Guild Wars 2

While overall good, there are a few glaring issues currently:
1) Warriors having no place in teams currently
2) Necros being the underdog of HGH engineers
3) BM rangers pets

And of course the already stated problem of no diversity.

Med.6150:

Let’s give all glass cannons a 25% uptime invul in their offensive trees. Mesmers have the strongest utility skills out of all the classes. No other class comes close, yet the current meta sees none of the shatter mesmers investing a single utility skill to survive longer (they’d have access to 2 stealth abilities and AoE condition cleanse among other things, instead they just opt for illusion of life, portal and mirror images (requires target), that is almost never used as a stun breaker but instead to double shatter, so that they basically decide to run without a single stun breaker on their utility bar).

Every other glass cannon build outside of the mesmer will heavily invest in survivability through utilities in return, simply because they have to. How can any mesmers even argue that there’s nothing wrong with that?

Your arguments are so skewed it’s becoming embarassing.
I know another class that doesn’t take any stunbreaker on their utility bar. Necromancer. Can you please go spam in their forums that they need to be nerfed because they don’t take any stun breaker on their bar ?

You haven’t explained why Infiltrator’s Strike is not on the “MUST NERF LIST” of the almighty Med. No other skill in game comes even close to Infiltrator’s Strike : spamable double port, immobilize, stun breaker , condition remover. Can mesmers get Infiltrator’s Strike instead of Blurred Frenzy ? I would be fine with it!

Stop being stuck on the idea of a skill being OP and take in consideration the whole class and how it performs in the real enviroment.

And what every other glass cannon ? There’s 2 glass cannons that work in tpvp : thief ( your class ) and mesmer. Except shadowstep how does a thief invest heavily in survability ? Shadow Refuge is more of a team utility just like portal, even if you sometimes use it to save yourself. Mesmers use portal to save themselves too you know.

Warriors? The few warriors that are left in tPVP bring only stability and that’s usually used so they can stay on target.

And please stop using Illusionary Leap stun breaker as a sign of how Sword MH Mesmer is OP. That’s clearly an unintended bug and it will be fixed probably. The tooltip mentions nothing about stunbreaking. Asking for blurred frenzy nerf because of a bug on Illusionary Leap defies logic.

Benji.9203:

@ Shay

Heartseeker is only useful when the target has low health. Reason why everyone laughs at HS spammers. Thieves are also vulnerable while heart seeking.

S/D did not become viable because of a reliable evade. It became viable because of boon stealing. Now bunkers have a counter.

If you want an evade you might as well go S/P since S/D evasion is not that long in comparison but with the pistol whip nerf…

Sword auto damage is not that impressive which is why D/X is the burst set. Infiltrator strike has always been good no one denies that but pre-patch there was really nothing S/D could contribute in tourney play.

The forum posts around here did not complain about boon stealing, though I know that’s the reason they have become useful to teams. They complained about evade. Now S/D thief has approximately the same amount of survivability as mesmer does, but you don’t see people yelling about it as much as they do complain about mesmers.
Low health HS, clones for mind wrack, stealth for BS, adrenaline for eviscerate. They each have a requirement attached to them but they provide damage on the higher end of the spectrum.

S/D thief can tackle mesmers and other classes quite successfully, even with it’s so called OP blurred frenzy, mind wrack and apparently chaos storm is there too. So can we expect S/D to the ground once blurred frenzy is buried?

And Med is just on a disgusting hate spree. He says that himself : “I don’t even care if mesmers are op or not, I am just handing you a much needed reality check.”
So if mesmers are not OP, and that can be seen in game actually – no team is running 2 mesmers since December, almost every class except warrior can tackle them – what would a blurred frenzy nerf to them? Well we have the answer from Med :
“We don’t even care!”

Well here comes the real reality check : Balance should not be done based on biased hate towards a class – balance should be done based on what’s happening in the game.

Fact is back in october-november, while playing mesmer I was a strong supporter of Time Warp, Moa, Portal nerf and I strongly agree the current Illusion nerf ( maybe it needs another one ). I strongly advise on giving portal to another class and can probably get on board with other nerfs to mesmers.

Back in December, when I discovered the shatter exploit I posted it on the forums , I submitted it as a bug and it lead to a fix and a 0.25 CD on shatters. You can probably even find a post from me asking WTF were they thinking when they buffed might on shatter.

But this topic is just ABSURD.

Med.6150:

This is the kind of delusion there’s no cure for. How can you say your burst is not on a much lower cooldown and then proceed and discredit yourself in the same sentence. 10.5 seconds. There’s no burst mechanic on such a low cooldown for any other class. Let alone AoE, instant and target seeking.

Take another class and use your burst out of range of the target. See how that goes. When you shatter a target in front of you and your target decides to blink away right before your shatter goes off, your illusions will not explode, they will chase down the target and try to explode in his face, once they get there. On top of that, your Mind Wrack will also begin its cooldown the second you pressed F1, so that even if the illusions take 5 seconds to get to your target, you couldn’t care less, as all that means is that your next shatter will just be coming all the sooner.

