Guild Wars 2

Velimere.7685:

Phaeton.9582:

Once again, I have provided no indication that I disputed sPvP, or ‘the competitive game’, is currently a small fraction of an overall package.

Good thing I never argued that you did, then. However, what I did was indicate how your argument falls apart given that factual data, and this remains to be true given that you clearly have no argument in this reply.

How does it fall apart? To me your insistence that sPvP is a fraction of an uncompetitive whole defeats only your initial statement, where you use a trend in competitive games to justify continuing with the existing sPvP business model; you would be implying the two can be compared. You will need to logically justify your argument not just provide unconnected facts or semantics

Velimere.7685:

Phaeton.9582:

I didn’t deny these builds were in use, what I put forwards was that they do little to substantiate a feature-product paywall to an exclusively competitive player base.

PvE, PvP, and WvW are all parts of a whole game of which PvP itself does not substantiate anywhere near the majority of. That goes for Guild Wars 2 as well as Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns. You can apply your negative buzzwords such as “paywall” as much as you’d like in your attempt to avoid and misconstrue against this fact of the matter, but it’ll do little to serve your purpose as long as people are actually aware of it: PvP is only one part of the game, and a smaller part content-wise as is the case with most MMORPGs. A smaller part of the game receiving less relevance from the expansion is nothing short of common sense given that said expansion isn’t dedicated nor exclusive to PvP. That said, being the successfully fleshed out and integrated expansion that Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns is, it also plays a substantial role in the PvP experience with its Elite Specializations.

Phaeton.9582:

Despite this very intellectual manner of yours, you’ve failed to even argue this point – let alone debunk it with un-referenced ‘facts’!

See above for some more facts which deconstruct your argument in its entirety, though that’s not difficult when you’re attempting to detract from big picture facts while arguing big picture references. It’s also cute to see you go back on your word and throw your ethos through the ringer even further, but who needs popcorn when you have self-defamation as treat?

Once again, I have provided no indication that I disputed sPvP, or ‘the competitive game’, is currently a small fraction of an overall package. In fact this to me makes it materially different to the B2P competitive games you make reference to as a trend to justify your argument.

If there is a bigger picture to discuss I would welcome it, however you may have to go further than merely raising unrelated facts for us both to entertain such a thing.

Munch munch defamation munch

..?

Ok I’ll bite

Allow me to reassemble the central point
you decided to decontextualise then fail to dispute.

Phaeton.9582:

..you can’t honestly believe that the majority of popular ‘esport’ games have a business model like GW2 spvp – where you are asked to periodically re-purchase a game with 95% of its new content not used competitively.

Velimere.7685:

That entire argument point is a misconstruction. First and foremost, of course PvE and WvW content do not see use in PvP as these game modes are separate. That said, the misconstruction of your argument is that it ignores the simple fact which easily defeats it: Every current PvP meta build uses Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns content.

Phaeton.9582:

I don’t think your point that we are using elite specs means my argument was misconstructed. I don’t think the elite trait lines are a significant amount of the overall content in HoT, as I put forwards. I also don’t think the described skills and traits were designed with PvP in mind, a separate discussion but none the less relevant to how this pay wall is justified to a ‘competitive’ population.

Velimere.7685:

It does, and I stated exactly how and why.

That’s nice, however the fact still remains that every meta PvP build uses Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns content and absolutely zero meta PvP builds don’t.

Regardless as this to this tangent point and whether or not that discussion which already came up here and was shot down rather quickly was started by you or not, the fact remains that they are used in PvP, and your attempted obfuscation does nothing to detract from that.

I didn’t deny these builds were in use, what I put forwards was that they do little to substantiate a feature-product paywall to an exclusively competitive player base. Despite this very intellectual manner of yours, you’ve failed to even argue this point – let alone debunk it with un-referenced ‘facts’!

