Guild Wars 2

Just leaving this here in-case anyone wants to try something a bit different.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAsYVl0MhinYvTwwJw/EH+ElvIqiooXDF4MsDgXLAB-TpxBQBb8QAwxHAAIPBAA4IAIk9HeXZAA

Now, let me first say that this will never be meta; it is hard-countered on a fundamental level by D/P Daredevil. But its still alot of fun. I’ve taken this all the way up through Gold to mid Platinum, where I can’t really take it any further. But that might just be me, not the build.

Basic idea is to be much more involved in the team-fight. Spamming Larcenous Strike on priority targets to rip protection/stab/resistance makes it way easier for your team to focus down a target. And unlike Bountiful Theft, you can do it again and again and again. Not to mention taking all their might stacks and throwing out unblockable 5-6k crits constantly.

And then when the target is down, with high Quickness up-time Sword has some serious cleaving power that catches alot of people out. Can easily turn 1-downed into a team-wipe when they try and rez.

The combination of stealing all those nice boons, and Invigorating Precision, allows you to stay in a mid-point (4v4) fight pretty much permanently, unless seriously focused. One sword auto, crit-ing on 3 targets for 3k damage each, is a 1350 heal. As long as you can throw out the crits and not get CC-chained, you’re actually quite hard to kill.

It also opens up some 1v1s which thief usually avoids. Scrappers are super-easy to take. Eles can be taken down very fast by taking off all their protection and burning through their healing power with quickness. Even DH is a favourable matchup. Mesmers and Necros still easy, same as normal thief, although if you mess up they will melt you.

But, unfortunately you will lose to pretty much any other thief build, if they’re played competently. None of the tools s/d offers are of any value against another thief. Only real way to win is to hope they don’t expect the quickness and 11111 in their face before they notice.

Have fun.

Lets be real here, while Deadeye can get some funny big-numbers in specific circumstances, its never going to be meta. It is strictly hard-countered by the old meta d/p daredevil.

You’re crying over a meme build which will never be used above Silver once Ranked restarts.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unrelenting_Assault
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rocket_Charge
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reckless_Dodge
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blurred_Frenzy
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Whirlwind_Attack
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Burning_Speed

Are you sure its evade+damage you dislike, or is it actually just thief?

Phantom.8130:

Analytical thinking time here. If, as you say, someone who isn’t in TS plays at a lower level, then someone who is in TS plays at a higher level. Whether they’re deaf or not. This is what you are stating here. So you’re spinning double talk to….. say that a deaf person will play better in TS, while denying it to cover your tracks. It’s intellectually dishonest.

Yeah, you see whats happened here, is you’ve not understood.

When a commander says “in TS”, what they really mean is “able to receive and react to audio-verbal communication”. Obviously simply being logged in to the software doesn’t matter. It could be a tin-can on a string for all the difference it makes; the point is receiving real-time audio.

Because, as you point out, for a deaf person being “in TS” is effectively the same as “not in TS”. But that’s missing the point. The point is that they are not able to react to audio communication.

So, if you re-read the phrase “someone who is in TS plays at a higher level”, and make the substitution to “someone who is able to react to audio communication plays at a higher level”, then my point still stands, and there is no contradiction or dishonesty.

Happy, Captain Semantics?

Phantom.8130:

Guys. The player is DEAF. They can’t hear what you’re saying in TS. TS will do NOTHING for them. Stop behaving like brainwashed cultists.

That is irrelevant.

The commander wants a squad which operates with the level of co-ordination offered by TS. The commander is under no obligation to run a squad for you, and may operate his/her squad however they see best.

The specific reason why someone may not be able to use TS does not alter this.

I may sympathize with those reasons, but sympathy =/= obligation.

How can you possibly think that another player must do something for you, whether they want to or not?

No, a squad is exactly a group of players.

Please tell me the difference between a squad and a guild (with regards to membership).

What content are you being excluded from by not being included in a squad? Literally the only thing you are being excluded from is being in a group with that specific group of people, you aren’t being excluded from being in a squad. You can create your own squad, same as you can create your own guild. If the 1st squad is declining everyone not on TS, there must be several of you who can make a 2nd squad. It might not be as efficient as a full squad, in the same way a small guild is not as efficient at unlocking Guild Hall as a large guild. Having to do things for yourself and not being handed them for free is not the same as being excluded from them.

Just because you’re going to have a hard time unlocking Guild Hall upgrades by yourself, doesn’t mean you have a right to impose yourself on another guild.

The fact that TS will not help improve your play, is irrelevant to the group wanting a particular level of play. All it is is “me me me, i want i want i want”. The fact that you want something, doesn’t mean you have a right to it.

Eater of Peeps.9062:

I don’t want to be excluded from advertised content because some elitist joker decides he wants to ban people prejudicially (especially when the squad is not full).

Other players are not “advertised content”, they are people.

You have no “right” to a squad. You have no “right” to a commander. The only thing you purchased with the game was the right to log in, create a character, and do these things for yourself.

A squad is just a group of players. They are under no obligation to include you in their group. What’s next? Demanding people invite you to their guild because guilds are “advertised content”?

Admittedly, Teamspeak is often not needed. There’s no need for it when roaming, scouting, PvDing or when you’re steamrolling the enemy. But when it comes to big fights, anyone who thinks they’re just as efficient without TS as with it, is simply ignorant of what a well co-ordinated group is capable of achieving. Being ignorant doesn’t make you stupid, it just means you’ve never been shown.