The illusions have to walk to the target and explode. Casting it from range in a team fight is more or less useless as clones die till they get to their target from all the AoE.

Read above. Any other class doesn’t have their burst following and chasing the target, if they mess it up or the target runs away.

No, Blurred Frenzy is a crutch you’ve come to rely upon. Your MW from I-Persona is instant and has medium range. Too bad your own MW isn’t as smart as your NPCs’, so that you actually have to stand by the target your want to burst eh? And for that you need an invul, because as soon as you get in melee range for an instant spell, you obviously need to have an invul that deals damage going with it.

That’s kinda…distorted, don’t you think?

I’ll be blunt. Read again what you wrote and tell me why you need an invul, if you are not going to be in melee range? You’re only moving into melee range to do damage with your invul ability, which only makes sense, if you actually would have to stay in melee range for dealing damage in the first place.

Eviscerate is on a 10s cooldown is it not, while providing more damage? Thieves have no cooldown, but HS provides 3-6k damage, while mind wrack provides 4-8k damage ( 8k meaning 4 consecutive crits ). Backstab provides 10k+ damage. I am pretty sure I can come up with more examples by testing with same stats (2.2k power, 47% crit, 44% crit damage, 4% damage ogre runes ) . Many skills in this game offer similar damage with the same stats and similar cooldown – actually being available as a tourney build is another issue.

It’s not even funny to have discussions about cooldowns and damage with a thief no less! You realize how twisted this is right ?
I will reiterate – shattering from range in a team fight is useless. Clones will die on their way to the target! It works in 1v1, but not in teamfights. If you played a mesmer you would understand that very easily.

You want blurred frenzy dead? Ok let’s say for one second that’s fair. Now let’s have a cool discussion about Infiltrator’s Strike : how is it possible for one skill to be a double port, a root, a stunbreaker and a condition clear?
And the 2nd question – why no S+X set from thief never reached viable status in tourney play after pistol whip nerf until #3 was buffed recently? Infiltrator’s Strike clearly provides more then ANY other skill in this game, yet it failed to be good until recently.
What exactly does #3 on S+D provide that made it popular after the latest patch ?
Oh yes! Reliable Evade making thief actually able to land a hit without getting killed before he is able to port back!

Blurred Frenzy+Illusionary Leap+Phase Retreat provide to mesmer a similar situation for thief as Infiltrator’s Strike+Flanking Strike, albeit with differences both positive and negative for both classes.

Berserker Amulet in this game simply does not work at all without evades/immunities & ports (see warriors ). Berserker Shatter mesmer is the only spec mesmer has seen viable in tournament play since october-november. As much as I like playing mesmer, I will ditch it in a second for BM ranger.

And to answer your question : please ask your mesmer NEVER to go melee range in a tourney game – just sit in the back, shatter and autoattack with staff from range. Then come back and tell me how much you raged at him for being useless. Or better yet, try that yourself. At least like this you will spare your teammate a headache.

Med.6150:

A bunch of stuff that asks for mesmer to be mini warrior.

First off – our shatter skills are NOT on a much lower cooldown then other professions. Learn the class before you start writing a wall of text with pure non-sense.
Mind Wrack : 15s by default, 10.5s with 30 points in Illusions
Cry of Frustration : 30s by default, 21s with 30 points in Illusions
Diversion: 45s by default, with 31.5s with 30 points in Illusions
Distortion: 60s by default, 42s with 30 points in Illusions

Mind Wrack – indeed the bulk of our damage, but saying you can just cast it from range is a bunch of crap that only someone who doesn’t know mesmer can say. The illusions have to walk to the target and explode. Casting it from range in a team fight is more or less useless as clones die till they get to their target from all the AoE. Blurred frenzy is the method that allows us to reliable mind wrack. Without it our rotation would be leap in , mind wrack, staff #2. No sane mesmer will sit around to cast blurred frenzy without immunity because he will be dead before he even finishes the cast!
Cry of Frustration – 457 damage/clone and applies 3s of confusion. Again suffers from the same problem with casting it from range. Heck, engineer’s Static Shot is even better then Cry of Frustration.

Mesmer is not Warrior to do amazing damage if they reach the target( which has a fail class design at the moment just because of this exact reason! ). We are a bit like thieves but with much lower burst, less mobility, less stealth and less condition removals but with survivability due to blurred frenzy. You want to remove immunity from blurred frenzy. Where exactly does that leave us in your mind ?
But you want to make it mini-warrior actively running around in melee range to kill ? How exactly does that work for warrior ?

Let’s review mesmer weapons :
Scepter – fail design, nobody uses it outside of WWW, PVE where you can basically run with anything at all. Received minor buffs that no mesmer actually cared about since the weapon itself is a total mess.
Torch – same scenario as scepter. Has been reworked about 5-6 times.
Confusion mesmer in Tournament PVP simply DOES not work!
Sword OH – the bad version of Pistol and used only by some phantasm mesmer, which is a dead spec in Tournaments
Greatsword – Good damage overall, very bad #3, iBerserker has been bugged for months – lacking severely on the defensive part, for which reason very few mesmers use it.
Focus – Provides the out of combat mobility that mesmer lack completely and amazing CC. Warden is pretty much useless as it spawns at the target location and dies very fast in team fights, while providing no damage. Might reflect 1-2 projectiles if lucky.