:)

grabs popcorn

Velimere.7685:

It’s nothing short of seemingly millennial entitlement for someone to cry on a forum about how he or she…

ok buddy, I don’t feel as bad about this now I realise I’m not arguing with a fifteen year old. (Gen X guy quoting south park and arguing with people on a game forum?)

The only valid point you’ve put forward however is that it is entirely arenanets prerogative. My hope is that they see sense, as right now it will only take one decent hack n slash multiplayer (for honour being a likely contender) to decimate the exclusive pvp population that are still here. I want this game to do well, that’s why I take this stance – not because it is my right or because I feel anything is owed.

I don’t think your point that we are using elite specs means my argument was misconstructed. I don’t think the elite trait lines are a significant amount of the overall content in HoT, as I put forwards. I also don’t think the described skills and traits were designed with PvP in mind, a separate discussion but none the less relevant to how this pay wall is justified to a ‘competitive’ population.

Now I’m not going to enter into a long debate about who is misconstructing arguments or propagating logical fallacy. You may well be a very intelligent and successful human (albeit snubbing people on a gaming forum), but it is ultimately pointless as little can be justified.

All I will say, more as a helpful pointer than anything else.. as someone who apparently reserves the right to judge ‘millennials’ on their misconception of the world; people that raise opinions as facts often come across like idiots, regardless of their generation.

Or you may of course be trolling me, in which case GGWP.

Also I’m not your bro, pal.

Oh sorry, I didn’t realise all your statements were entirely factual in this context.

You must be better informed than all of us, thanks for clearing that up (bro?).

There’s a second expansion on the way that is most likely to make this a biennial occurrence, unless you’ve got more ‘facts’ to the contrary of course!

And besides the discussion is ultimately irrelevant – you can’t honestly believe that the majority of popular ‘esport’ games have a business model like GW2 spvp – where you are asked to periodically re-purchase a game with 95% of its new content not used competitively.

Velimere.7685:

Phaeton.9582:

Velimere.7685:

Secondly, most skill-based games are buy-to-play.

If by ‘skill-based’ you mean ‘competitive’, you must be talking to us from the 90s.

In which case, why is HoT even relevant to you? Go play some Ultima or something.

You must know absolutely nothing about skill-based or competitive games if you think my factual statement only holds relevance to the 90s. Sorry, but the majority of registered ESL games require you to buy them. People foolishly think that free-to-play MOBAs are the majority of such when there’s actually only a handful of popular ones.

ook friend let me put it another way

How many of these ‘skill based or competitive’ games sit behind paywall that crops up biennially and bears little to no relevance to the competitive game itself?

Why do I get the feeling you’ll tell me why this is a widely adopted business model.

Possibly because you’ve posted the same opinion 50 times in this thread.

Let’s not fight; she’ll make you to stay with your aunty and uncle in bel air. Trust me on this one.

Also this system doesn’t work vs actual afkers, because you just have to move periodically to avoid it.

It only really impacts people that dc. People don’t need a deterrent for that.

vcezve.5701:

Is this for real? 72 hours per stack? I was in Firefox when the queue popped for regular pvp, and the game did not flash at me as it usually does so I missed the queue and gained dishonour. I actually started writing this post to complain about how players should not be penalised for not accepting the queue—just boot them out of it like EVERY OTHER MMO does with queues instead of make players unable to requeue randoms at all—but the dishonour apparently faded in the several minutes.

Since I had no visible debuff or information other than being told that I had dishonour and that I could not queue at this time, please explain to me how this works accurately since I certainly did not have to wait 72 hours for “dodging.”

Man I had that problem in IE11 – nightmare!

Velimere.7685:

Secondly, most skill-based games are buy-to-play.

If by ‘skill-based’ you mean ‘competitive’, you must be talking to us from the 90s.