Be open to being shown, and you’ll discover.

I was the same when I started, it never even occurred to me that the game could even be played at a level so astronomically above what I was already doing. No, I’m not talking about loud-mouthed children shouting “BOMOMBOMBOMBOMB”, I’m talking about the difference between dropping your bomb within 2s of your team, compared to dropping your bomb within 0.2s of your team. One of these will result in the enemy popping defences and healing up, the other results in a pile of bags.

You may think you’re 100% efficient without teamspeak, but you simply haven’t considered how much more efficient you could be. If you’re happy being 50% efficient, then fine, but that doesn’t give you a magic pass to insert yourself into groups who want to strive for 100%.

Teon.5168:

CrimeMaker.8612:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

I’m aware of Tyler’s posts, which if you read them don’t ever promise a 3rd borderlands map. I just wanted to clarify that nowhere in the polls did we say anything about creating a 3rd borderlands map, even though that is stated as a ‘fact’ over and over again on the forums.

“if the community does not accept this map, we will not be making new maps for WvW.”

Community still doesnt accept this map so please remove it since no new map is being worked or will ever be worked on.

Alternative facts, again. Face it, you dbl whiners would never be happy unless wvw was exactly changed to your liking, and screw the rest of the playerbase. Heck, this has been beaten like a dead horse during the original polls……

Again, as I said before…..don’t like dbl? Don’t play it. Don’t force the rest of the playerbase to conform to your limited ‘vision’.

Edit: Here is Tyler’s actual post, rather than the mythical one you keep posting…..and it has a much different meaning than the supposed quote you listed in the above post….please note the last sentence, which has an entirely different meaning than your supposed quote from Tyler……which was actually a quote from other posters, NOT Tyler.

“Just to clarify. The Simultaneous Borderlands is a system that better supports a third map, than the rotation strategy. So an additional map would be more likely in that respect. However, our development priorities are still community driven. We wouldn’t start building another WvW map unless it was put to a vote, and won.”

“So an additional map would be more likely in that respect”

Can you even read?

No, its not an absolute statement of intent, but it does indicate a probability.

Crinn.7864:

Ragnar.4257:

I wonder if you apply the same logic to Spiteful Spirit?

Literally every class has instant-cast skills which are basically un-dodgeable (other than the “i reckon he’s gonna use that soon” dodge).

Last time I checked spiteful spirit doesn’t 1-bang you from 40% hp. Also in-combat instants can be anticipated. Alphas coming from players that are on the far side of a mountain can’t.

With certain sigil/trait procs, it can actually…… much in the same way that Mug by itself doesn’t 1-shot, it takes various other conditions.

But you do understand that that is basically Thief’s entire reason to exist? How would you compensate thieves to be competitive in telegraphed, on-node, in-line-of-sight fights?

Funny how OP went out of their way to not mention thief, but we all know what they meant.

Crinn.7864:

insaneseagull.7063:

Situational awareness and knowing who’s where is a good thing to have in the back of your mind in team fights if the thief is that big of a problem to you.

Knowing where a thief is likely going to rotate to is easy.

But countering that thief requires knowing the exact moment that thief is going come in on you. And when “coming in” is teleporting through a wall for a instant mug+heartseeker+pulminary alpha you’re basically screwed.

I can totally be at mid on my necro and know “hey that thief just left home and will probably rotate in on me.” But all that means is that I know that my doom in coming, since without a telegraph to give me the precise timing I have no way to counter that impending alpha.

I wonder if you apply the same logic to Spiteful Spirit?

Literally every class has instant-cast skills which are basically un-dodgeable (other than the “i reckon he’s gonna use that soon” dodge).

The issue of communication between ANet and WvW has come up quite a bit, most recently in this thread here which links to this article:

http://zerolives.com/article/mVN7bYGy/guild-wars-2-community-complaints-about-lack-of-developer-attention-to-world-versus-world-game-mode

Which made me wonder whether WvW has really received significantly more or less communication than usual this year (well, last year, 2016), and whether the sense of no communication is a self-delusion created by salty players, or whether its really true.

So in the name of science, linked is an analysis of all Red Posts on the forums:

http://i.imgur.com/hdF3lyp.jpg

Now, 3 caveats to note here:

• It is not possible to quantify the “quality” of a post, so this treats a 1-word reply as the same as a 1000-word essay.
• Not all Red Posts are “developer” posts, many will be from support staff.
• Some forums are now hidden, so not counted.

That said, there are some conclusions we could draw from this:

• WvW has received more communication in 2016 than it did in 2015.
• The proportion of attention that WvW receives as a whole of communication across all areas was significantly higher in 2016 than previous years.
• However, this is still significantly less than PvE (3x more) and PvP (2x more).
• The 2016 boost comes from a flurry of activity in Q2, the rest of the year is “as usual”.
• Looking at previous years, the difference between WvW and PvE/PvP communication was much larger than in 2016, which may explain why WvWers have a pre-conception that they are not communicated with.

But maybe the numbers are skewed by 1 or 2 monster threads with 100+ posts? Well, lets see….

http://i.imgur.com/1vjT4yU.jpg

This shows basically the same shape.

2016 is technically up on 2015, but notice how much the engagement with WvW nose-dived in 2015, and how 2016 was still nowhere near 2013/2014.