Then there’s staff and sword which everyone uses because they are practically the only sets available for mesmer.

I can agree that stunbreaker on #3 needs to go cause it’s clearly a bug and porting out of knockdown/knockback with staff #2. But by God you people want mesmer to the ground while lying through your teeth that it’s not true.

So basically people want blurred frenzy to be on the level of pistol whip – 0 presence in the game, minus ~1k damage for the same stats on mesmer and 1s invulnerability vs 0.5s stun

Blurred frenzy : 2-3k damage heavy golem with 2204 power , 47% crit chance, 44% crit damage, ogre runes
Pistol whip : 3-4k damage with same stats

Well, i’m relieved now and cheering at your awesome plans. I will go tell all the pistol whip thieves the good news. Where exactly do the pistol whip thieves hang around ?

I pretty much understand where this new wave of rage against mesmers is coming. PVP just got way more popular and people started playing. People that have no idea what their class does even, let alone other classes and mesmer stands to be as the annoying opponent.
Proof is the fact that there are new threads where they actually complain about phantasm mesmer which has been a dead horse since November. Does it even get more sad then this ?

As I said before – almost any class has a good shot at killing mesmer 1v1 except warrior which pretty much dies to everything and to a certain extent necros. Ranger wipes the floor with mesmers. In teamfights we have a slight edge because one good shatter can make a team get in to trouble, but clearly not blurred frenzy is the culprit.

If anything needs nerf is mind wrack on targets except the intended one, at which point our AoE will be pretty much non-existent and we would need some compensation on staff probably.

Most classes have a decent shot at killing/tanking mesmers. The exceptions here are warriors and necros but this stems from their class problems overall and BM ranger which are pretty much kings of 1v1

Mesmers are not in tourney teams rooster for their damage, tankiness,1v1 capabilities or aoe damage but more so for their utilities. They are good all around at everything but do not excel in one particular area except for the uniqueness of their team utilities, which have been nerfed one by one.

Give necros portal and better 1v1 capabilities and some teams will replace mesmers.

Different titles were given out as rewards for the top 100 in the Qualifying Leaderboards at the last patch:
Legend of the Arena
Veteran of the Arena
Soldier of the Arena
Challenger of the Arena
You can’t get these titles now as QPs have been removed.

produde.8092:

Sooo I am not playing anymore very interesting, and I shouldnt get access to CA because I soloqued a lot. Srsly if you dont even know everyone on the list how can you now who plays who doesnt. I am pretty sure if people ask nice everyone will be able to participate in CA.

I am not on Desolation and I don’t stalk people. If more people on that list are playing that’s great! If more then 50% on that list are playing that’s even better! I just said things the way I saw them from a statistical POV – if less then 50% of the people are playing, the system is flawed. As you can see Guts is listed as playing, while you are not and both of you were in NN recently.

cocaftw.4279:

Well only speaking for my Team, we are comming back with CA`s and i am sure that a lot of the players on the List will do the same. Few werent even gone like u marked us on the List, we are not gone we were just waiting for CA`s and i know for a fact that few others did the same. If only 1 Player of the Team actualy need acces to the CA`s and can invite others with no acces we can give away 3 CA`s accesses and i think other Teams will do the same, so a lot more Teams can test the CAs than mentiond on the List.

I didn’t specifically talk to the members, just checked the leaderboards at http://mos.millenium.org/ who has been active. On a sidenote, welcome back and hope to see you in game.

PowerBottom.5796:

How can ppl not understand the logic behind this decision?

Yes, there might be a Problem with inactive Players, but:

When introducing such a big new feature, there are lots of possibilities of Issues to arise and you can basically categorize them in two groups:

1) Issues that arise because of the number of Players and Data.
2) Issues with the System itself, that can be spotted even by a small number of Players.

21 active players out of 51. I’m guessing in NA the situation is not much different. That’s what? 40-50 players in the world. Well, don’t know about you, but I call this an alpha test for friends & family, not public beta testing. 40 players is huge for PVP in GW2 though considering the population numbers..

I see having 50% of your testing population not even playing the game as a bit of a problem.
The smart and realistic thing to do would have been testing on the current 50 leaderboard, not something outdated from 2 months ago. Most likely, this is some sort of let’s shoot 2 rabbits with one bullet :
1) Give the rewards for the top QP leaderboard they promised when they removed QPs
2) Beta test the Custom Arenas/Spectator mode
The only problem is that both are cheap ways out.

Pixels.6532:

Honestly, you’re probably better off selling them unid for the guaranteed 15/16 silver, vs risking an abyss, celestial, midnight ice, etc…

You can’t sell the Unidentified Dyes you get from sPVP chests/mystic forge. Can only hope for the magic roulette.

