always found it more annoying to die slowly from a kiteing affliction warlock than getting kited and bursted by a mage(ice mage not counted as it just stopped you from doing anything as warriors >_>)
I don’t think nerfing condition damage outright is a good answer. I think that condition vs. physical damage is in a good place right now, in terms of balance. Conditions perform better in small scale fights, and power damage performs better in large scale combat where damage over time is less viable, and AoE cleansing happens.
I think that problem is that people can choose to protect themselves from power damage with toughness if they want. Anybody can gear up for that. The extent to which people can protect themselves from conditions has a huge amount of variance. Some classes have great cleansing, but for others it’s much less viable.
We could do a lot to alleviate this problem if there was an optional stat on gear that reduced condition damage. It’d be factored into the cost of the gear obviously, not free, so there’d be some kind of trade off, but then people wouldn’t have to center all their traits and utilities around accessing their class specific cleansing, the quality of which may not be nearly as good as the cleansing from other classes.
Actually, I retract the -% condition duration part. That’d be abusive for people who could never be slowed, and could only be feared, poisoned or what have you for very very short duration. Condition controlling abilities probably shouldn’t be effected by this. Instead, this stat should reduce condition damage, rather than condition duration. I think that’d be better for balance than having melees gear up for this so it’s impossible to kite them or CC them off.
Nope, just like weakness blind aegis vigor confusion torment retaliation it doesn’t affect condi play at all. Immo does not affect condi neither since necro nor engi need to face the target and warrior has insanely large aoe. Heck not even blocking or dodge mitigate condi dmg. The only way to counter condi is cleanse and vitality to a lessor degree.
Condi vs condi is pretty much like text mud game in which you play the right card – cleanse – at the right time meanwhile keep spamming your condi, which actually can be fun
Ha. Good stuff. Abilities that apply conditions are subject to blind, aegis, vigor(dodge), confusion, retaliation, just like power based attacks, because they all register as a damage dealing attack which then applies the condition.
If you dodge the attack, block the attack, blind the attack, then you don’t get the condition. These moves are impacted to a much, much lesser degree by protection and weakness, since most of the damage is from the condition, but the trade off is that the damage isn’t front loaded, and can be cleansed which negates some of it.
IMO Condition vs. physical power is in a pretty decent state of balance right now. The problem is that condition/attrition play is better for small scale engagements, like 1v1 or 2v2 fights on a node, which happens a lot in our current games modes, and power damage is much, much better for bigger team fights where there’s AoE cleansing going on and downing a player quickly matters, making up-front damage much more desirable than damage over time.
Conditions have a slight edge in our current game modes, but are not better, in general, than physical damage.
The other problem is that all classes have the same access to physical damage mitigation via toughness. We can all take toughness amulets and traits, etc. Not all classes have the same access to condition prevention. I think this is the main problem.
IMO, there should be a condition duration reduction stat built into PvP amulet sets, exactly like toughness, and people should be able to gear up for -% condition duration if they choose. That’s called counter-play, and it’s important for having a constantly shifting meta, which is healthy. If somebody doesn’t like getting wtfpwned by an glass cannon thief, it’s their responsibility to pack some VIT and have some toughness.
We ALL laugh together when a player in full zerker gear cries about getting 2-shot. If -% condition duration gear existed, we could all do the same thing to people who whined about getting ground out by condition/attrition builds. Some classes just don’t have enough access to cleansing. Let us gear up to protect ourselves from builds we don’t like, or that we have a problem with.
Here’s the offensive version of this build, also with 100% crit chance while fury is up, but also with like 1.4k more armor, and cleansing ire so that you can sustain the pain. More bleeds through crits, also.
Here’s the defensive/support version:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQRAsc8enkOk8YzDSBhDZAB9QDrCBUVYOSPED0INA-TwAg2CrIySllLLTWyssZNGYNweg5AA
Less bleeds and no crits, but roughly 850 self heals per second, with a metric ton of condition cleansing, and some of that HPS and cleansing are AoE, so you’re great for your allies. Leg Specialist also makes landing your burst ability a breeze.
So…yeah, here’s what you should be doing offensively or defensively with swords, I think, or at least what I would do.
Dis build…so bad. My poor eyes. I can never unsee this.
1. Don’t go down.
2. 15 chars.
So selfish.
Your girlfriend must be angry.
HS is certainly an offender, which has been mathematically shown to be stronger than almost any other heal in the game, with a very few exceptions. Exceptions that require infinitely more work, and/or optimal circumstances.
I don’t think HS is the biggest offender though. I think it’s just a contributing factor. Cleansing Ire is simply nuts. Especially considering how it interacts with burst skills that are AoE, and don’t have to actually hit anybody. The Longbow and Hammer burst skills need to be fundamentally changed, so that their AoE centers on the target, and then Cleansing Ire won’t trigger unless the target is hit.
Cleansing Ire should also probably remove 2 conditions at full adrenaline, 3 is simply way too much for a single trait investment, ESPECIALLY when you consider that the trait also grants adrenaline. No other class has to invest so little to get so much.
Let’s not talk about the high armor, high health, fantastic mobility package, and piles of stability. I do not begrudge Warriors those things, but when you add the top level sustain package to the highest stat baseline?
Each one of these things might be seen as “a bit stronger than average” when examined on an individual basis, by they snowball up into a pile of dominance that we’re definitely experiencing in the current meta.
I want Warriors to feel strong, but it’s fascinating to me how many Warriors convince themselves that the imbalance complaints of the other 87.5% of classes are based solely on their imagination. Really? Everybody’s just sharing this delusion that you’re the victim of? EVERYBODY else needs to L2P? REALLY?! How about some honest self examination? One time? For your boy?