In which case, why is HoT even relevant to you? Go play some Ultima or something.

runeblade.7514:

Phaeton.9582:

runeblade.7514:

Phaeton.9582:

Razor.9872:

runeblade.7514:

Dominik.5162:

Phaeton.9582:

inb4 endless semantics about if it’s B2P or P2W

Oh wait too late sorry

It’s silly to put spvp behind a paywall. It’s a bad idea commercially and narrows the gameplay.. I’ve written several threads on this and won’t be repeating myself here.

But just leaving something here to register your arguments for a paywall as invalid.

You’re welcome.

Why do PvP players deserve to play this game for free, while PvE and WvW need to pay for it to play it?
That’s absolutely ridiculous, either all pay or none, period.
Players who bought HoT play the most recent version of the game, the game will obviously be balanced around them, and not around the F2P players who think it is in their right to leech of off others who bought the game.

Then the solution is simple, HoT and free players should be split away from each other.

I hope free players don’t experience horrendous queue times and get a bad impression on game population.

One of the many reasons it’s a terrible idea.

as for the whole WvW/PvE jealous sibling spiel from that guy… Lol!

I can’t agree it is a terrible idea. What is a terrible idea is that F2P players gets roflstomped because they don’t have the elite specs. They’re better off leaving sPvP with a bad impression from queue times than from pay2win.

The pay wall means losing out on the F2P crowd

F2P = higher population = shorter queue times

F2P = higher population = shorter queue times = roflstomped = frustration = leave spvp = lower long term population = longer long term queue times.

Pay wall = fairer games = Longer stay = higher long term population =shorter queue times in the long lerm

How does shorter queue times due to high population = roflstomped?

If you wanted you could keep queue times at the same level and just improve the quality of the matchups.

Either way quality wouldn’t be aversly affected.

runeblade.7514:

Phaeton.9582:

Razor.9872:

runeblade.7514:

Dominik.5162:

Phaeton.9582:

inb4 endless semantics about if it’s B2P or P2W

Oh wait too late sorry

It’s silly to put spvp behind a paywall. It’s a bad idea commercially and narrows the gameplay.. I’ve written several threads on this and won’t be repeating myself here.

But just leaving something here to register your arguments for a paywall as invalid.

You’re welcome.

Why do PvP players deserve to play this game for free, while PvE and WvW need to pay for it to play it?
That’s absolutely ridiculous, either all pay or none, period.
Players who bought HoT play the most recent version of the game, the game will obviously be balanced around them, and not around the F2P players who think it is in their right to leech of off others who bought the game.

Then the solution is simple, HoT and free players should be split away from each other.

I hope free players don’t experience horrendous queue times and get a bad impression on game population.

One of the many reasons it’s a terrible idea.

as for the whole WvW/PvE jealous sibling spiel from that guy… Lol!

I can’t agree it is a terrible idea. What is a terrible idea is that F2P players gets roflstomped because they don’t have the elite specs. They’re better off leaving sPvP with a bad impression from queue times than from pay2win.

The pay wall means losing out on the F2P crowd

F2P = higher population = shorter queue times

Razor.9872:

runeblade.7514:

Dominik.5162:

Phaeton.9582:

inb4 endless semantics about if it’s B2P or P2W

Oh wait too late sorry

It’s silly to put spvp behind a paywall. It’s a bad idea commercially and narrows the gameplay.. I’ve written several threads on this and won’t be repeating myself here.

But just leaving something here to register your arguments for a paywall as invalid.

You’re welcome.

Why do PvP players deserve to play this game for free, while PvE and WvW need to pay for it to play it?
That’s absolutely ridiculous, either all pay or none, period.
Players who bought HoT play the most recent version of the game, the game will obviously be balanced around them, and not around the F2P players who think it is in their right to leech of off others who bought the game.

Then the solution is simple, HoT and free players should be split away from each other.

I hope free players don’t experience horrendous queue times and get a bad impression on game population.