Maybe its one poster going crazy and skewing the numbers?

http://i.imgur.com/FhGwiJf.jpg

Nope. Infact, quite the opposite, it looks like WvW does very well in terms of the breadth of different red-users engaging.

So I think this shows what we all already knew; that while the engagement has been better in 2016 than 2015, that’s still not really saying very much given that the engagement through 2014/2015 was so low.

morrolan.9608:

To the OP you missed the increase in AC damage.

Fixed

Loosmaster.8263:

Same!!! Did you even bother to read the first paragraph of her post?

Gaile Gray.6029:

I have been tracking this thread with a lot of hope,

Ah, you must have thought she said “I have been tracking this for some time”.

It’s a subtle difference I know, but those are actually different words.

Loosmaster.8263:

Ragnar.4257:

And within hours of that video going up suddenly there’s ANet “interest” in our top-5 priorities for WvW, for the first time since, well, I can’t actually remember a last time.

Just consider whether this sudden new interest in WvW is genuine, or is actually public-image damage-control.

This has been up with Gaile before the Potato Head video…She’s monitoring it and keeping it on track.

WP Video Published March 7th.

First Gaile post March 8th.

I should probably explain at this point that 8 is a bigger number than 7.

Disagree if you want, but don’t make up your own facts and/or number systems.

And within hours of that video going up suddenly there’s ANet “interest” in our top-5 priorities for WvW, for the first time since, well, I can’t actually remember a last time.

Just consider whether this sudden new interest in WvW is genuine, or is actually public-image damage-control.

There is no one single reason why so many have stopped. It’s a culmination of various factors, and for alot of people HoT was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Many people were ready to leave, but were sticking with the game to see if HoT would turn it around, and they were disappointed.

- New Map has a big PvE event which lags the map out for alot of people and is contrary to the spirit of WvW (server with biggest zerg does PvE to get a buff to let them PvD faster…… u wot?).

- Design of new map does not promote fights. Old BLs had well-trodden “channels” and areas where you knew you were likely to encounter an enemy. There were well established places for dueling and guild fights, and a small number of key focal-points for seige battles to occur, the areas around Garrison and south of Bay being the best examples. The reason people are now hugging EB, is because they know on EB they are guarunteed to find a fight within 2 minutes. Thats not about the population of the map, its about the design of the map channeling players into focal-points.

- Auto-upgrades removes the incentive/reward for players who liked to focus on defence. When a tower requires no interaction to start an upgrade, and requires no dolyaks in order for the upgrade to complete, there is nothing for a defensive player to do other than /sit .

- Auto-upgrades also remove incentive for roaming players (distinct from duelers). A player who preferred small-scale combat could still feel like they were contributing to their server before HoT, by sniping camps/dollies to prevent upgrades. After HoT, it doesn’t matter what you do any more, that enemy keep is going to get upgraded gates whether you snipe dollies or not. This couples with the fact that there are now not any defense players left trying to hold the camps for the roamers to fight it out with.

- For those who care about the PPT/Server-ranking aspect, none of the core issues around that were addressed (population imbalance and over-importance of off-peak coverage). The PPT game remains a joke, just simply a count of the number of players a server has willing to log in for that particular week.

- For GvG guilds, the new arena is something of a disappointment. While it is an improvement in some respects over the OS (no troll interruptions, not limited to fighting those in that week’s matchup), it is still has many flaws which sap enthusiasm (unnecessarily grindy upgrades, small area, annoyingly difficult to bring players outside the guild into the arena).

- No incentive for new players to start playing WvW. At the start of the game, with the badge/map-completion requirement for legendaries, and later the tournament achievements, there was some reason for new players to get involved. However, these days there is literally no reason for a new player to give WvW a try. This means there are no players to replace the veterans who eventually quit.

- No incentive for veterans to stay in the game-mode. The gold/loot in WvW is significantly lacking compared to other parts of the game, there are very few WvW-unique things to aim for (skins, titles etc) compared to other parts of the game, and many of the things you really need or want cannot be acquired in WvW (mats for guild upgrades being prime example). It’s all very well saying “playing should be its own reward”, but that doesn’t seem to apply to PvE or PvP does it? Those game-modes are constantly receiving new carrots to chase. Face it, players need targets to aim for and eventually achieve, or else they lose interest.

- Unnecessary gating of new classes/specializations. True, even in WvW you can grind out the necessary Proofs of Heroics in the space of a week or two, which in the grand scheme of things doesn’t seem like much. But put yourself in the shoes of a player who was wavering before HoT. They see the new trait-lines and weapons, and get hyped up enough about trying out loads of new builds and compositions to come back to WvW. Then HoT arrives and they realise that they can’t try any of this new stuff, not without doing several weeks of grinding. Per character. For someone who was tired of GW2 before, but was willing to give HoT a chance, that is enough to make them log out and not come back, or to simply move permanently to PvP where they don’t have to put up with that stupidity.

Chaba.5410:

Ragnar.4257:

Who said anything about development resources?

You did.

“So we can conclude from this that WvW is worth roughly 20% of API development, 35% of Revenant, is roughly equal to Ranger, about 25% of PvP and less than 10% of PvE.”

Then you have mis-understood my use of the word “worth” here. It is short-hand for “worth communicating with”.

My point was that WvW players are justified in feeling they are not communicated with, compared to other areas.

Are you disputing this?

Chaba.5410:

I’m saying your use of the numbers are bogus. You’re aggregating red posts per subforum without group distinction.