Knight gear. Want it.
Power, Precision, Toughness.
Gimme Gimme. Rawr.
How exactly do you get 80% crit damage using all knights with this?
Sorry, maybe that was a bit misleading. I meant 30% additional crit damage. Baseline is 50% of course, so your crits do a total of 80% additional damage.
It’s not the same damage you’ll get will full zerker, obv., but I think you’ll find the damage to be very, very solid for a Warrior of this durability.
That much power, with 96% crit chance is nothing to sneer at on a man with -65% condition reduction and 4k in armor.
You basically should never die to less than 3 people. And if you see a wave of people coming at you, you should be able to escape without too much trouble.
Behold, the ubernaut!
With:
Over 4k in Armor
65% Condition Reduction
98% Movement Impairing Condition Reduction
96% Crit with Fury Up (Banner Out)
80% Critical Damage
2118 Power / 3218 Attack
Insane survivability and mobility, coupled with very respectable DPS.
Between Cleansing Ire and Sharpened Axes, you’ll build Adrenaline like nobody’s business, so in addition to having 4k armor and -65% condition reduction, you’ll also cleanse 3 conditions every 8 seconds.
With -98% condition reduction on movement impairing abilities, and 125% speed (even if you get boon stripped), you’re a king of mobility, so nobody should ever catch you if you wish to escape. When roaming, mobility is king.
You can work around it, and it’s not a big enough deal for anyone to throw a tantrum about (the way a lot of people did), but it’s definitely a poor decision, and a step backwards.
I also loved that even though this was an MMO, anybody could step up to the level cap and into equivalent gear, then get right to the head bashing. A perfectly even playing field. ANET gets a lot of grief, but that was something that they absolutely got right from the start, and they deserve a lot of credit for how well they did it. Why they’d retreat from that is anybody’s guess.
I can live with it, since they’ve learned their lesson, but one does have to question the decision making process that went into it.
i want 25% run speed signet or trait for guardians!
thief and warrior have it, why not guardians? they’re melee too
The grass is always greener, mah friend. So sick of having to use Runes of Speed in every single sPvP build…
Guardians can stability, but we get super lame access to mobility and no access to cripple. Only the Warrior can do it all. Come, let us embrace as brothers…in our shared hatred for warriors.
/fist shake
I know i will eventually fall and roll a war or a necro and start spamming random skills for easy wins…but not today…not yet, never went fotm since launch…I….must…resist the dark “noskill cheese ftw” side…but i know that darkness is coming…all is vain..
Right, but imagine sticking to your guns and playing your original UP class, and then that class gets buffed to the point where it becomes faceroll, easy to win, lol. They’ll call you a monster because ANET over buffed you!
You can avoid seeking out the cheese, but what will you do when the cheese comes for you?!
The thing that most people don’t factor into this equation, is that Condition Tanks who focus on attrition builds are very strong 1v1, but are fairly lackluster in group PvP.
A Condition Tank might be decent at 1v1, but in a group scenario, burst damage via focus fire with your teammates is much more effective, especially since your opponents may have AoE condition removal with them.
To me, I think this is decently balanced. Power builds can win fights now, Condition builds can work in a bit of defense, and win wars of attrition. The problem doesn’t stem from the Condition Tank builds, but from the fact that the current game modes favor Condition Tank builds.
Personally? I’d like to see a 20v20 deathmatch type of game mode, that had a short duration of say, 4:00 minutes. Why? Because I think the team centric builds that came out of it would be alot of fun.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with Venom Share Thief, for example, except for the fact that you can’t count on being near enough of your teammates to make it worthwhile, and if you ever get into a 1v1 situation you’re fairly underwhelming. In a 20v20 death brawl however? Well, then you’d know that whatever AoE team support you’re cranking out is hitting its 5 targets. People would have to focus on more team oriented build, and this perceived problem of condition tanks would die away pretty fast in the light of AoE cleansing (except maybe for Combustive Shot Warriors, since that field is staying on the floor no matter what).
Conditions are strong in the current game modes, not OP in general. Just add new game modes.
You what? Did you even understood what I wrote? Ludus was saying that during a dodge you didn’t take condition damage. I was explaining to him that he doesn’t work that way and dodge doesn’t negate any condition damage.
I didn’t say that. I think you misread my original post.
I said that when you dodge, you avoid the condition attack, thereby negating the condition damage it would deal you in the future. You evade the damage over time of the currently incoming attack.
I went on to clarify:
The only reason you’re feeling the difference, is because the DoTs are continuing to eat away at you when you dodge, where as with direct damage, your health doesn’t change while you’re actively evading.
Also,
Before making yourself look bad, read through what the person you are quoting actually wrote.
Well, it’s a little funny.
Even better would be to remove cap points and make pvp about player vs player and not player vs point.
Oh man, I could REALLY go for some 20v20 death match right about now. Could make the maps really interesting for it, with hazards or siege weapons of some type. Could institute a time limit of 4 minutes, so that the battles are quick and bloody, but if the game nears a conclusion with just a handful of tank builds left standing around, not killing each other, the match can be determined by points. Go into spectate mode once dead.
In fact, it can still be a point based game. Just shorter and with no rezzing. Killing an enemy grants points, entire enemy team’s death should be enough points to end the game, but there can be a few more objectives on the map, near the center of the map, that could yield a few points. The way killing Svanir gives a team wide buff plus points, etc.