Go go abyss dye! Got celestial and black today . :>

This decision with Top 50 QP Leaderboards is plain wrong. Why not base it on current leaderboards I have no idea.

In EU there are currently 51 players in top 50 ( 2 ocuppy the same spot ) . Out of the 51 players, 30 players have stopped playing. That means 21 players will have access in EU to custom arenas.

More then that, a clear example of how this decision was wrong. Team Paradigm who has been always a top team are not in top 50 because they didn’t farm QPs intensively. Teldo is only rank 56, their highest. They have been in the betas, represented in many SoTGs, have a strong knowledge of the game and have promoted GW2 with their streams, yet they will not have access to custom arenas directly.

1. Purie.9046 – 1730 – playing
2. Naito.5693 – 1725 – not playing
3. RADOM.9634 – 1405 – playing
4. Danto.6748 – 1199 – playing
5. jim.5380 – 1142 – playing
6. Lowellollipop.5817 – 1129 – playing
7. Lorienda.1349 – 1127 – playing
8. guza.6170 – 1118 – playing
9. Hyxorcisten.5786 – 1109 – playing
10. Oni.5429 – 1105 – playing
11. Posi.4251 – 1104 - not playing
12. Fredzw.1053 – 1097 -playing
13. produde.8092 – 1067 -not playing
14. Eristina.5967 – 1015 -not playing
15. Pharexys.4280 – 1004 -not playing
16. Kylex.5962 – 999 - playing
17. Kirei.1792 – 949 - not playing
18. cocaftw.4279 – 937 -not playing
19. Guts.4967 – 914 - playing
20. Yagamy.1569 – 892 - not playing
21. Konina.7051 – 854 -not playing
22. Nahtsu.1037 – 822 - not playing
23. Psyco Flipside.1936 – 810 -not playing
24. Magz.4976 – 808 -not playing
25. Dave.7268 – 802 -playing
26. Leki.8623 – 779 -not playing
27. soul.5368 – 778 -not playing
28. Ultima.8673 – 760 -playing
29. Rol.6938 – 756 -playing
30. Ace of Spades.6325 – 744 -not playing
31. Lady Sara Goldheart.2764 – 742 -playing
32. Zym.3570 – 728 -not playing
33. Vayyy.5420 – 720 -not playing
34. Kinglor.6358 – 680 -not playing
35. Neptune.6481 – 672 -not playing
36. Jony.9041 – 632 -playing
37. Lastzlast.7461 – 630 -not playing
38. Rapiso.1486 – 600 -not playing
39. Ralsek.2765 – 596 -not playing
40. xbetax.3610 – 593 -not playing
41. Maze.5283 – 575 -not playing
42. Ciru.8905 – 567 -not playing
43. akenathon.4769 – 565 -not playing
44. Forsaker.9213 – 540 -playing
45. Snip.6138 – 500 -not playing
46. Vonethil.7160 – 498 -playing
47. Battosai.5620 – 461 -playing
48. Tsunkyr.2945 – 456 -not playing
49. Kanou.1054 – 452 -not playing
50. Uni.5318 – 451 -not playing
50. XerreX.7196 – 451 -playing

Cottage Pie.6215:

Grok.6714:

Funny how Deso is suddenly complaining about VS , but they were acting like kings of WvW last week.

You miss a strong SFR now, don’t you?

Your sig states that you are ‘forum warrior academy’, joke or not, your post is clear trollbait, nowhere is or has ‘deso’ (strawmanning an entire server into a singular poster, gb2troll school) posted “acting like kings”. Infact many posts saying how a strong SFR was vital to T1 EU, just read back, some will be from me.

Just debunking your post, nothing personal.

Though he might be stretching it a bit , maybe some SFR feel resentful at Deso for their general attitude in the past 5 weeks. 5 weeks you try to prove that you are a prideful server that can stand on its own and fight no matter what, pulling out extra hours in the night and morning, even as much as gunning down at SFR as much as possible ( the red SFR borderlands screenshots ). Which was fine and everything, props for the commitment.
Then SFR decides to drop the glove and say bye to T1, Deso is trying even harder? I’m very sure you can pull a lot more then 12k behind a non-combat SFR.
http://s21.postimg.org/sg58h5dxx/gw650.jpg
On another note – I would be curios to see statistics from Anet regarding number of players on each server who clocked more then 50 hours in WWW. That would show true WWW population and would end this "our server has more PVE people / no ours have / we have less etc. "

Questions :
1) Back when QPs were removed they mentioned something about rewards for the top people. The QP leaderboard was removed , but no rewards. Any hints, info or plans for this?
2) Adding incentive to tPVP ? Gems were removed and that was it. You may argue that fun is the reward, but how about making it a bit more fun ?
3) Custom arenas cost – we all know that custom arenas will be sold on gems . Many of the tPVP players don’t have a lvl 80 character to farm gold with. You can expect a serious backlash if PVP players don’t have a way of getting custom arenas without the use of a Credit Card or forcing them to go out of the environment they love and know – sPVP/tPVP. Are you doing anything to prevent this backlash ?
4) Build Diversity – i know it has been asked and re-asked before. It needs to be asked again and reminded that it is killing a lot of the fun for teams. Very small poolset – you already know the team just by looking at the classes.

hazygin.1342:

Free transfers are only a conveniently timed excuse used by SFR for why they dropped from the top. Maybe it was getting too much anyway. They would have eventually burnt out or egos imploded like BT before. Exactly how many pugs moved to SFR? I’d be willing to bet not as many as they cry out to be. It was the exit strategy that those bandwagon guilds wanted.