Boy, Anet must surely be spending more development resources on customer service with all those posts in the Accounts forum. More devs should work on the API because that single guy must be making a killing in earnings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_fallacy

Who said anything about development resources?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Ragnar.4257:

WvW appears to be neglected compared to other game-modes in terms of Publisher/Community interaction.

Chaba.5410:

Yea bogus stats.

Are you saying my numbers are incorrect?

You can debate the validity of what conclusion is drawn, but a stat cannot be “bogus” if it is accurate.

Chaba.5410:

The API dev is one single guy pretty much working on his own and thus able to hold a single conversation basically. The other parts of the game require multiple devs working on multiple parts.

How do you conclude that it makes perfect sense for one guy to respond more than many?

So some people complain alot that WvW appears to be neglected compared to other game-modes in terms of Publisher/Community interaction.

Others say that everyone thinks they’re neglected, and WvW players are just ‘entitled’ drama-queens. Dungeons, Fractals, PvP, Professions, etc etc, they all claim to get less attention than other areas.

So what’s the truth of it?

I’ve taken the last 2500 red-posts and worked out where they were made. This is approximately all the red-posts made in the last 6 months.

Bare in mind that this is all red-posts, so includes moderators, community managers etc. Its not all “developer” responses.

Bare in mind also that this is only the last 6 months. If we extended the test-period back to the start of the game, obviously the distribution would change. Living World would take a much bigger proportion, and Revenant would be comparatively less.

Finally, remember that this is a count of ‘posts’, not ‘threads responded to’. For instance, the vast majority of the WvW responses were in the “WvW and the Heart of Thorns Release” thread.

For anyone who wants to query the numbers or how it was made; this is really very easy to work out for anyone with even a beginners knowledge of HTML and any basic scripting language. It took me just under an hour (wasn’t done going through all 2500 posts 1 by 1).

Forum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Count of Red Posts

News and Announcements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Game Releaste Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Dev Tracker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
Account & Technical Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .212
Bugs: Game, Forums, Website . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .271
Guild Wars 2 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
Living World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
PvP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
WvW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Fractals, Dungeons & Raids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Players Helping Players . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Lore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
CDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .0
Elementalist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Engineer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
Guardian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Mesmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Necromancer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26
Ranger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Revenant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .187
Thief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Warrior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
API Developement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
Community Creations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43
Looking for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
In-game Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
WvW Desert Borderlands Stress Test . . . . . . . . . 42

Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2500

So we can conclude from this that WvW is worth roughly 20% of API development, 35% of Revenant, is roughly equal to Ranger, about 25% of PvP and less than 10% of PvE.

I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves and not rant, but I think it’s safe to say that WvW players are objectively justified in feeling neglected.

coglin.1867:

Seems to me it fixed everything and broke nothing.

coglin.1867:

You appear to confuse your subjective opinion with that of actual objective fact.

k.

coglin.1867:

Ragnar.4257:

coglin.1867:

The thing is, you have to look at it in the scope of more then just yours or mine. As there were very literally new threads, daily, complaining about this issue. I have to be honest, and say, I am genuinely surprised that you show such support for maintaining systems that promote trolling.

Coglin, if I dumped a great big pile of manure on your drive, then you would be in your rights to complain and demand that I get rid of it.

If I choose to get rid of it by planting a mine under it and blowing your entire front yard sky-high, would you think it fair that when you complain, my response is “hey, you asked me to get rid of the manure, and I did, so what’s your problem?”.

Just because they technically solved one problem, doesn’t make the solution acceptable if it breaks something else.

Your analogy doesn’t make any sense.

The funny thing, is you see no one offer any acceptable alternative, you just cry about the one you got. If it was so simply, why did you not offer a good solution.

They solved the hacker complaint, the needless gold sink complaint, and the extremely vast demand to make defending easier, all in one change.

I actually have offered solutions, you can even check my post history if you want.

There are solutions to supply-trolling that don’t break roaming and make camps/dollies worthless.

The most obvious one being split supply into building and siege supplies. Which is effectively what they already have done, they have just chosen to go one step too far and have “building supplies” auto-generate on the objective.

My analogy is still valid. You can’t justify breaking one thing by saying it fixes another.

coglin.1867:

The thing is, you have to look at it in the scope of more then just yours or mine. As there were very literally new threads, daily, complaining about this issue. I have to be honest, and say, I am genuinely surprised that you show such support for maintaining systems that promote trolling.

Coglin, if I dumped a great big pile of manure on your drive, then you would be in your rights to complain and demand that I get rid of it.

If I choose to get rid of it by planting a mine under it and blowing your entire front yard sky-high, would you think it fair that when you complain, my response is “hey, you asked me to get rid of the manure, and I did, so what’s your problem?”.

Just because they technically solved one problem, doesn’t make the solution acceptable if it breaks something else.

So they changed Stab so it was no longer a “binary” totally-immune or totally-not-immune.

But what they’ve introduced instead is a new binary which hard-codes into the game the number of enemies you can fight as melee.

You have 5 stacks of stab.

Lets say 1 in 4 enemies drop CC on a push (push every 10 seconds, CC cooldown average 40s, so fair assumption).