But the emphasis would be on killing more of them, then they of you, not on point holding. Make it quick and bloody.
the Chill effect is just fine.. there aren’t that many ways to apply it and they all have short durations.
this would be true however there are certain specs (specifically on ranger and engi are two I can think of) that have the possibility to apply 10 or even 20 seconds of it at a time with proper runes and trait choices. When in shorter durations it’s not so bad but when you get crazy durations like that on you it starts to get a bit annoying especially if you dont have a condi cleanse coming off cooldown anytime soon.
Chill is fine. There aren’t a ton of ways to chill, outside of an Ice Elementalist, and the as previously said, the duration on most chill effects is short.
If somebody can apply lots of chill with traits, runes and sigils, then they’re sacrificing a lot to be able to do this to you, and it’s a completely viable tactic. If you don’t have a way to cleanse chill, then it’s kind of on you. I’m not saying chill isn’t powerful, it is, but so is stun, daze and retaliation. I’m not aware of any build that gets sickly abusive with chill, again, Ice Elementalists aside, and I know you’re not complaining about those poor guys, right?
Sure, Chill can be very bad for you if you don’t have a cleanse up and if the opponent built a large portion of their game around it. Isn’t that kind of the point, then? Why should they bother rune-ing and traiting up for something that doesn’t impair you at all?
Clearly working as intended.
Also, not all Guardians are bunkers.
I know you think we all are, or all should be, but I’m DPS with powerful team wide boons, dangit.
You don’t know me. You can’t JUDGE ME! /throws chair
Interested in killing things? Boy, did you pick the wrong class. You pretty much have no choice but to build full glass with Sword/X.
We have less skills to be sticky (keep on our target) then any class, by a LOT. It’s really hard to keep other players from getting away from you, if escape is on their mind.
Your only real option for finishing a fight that you’re winning is to blast them to smithereens so fast, that the fight is over before they realized they should have started running.
Go Sword/X, full zerker, hope your opponent explodes.
This is silly.
Currently, dodging works the same vs. physical damage and condition damage. It’s perfectly balanced.
If you dodge against a physical attack, that physical damage does not happen. If you dodge a condition attack, you do not take that damage over time that the condition would have given to you.
Saying that dodging does nothing to help conditions which are currently hurting you, which were applied previously, is a poor argument. Dodging also does nothing to help physical damage you’ve already taken. The only reason you’re feeling the difference, is because the DoTs are continuing to eat away at you when you dodge, where as with direct damage, your health doesn’t change while you’re actively evading.
Guess what? The condition builds already paid for that. The physical damage guys did their damage front loaded, but the condition guys are trying to grind you out over time. Why should condition guys not get their damage on the back end just to help the way you’re perceiving things?
Dodging helps against attacks that are coming at you now. It does not help against attacks that hit you earlier, period. Just think about how silly that would be, conceptually. I dodge, therefor an attack that actually hit me earlier should be lessened?
Anyway, I’m not opposed to thinking about different answer for those who really don’t like condition tanks, I just don’t feel like this is it.
Perhaps, there should be another stat, like toughness, that reduced condition duration on your character. It could work like Melandru runes, just a -condition duration stat that works in sPvP.
The trade off that makes this fair of course, is that a player should have to spend stats on this if they want the benefit, just like toughness. Then, if someone feels like they’re much weaker to conditions then physical damage or like they don’t have alot of ways to cleanse conditions in their class, they can gear up accordingly. At least with this proposal, they’d have to invest their gear stats to gain the form of defense that they want, which seems fair to me.
But just giving everybody extra condition hate for free when they dodge? I don’t see how that could do anything but nerf an entire play style into dust, across all classes.
People complained for quite a long time about how powerful Longbow and Hammer warriors were, and so those things took a hit.
Honestly? I think that’s while those sets are both very good, the hidden strength of these weapons sets, which really made it a big issue, is how well they interacted with Cleansing Ire.
Frankly, I view Cleansing Ire as a pretty insane trait. I can’t think of anything else that can cure 3 conditions reliably every 10 seconds. Sure, there are things that can do that when working in conjunction, or with supporting traits, but nothing else really does this much by itself. Also, that’s not ALL it does. It also fuels the Warrior’s primary attack.
It’d be a lot more fair if there were some trade-off, like, for example, if missing caused you not to get the Cleanse Effect, but Longbow and Hammer successfully dodge that bullet by being AOE. The other Warrior weapon sets are pretty solid, actually. None of them really suffer from being awful. It’s just that they can’t interact with Cleansing Ire as well, so in comparison, they’re way worse off.
I don’t want to call for nerfs, but I do think that how CI interacts with Longbow and Hammer specifically, might require additional looking into. I don’t think that making CI interact just as well for other weapon sets is the answer. If anything, maybe these two finishers should target an individual player, like all the others do, and then if the attack misses, the AOE component fails and CI doesn’t trigger. Then you’ve got some risk vs. reward factor again, CI becomes fair for all weapon sets rather than OP for a few of them, and there’s an additional solution to the massive whining generated by the 360 radius of the Longbow Finisher.
…okay, so I guess that is a bit of a nerf. But honestly, Longbow on its own is probably okay, and CI in a vacuum might be okay, but together? Those bi****s form Voltron! And you can’t take down Voltron.
I’m still just having trouble wrapping my head around your obscenely biased stance.
I feel like I’m saying that more classes should have access to more options, then they should be able to build accordingly.
And I feel like you’re countering with: “Who CARES that the other guy can’t do that? They shouldn’t be able to! But I deserve ALL the toys!”
…maybe we should agree to all just hate Warriors, who have super easy access to everything. Lucky stiffs.
So…as a Guardian, regarding our vigor trait, …trade you? On behalf of the Guardian community, we appreciate your time and look forward to doing business with you.