If Desolation had free transfers, they would have cooperated with more players and become a stronger server, instead of their WvW guilds deserting. Desolation plays for fun and hasn’t burnt out because it was never a bandwagon server pushing for #1, even if guilds moved there at different times.

Drq was commanding tonight in SFR BL as the sole commander ..
I’ve counted 25 guild tags and non-guilds in TS today. You can probably double that with the people that were not on TS. 1 month ago you would see 15-30 from the same guild and 5-10 pugs.
Clearly no difference at all.

One week ago I remember on VS borderland I think, a commander I never heard of before was skirmishing in front of Bluebriar alongside 20 pugs. He never even bothered to take Champion’s Orchard like once, while typing in map chat : " SHOW NO FEAR, CHARGE" .That went on for over half an hour while Katiechops of BOON was trying to defend Hills T3 with 5-10 people. I left after half an hour because it was too depressing.

And I play WvW rarely – every other day – the guys that play every day must have more stories like this.

Cameirus.8407:

true, its pathetic on SFR right now, so many people just not bothering to even try. First little bit of adversity and people pack it in.

Some of us are trying to keep fighting, but numbers are severely down, and we keep getting 2v1’s by deso and VS (no not alledging a conspiracy, thats just the way it happens).

Not pathetic at all. Today both on SFR and Deso BL commanders were teaching people on TS what and how to do things. But as you have stated before, your knowledge and wisdom are infinite, people that try to teach are condescending and being on TS makes 0 difference. You should wait for your highschool/university teachers in the parking lot and throw bags of feces at them for being condescending trying to teach you math, physics, philosophy etc. Also , I very much advise you to play tPVP without TS and get to top 100 let’s say . You can tell me afterwards how much a difference TS makes or doesn’t make.

Good luck warriors!

This here deserves 120 gems and 3 QPs.. oh wait!

Fractals of the Mists has map randomness since their launch in November and they also have a few random elements inside the map.

I guess they send the interns to do the programming for PVP, while the real programmers are doing the PVE.

For those who got characters stuck, to fix your issue ( until a fix to the problem is given by Anet ) :
Go to character selection screen and guest on another server . Log on the blocked character and move him to some other area like the Mists or LA. Then logout again and go to your main server.

Bugged Areas:
1) SFR Queensdale ( players from SFR with characters stuck in Metrica can guest to Desolation)
2) Desolation Metrica ( players from Desolation with characters stuck in Metrica can guest to SFR )

I don’t know if any other servers have bugged zones, but do reply here or in the other thread so people don’t try to fix their problem by guesting to a server which has the same bugged zone as their home server.

For those who got characters stuck, to fix your issue ( until a fix to the problem is given by Anet ) :
Go to character selection screen and guest on another server . Log on the blocked character and move him to some other area like the Mists or LA. Then logout again and go to your main server.

Bugged Areas:
1) SFR Queensdale
2) Desolation Metrica

Scryar.2954:

Danielle.3152:

Guilds queued, PuGies in! SFR zone had 1 supply camp and zone was queued I am not kidding. Ppl asked who was in the zone? The answer: noone! Only 7 ppl from Vcy managed to get in after queuing for 2 hours. No recognizable names in the zone.

What can I say, if this goes on, I guess SFR could be the next Blacktide, thank you very much ANET for making a T1 server which already had 30-60min queues in primetime free to transfer to. Did they seriously think ppl would transfer here for PvE or what? Now they are killing what was a great server, because the ppl who were here before can’t even get to play WvW.

A member of the biggest serverhopping guild crying about serverhoppers? Seems legit

You deserve a medal for being a complete …
As a then and now random pugger ( that has been on SFR since day 1), RG and the other Piken guilds has put in a lot of effort for SFR. From my POV SFR late night force is heavily supported mainly by RG and RNV. RG paid the price to be on SFR, the newly come just exploited yet another one of Anet’s failures. Generally speaking – swarms of locusts that refuse to put ANY effort and destroying any good community in their path. Their main qualities are : fluent in “barrens chat” and starting arguments over things they have absolutely 0 knowledge of.

Now in the sPVP forums threads have started to show up with people complaining that their hard earned PVE gear is not usable in PVP and they couldn’t get their laureals ( based on yet another anet failure )

Apparently Paul McCartney is working on a remix of the Beatles song. A short preview of the lyrics go like this :
blob, blob, blob.
blob, blob, blob.
blob, blob, blob.

