Guild Wars 2

Anti.9156:

I know its a lot of work, but we cant stress this enough: There needs to be douple elimination

I wouldnt trust myself with the seeding of the eu cup, and that although i know nearly all players, i know how they played against each other in scrimm and in teamq, still i wouldnt do it. How the hell should a random esl admin do this, who has not even half the knowleadge the actual players have? Seeding wont be near perfect, so there needs to be a loser bracket to make up for that. This is one of the most important torunaments so far, it will end in drama if there is no douple elimination

This is the most reasonable post I’ve read so far. I’ve admind and seeded multiple tournaments with Gem Prizes, but I would not trust myself or any single person to seed a single elimination tournament with so much money on the line.

I know there’s been some critique of PvP changes being made behind closed doors, this seems to be another situation where conspiracy theories may pop up if there is no clearly defined seeding and/or double elimination.

Brix, I’d ask you to please consider one of these two options. Either have ESL clearly define how they will seed, the exact weighting given to past performance. There should not be any subjectivity in these brackets.
If that cannot be done effectively, I would suggest you consider a double elimination tournament that places less importance on your initial bracketing.

Saiyan.1704:

You can say bunk guardians sustain worse post patch compared to prepatch but you can’t say their issue has always been a low health pool… that’s just incorrect.

What Morph was saying is that every other role has experienced a significant amount of power creep with HoT while the Bunker role got nothing except for Minstrel’s Amulet which was promptly removed.
Cleric’s Guard remained at 13.5k hp. Cleric’s Ele can get about 12.8k hp using the new Runes of Durability.

Frankly Saiyan, I haven’t experienced a 2v1 Mes/Thief burst since Heart of Thorns came out. Teams don’t run that particular combo as there are a bevy of new specializations that accomplish the same task more efficiently.
Much more likely is a 2v1 Reaper/Revenant pushing you with Broken Assault and Chills coming from every direction. In both cases, a low HP pool makes you a liability for your team.

I’ve made the switch to the Tempest ele build that everyone plays, it was not a difficult transition. However, classes such as Bunker Guard, Staff Ele and Support roles in general have been forced out of the meta. Their low hp pools and inability to do damage are simply liabilities with the power creep that Cele/Soldiers/Marauder Bruisers have experienced.

Tldr; Support is Dead, Meta has narrowed down to Bruiser Comps only. Pick up a Cele/Soldier/Marauder amulet and equip one of the new specializations = “healthy gameplay.”

Let’s back up just a second on the whole Abjured dictates balance thing as there’s no hard evidence to support that claim. Yes, over the past year changes have tended to favor the 3 point bruiser comp which all but 2 teams on NA were running (though Abj did run power necro for a while and utilized their thief’s shadow refuge to rez their glassiest player…a form of glass + support that simply isn’t viable anymore).

Anet sources info that it uses to balance the game from a variety of top players, which is logical as they tend to have more pvp experience than those who work full-time on this game.

However, I do hope they’ll consider becoming a bit more isolated in their decision-making process with the advent of Pro Leagues. There’s an unprecedented level of money involved now, and even things that seem innocent like Devs queuing with top teams may not be appropriate anymore.

Just a question. If it was a legitimate decision, it seems like community feedback would be encouraged.

However, if it was a decision made behind closed doors without any sort of communication besides the input of a few top players, I could see why you might want to shut out any dissenting opinions.

Arenanet: “Guys, tanking people 1v2 and 1v3 is not healthy gameplay. We removed Minstrel’s Amulet.”

Arenanet: “Guys, tanking people 1v2 and stacking 25 might is healthy gameplay. We are going to force every competitive team to join the Celestial Bruiser meta.”

The bias is real.

Minstrel’s sacrifices every ounce of offensive capability a player has to turn it into the first truly “pure support” amulet to be introduced to the game.
I am not surprised this has generated a considerable level of QQ. Solo queuers will rotate into a Minstrel’s player standing on a point capped in his favor and call it broken….but that simply isn’t a good rotation or a smart play.