Sure, that’s fair. Let’s do a straight-up Adept swap, to keep the math easy. Give us Vigorous Precision, and you can have Expeditious Dodger. Hell, I’ll even give you FOUR second of Swiftness on evade instead of two. Sold Tyrian!
EDIT: in all seriousness, Guardians are supposed to be mobility-limited. You can get perma-Swiftness uptime with Shouts/staff anyway.
So you’re saying that you can get mobility with a Signet, but Guardians should have to spend a utility trait on the shout (like Thieves for signet, making us even at this point), but then also spend traits to reduce shout time, grab boon duration, give up a weapon set that can give us a symbol that we need to stand on, essentially charging up our move speed like a battery?
Then you’re saying it’s not fair that Guardians should have easier access to vigor? Which is it? Should there be relative equality, or should certain classes do things 100x easier because they’re designed for it? Because if you want to take that stance, then my argument is that Vigor helps you survive, and survivalist abilities are the forte of the Guardian. Thieves should be squishy, glassy, and easy to pop if they don’t burst you out. Here’s the inverse version of what I heard you say:
EDIT: in all seriousness, Thieves are supposed to be survival-limited. You can get perma-Vigor uptime with Traits/Boon duration anyway.
Sounds silly, right? I don’t really subscribe to that train of thought, though.
I honestly think that each class should be able to spec/trait for what role they want to fill. Obviously they won’t all fill it exactly as well, or exactly the same way, but some of these disparities are crazy.
It’s true that Guardians and Mesmers get much, much easier access to Vigor, but they can’t do as much with a dodge as a Thief can.
Guardians can heal on dodge, but it scales almost entirely with their healing power and has very, very little base healing, but to get vigor, they need crits. Ever hear of a heal/crit build? Also, their dodges cost 50 end, not 35.
Mesmers can make a clone on a dodge, and I’ll admit, this is pretty strong, but Thieves can cure cripple/weakness, caltrop, and gain might on a dodge, and again, their dodges don’t get 15 end returned.
Also, I want to point out that even though these two classes have super easy access to vigor, and you might feel slighted by this, please keep in mind that these are the only two classes that do not have access to 25% movement speed via traits or signets. So, the grass isn’t always greener, is what I’m trying to say. Where your 25% movement speed Signet is, we’ve got a condition damage signet, and much much worse access to Swiftness.
So…as a Guardian, regarding our vigor trait, …trade you? On behalf of the Guardian community, we appreciate your time and look forward to doing business with you.
(edited by Ludus Rex.1562)
They have a ready button, it’s the Join button.
They have another ready button when the match actually starts.
Your looking real stupid right now with that comment
In fairness, he may have a very good reason for not knowing this. One way to never know that the “Join” button defaults you into the game after 2 minutes, is if you’re never AFK and always click it.
Can’t really fault a guy for never AFK -ing.
Getting rid of noobs can’t help a good player win more, at all, ever, but tightening up the matchmaking system COULD make for more competitive (and potentially more interesting/exciting) games.
I just wanted to highlight this point. I strongly suggest people keep that in mind when discussion matchmaking.
You sure about that Justin? Think about how a good player may select a build, skills and utilities which synergize well with more experienced players, but not as well with inexperienced players.
Venom shares, lockdown/interrupt builds – heck even knowing how Illusion of Life works – I used to run Portal + IoL in solo Q as a mesmer, but it can be a waste of a slot (sometimes 2), depending on who you are teamed with.
A condi-heavy necromancer is very powerful, but only if his team knows enough to give him lots of support and cover. Otherwise that condi necromancer suddenly becomes a hindrance to the team instead of an asset.
Right, the part I keep trying to explain is that any benefit that you and your team might experience by converting 4 potentially bad players, to 4 seasoned pros, will be a GREATER benefit to the opposing team, who will be converting 5 potentially bad players, to seasoned pros.
It absolutely does not matter what benefit you think you will attain by getting more good players on your team, the fact is, since your team has 4 blank slots and the opponent’s team has 5 blank slots, they get MORE of this benefit. You’ve accused me of looking at things in a vacuum, when I just keep telling you how these changes will effect you RELATIVE to how it effects the opposing team. I think you might actually be looking at the benefits in a vacuum.
You keep saying “My team gets better if it’s not full of noobs!”
And I keep telling you “The other team gets better by a larger margin than yours does, because they had more open slots available for noobs”.
Does that make sense?
Other people have said this, but it bears repeating: The best way to reduce variance and have more of an impact on the game than simply being 20% of your team, is to talk to your teammates before the match and try to work with them. If you can influence their gameplay in a positive way, you’re now having the largest impact you can have.
After that? Let the chips fall where they may, and take pride in playing well regardless of the outcome. Good poker players also learn the pitfalls of result oriented thinking.
I enjoy tpvp from time to time, and have since release. That being said, I am incredibly sick and tired of the matchmaking. Today I had one 22 and THREE level 1 teammates, against a team of 20s-30s, on skyhammer no less. To be fair, three level 1s is unusual, but having a whole team under level 10 is pretty normal. They have absolutely no idea what they are doing, and ruin the game. Even when i’m on the team that has 20-30s against -10s, it is so annoying. I can either camp their spawn or go afk on a point and look at my email etc.
A simple option is to make a level 10 a solo Q minimum. I would like to say level 20, but I would never want to force someone to stay in hotjoin that long.
I want to enjoy soloQ, but its nearly impossible when its either steamroll or get steamrolled 90% of every match.
This is actually fairly valid.