4 Enemies -> You pass through all CC -> might as well have been no change.
8 Enemies -> You pass through all CC -> might as well have been no change.
12 Enemies -> You pass through all CC -> might as well have been no change.
16 Enemies -> You pass through all CC -> might as well have been no change.
20 Enemies -> You pass through all CC -> might as well have been no change.
24 Enemies -> Even with stab, you still get CC’d -> might as well not use stab at all.
28 Enemies -> Even with stab, you still get CC’d -> might as well not use stab at all.
32 Enemies -> Even with stab, you still get CC’d -> might as well not use stab at all.
36……. etc.

You can nit-pick on my exact numbers if you want, but the conclusion is the same:

There is now hard-coded into the game a number above which stability is worthless, and below which stability is the same as it was before.

This simply encourages blobbing up.

There is a reason why the stability changes have hardly affected sPvP or GvG or roaming, but have had a huge impact on large-scale WvW. There is also a reason why “zerg-busting” has basically disappeared from WvW. The reason is what I have posted above.

The reason Druid probably won’t become meta is that heals-over-time aren’t the same thing as burst-heal.

It looks like the heal-over-time potential of Druid is very impressive, but generally in WvW fights are not decided by attrition over a period of several minutes. What matters is burst damage and burst damage-mitigation/healing.

This is (one of the reasons) why guardians, shout-warriors, and water-field Eles have been so prominent, because the ability to burst heal 5k HP in 1 second every 20 seconds is more valuable than being able to heal 500 HP every second, at least in large-scale fights where dozens of people are focusing damage on a single point.

Druid does actually have a couple of decent burst-heals, however unlike the other burst-healers that is all it can do. For the reasons given above, its additional heal-over-time potential doesn’t compensate for the loss of damage, CC, support and survivability.

It’s nice that people have re-discovered this thread.

I should just add that this video was made nearly a year ago, and since the changes to traits this build is no longer viable. Unfortunately you are now forced to choose between Trapper’s Expertise and bleed-on-crit, choose between Empathic Bond and Survival cooldown reduction, can no longer take cooldown reduction on both longbow and shortbow, and can no longer use frost-trap to escape into stealth as it now reveals you.

It’s a shame, but cookie-cutter is apparently all we’re allowed any more.

If squads stay as they currently are, my guild, and I know for a fact other guilds, will completely stop using commander tags.

Being able to see party/squad boons and conditions is a must.

Being able to give boon/heal priority to party is a must.

Being able to call targets in party is a must.

If your intention is to make commander-tag completely un-usable for all PvP players, you couldn’t have done a much better job of it.

Starfall.6425:

I somehow get the feeling that lot’s of people here are zerk classes that attack the mesmer scepter 2, get 5 tormet and instead of cleansing start to run around.

You know that scepter #2 is on a 6 second cooldown right?

12k torment damage on a 6 second cooldown? You really think that’s balanced? (and it actually goes up to 15k if you factor in weapon and guard stacks).

You’re right, people should bring condi-cleanse and know the animation for these skills to evade/counter properly, but when such a massively hard-hitting skill is on such a low cooldown, it almost doesn’t matter.

I was getting frustrated fighting condi-mesmers, so I made one to try myself just to confirm that it really is face-roll easy, and that I wasn’t just being bad. And it really is that easy. I was stunned at how hard the skills hit, how low the cooldowns are, and how tanky I could get at the same time.

6 second cooldown on a block with also applies 15k of torment damage, on top of all the other stuff the mesmer can dish out, from it’s autos, from its shatters, from random sigil/rune procs, from other weapon skills, it is only a matter of time before an opponent is un-able to cleanse it. They cleanse it the first time, 6 seconds later it comes again, dodge it, 6 seconds later again, dodge again, 6 seconds later, cleanse again, 6 seconds later…….

Now I wouldn’t have a problem with this if in order to achieve it the mesmer had to sacrifice something else. Zerker classes can potentially hit just as hard, if not harder, but they do so by sacrificing alot.

So, please, explain again how 15k damage on a 6s cooldown while also having 25k health and 3k armour, near permanent projectile-reflect, multiple gap-openers, and good stealth access is balanced.

For reference:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNArfWlsnhG1YZawINwtGLvGk5KG+IKTwvjGaAy5RA-TFyCABAcEAs4RAg3+DAqPwT1fSUJYWK/o4EAQKgFlGB-w

With both thieves and mesmers, the mistake alot of people make when trying to deal with them is thinking they can win through defense, either by mitigating the damage or by healing it all back. This may well work against bad thieves and mesmers, but against good or even average ones, it won’t work.

This is because thieves and mesmers both have very strong inherent kiting ability, they can disengage fairly easily, and this means that if they’re not worried about you blowing them up in 2 seconds before they can react, then they know they can keep hitting you and hitting you and they always have the option to back off if they have to.

Therefore, the only way to win an encounter with one of these is to apply heavy pressure to them yourself. If you’re running a typical ‘zerg’ build, like a shout guardian or a staff ele, then this can be difficult to do. Thieves have nothing to fear from a shout guardian. True, it may not be an easy kill for them, and they may have to reset if they screw up, but there is basically no risk to the thief in having a try. However, a more DPS built meditation guardian…. that can be a very risky encounter for a thief. They might even decide not to fight at all.
If you’re having trouble applying damage, there’s a few things to try. First, just because they’re in stealth, doesn’t mean you don’t know where they are. It’s right behind you. Use AoE skills if you can’t get a target. Make good use of conditions, as neither of these classes are particularly good at dealing with them. Even if you’re not playing a condi-damage build, repeatedly applying cripple/chill/blind to them will seriously mess them up. Make sure you have some CC to hold them in place for a few seconds before they can run, but don’t use your CC at the start of your burst. They won’t be trying to run away at the start. Save it for the end of your burst when they’re frantically trying to get back into stealth to reset.