So let’s look at all the things a class or even a team gives up by taking a Minstrel’s player. I’ll mostly look at this from a Team Play perspective such as ESL or the upcoming Pro Leagues.
We’ll see that a Minstrel’s Amulet actually makes a team’s rotations less flexible, as well as reducing the comeback potential a team has when it is down (effectively the game becomes a 4v5 as a Minstrel’s player brings nothing to a fight where the cap is in the opponent’s favor).

The bruiser role has been in every significant team comp for the past year, particularly d/d ele. Not only did it have the sustain to 1v2 most classes, it had the might-stacking to turn it into the damage equivalent of a Zerker class. Its utility was simply too high.
With the xpac, we have Scrappers and Reapers taking that role. Classes that are not only incredibly tanky, but have the potential to output damage at the level of a Zerker class.
Even with 25 might stacks, Minstrel’kittens like a wet noodle. Its presence in games and fights is purely defensive. From an offensive standpoint, a Minstrel’s Amulet is a liability as it has no ability to take a point or win a team fight. It simply stalls and protects captured points.

So what are Minstrel’s Strengths? Let’s assume it can fill the 1v2 role better than a Bruiser class like Reaper or Scrapper by giving up its entire offensive potential. It also won’t win any 1v1s where a Scrapper or Reaper might. What we’re left with is a ton of Healing to make up the difference in team fights.

Druid in particular has some incredible synergy with the Minstrel’s Amulet as the raw healing potential of Celestial Avatar scales quite well. A Minstrel’s Druid can easily pick their entire team’s health pools up to 100% in a matter of seconds with Avatar.
I did not think there would be a Support that gave Bunker Guard a run for its money, but the outgoing heal potential of Druid certainly does that (though you’ll be missing the constant stability from a Bunker Guard).

So a quick list of Minstrel’s Pros and Cons.
Pros: Incredible healing in team fights, ability to last longer than a typical Bruiser in an outnumbered situation.

Cons: No offensive pressure, a liability to their team when not on a point capped in their favor.

From a utility perspective, I think most teams will still choose to bring Bruisers over Minstrel’s as it makes rotations more flexible and reduces the snowball effect of losing a fight. We will see what direction the Meta takes, while Minstrel’s Amulet is no doubt a very strong support, it is unclear whether that will be enough to warrant teams bringing them over a pair of 25 might stack bruisers.

#FreeTheIceBow

Belial.9350:

Readymade.1672:

3. Let’s pretend no one noticed that Dragon’s Breath used to be 2s per stack and was “unnerfed” in a recent patch. D/D ele was still meta with 2s of burn per stack.

Let’s pretend that no other burning skill on any profession had its burn stacks application increased while drake’s breath didn’t. You wouldn’t be making this point if on June 23 drake’s breath had it’s duration decreased to 1.5s but applied 2 stacks of burn.

I don’t get it: They didn’t increase the stacks of burning per tick (because that would be literally insane) but increased the burning duration back to standard.
A buff is a buff, and the skill was strong/will continue to be strong regardless if it is 2s or 3s of burn per tick.

This is the most Canadian post I’ve read all day.

Sunshine.5014:

Celtus.8456:

Still not fixing the ele. We’ll just see less ridiculous burns and random blinds now, which was an emergency fix, I guess.

Also, nice Smiter’s Boon on Icebow 4.

How is it not fixed Ele?

• Sustain? Double the CD on Vigor on crit
• Might? No more might Cantrips (9 stacks)
• Burning? Huge nerf from 3 stacks 5s to 1 stack 2s

D/D Ele gonna hit like a wet noodle again. if you die to a D/D Ele after patch, its purely gameplay issue. Haters gonna hate though.

While replying to a guy who ends every forum post with “Haters gonna hate” is a terrible idea. Let’s disperse some of your ignorance.

1.The nerf to vigor on crit is not a nerf to sustain. Cantrips are enough vigor, and d/d eles will just switch to the Arcane Precision trait for extra burn/blind on crit as well as additional condi covers.

Nerf to Vigor (10s cd instead of 5s) will mostly impact DPS Ele builds as they relied on this trait for their only source of vigor.

2. No competent d/d ele blows cantrips just for Might. D/D Ele’s might-stacking comes from other sources (fire fields and easy access to multiple blast finishers) and will not be affected at all by this nerf.

D/D eles will still have 25 might, perhaps it’ll take them 5 seconds longer to get it without access to might on cantrips.