Some people in this thread were complaining that they lose because of noobs, and it ruins Solo Q. I was pointing out that if you’re very good, a game flooded with noobs actually causes you to win more than it causes you to loose, so getting rid of the noobs can’t possibly do anything to help the variance that results in “OMG 8 LOSSES IN A ROW?! RAGE QUIT!”
But, if a person’s complaint is that “the matchmaking system has too wide a range in player selection, and the result is that the games often don’t feel competitive, and I don’t like that when it’s hurting me OR when it’s helping me”, well, that’s a valid point.
Getting rid of noobs can’t help a good player win more, at all, ever, but tightening up the matchmaking system COULD make for more competitive (and potentially more interesting/exciting) games.
when you leave can i have your gold?
oh sorry PVPer – nevermind
Didn’t you get the memo? They give us gold now! I’m gonna buy a pony.
No a 5v4 in your favor shouldn’t count towards your rating either. It works both ways. When I say 4v5, I’m not adding afks and rage quitters in the equation. I’m speaking of when either team starts the match with 4 out of 5 people. This happens quite often, the match starts and red or blue team is undermanned. In rare cases the 5th team mate may show up, but its tends to be near the end of the match.
If a team doesn’t have a 5th player within a certain time frame after the match begins then the system should prematurely end it and not be rated.
I just need you to understand that in the long run, if you never AFK, that this will hurt you (in terms of win/loss ratio) MORE than it will help you.
So it still can’t really help things like “8 losses in a row!” complaints.
This is simply untrue. Stop spreading misinformation.
Repeating that something is untrue does not make it untrue. Why don’t you try deconstructing my argument and explaining WHY it’s untrue, if this is how you feel?
It’s not really debatable, it’s just a fact. My impulse is to explain the reason again, but I feel like I’ve already done that and you’re just choosing not to try and understand it.
A initial step is to change it so 4v5 does not count against your rating.
I’m not sure you’ve thought this through. If a 4v5 can’t count against your rating, then can a 5v4 (in your favor) count for your rating? To discount any matches where one of your teammates bails, you have to discount any matches where an opponent’s teammate bails. How would you stop people from trolling by quitting a match where your team took an early lead? If someone bails 1.5 minutes in, and it becomes a 5v4 in your favor, should you not get credit for the win? How do you propose to give credit to the winners in this system, without having it count against the losers?
Again, your team should be LESS vulnerable to 4v5 situations than your opponent’s team, assuming that you never AFK.
Again, if nobody ever went AFK, it would make games more competitive (which I’m for), but if you never AFK, this would actually decrease your long term advantage in this regard (resulting in greater losses).
(edited by Ludus Rex.1562)
all I actually think is “less talking, more fighting”.
Actually, I’m not a huge of this mentality either. Communicating is necessary for strategizing, which can play a key factor in helping a team win.
Don’t get me wrong, I also wish the Negative Nancys would pipe down and help rather than gripe, I’m just saying that helping doesn’t necessarily involve prioritizing “fighting” over “talking”, when both can be helpful.
Additionally, some of the initial complains were about losses caused by relatively new players, and I was just pointing out that if you are very good player (well above average), then tightening up the skill range in the match making system will result in more losses, not fewer.
The games would be closer, and more competitive, which I would certainly welcome, but for problems like people raging because they lost 8 in a row? Well, there’d actually be more of that (for high skilled players) not less. Any proposal to limit the amount of time that you (presumably a good player) have to spend playing with n00bs, will not help you in any way, shape, or form, for what you’re calling “the now”. Do you have an alternate proposal?
I’m not talking about the math. I’m talking about practical results that provide in the now.
Doesn’t it seem at all hypocritical to you to make one claim (that all Solo Q sPvP results are random) and provide absolutely zero evidence to support your claim, but then to cry foul when another person makes a claim, which then becomes much more widely accepted (only upvoted post in this thread), on the basis that even though they explained the mathematical truths that make their claim true (more than you have ever provided), that the claim is invalid because they haven’t provided specific case evidence (I don’t know how you could obtain this, any game records of any players would have to be substantiated by verifying the quality of the player’s skill level through peer reviews)?
You make one claim, and provide no evidence. Someone else makes another claim, widely agreed with by people who understand the math behind it, and you say that a claim is invalid without specific case evidence. Do you not find this hypocritical?
Once again, I recommend personal responsibility. If you do not agree with this, and stick to your claim that Solo Q sPvP results are totally random, why don’t you provide some specific evidence supporting your claim?
I’m really disheartened at the fact that so many people just don’t understand how statistics work.
Some people just aren’t math people, and you know what? That’s fine. Not everybody needs to be. I’m okay with that. I’m more disheartened by what some people think constitutes a valid argument.
For example, I do not find things in the realm of “Nuh Uh! You haven’t provided an exact date and time when an individual’s total variance over games played will have perfectly balanced out, so it’s all NONSENSE!” to be a very strong case. I really wish that more people were interested in the truth than blindy pushing their original point.
The reason I suggested torment on mace is mainly because of flavor (bleeds aren’t a traditional “cleric” thing) and it would make the weapon unique (only thing that can apply torment on auto attack). A bleed-on-crit trait would be OK…but again I don’t personally like the flavor, and there are so many other classes that get that trait already (War, Necro, Engi, Mesmer kinda…).
And as for mace being a good Cleric’s weapon, I agree. But if you are focusing on Healing Power for support, you are going to sacrifice greatly on your damage potential. Which is fine if you are truly aiming for a full support role. But if we splashed condition damage into the weapon, it’s easier to add more damage potential to the build while maintaining the support role.
And yes, cover conditions are an issue. Currently, we can mitigate that somewhat since our burning applies so frequently. But with any other conditions we try to apply through runes/sigils, they get cleansed practically immediately. Again, I opt for the weakness on Mace 3 block because it fits the flavor very well, and again is a “support” condition.