One of the many reasons it’s a terrible idea.

as for the whole WvW/PvE jealous sibling spiel from that guy… Lol!

inb4 endless semantics about if it’s B2P or P2W

Oh wait too late sorry

It’s silly to put spvp behind a paywall. It’s a bad idea commercially and narrows the gameplay.. I’ve written several threads on this and won’t be repeating myself here.

But just leaving something here to register your arguments for a paywall as invalid.

You’re welcome.

Evan Lesh.3295:

The current system is definitely trying to do too many things and each aspect suffers because of this. I think pips are an appealing reward system and I also think MMR is a good skill system. We need to work on getting each part of the system focusing on what they do best.

Agree

That doesn’t mean that skill (mmr) shouldn’t affect rewards though. It’s the reverse that doesn’t work well (pips affecting matchups).

Good players who don’t have the time to commit to a team should get something out of playing at a high level.

soloq leaderboards were fun, the app could do with an upgrade but it worked IMO.

I’d say make it more vulnerable to conditions – it’s always been most comfortable pvp wise as a zerker killer that drops to sustain/conditions, and although I appreciate that sustain has been improved intentionally, self-condi removal doesn’t really fit in with the metagame or the direction of the class as a whole IMO

flarezi.9381:

This suggestion literally just came to my mind but I just leave it here.

Dont nerf traps cooldowns, damage or anything but change traps to work in 2 phases. This would increase skill floor.

1) lay down trap 2) press trap skill again and it goes BOOM

This sounds almost as exciting Helseth explaining how the warrior mace f1 can be used to bait dodges. The gameplay depth would be endless.

A agree we should nerf everything :>

10g to anyone who can explain how RNG would impact outlier probabilities, and 20g to anyone that can relate the implications of this to quantum theory when modelling in the real world.

And a popgun to runners up – aren’t giveaways fun!

Jugglemonkey.8741:

OK, it’s been a long time since I did statistics so be kind if I’ve not followed this completely. I get what both rikkity and dgraves are saying, kinda. Rikkity is correct in that there is a chance of never proccing the bleed in a trial with a small time limit, the 15% only becomes the true solution when you integrate the function over time to Infinity. Makes sense, people should agree on that. What we are looking for is the maximum DPS, and it’s here that the methodology differs. I’m going to use an analogy to explain my thinking, so people can give me a real world example if I fluff my logic.

Statistically speaking, the DPS from a trait like this has a build up time and a maximum DPS value, the current DPS value depending on how long the player has kept up the damage rotation and if they have done it for longer than the base duration of the bleeds procced, after which point current DPS will have reached its maximal value.

This means that the damage inflicted can be roughly modeled with the same equation as charging a capacitor: DPS[t]=DPS[max]e^(¥/t), where ¥ is an arbitrary time constant in this case determined by the rate of attack, the duration of the bleeds and the chance to proc, and the integral of this function with regards to time (the area under the curve, put simply) giving the total damage inflicted since you started the trial. This models an exponential curve that begins at zero and asymptotes at a set maximum y value for DPS when (¥/t)=0 at t=Infinity, and it’s this value that we’re all interested in.

What dgraves is saying is that when you stop the damage, so you remove the voltage source that is charging the capacitor in my example, DPS would decay exponentially until it returns to zero, much like the voltage across the capacitor would, and that we should include this discharge time in our calculations because there is still damage being done. Correct so far?

The problem is that this assumes that there is a body for the damage to flow through. In the capacitor example, if there is no resistor in the circuit then the capacitor would discharge almost instantly after the current was removed, as there is noting to stop the flow of charge back to its original state. In our case, the boss is dead. Were not going to stop the DPS before the boss is dead, so any discussion on the decay of the bleed damage after the boss dies is meaningless, and shouldn’t contribute to the DPS calculations. In this case, t would be the time from engaging the mob until the integral of the function equals the health of the mob: the line drops straight to zero after that point, as there is no longer a mob to damage. So as long as the time period of your DPS test is greater than the time needed to kill the mob, your calculated DPS needs no further adjustments beyond accounting for the wind up time.