There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done.
Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game.
It’s easy.

All you need is blob (all together, now!)
All you need is blob. (everybody!)
All you need is blob, blob.
blob is all you need (blob is all you need).

Yee-hai!
Oh yeah!
They blobed you, yeah yeah yeah.
They blobed you, yeah yeah yeah.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydfH7iuLR0I – just remember to replace the word while singing along.

ethier.3417:

Please don’t comment on something you don’t know, SFR didn’t suggest or ask Deso anything of the sort, We only said we would focus on VZ.

Either some members of SFR did ask or Desolation players misinterpreted. Either way it should be cleared up to avoid any more angry forum posts on this part ( see last pages ), shouldn’t it – or maybe some posts got deleted?

I understand Desolation’s position on neutrality and trying to prove themselves as nobody’s lapdog, but forum posts from IRON members mostly just prove the opposite. What you are doing now is not neutrality and pride, it is just spite for SFR for weird reasons :
1) SFR suggested ganking up on VS to take them out T1. What’s the problem? You refused, game moves on. Why are you so insulted about it and take it personally? If one of SFR commanders keeps insisting on it bash him don’t start spiting all over every SFR and calling them names and telling them “omg l2p”. That’s just low.
2) Bandwagon server – again, what is the problem? You were in the same position some time ago, you took advantage of it, your new guilds left, you rebuilt and moved on. Why the sudden hate on SFR? It’s not like SFR came from T8 suddenly. For the past 3-4 months it has been in T1-T2 and a force to be reckoned with, and it dropped to T2 out of it’s own decision nothing more. How about respecting that?

I think everybody recognizes Deso as a powerful server with skilled players and good guilds, there is no need for the tension. Some SFR forum posters are not that nice, but it’s usually isolated cases and rotten apples can be found on all servers.

Between SFR and VS there is another level of animosity and in my opinion both sides have contributed to this general tension with equal guilt. SFR calling names on VS and criticizing their tactics, VS calling SFR the worst server they ever fought and that it should never be put alongside Blacktide, Deso, FSP and other T1 contenders. It will probably never go away either and both servers hold equal blame.

With respect towards my opponents,
A random SFR pugger.

I appreciate your optimism Phanta, it helps a bit in not being forced to rename the “Structured PVP:” subforum in to the “Depressing Corner” subforum.
On the other hand, I don’t think much has changed on the balance side of things: Mesmers will still run illusion,portal and time warp . Bunker eles will still spam cantrips and force 2-3 people to protect home. Burst thieves will still oneshot any class that doesn’t have an immunity ready and so on.
The simple fact that people are forced to run the best spec of the best classes to be on equal ground is just disheartening.
In January I tried running pistol+dagger condi thief + triple Ethereal field mesmer + condi necro. It suddenly became twice as hard to win vs same teams that the cookie-cutter comp provided us with almost free wins.
This won’t change for many months to come and probably never will. As someone said earlier on the forums : this is not LoL to have 100 options of choosing “classes”. We have 8 and that’s it.

The point I am trying to make is that FOTM will always be around : be it bunker eles, an incarnation of triple turret mega destroying engi or quad signet warrior. If that is OP at that period in time, people will use it.

P.S. Have anyone seen rankings? Or they will be forum-submitted again…?
( I still don’t know where the team-color feature they implemented in December is )

2 guys from my guild had issues connecting for 1-2 hours or so. They are from EU.
They were able to connect and play normally at around 9 PM GMT. I’m guessing you still have issues though

MaXi.3642:

if you dont know it, they said its a test they want people to get used to the map and show actual meta game on that map this will probably stop when patch will go live, at least i hope so…

Not a test anymore :
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/upcoming-changes-to-pvp-tournaments/
Due to your feedback, we’ve decided to keep this format for paid tournaments. At the beginning of each week, we will select a different map to feature in all paid tournaments for that week. The free tournament format won’t change. The next map will be “The Battle of Kyhlo.”

One week was Temple of the Silent Storm, now it’s Nilfhel and next week it will be Battle of Khylo.

I like dogs more, but ok … kitten ?

Indeed we need some meaningful rewards not Qualifying Points and Glory + the whole buy Tournament Tickets with gems still stands.

By now, probably everyone from the tPVP community ( all 300 of us – movie reference ) got the memo that map in paid tournaments will be changed once per week. The next map will be one week of Battle of Khylo.

I have a huge gripe with this one – why are you trying to bore us to death? One week of the same map over and over again. People yelled RANDOM map on the forums since the 1v1 system was implemented. Is it a special thing with this game? For every good decision, about 3-4 bad ones must follow?

Anyone else annoyed with this decision?

It’s funny that everyone is hyped up because of :
“It’s time to prove your skill! In this new type of competitive PvP, two teams of equal average rating are pitted against each other in a quick, intense match. The ratings for every member of each team is then adjusted after the match.”