Weakness is a thematically correct cover condition, and would synergize well with bunkering abilities. Tormet on Mace 1 though? Honestly, the mace chain is very powerful. You can’t just bump the power of it without throwing off the balancing. To add Tormet, you must nerf this skill chain in some other way, and that would hurt Cleric builds that use only Power/Healing, because you’d have to reduce those base numbers somehow.
Modifying existing attacks via traits, factors the cost in someplace other than the base attack, and is optional. It also can’t be abused on weapons that only use power, because you’d have to spec for condition damage in order for it to be any good. I don’t think there’s any problem with Guardians doing bleed, especially since this would have the most synergy with swords. Why shouldn’t a sword cut cause bleed? I understand that it makes a bit less sense on a mace, but using any based trait on a mace would make much less sense (since it attacks slowly). Incidently, I’d also be fine with a “Tormet on Crit” type of trait.
Personally, I wish we had access to more chill. Some people have a problem with their weapons shooting fire AND ice, but I think it’s fine. Further, it’d give us the much needed slow that we desperatly need, and slowing up enemy recharge also helps sustain builds. I think Guardians synergize quit well with Chill, but they won’t open up Glacial Heart to anything but Hammer, a weapon which traditionally does not care about crit.
I’ve been trying to build a condition damage guardian recently, and it’s been proving ineffective. I’ve seen the posts/sticky on the permeating wrath build, but after trying variations of it for the past week, I can easily say that even our best condition dmg builds are inferior to every other class. No doubt, Burning is a strong condition, and we have a lot of access to it through virtues. But one damaging condition (That only stacks duration, not intensity) is simply not enough.
Lets look at the condition options other classes have (this is strictly speaking about damaging conditions):
- Elementalist – Bleeding, Burning (a LOT)
- Thief – Bleeding, Torment, Poison
- Ranger – Bleeding, Burning, Poison
- Warrior – Bleeding, Burning, Torment, Confusion
- Engineer – Bleeding, Burning, Poison, Confusion
- Necro – Bleeding, Burning, Poison, Torment, *Fear (through trait)
- Mesmer – Bleeding, Burning, Poison, Torment, Confusion
Now I know some of these classes don’t have strong up-times on all of their conditions, but the variety of conditions they can apply makes up for it. Also, Guardian is the ONLY class that has no weapon with a condition-based auto attack. In fact, the only damaging condition applied at all through weapons is with Torch offhand 4. Not to mention our cover-conditions are pretty limited too (basically just blind and vuln).
My suggestions are a few simple changes:
- Mace 1 – change the first 2 strikes of the chain to apply torment (4-5s duration). To fluff it up, think of it kind of like an “Inquisitor” role, where the the guardian’s righteousness torments the impure.
- Mace 3 – On a successful block, add either an AOE weakness or an AOE cripple. This would give us a 3rd cover condition to work with, in addition to the blind and vuln we already have. I like the weakness idea, because if you don’t block, you get protection, if you do block, they get weakness. The end effect is damage mitigation either way. Also, currently, we have no access to cripple, and I’m not sure if that is by design. Maybe the devs don’t want guardians to have access to many movement impairing effects. Either way, a cover condition would be helpful.
I think the addition of torment to Mace 1 would really widen the builds for guardians, and we’d see a lot more play with Mace. Currently, it’s very rare to see anyone using Mace because it’s been resolved as basically a buff weapon. With this, we could at least get extra damage out of it while working a support build.
Mace is already in a very good place as a Cleric’s weapon, and is actually one of the few sets that doesn’t need to be tampered with.
No need to overhaul too much, I think the problem could easily be fixed with a trait. Something along the lines of 50% chance to cause 6s of bleeding on critical hit. Sword can already get very decent burning uptime using Surpreme Justice, as a fast hitting weapon. Since Sword can also achieve good crit rates and hits fast, it would be a great choice if you added an optional trait that allowed it to proc bleeds. I think this would push a condition build over the top. There’s a Sigil that already does this, but with kitten duration and a 2s ICD, it really doesn’t do enough. The Sigil plus the trait would make it viable, however.
The current problem is, even if you can apply the burning, we can really only put out 2 conditions with regularity (excluding blind, which falls off too fast), and those are vuln and burning. So even once we get burning up, it’s pretty easy to cleanse. One more condition (bleed on crit) would do alot to protect burns and make the whole thing more viable.
I agree whit Ludus.
There’s only 2 class that can’t obtain passive speed buff: Guardian and Engi. But engi can obtain permanente swiftness.Actually, Engineers have this now. Power Shoes got fixed to work outside of combat. Guess they decided that it was unfair for Engineers not to have 25% run speed activate all the time on their trait, since everyone else has access to this.
Yup…everybody else…
’cept for mesmers.
Oh, really? Huh, got me. Somehow I really thought they had access to this through a trait somewhere. I guess I owe Mesmers an apology.
Somebody give us and Mesmers a freakin’ mobility trait already!
(edited by Ludus Rex.1562)
It would not be a simple change for the existing systems unfortunately. We also can’t just slip things in to random updates like that for many good reasons which I agree with but can’t get into on the forums.
There’s actually one very simple thing you can do to improve things: new players are limited to hotjoin, solo arenas unlock at rank 20, team arenas at rank 30 (ballpark of course).
This actually would reduce the amount of influence that a single, excellent player could have on the game.
Besides, imagine if things were fixed so that you only played with 9 other people of your EXACT skill level, then composition really would be the only determining factor and people would still cry about the luck because it was random.