3. Let’s pretend no one noticed that Dragon’s Breath used to be 2s per stack and was “unnerfed” in a recent patch. D/D ele was still meta with 2s of burn per stack.

It’s frankly just a great skill with amazing pressure to bait out dodges/punish those without condi clear, and it takes little to no ability to land.

Ignoring the usual ignorant pvp forum chatter….

This list is both correct in its identification of balance problems and its prioritization (1-7) of what needs to be fixed.

Shockwave.1230:

masskillerxploit.2165:

New update to ESL: You can only use one class in each composition of 5 players. Choose wisely.

Lol, not quite, but there is a rule preventing the 4 ele team comp now

“3.11. League Specific Rules
Each team needs to consist of at least 3 different professions”

Is this just for EU? /15chars

Let the mandatory meta of Eles using vamp runes begin!

I’m someone who routinely plays in ESL with an average of 150-200 ms. It is far more realistic to play a bunker/bruiser-type class when you’re dealing with this issue, as ping matters more to the “fast twitch” professions like thief and mesmer.

There’s a definite advantage that players with 30-60 ms have over you, and you end up having to predict burst combos and proactively respond. That being said, I don’t feel unable to compete at the highest level of play as my selected profession (staff elementalist), but I know if I tried to “get good” at thief or mesmer or even dps guard I’d still fall below the skill level of other players simply due to my ping.

I’m expecting another third test season “with minor tweaks” that don’t address any problems and keep uranked/ranked play in the kitten state it’s been in since Anet decided MMR-based leaderboards are good for every other esport but not a casual game like Guild Wars 2.

As it stands there is about a one hour window all week where I’m interested in queuing: Right before ESL starts when there’s at least 2 or 3 teams getting some last minute practice in Ranked Queue.

Evan Lesh.3295:

This is one reason we have the odds-of-winning based point matrix to ensure even matches help you climb, and you don’t fall for uneven matches.

Doesn’t a MMR-based leaderboard effectively accomplish this same goal? And ideally, wouldn’t uneven matches be an anomaly rather than something to design a system around?

Basically, what does this system accomplish that MMR-based leaderboards did not?

#RemoveTheFarmBoards
#NoPointsForLosing

Just a simple little question you may have overlooked: Aren’t high MMR players favored to win more often? (In fact that’s the only way to get high MMR is to win often…)

So, you’ve simply encouraged the same practice that currently gets people to the top of the farmboards.
Step 1: Play constantly.
Step 2: Win around 45-50% of your games.
Step 3: Glorious Hero’s Armor???

This is definitely still relevant if not moreso now. I don’t queue much in the current farmboard system, but from my limited experience: The Matchmaking has actually been very good lately. I think it really would lend itself to a “tiered” pvp environment and produce fair/accurate rankings.

The tier system Martin suggests is far more of a true “ladder” than the current system and is in fact the standard “ranked pvp” model for most major esports.
Let’s get with the times and finally realize the potential that this game’s pvp and combat system has. The esports scene is still burgeoning, but in reality the ranked pvp system in place now is the worst it has ever been.

You dun goofed, anet. Get rid of the farmboards, don’t try to devise your own clever little weighting system to reward casuals, use ELO. There’s a reason every other esport uses it.

-Someone who played 2.5k+ games with your previous MMR-based leaderboards and can’t find the motivation to queue up since the implementation of farmboards.

Cele staff is not particularly a 1v1 build as nearly all of my damage is AoE and the majority of the time, fights end in either my team or the other +1’ing the fight.
So most of these assessments are based on trying to hold a point or keep it neutral.

Guardian Bunker: 7:3
In all likelihood this doesn’t end in under 2 minutes, but will eventually go in the staff ele’s favor due to constant condi/damage pressure on point.

Guardian Meditation: 6:4 (gs s/f)
Assuming the guardian is forced to stand on point, I think most of the time, ele sustain and constant on point damage will win out. But often times this ends up a very drawn out fight as medi guard has enough cleanse to mitigate your condi pressure and heals to out-sustain your power damage.
Hammer guardian has added decap pressure once you’ve gone through your 2 stabilities, probably a 5/5 against that variety.