Unless a dev says otherwhise, I am 99.99% sure it is only matchmaking – which they are currently testing ingame. No ladder, no visible rating, no leaderboards – same old crap with the worst leaderboard system in the history of games called Qualifying Points.

1v1 system is good. But the rewards for winning are a little too low .
Paid Tournaments:
1) Rewards :
Add 15 gems for the winner! This needs to be added to give paid tournaments an actual importance and for teams to have a chance to gain something back. Qualifying Points have no importance and most teams don’t care about them. After 5 wins they will be able to buy another 5 tickets!
2) Random map out of the 4 : Legacy of Foefire, Forest of Nilfhel, Battle of Khylo and Temple of the Storms. Don’t even think about adding Raid of the Capricorn to it.

Free Tournaments:
1)Make it to 4 teams 2 maps system with randomness of the 4 maps available
2)Rewards:
Gold chest + 1 ticket for the winner
Silver chest for the losing team in the final
Copper chest for the losing teams on the first map
3) Make it solo/duo queue

Draw population in :
Add another requirement to Daily PVP – “Win a Tournament” – doesn’t matter if free or paid.
The reward of 1 Ticket and 1 Glory booster + 1 Laurel.
This will make some of the PVE/WWW population get in tPVP not just for porting to the major cities. Some of them maybe will actually enjoy it and make it a regular thing not just for the laurel.

Ladder and matchmaking are still of utter importance and they will just more value and enjoyment to the system.

P.S. I still can’t figure out how did you develop such a good system for WvWvW and it takes you more then 6 months to add one for tPVP!

LOLpatch. You go in , you strive to play on a map that’s semi-awful anyways. If you win you get 1 QP, if you lose – you lose 3 tickets.
Even if you win , wtf will that QP do for you? It’s the most useless and kitten currency in any game ever.

In any case, if you win 9 games out of 10 , in the end you will still be -3 tickets =))

Mrbig.8019:

It’s always the same: people having no idea about how the class works throwing crap at it.

It’s always the same: thieves having no idea about how their class works throwing crap at other people.
In the Thief Macro thread there is a guy telling Eristina, one of the most knowledgeable players on the EU scene saying there is no macro out there and nothing is wrong with 4 hits thrown from stealth because of haste bypassing culling.
In this thread, you are telling Xeph again one of the most knowledgeable players that he doesn’t know how thief actually works.
I show you S/P thief with 400 QPs ( rank 20 before he quit ) and you tell me i’m talking bs and thief is useless without oneshot.
Shadow refuge, steal with boon stealing and vigor sharing , the best mobility in game, caltrops ( not the trait, the utility ) , blinding powder , venom share, crowd control are just useless stuff that only noobs take. But no, no and no – we NEED to feel like gods with our big big numbers while yelling in voice chat : “LOL what a noob, i just oneshotted that guy.”

There are only 2 cases I feel my team is at disadvantage using a Pistol/Dagger thief:
1) When their team has one more ele then we do ( but that’s another story)
2) When their team has a very good backstab thief ( ex: Kirei, Lowell, Jexster and a few others )

The only thing making other specs for thieves feel useless is the kitten backstab build.

This game would feel so much better if bunkering and burst was toned down but people wouldn’t feel as good when they oneshot a guy and the opponent team crumbles due to number advantage, wouldn’t we?

Mrbig.8019:

-.-’’

You have to think at it.

Condi thieves require stealth, and cannot contest points.

D/D caltrops thieves apply bleeds ( and only bleeds), something that can be removed AoE by an ele BY SIMPLY dodging.

S/P is countered so bad by armor, protection and retliation tht is not even funny: try to pistol whip a guard with full reta uptime and kill yourself, it will be fun.

S/D has literally NO DAMAGE, and if you want to go for damage with it, then you’d better go D/D or D/P: you’re trading a 2secs daze ( at best) plus inf strike for backstab and heartseeker: good deal, indeed.

And who are those “tops teams” you’ve defeated ?

Please, it’s really hard to take you seriously.

First off, I didn’t mention D/D condi. That’s just a gimmick thing that works only for sPVP.
If S/P has no damage then how exactly a thief that has 396 QPs and was rank 20 before he quit 1 month ago played it full time? If you get the urge to spam Pistol Whip on the guardian 24/7 that’s your problem, not the spec. 99% of teams send their guardian to the middle point. You don’t have to do the same thing. You can just as effectively play home/far point to win.

Condi thieves require stealth, and cannot contest points. – what the hell sort of argument is this? Don’t backstab thief require stealth as well ? Isn’t the class revolving around stealth? Does your team send only one guy to take a point ?

S/D has enough damage and is very successful at downing enemy mesmers, necros and guardians. Hell, there is a 4 page thread on guildwars2guru thief forums called Sword/Dagger Loyalty. And 2s daze is A LOT – can’t understand how you can not see that. Infiltrator’s Strike is amazing making a thief using it one of the hardest things to kill out there and Flanking Strike boon removal is good. Taking stability off the necro in plague form will make him go down waaay faster.