I am really talking here of the high-physical-burst variety of thief/mesmer. The other common variety you will encounter is the condi-bunker type of pistol/dagger thief or scepter/torch mesmer.
The pistol thief is astonishingly easy to beat once you realise that it isn’t, infact, a ranged class, but is actually a melee class. All its damage comes from either getting close enough to cloak+volley or close enough to use the torment on skill 3. Once you realise this, you can simply out-damage the thief by not allowing him to use these skills. This is provided you have a ranged weapon (ranged doesn’t have to mean a 1500 range longbow, just anything that can hit him while out of reach of melee attack). Unlike a d/p or s/d thief, a p/d thief does not have much ability to close the gap to you.
With the condi mesmer, honestly, its not worth the bother. If you choose not to fight, there’s actually nothing a condi mesmer can do to stop you simply walking away, because all their damage (confusion + torment on counter) relies on you trying to fight back. If you do choose to fight, if the mesmer is any good he should win, unless you use a build specifically designed to counter him, like a diamond-skin ele.

Did you even read the post he linked?

Could you white-knight any harder if you tried?

When ANet themselves say “yes, we did this” and you still say “nope, no evidence”, who are you even arguing for any more?

Turk.5460:

Dawdler.8521:

Turk.5460:

Ragnar.4257:

You’re entitled to go wherever you want in WvW the same way you’re allowed to go wherever you want in a public park.

That still doesn’t make it acceptable to go and sit in the middle of someone’s picnic and demand to be included in their frisbee game.

This is just a terrible analogy. It would most definitely be acceptable to want to play, if you helped pay for the Frisbee. Both parties in this argument paid for GW2.

Well thats an even worse analogy. You helped pay for the park, not the frisbee. The frisbee wouldnt even have been tossed if there wherent two other people in the park.

To make an actual ingame comparison, thats like saying you helped pay for the chat bubbles used by two roleplayers, so they are obligated to let you in on their discussion.

An actual in-game comparison would be like saying that all parties paid for the same use of the game, so they are all entitled to do whatever they want. Oh wait, that’s what this discussion is about.

You keep talking about what you’re “entitled” to do, not what is socially acceptable.

Trolls are “entitled” to do the annoying stuff they do, it doesn’t make it any more acceptable amongst civilised, decent human beings.

Going back to the park, I’m entitled to follow you around the park all day playing the bagpipes loudly (and badly) and setting up a whiteboard whenever you stop, and drawing insulting images of your mother, ruining your day out. Just because I’m entitled to do that, doesn’t mean you should be forced to shrug your shoulders and accept it.

Deliberately disrupting other people’s leisure time, entitled or not, is always a low, dirty way to live your life, however you want to spin it.

If you insist that anything which isn’t explicitly against the rules is fair-game, then, well, society just wouldn’t function. GGthx4civilisation, back to living in caves.

You’re entitled to go wherever you want in WvW the same way you’re allowed to go wherever you want in a public park.

That still doesn’t make it acceptable to go and sit in the middle of someone’s picnic and demand to be included in their frisbee game.

Why does anyone even care?

Was anyone actually expecting a Forum Specialist to result in any actual changes?

To be honest, nobody is better than somebody, it saves us all from more of the “definitely something we’re looking at, can’t say more” nonsense.

If only there was some way for guilds to be able to use commander functionality, but without causing all this confusion and unnecessary drama for newcomers to WvW?

But, surely, such a thing is beyond the capacity of mere mortals to conceive!

If they had wanted to prevent stacking stability for 20+ seconds at a time, and force players to time it carefully rather than spamming, they could have just stopped the duration stacking (4s remaining + 6s from new = 6s rather than 10s)

Why was the intensity stacking also needed? I don’t think it was for the benefit of WvW.

Whilst changing duration-stacking makes players think more carefully, play with a little more skill and rewards good timing while punishing bad-timing, what benefit does the intensity stacking bring? All it does is give numbers an advantage?

Never mind about honour or skill or whatever, open-field ACs are looked down upon because they’re just boring.

The other side can stand 5000 range away and build their own ACs too.

The result is two groups of players just standing looking at each other.

Now, you say this is where ballistas/trebs come in as counters.

This just intensifies the boredom. Now you’ve got 95% of the group acting as pack-mules, while 3-4 players from the entire server have “fun”.

And once the pack-mules have stood around for 10 minutes doing nothing, you maybe win the supply-war-of-attrition. And then the enemy just disengages, and runs back to their keep to resupply. No loot, no fun, just a massive waste of time.

Now compare that, 100s of players stood around doing nothing, compared to the excitement of a full-on close-quarters engagement between roughly equal forces, and you’ll see why open-field ACs are considered lame. It’s not because it’s not “fair”, it’s just flashing a big neon sign above your head saying “The height of excitement in my life is standing around watching other people play”.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Too often players playing the “legal” card do so because they know they can’t play the “moral” one.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

At no point did I implied having fun was correlated with capping stuff. I’m talking about legitimacy here, not fun.

You’re just doing all the work for me here.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Too often players playing the “legal” card do so because they know they can’t play the “moral” one.

It’s funny, because this precisely sums up the players who knowingly interrupt duels, and do so in the full knowledge that they’re griefing.