Warrior Shoutbow: 7:3
A very long fight but shoutbow has basically no way to keep condi pressure or damage up. Watch out for pin down or final thrust…or just tank it and out-sustain, meh. Don’t let yourself be stupidly decapped by Fear Me! Eventually meteor + condis once he’s out of shouts will kill him. Doom sigil is a must though.

Engi Cele: 5:5
The idea is basically to force them off point with damage then out-sustain them while you full cap. Meteor and lava font are a nice counter to crate unless it’s well-timed/combo’d with slick shoes, but eventually I just think eng’s easy to land abilities and constant burn/poison pressure will eat through your sustain. The engineer will eventually win the fight, but in terms of point gain, staff ele can pull off the better outcome.

Engi Condi: 3:7
One of the hardest counters I fight, the constant condi pressure and access to 5+ condis on fairly low cds will overwhelm you. With crate, this build is capable of killing a staff ele in under a minute, though it doesn’t always end up that way.

Thief S/D Acrobatics: 4/6
It’s downright frustrating trying to land any damage on a s/d thief. My main focus is trying to keep burn up, and maybe timing Eruption to land as they run into Unsteady ground. Runes of the Pirate are a must, as it gives you a constant source of single target damage.
This usually ends up being a long fight, but if I’m not careful steal + air/fire combined with boon rip can be a gamechanger.

Thief D/P Panic Strike: 6:4
A bit easier than s/d acro. The key is to punish any damage they put on you with your own damage on point. Apply burning whenever possible via dodge or fire 3.
Have to be very careful under 50% as immob tends to have a cover condi, so it’s not a guarantee that swapping to water will cleanse it.

Thief D/P Executioner: 7:3
While D/P executioner is probably one of the most deadly +1’s I have, it isn’t terribly difficult to beat in a 1v1. The fact is they can’t stand on point for any length of time, so unless you get bursted in a matter of seconds, they’ll die to your on point pressure.

Ele D/D Celestial: 5:5
Simply doesn’t end. If one ele is significantly better than the other then they might lose, but at the top-tier I’ve never seen this fight finish in a game scenario.

Ele S/F Fresh Air: 7:3
Similar to d/p executioner, a tough +1 to deal with but not something that can stand on point against you. It’s also fairly easy to keep protection up during their bursts and out-sustain their damage.

Mesmer Staff/GS Shatter: 6:4
Staff gs just doesn’t have the pressure to take down a staff ele alone. It’s missing the boon rip and invuln burst that makes s/f mesmers so deadly. Then again, the gs/staff variety is nearly impossible to kill because it doesn’t rely on close range to do damage. Usually I out-sustain this long enough to cap point and the mesmer decides to find a better use of his time.

Mesmer GS Sword/Focus Shatter: 4:6
A very scary match up. The boon rip +ability to stand on point with invuln negate nearly every advantage the staff ele has. However, they are susceptible to condi pressure and landing a few burnings + even one eruption can turn things in your favor.

Necro Terror: 7:3
Staff ele has enough cleanse to deal with a necro’s fear chains and bleeds. The key is to avoid letting them chain fear into corrupt boon. Armor of Earth can save your life or spell your death if it’s corrupted. Meanwhile, power damage will tear them up if they choose to fight on point.

Necro Power: 3:7
A tough match-up as no amount of sustain can keep up with their damage. This is one of the few fights where I have to choose between surviving and giving up the cap (wells or DS 1 spam). Magnetic Aura is your friend, and you can still pull off quite a bit of damage. The power necro has the advantage, but it’s not a done deal.

Frodan, his co-casting the first ESL monthly was perhaps the most esports GW2 has ever been. Kaelaris was also an excellent choice.

Also giving props to the DPS guys, and obviously I’m biased towards tichorum since he’s been gracious enough to allow me to co-cast.

I saw this thread at work and wanted to chime in since I’ve played staff ele since pre-launch and have over 5k pvp games on it.

The fact is that Staff Ele when compared trait to trait and skill to skill just doesn’t have as much going for it as a d/d ele. Staff Ele lacks the protection up-time of d/d, trying instead to make up for it with evades and kiting abilities, which simply isn’t where the meta is at right now. The meta isn’t so much about avoidance as having classes that can sustain and dish out an incredible amount of damage.
Let’s not even mention that Staff ele is less than half as effective at might-stacking.