Don’t worry about it. Instead, just focus on making yourself the best, most effective player you can possibly be and grind it out. Over time, you should experience a positive ratio if you truly are good. When variance bites you in the fanny, my advice is just to not come crying to the forums about it.
My posts are based on math. All other things being equal, the other team will be assigned 5 random players who (coin toss) let’s say are “good” or “bad”. Your team will be assigned 4 (coin toss) players who are “good” or “bad”, plus you.
The problem with this analysis is that the more variability there is in the skill levels of the players, the less impact one individual can have on the outcome. And right now, there are a lot of very poor players flowing into PvP, and a lot who could be good but only care about gold or achievements.
And so while you are technically correct “in the long run”, that can be a very, VERY long run.
Since both teams have the exact same chance of having poor players or ones that are only after gold or achievements, the math still holds up over the long haul. Now, you have to take into consideration that by long haul, we’re talking about hundreds or even thousands of matches. But the math still holds up. And I do so love math for that very reason.
Ah, people who understand math. You’re both on to me, and have cut to the correct heart of the issue.
The argument that Solo Q is “completely random” is 100% false, and the math bears this out. The system is not bias in this way.
A much better, or much more relevant argument which could have been made, is that even though an individual player’s skill level is the only determining factor over time, it’s not a big ENOUGH determining factor in the very short term, and the amount of games necessary to hammer out the variances is too high. That would have been a fair point to make.
Here’s another piece to think about though: Some people are complaining that bad players are clogging up the system, and increasing the variance when you get put on a team with them. But let’s envision a scenario where this isn’t true, let’s say that players had to achieve a certain rank or skill level to qualify for Solo Q.
In this scenario, your individual effect on the game shrinks, rather than growing. If only people of mid to high skill are playing (instead of all ranges), or if you only play people of very very nearly the same skill as you, you remove variance from the player skill side of the equation. That’s the side where you can be a more significant X factor, by having a very high skill level compared to the whole spectrum of players. Since there’s less variance in that area, now a larger percentage of the determining factor becomes composition. Isn’t that true?
…oh well. The OP wanted to complain, and that is what it is. The point is that Solo Q is a place where variance exists, and if you hate variance, then you need Team Q. Otherwise, be aware that your skill still ultimately determines your ratio in Solo Q and so it’s still on you, but that’s only how you do over the “long haul”.
What math? You have provided 0 mathematical evidence. None.
So I guess you don’t understand that 4 players of variable skill level, plus you, is less variance in total than 5 players of variable skill (the opposing team)?
Even if player skill was only 50% of the game, and the other 50% was the quality of the team composition, the enemy team would be in the exact same boat regarding variance in the quality of composition.
So if team composition quality ranges from 1 to 50 (arbitrary scale that we’ll use since I’m now humoring you and pretending that composition is as high as 50% of the determining factor), and each unknown player has a random skill level of 1 to 10 (you initiated this thread be complaining about bad players, so presumably you think there’s a skill level factor and some player have too little skill to be useful), then your team should still win more than it loses, if your level of skill, the non-changing factor, is a 10. You’ll end up with more wins than losses over time.
Player skill influences fights, and fights impact the outcome of the game. You can’t sherk responsibility for your ratio unless you make the claim that there’s no skill involved at all. The fact that a game has luck, does not mean that it’s entirely luck based. Again, this is what bad players tell themselves so they can sleep at night.
This type of self delusion is also what makes poker more popular than chess, because when you lose at chess, you know it’s your fault, but when you lose at poker, you just got unlucky, right? And everytime you’ve lost a match ever, your team just wasn’t any good and you got unlucky, right? Have a tissue.
No, poker is more popular than chess because poker is appealing to idiots and drunks. And there are more idiots in the world than intelligent people. Sadly, this thread makes me start to feel GW2 is appealing to the same crowd as poker does.
Pulling numbers out of thin air does not justify your stance. When I said math, I was referring to something you could substantiate, not just stringing together digits from 0-9, which is precisely what you did.
Your basic argument is that skill level plays some part in the outcome of the game, but you cannot substantiate how much that factors into the equation. So you made numbers up.
Pulling numbers out of your kitten does not an argument make. It just makes you resemble where the numbers came from.
The part you’re continually failing to comprehend, is that the numbers CAN be made up. They don’t matter. Everything that’s subject to chance is subject to chance for both teams. The ONLY non-changing variable is your personal level of skill. That makes it the deciding factor for the win/loss ratio over time (not short term). Also, those made up numbers heavily favored your nonsense argument, because I personally do not believe that 50% of a match hinges on composition, in exactly equal proportions to individual player skill.
I’ll let you make up the numbers. It doesn’t change the fact that over time and enough games played, if your skill level is higher than the skill level of the average random player, you will/must experience a positive ratio.
You keep attacking my argument without ever trying to explain why the only non-variable factor wouldn’t be the determining factor over time, since all variable factors are subject to the same amount of variance. Is this a concept you understand?
What math? You have provided 0 mathematical evidence. None.
So I guess you don’t understand that 4 players of variable skill level, plus you, is less variance in total than 5 players of variable skill (the opposing team)?
Even if player skill was only 50% of the game, and the other 50% was the quality of the team composition, the enemy team would be in the exact same boat regarding variance in the quality of composition.
So if team composition quality ranges from 1 to 50 (arbitrary scale that we’ll use since I’m now humoring you and pretending that composition is as high as 50% of the determining factor), and each unknown player has a random skill level of 1 to 10 (you initiated this thread be complaining about bad players, so presumably you think there’s a skill level factor and some player have too little skill to be useful), then your team should still win more than it loses, if your level of skill, the non-changing factor, is a 10. You’ll end up with more wins than losses over time.