This is why statistics requires a sufficient size pool of data to work, and does not work for small groups or values of time!

Tldr: the time period of your DPS test should only be equal or greater than the time taken to kill a given boss, assuming that time is greater than the time needed to reach the maximum possible stacks from the trait. You’re not going to stop the DPS til the boss is dead, and after the boss is dead the DPS is nil, and so is not relevant to the discussion.

Forgive the messy formatting, I typed this on my phone

Tbh this is all I thought, bit of calculus

Model max dps (X) when t = infinity

Model time (-Tm) to get to x = X (max dps) (to within a practical probability that’s when you want to use a distribution?)

You’ve then got a model to find dps (x) at time (t) within a sensible probability when T > Tm

If the above isn’t feasible and t<<Tm, then to me damage per second seems a bit unhelpful to calculate anyway and you’d be looking at the rate of damage increase (which is also calculus?) to find x for an encounter.

Also yes the mob dies so there would be no decay a la capacitor

I think this is the definition of boredom.

Spartacus.3192:

Phaeton.9582:

I wouldn’t mind if it was literally ‘power’ being overtuned, but it’s not

It’s lower CD creep
It’s unpredictable, random condi cleanse creep (plus the ability to easily spec nigh immunity)
It’s massive sustain from one trait in one tree creep

These are not things that vanilla specs need to be ‘brought in line’ with, because it’s not straightforward power creep. These things lower the fundamental reward factor when playing pvp – and their issues are centred around design, not balance.

Power Creep is a not meant to mean “power”, Its describing a generally increase in “strength” of a the class, be it power, condi. CD reduction, passives etc.

Thanks for clearing that one up..

Oh wait no, you don’t get it.

To be honest I think a lot of people don’t. Not Hugh though. Hugh is a babe.

Edit: that was a bit mean. I’m aware of this Spartacus, what I’m pointing out is HOW it is overtuned matters more than anything else. Reducing cooldowns for instance reduces their significance when landed in an exchange, reducing the importance of active mitigation (both as a defender and aggressor).

It risks any matchup turning into a spammathon!

Agree f3 being adjusted to 160 would be decent – better to make counterplay more accessible than to just flat out nerf..

I wouldn’t mind if it was literally ‘power’ being overtuned, but it’s not

It’s lower CD creep
It’s unpredictable, random condi cleanse creep (plus the ability to easily spec nigh immunity)
It’s massive sustain from one trait in one tree creep

These are not things that vanilla specs need to be ‘brought in line’ with, because it’s not straightforward power creep. These things lower the fundamental reward factor when playing pvp – and their issues are centred around design, not balance.

The U.K. just went from 5 to 6

Could be worse

@Yasha

I agree there are probably several factors, including spvp drop off (systemic of the overall skill design direction with regards to spvp – although apologies for the rant before none the less).

It would be nice to see more mechanics worked out for this game mode though, such as those raised above. It needs a pull factor beyond ‘spvp lite’ – if anything it could be made to be more complicated to appease higher level players dissatisfied with conquest in these post HoT metas…

This is why condi isn’t viable in pvp I guess.

Try pressing any button on any elite spec. It will likely either negate or cleanse your conditions. If you press each in turn then you’ll not have to worry about them at all.

I hope this solves your problem.

Yasha.5963:

Phaeton.9582:

Thanks Yasha

I guess in general no skrits are given when it comes to this game mode anymore..

The forum is not very active in general, except to complain about class balance. It was quite a bit more lively here when we had the community based game development discussions with the devs, I think you were around then right?

Yeah.. ~1500 posts on the sPvP forums (check my history), and yes its changed here a lot.

The balance complaints are mostly l2p; the majority of design issues in spvp have nothing to do with balance, and re-rolling elite specs is very easy indeed.