That being said, Siroso did a great job pointing out a number of things that a staff ele can pull off against good players. The avoidance component can be used to survive outnumbered fights far longer than expected, delaying your opponents and getting those extra capture point ticks that can be the difference between a win or loss.

Conclusion: Staff ele has both benefited from and, in some ways, been made obsolete in the meta by Celestial. There is no doubt staff ele is a stronger pick-up than it has ever been with the advent of sigil of Battle, Celestial Amulet, and the un-nerfing of Cleansing Water. However, with the exception of the cleansing water trait, it does not make use of them nearly as effectively as a d/d ele.
I worry that in the process of bringing d/d eles and Celestial classes back in line, that Staff ele will be resigned to the Lesser-Tier role it has played in nearly every meta for the last 2 years.

ellesee.8297:

Your feelings of superiority are wasted in such a tiny game. Small fish bros. Small fish.

Couldn’t like this quote more. There are so many other things to value in this world, it’s silly to place one’s performance in this game as a top priority. At the point where you’re comparing playing this game to being an athlete or a soldier, I think you’ve gone over the deep end.

Also, I never met Vee Wee, but I leveled a guardian named Savior Machine to 80 exclusively through PvE and he was the only person to recognize the name as a Bowie song title. I considered his posts one of the healthier aspects of a largely unhealthy community.

I used to solo into team arena prior to solo queue coming back all those months ago. I remember talking to anet employees and people about the new game mode. They basically made it clear to me they had two goals: 1. That people would actually play it and 2. That queue times wouldn’t be too long.

If you understand that these were their only goals, you understand why solo queue is in the state it’s in. It will take a fundamental revamp of the game mode, from matchmaking to map choices to leaderboard/elo accuracy, before solo queue ever is taken out of the dumpster and into a serious light.

I don’t think Guardian has been in a weaker spot in pvp at anytime in this game.

TheDave.4391:

Hi all,

Thanks for your patience while we try to figure this one out.

One hypothesis suggested by some of the posts above is that CoherentUI_Host.exe is not shutting down properly. (The new launcher, which looks just like the old launcher, uses a Web browser called Coherent.)

If you’re stuck, please bring up the task manager and see if CoherentUI_Host.exe is running (it will be under the processes tab, not the applications tab); if it is, kill it and try running Guild Wars 2 again. Most likely you will be able to get into the game one time and then the next time it will fail.

Alternatively, and I’m almost ashamed to suggest this: reboot Windows and try playing Guild Wars 2. If the problem is that CoherentUI_Host.exe is not shutting down properly, you will probably be able to play one time.

Let us know if any of this works for you, and especially please let us know if you see that CoherentUI_Host.exe is running when Guild Wars 2 is not.

Please look into the suggestion that CoherentUI’s Digital Signature is not verified possibly due to a missing or corrupted file. I looked into my CoherentUI and noticed that this was the case (digital signature unverified).

—> Crash <—
Assertion: m_system != NULL
File: ..\..\..\Engine\ArenaWeb\AwCohContext.cpp(78)
App: Gw2.exe
Pid: 5276
Cmdline:
BaseAddr: 013E0000
ProgramId: 101
Build: 38569
When: 2014-09-09T19:56:22Z 2014-09-09T09:56:22-10:00
Uptime: 0 days 0:00:04
Flags: 0

Edit: Just to clarify since you’re redirecting all issues with Coherent UI to this thread: I don’t care about it accessing the internet even when I’m logged out, I just want the game I’ve been playing for 2+ years now to work. Please don’t call this thread: “Answered” if you’re redirecting hundreds of people who can’t play the game they paid for to this thread.

Hi, I’ve been unable to download the patch due to “Coherent UI” crashing. This is apparently an issue for a number of people on the Reddit GW2 Forums as well (http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2fxla3/coherent_ui_has_stopped_working/).

Any idea what’s causing this?

NA All-stars = a mediocre team queue pug lol

Carbonize.1530:

Eurantien.4632:

I gotta be honest. I have no idea who Phantaram is.

Great ele who was on Team Paradigm when they beat Car Crash at pax (although I believe he played necro). He also has a great stream that is helpful to anyone interested in playing ele.