Player skill influences fights, and fights impact the outcome of the game. You can’t sherk responsibility for your ratio unless you make the claim that there’s no skill involved at all. The fact that a game has luck, does not mean that it’s entirely luck based. Again, this is what bad players tell themselves so they can sleep at night.
This type of self delusion is also what makes poker more popular than chess, because when you lose at chess, you know it’s your fault, but when you lose at poker, you just got unlucky, right? And everytime you’ve lost a match ever, your team just wasn’t any good and you got unlucky, right? Have a tissue.
You can get grouped with 4 other players who are good, but that doesn’t mean that one synergizes with them well. As you mentioned its completely random. So in that regard saying that you have to win more than you lose is irrelevant, since you have no direct control over the team composition.
Right, I’ll give you additional variance for composition, but again, the other team has the exact same issue. Their team also may or may not mesh well, based on chance. The only controllable variable is STILL your level of player skill and effectiveness when it comes to the game’s objectives.
The only way for this not to be the only X factor, IE, the only thing that matters over the long term, is by making the claim that a players skill is 100% irrelevant to how they perform in a match, and thus 100% irrelevant to the outcome of the game. Is that your argument? That skill is 100% irrelevant? Because if it’s not, then it’s the only X factor, and it’s what determines long term success or failure.
Let’s look at an extreme example: We could build the ideal team, with the ideal specs, calculated perfectly for group synergy and each with a specific job in the game, then give those characters to a group of 5, six year olds, and then we could have that team play against 5 totally random classes and builds, all in the hands of very good players who know what they’re doing. Guess where I’m putting my money?
Okay, so player skill matters in some regard, right? Can we agree on that? Okay, so your personal player skill is the only variable in Solo Q. It doesn’t mean you’ll win every game, or even the majority of games over a short period of time, but over enough games and enough time, your win/loss ratio is determined entirely by your player skill.
But hey, better to run around screaming at ANET because we got a couple bad match-ups in a row, right? Good times.
sigh. I guess you proved the old adage, " you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him think"
You provided absolutely nothing to think about. You just came to whine because you had some bad teams in a few matches.
My posts are based on math. All other things being equal, the other team will be assigned 5 random players who (coin toss) let’s say are “good” or “bad”. Your team will be assigned 4 (coin toss) players who are “good” or “bad”, plus you.
Over the long term, if you’re not winning more games then you’re losing, guess which category you’re in?
It’s almost exactly like poker, in this way. There’s luck involved (teammates) and there’s skill involved (you), and if you put them together you get a single outcome. Because of the luck, anybody can win or lose a match, but it requires skill to win over the long term. Bad poker players delude themselves into thinking they’re very unlucky. They use the luck factor like a shield to never accept any responsibility for the quality of their plays.
I’m arguing with you right now because I know, from being a poker player, that your logic is flawed and silly. You’re not behind because you’re super unlucky and catch nothing but bad beats, bro.
Also, your point involving Tom Brady? Terrible. If you put Brady and 4 completely random people into a pickup game at the park against 5 random people, and you do this 100 times, Brady’s going to lose some, but his team will be way ahead in the long run.
Maybe you should work on getting ahead in the long run.
…but that horse thing you said, I guess that’s a super valid point also…
Somebody’s not a poker player.
Here’s the deal with Solo Q:
You are the only X factor. Any discrepancies you experience in terms of quality of teammates (luck of the draw) should balance out over time (enough games played), because those same bad players or AFKs can land on the other team just as often (actually more often, since you take up a spot on your own team).
Had a bad run of luck? That can happen, and it can be frustrating, but if you play a ton of games you still should have more wins than losses. If you don’t have more wins than losses, guess what the X factor was?
Don’t want ANY variance in the quality of your team because any luck, one way or the other, makes you flip the table over? Team Q is the answer.
You now have 100% of the responsibility for your long term sPvP success in Solo Q and a viable option if you want to eliminate luck over short term period (like single games).
The power is yours!
Your post is completely wrong in pretty much every way.
In short: this is not poker. It is a team game. If you put together football teams with a random mix of offensive, defensive and special teams players, not Even Tom Brady would be able to influence the outcome.
Ha
OBVIOUSLY it’s a team game. Thanks for that ingenious input. Guess what? It’s also a team game for the other team.
Your team has 4 random players, plus you. Enemy team has 5 random players. Your team is less subject to the variance of bad random players and AFKs than the enemy team. If you can’t win more games than you lose (over time, there’s obviously short term variance), then the fault is yours. The X Factor is you.
I agree whit Ludus.
There’s only 2 class that can’t obtain passive speed buff: Guardian and Engi. But engi can obtain permanente swiftness.
Actually, Engineers have this now. Power Shoes got fixed to work outside of combat. Guess they decided that it was unfair for Engineers not to have 25% run speed activate all the time on their trait, since everyone else has access to this.
Yup…everybody else…
Somebody’s not a poker player.
Here’s the deal with Solo Q:
You are the only X factor. Any discrepancies you experience in terms of quality of teammates (luck of the draw) should balance out over time (enough games played), because those same bad players or AFKs can land on the other team just as often (actually more often, since you take up a spot on your own team).
Had a bad run of luck? That can happen, and it can be frustrating, but if you play a ton of games you still should have more wins than losses. If you don’t have more wins than losses, guess what the X factor was?
Don’t want ANY variance in the quality of your team because any luck, one way or the other, makes you flip the table over? Team Q is the answer.
You now have 100% of the responsibility for your long term sPvP success in Solo Q and a viable option if you want to eliminate luck over short term period (like single games).
The power is yours!