TyPin.9860:

From the GW2 code of conduct:
“While participating in Plaver-vs-Player (PvP) gameplay, you will not participate in any form of match manipulation. Match manipulation is defined as any action taken to fix or manipulate the outcome of a match or alter or manipulate the rankings or ratings of the ladder. This also includes disrupting other people’s game experience by not actively participating in matches in good faith, a.k.a leeching.”

That is a slippery slope. So you’re saying anyone who isn’t 100% focusing on their server’s PPT is violating the game-mode. Okay, so, Crafting Stations? JPs? Vistas? Mystic Forge? Merchants? That event on BLs with the veteran ghosts? What about up-scaled players? People not using optimal builds? People not using teamspeak? People going to the toilet? People who simply aren’t as good as some of the others in queue? Should these people also be chased out of WvW with pitchforks?

Where do you draw the line? Where is the difference between a roamer taking 10 minutes out from camp-flipping (PPT) to duel, and a PPT-zerger taking 10 minutes out to sell up and get a drink, or a newbie getting a little lost and ending up fighting the veteran harpy?

A hardline approach of “PPT must come before everything else” just leads to insanity.

Rym.1469:

Oh good lord, get Trapper’s Expertise already! You waste so much superspeed and stealth.

NO.

The solution to trap-stealth getting wasted is for me to improve my game-play, not to change the build.

It is not possible to waste superspeed.

I’ll admit I’m not a 100% perfect player, and occasionally I make a bad choice, but Quick-Draw still adds far more to the build than Trapper’s Expertise.

Updating original post with build.

EDIT:
It’s nice that people have re-discovered this thread.

I should just add that this video was made nearly a year ago, and since the changes to traits this build is no longer viable. Unfortunately you are now forced to choose between Trapper’s Expertise and bleed-on-crit, choose between Empathic Bond and Survival cooldown reduction, can no longer take cooldown reduction on both longbow and shortbow, and can no longer use frost-trap to escape into stealth as it now reveals you.

It’s a shame, but cookie-cutter is apparently all we’re allowed any more.

People said it couldn’t be done and that double-bows was a scrub build only played by newbies.

Well, dis-proving the nay-sayers.

pewpewpewpewpew

Go bow/bow or you’re not a true ranger.

Current version of the build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATVjEqUva7KusQ1ag8gaVA0+IS4fg9GcCtQJbIK-TVDFABspJoR1AC4IAg9+D+pEkSVOA4BAIwkittenlfOqCSa6AcRVAlPEAkC4ulRA-w

Aiming for full celestial, but I had some carrion/rabid pieces lying around, and celestial isn’t so easy to get.

I mix the traits up a bit, so it isn’t always the same. For instance, against a hammer warrior, switch out Oakheart Salve for Shared Anguish. Against a d/p thief, switch out Empathic Bond for Barkskin. Against a necro, switch out Troll Unguent for Healing Spring. Against any thief, take Sic’ Em if at all possible.

I’ve been playing and tweaking this build for about 2 months now, and in that time I’ve only come across 2 players who I couldn’t defeat no matter what adjustments I made, and both of them were celestial d/d eles.

Alot of people in this thread concerned with what they’re “allowed” or “have a right” to do…..

…. and not so many people concerned with having a little respect for their fellow players.

Unless someone is really asking for it, being a kitten doesn’t mean you’re “taking a stand”, it just means you’re being a kitten.

Obviously mis-understandings can happen, but you’d think a little common sense would resolve alot of them.

Flyphish.6398:

tluv.5821:

Flyphish.6398:

Ragnar.4257:

Flyphish.6398:

The PvP population is much, much larger than GvG. Using WvW population as an indicator is disingenuous. The vast majority of WvW players do not participate in organized GvG.

For instance, the PvP “top” 1000 starts at the 96th percentile (with separate boards for EU and NA to boot), even after a recent leaderboard reset. Granted, not all entrants on the leaderboard represent individual users…but you get the point. The GvG “scene” has 500 tops.

Let’s define a GvG guild as any guild which participates in what is commonly understood as GW2-GvG at least once a week.

I would estimate that there are, on average, 5 such guilds per server. In T1-2 there are more, 10+, while down in Bronze tiers there may only be 1 or 2, so 5 is a fair average.

Some of these guilds will have rosters of 50+, while others will only have 15, so lets say an average roster of 25.

There are 51 servers across NA and EU.

5 * 25 * 51 = 6375.

This is just the “active” rosters of GvG guilds. It does not consider the many players who used to participate but who got frustrated with the lack of support, or whose guilds disbanded and are currently homeless, or who don’t have time to participate themselves but who still like to follow the scene.

“500” is an absurdly low estimate of the gvg-community. Even 5000 would be a very low estimate. 10,000 is more likely.

And this is without any official support, promotion, development, hints popping up in the tutorial etc. I would say the GvG community could absolutely be larger than PvP if supported properly.

If you honestly think ALL 51 servers have an average of 5 guilds…then I have some oceanfront property to sell.

I can name 15 guilds RIGHT now that all have over 30+ people who actively run as “fight”/GvG guilds.

15 × 30 = 450, pretty close to my estimate…

In any case it’s less than 1000, which is just 4% of one region of PvP.

Edit: And that’s just the people that play ranked queue…so characterizing GvG as niche is generous.

You think there are only 15 GvG guilds?

I can think of 15 on Desolation alone, let alone the other 50 servers.