I get the impression now that whoever is making decisions, both on spvp player feedback and spvp objectively, is extremely tired and cynical towards the optimism and ambition we saw around this game mode at release.

Split skills? Or even spvp-specific balance and design? Gone.

Mechanical/CDM skill cap? Reduced because apparently we’re nowhere near as good as they thought we’d be at launch.

Rewards? All rewards from the first year and a half removed (we got a couple of unique skins but PvE players complained). Now I just have literally thousands of unopened PvE loot boxes.

Gamemodes? Essentially only Conquest as Stronghold has failed to be more than conquest with less PvP and more non-strategic , repetitive side roles.

I don’t know. Maybe spvp is just resigned to be a ‘feature’ now for PvE expansions. It’s a shame, because the design philosophy at launch, even four years on, is still ahead of its time. But it’s been eroded by a new direction, spearheaded by someone who clearly just doesn’t agree with what was originally intended.

I just wish it could work. But to answer your post, yes nobody posts anything of value here, including myself apparently.

Better hold on to that IP

Man what a pun. Doesn’t that make this all seem worth it.

Thanks Yasha

I guess in general no skrits are given when it comes to this game mode anymore..

I don’t play much Stronghold in ranked and, like many, leave the box permanently un-ticked. With a few changes however I would definitely give it another shot.

When we were asked for game mode ideas last year I wrote this post, then sent it on to a few of the devs. Although I’ve no doubt it’s coincidence, there are some comparisons to be made with Warcraft 3’s Angel Arena (a sibling of DotA) and Stronghold. There are also differences, some of which I don’t think are to the game modes benefit. Below are a list of things I would want to see added.

1. Resource gathering is a boring roll. People don’t do it enough, because it’s boring.

- mobs could be generated automatically
- Killing players drops resources to generate more mobs as well as other things I’ll get to

2. Slaughtering lots of weaker mobs is more satisfying than a few mediocre ones. Increase the number of them by 5, reduce their HP/damage output.

3. Adding stat/trait/weapon progression to the game mode could introduce a lot of depth, and really set itself apart from conquest. Resources acquired from dead players could be used to purchase stats/traits/weapons. This act of going back and purchasing them, rather than a more automatic system, is in itself more satisfying.

4. Neutral Mobs? Svanir and Chief are one of the more entertaining things to watch in Conquest (when two players are vying for a kill nobody knows what will happen!) there’s a big ‘play’ factor that could be brought to stronghold with the introduction of neutral mobs.

5. With the above introduced, don’t be afraid to let a match take longer than 15 minutes if it’s close. If it’s worth playing, with developing mechanics such as stat/trait progression, people will value it more than lots of ‘short and shallow’ matches.

Anyway let me know thoughts etc; your comments make it more likely a Dev will read and acknowledge this!

I’m actually not joking, a progression system could add some depth to it.

- they should add some stat/trait progression system to it.

Rabid for engi please

no rabid?

Meta scrapper is just about making the most passive build that mostly takes away the best part of Engi (FYI KITS – 1 kit is just silly)

Start adding those elements back in and Engi is one of the best designed classes in the game at higher tiers. In fact I wish we saw more of it (elemental weapons for ele anyone?)

It’s not that great in this meta, it’s fine but not qq thread worthy

I can’t tell if you’re working out bleed damage or calculating edge effects from quantum tunnelling.

15% is fine to use as an estimation; probability distributions wouldn’t be suitable for something as linear as this firing off frequently enough to ensure ~100% probability every second..

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Phaeton.9582:

Splitting skills was the design plan at launch. It was what they did at launch.

A decision was made to move away from this. The goal now is to make all game modes as seamless as possible skill-wise.

Nope they are going to splitting skills again hopefully more dramatically.

I doubt this in all honesty

Splitting skills was the design plan at launch. It was what they did at launch.