I believe he is currently on Team Mist (TCG) but may have to be on NA all stars due to living in the US.

Great player who maintains a calm attitude and communicates well.

Obviously EU players would vote for him then since he’s likely the one candidate they know.
Just seems odd that a player with 45 solo queue games and ~150 team queues would be an “NA All-Star” compared to I AK or Marvin with nearly 10K games.

Either way, should be fun watching NA get stomped! I don’t think there’s a comp with those 5 players that would hold up in NA team queue let alone against a legitimate Euro team.

“Chubbs also single handedly brought back staff ele into the meta before the recent balance patch even though everyone said it was bad, which I commend him for greatly.”

Lol, bullkitten. No one thought staff was viable until the changes to Water’s Grandmaster Trait. He played it with your team, but frankly no one thought your team was great until you ran a comp comprised solely of bunker/support meta builds.

It’s cool that you guys have been around for longer than your builds though I’m not sure why time investment is a source of pride. Thanks for letting the player base know that you indeed were a team before anyone heard of you.

My first response when I saw Blu as an all-star was that he isn’t in the top tier of NA players. I’m happy that he admitted as such, but he also has a valid point that he has never been part of a high-end team either.

Frankly, there are a lot of “not top tier” players on great teams because the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Indeed, this is why no one will ever agree on who are individually great players versus who gets carried either by their team or by a low skill-cap build (cough, Hiba and Backpack, cough).

My conclusion is that Blu could absolutely replace some of the lesser players on top-tier teams and they’d do just as well based on the level of dedication he is willing to put in. So screw it, he’s a great force for the game and people actually like him, he has my vote.

As an elementalist, I’ve pretty much stopped using Lightning Flash in combat because of this bug. It was happening at least once a game and often would result in death due to having the lowest base armor in the game.

While Anet is willing to put their marketing and promotion team to good use with the ToL, they can’t be kitten d to fix a gamebreaking bug that’s only gotten more prevalent with recent updates. This is why anyone who cares about spvp and has been around for any significant length of time has absolutely given up on the ability of this company to produce a pvp scene worthy of being called “esports.”

More constructively, can we at least get someone to say “hey guys, we are aware that this bug exists. It’s tough to fix for X and X reasons but we’re working on it.”
Perhaps no one wants the responsibility of admitting they’re aware of it lol. Anyways, this is the first post I’ve made on the forums in a year or so and likely the last since it’s widely considered to be a waste of time.

They did it with the Mini Holographic Risen Knights’ release and now it’s the same thing again with Mini Caithe and Scarlets. Mini prices have fallen by 100% in some cases.

It’s almost like Anet devs don’t know that throwing minis into the Mystic Forge is a thing that players do.

I love Minis and have had all of them for nearly a year, but I’m done with holding onto an item that Anet continually causes to crash in value by introducing more “Rare” minis that are easily attainable and no one wants (i.e. Mystic Forge Fodder). I’ll just wait for the prices to artificially inflate again and sell off.

To make this somewhat constructive: 1. Design Minis that People actually want as rewards. 2. Stop introducing absurdly common minis as “Rares.” 3. Listen to Players’ persistent requests for improved Mini functionality. Something as a simple as a tab that allows you to auto-deploy a mini instead of having to go into your bags and click it every time you’re Downed or change maps/instances.

/RantOver

I discovered this fairly early on after seeing that my prized jack-a-lop’s value had fell by half, but I didn’t have the money to do more than 4 or 5 forges when the new minis were still above 2.5g each. I did think it was odd, so I sent in a bug report and messaged an Anet employee who happened to be in Lion’s Arch. He commented that he found the mini’s behavior in the forge strange, and that it might possibly be a bug, but that he would not consider it an exploit.

It’s always seemed strange to me that a rare sigil or rune can be worth MORE than its exotic counterpart. In addition, it contributes to prices for the few sigils and runes that people actually want being outrageously high (Rune of Divinity and Sigil of Bloodlust hover around 8g), while the usefulness of other exotic sigils is no more than that of a grey (vendor trash).

I think this is a great, pain-free solution to something that’s bothered me, and apparently a lot of other players too, for a long time.