You are woefully underestimating.

Draygo.9473:

-snip-

You are vastly overestimating the number of participants in GvG, just like he is vastly underestimating it.

If you want to go with real numbers: http://www.gw2wvw.net/gvg
You are looking at around 2,297 people give or take 20% for inactives and subs.

You realise that that page doesn’t have any relevance at all, right?

Half the guilds on that list disbanded a year or more ago. And most of the ones in existence today aren’t on it either.

I stand by my estimate.

Flyphish.6398:

The PvP population is much, much larger than GvG. Using WvW population as an indicator is disingenuous. The vast majority of WvW players do not participate in organized GvG.

For instance, the PvP “top” 1000 starts at the 96th percentile (with separate boards for EU and NA to boot), even after a recent leaderboard reset. Granted, not all entrants on the leaderboard represent individual users…but you get the point. The GvG “scene” has 500 tops.

Let’s define a GvG guild as any guild which participates in what is commonly understood as GW2-GvG at least once a week.

I would estimate that there are, on average, 5 such guilds per server. In T1-2 there are more, 10+, while down in Bronze tiers there may only be 1 or 2, so 5 is a fair average.

Some of these guilds will have rosters of 50+, while others will only have 15, so lets say an average roster of 25.

There are 51 servers across NA and EU.

5 * 25 * 51 = 6375.

This is just the “active” rosters of GvG guilds. It does not consider the many players who used to participate but who got frustrated with the lack of support, or whose guilds disbanded and are currently homeless, or who don’t have time to participate themselves but who still like to follow the scene.

“500” is an absurdly low estimate of the gvg-community. Even 5000 would be a very low estimate. 10,000 is more likely.

And this is without any official support, promotion, development, hints popping up in the tutorial etc. I would say the GvG community could absolutely be larger than PvP if supported properly.

xDudisx.5914:

Ballads.2509:

rattenbart.7483:

Tribio.8531:

rattenbart.7483:

Not breaking stealth on the discovered character, only making him targetable – and attackable, maybe only while out of fight.

And what exactly would be the use of stealth then? You can target and attack the stealthed target.. :-/

Not instantly. After “some” time the skill to detect stealthed would activate – and not at 100%.

How about a skill that makes mesmer unable to cast clones, or one that locked out certain elements on elemetalist. How about one that makes Guardians unable to cast boons and necros unable to shroud.
Sounds crazy aye?

Blind will make a clone cast miss.
For blocks you can use unblockable skills after they start blocking.
For boons you can remove after they use them.
For condis you can remove them after they used them.

For stealth there are very few skills that prevent it and most are single target long cd skills that are just available for some classes.

Would you not say that blind/block/evade preventing Cloak and Dagger from giving stealth is the same? Or interrupting a heartseeker through smoke?

Don’t just think about the counter once they’re in stealth, think about the counters before stealth.

It depends what you mean by “top” guilds.

Most people interpret “top” as meaning “able to consistently win fights against opponents of equal or greater numbers”. These are the “GvG” guilds and they spend many hours practicing and theory-crafting to get their co-ordination, tactics, builds, etc. perfected. They will want to see footage of your play, because you don’t build an ‘elite’ force by inviting bad players, or players who have no interest in learning and improving and who just wanna tag moar lootz. Sometimes these guilds can be “poisonous” as you put it, because they’re putting alot of effort into being top and emotions can sometimes run high, people rage, but the majority of them aren’t like this. When a group all have the same mindset and enjoy doing the same thing together, it can be fantastic.

However, plenty of other people don’t interpret “top” in this way at all. Instead they interpret “top” as “the ability to conquer and dominate a map”, ie. steamroll through T3 keeps and run over any resistance. There are plenty of guilds besides the ‘GvG’ guilds who are capable of doing this, except rather than doing this by spending many hours training up individual members, instead they achieve this by creating a fun community “party” atmosphere to encourage as many people as possible to come along. Personally I prefer to push myself harder than simply being “one of the blob”, but equally I can see that if you’re a less driven player, or just have less time, these guilds will be alot more enjoyable. And it can’t be denied that they get results. Most servers are carried, score-wise, by the 1-3 ‘community’ guilds on their server, while the GvG guilds may pull off more impressive wins and farm more bags, they usually don’t contribute as much to the score.

So it depends what you mean by “top”. If you’re looking to join a GvG guild, I would recommend you talk to one and get an invite to trial before transferring, because (the top ones at least) won’t just accept anyone. If you’re looking to join a community guild, you can probably find one on any server in T1-3.

lordkrall.7241:

Hamster.4861:

This whole issue would be gone if Anet would let us upgrade with Badges of Honor. I’ve legit got about 15k of them lying around.

And then there would suddenly be loads of gold created in WvW with no sink whatsoever and thus the inflation would totally crash the market.

Remind me, what are the gold sinks in PvE again?

I’m really struggling to think of one which applies to PvE which doesn’t also apply to WvW. Waypoint costs? Anything related to TP/MF/Gear applies just as much to WvW. There’s that Crown Pavilion thing, but that’s pretty specific.

So why does WvW need “extra” ones?

Let’s play a game of Chess.

I’ll start with 15 Queens.

You start with 2 Pawns.

What do you mean you don’t want to play? You just need to learn to use your 2 pawns better, noob! Stop bowing to the Queen > Pawn meta. Pawn’s can be better, you’ve just got to believe!