A decision was made to move away from this. The goal now is to make all game modes as seamless as possible skill-wise.

bigo.9037:

Phaeton.9582:

This is all rubbish.. Balance is irrelevant when Elite specs are simply too easy to play and have lowered the skill cap by an insane amount.

Name one class that isn’t 1000% easier to play after the expansion. Theif is the only contender and even that’s a ton easier unless you’re going outside of the meta.

who are you talking to? i mean.. yes we can agree the elite specs are OP compared to base classes but if eveyone played elite specs it would still be fair and balanced

I’m not talking about balance. Balance discussions are for people who are unable to reroll. I’m saying the mechanics underpinning the elite specs make the game less rewarding to put any amount of time into in terms of pvp.

Topher.5631:

Phaeton.9582:

This is all rubbish.. Balance is irrelevant when Elite specs are simply too easy to play and have lowered the skill cap by an insane amount.

Name one class that isn’t 1000% easier to play after the expansion. Theif is the only contender and even that’s a ton easier unless you’re going outside of the meta.

Rev, wasn’t around pre expansion

Hahahahahaha I win can I have a cookie?

To be fair, Rev was made much easier to play once it was accessible through the game client.

Also it was significantly harder in beta before they rolled out Herald.

I have to be like this or I’ll run out of cookies…

But I do think the current Dishonour system predominantly punishes users with intermittent Internet, not afkers.

Although I don’t think it’s ideal gaming with dodgy Internet, a system built to discourage it through enforced time-out doesn’t seem particularly constructive.

People have to work with what they’ve got.. A simple match loss with a softening of MMR at game-end to minimise rating fluctuations would suffice IMO.

(Edited DH to Dishonour before the HoT fanboys pounce!)

My client does kick me out to the character select screen sometimes, usually at the end of a match though. It may be related to some sort of connection timeout so could still be related to a users Internet.

This is all rubbish.. Balance is irrelevant when Elite specs are simply too easy to play and have lowered the skill cap by an insane amount.

Name one class that isn’t 1000% easier to play after the expansion. Theif is the only contender and even that’s a ton easier unless you’re going outside of the meta.

Condi in WvW is an entirely different matter. Dire amulet, duration food etc makes it broken.

Condi is terrible in sPvP at any reasonable level.

The real toxicity is from ridiculously easy to play marauder/mender builds.

Noticed they made a fix on the 26th – auto-bomb dispenser’s now a full smoke field..

It’s a first step at least!

Let’s not kid ourselves here. Almost every new skill has been either a low CD utility or AoE designed to keep PvE engaging and effective on all classes.

Sadly both those things are toxic to pvp. But that’s all it is, sad.

Not had a decent game yet. Also not entirely sure how the division system in its current form is meant to improve match quality.

Maybe there’s something I’m missing here..?

Dirame.8521:

Phaeton.9582:

Dirame.8521:

To run condi though you need those kits to provide adequate pressure.

As far as other builds are concerned.. many people quit because they weren’t happy running purge gyro or elixir c. Because I could teach my 10 year old cousins to play that.

Just as other people have said above me, you don’t necessarily need bombs to deal adequate pressure nowadays. It’s actually a bad idea to get into melee in this meta because; Guardian traps (you never want to heal a guardian by mistake), Necro Reaper cleave, Mesmer shatters, Warrior stuns, etc.

I find it easier to play FT/EG condi build because it has the combo element (stacking might) and the skill element, timing reflects and knockbacks and skill shotting flame blast.

Yes FT has been better since they changed burning. But with Explosives being viable bomb kt would be a decent option; the CD reduction and detonate speed increase makes a big difference to that kit.

FT would benefit greatly from the trait also (which is my fave kit tbh), as you have a 5 sec CD blast finisher. You might actually be able to run FT Bomb kit with it.

Dirame.8521:

To run condi though you need those kits to provide adequate pressure.

As far as other builds are concerned.. many people quit because they weren’t happy running purge gyro or elixir c. Because I could teach my 10 year old cousins to play that.