I’m not here to brag about my team’s wins. We are casuals that barely play 15 tournaments / week and after 15th of December we took a 1 month break. And by top teams I am referring to teams that currently have over 400 QPs in the EU ladder.

And believe me, it’s even harder for me to take you seriously as you are a thief who can only play backstab and considers backstab is a “decent” build.

Mrbig.8019:

Not only P/P.

S/P is bad
Condition thieves are bad ( no matters the build, weapon or anything)
S/D is bad

We have only the shortbow and D/D- D/P ( as long as you have a dagger in your MH, you’re fine).

We have only ONE viable build in high end PvP.

This is so wrong.
37. tomal.8413 – 396 – S/P – hasn’t played in over a month
Our team of casuals ( started playing again after 1 month) has won games versus good-top teams using a Pistol/Dagger Condition thief.
We also used a sword/dagger thief ( that didn’t speak almost any english at all ) to win some games vs good-top teams.
I’ve seen Lowell play S/P on a few occasions.
There are a couple of good specs for thief. But why would you bother learning and testing a new spec when Backstab is the cheese to rule them all ? Nomnomnom so much cheese. Glitch that culling all day long!
Keep popping that haste in stealth and have fun kids.

Wanna know a profession stuck in one build? Try mesmer, warrior and necro.

SAtaarcoeny.8476:

6. i think custom arenas should be free for the first month of them being out if you really do decide to put them out before 1 team v 1 team. this will bring the PVE ppl and WVW big guilds into pvp and give them a taste of it. my reasoning behind this is WVW is free so is PVE then we see we like it and we do it. You guys make paid cost money and now custom arenas to me it seems to be a big turn off. so please consider this even if its just for a month or 2 lets give them a taste.

This a thousand times!!! Why do the sPVP community always have to have costs associated with their activity ???
I didn’t see any “buy Fractals with gems” in the cash shop! I didn’t see any “buy Clocktower puzzle with gems” in the cash shop! Why do we always have to have costs and why do you make it so hard for people to enter the sPVP community ?

It’s been 3 months! How don’t you get it already?! 25 Tournament Tickets for a new team to play Paid Tournaments is beyond incomprehensible, especially since there isn’t an ELO matchmaking system in place! Yes the players in Top 100-150 might be happy, but the rest aren’t!

Players want to PvP ( Player versus Player ) not PvGS( Player versus Gem Shop ).
Wake up and smell the failure of your ideas!

Haste haste haste. It’s even more unfun when so many thieves now use it in stealth so they can exploit the fact that haste adds culling.

Backstab thieves themselves are fine overall. They are one of the better classes, but not by much . The problem is the kitten quickness buff! If a thief pops quickness and goes on you there are pretty much 2 scenarios :
1. If you have an immunity skill you will use it, stay alive and hope the damage he inflicted left you with enough HP to recuperate and retaliate
2. You die.

Any counter arguments like you should have dodged or whatever stupid defensive reasons you might come up for haste backstab/heartseeker thieves – please save them for your kid’s bedtime story.

I stopped PVPing paids after finding the exploit in December. Glad to see it finally got fixed – certainly took them long enough. Was hoping for some additional nerfs to mesmer and thief to actually make this game enjoyable though.

Signed,
A mesmer.

SAtaarcoeny.8476:

the main idea behind this is to promote competitive game play and promote teams sticking together and getting better. using the old saying when u fall off the horse get right back on. sitting in the mist after u lose 500-8 gives u to much time to linger on it and its bad for a team. so get them right back in playing

Don’t worry, knowing Anet by now they will probably follow this thought process :
1. Look at this thread and notice the amount of positive replies saying yes to your proposed change
2. Decide it is offensive to copy paste the idea in to the game and that they want to show how ORIGINAL they really are.
3. Make a COMPLETELY different useless and very weird change that breaks the system even further to which 80% of the few remaining tPVP players will go WTF?
4.????
5.Make a thread and give forum replies for the first 3 days after patch making shallow promises saying “we will closely follow this issue and do the required changes if necessary”. But we all know “closely” can mean anything from 6 months to 5 years
6. Disappear off the place of the planet until the 15th of next month when it’s time to follow the same pattern ( and introduce water combat changes)

This is one of the best ideas I have ever seen on this forum!
The rewards might have to be reduced though for 2nd,3rd and 4th place for 2 reasons :
1. Give some meaning to winning 1st and 2nd place and not a mere 20-40 gems difference
2. Anet greedy financial people will never agree to handing gems so easily. They already reduced gems for 1st and 2nd place once for no apparent reason.

2nd place = 80 gems
3rd place = 4 tickets 30 gems
4th place = 4 tickets

P.S. I am still baffled as to WHY they removed 4 tickets reward from 3rd and 4th place. They just like killing competitive PVP in any way possible. Guess too much of a hassle.

All this talk regarding macros is incredibly dumb. Everybody keeps throwing that word around after the shattered strength buff and most people have never even played a mesmer for more then half an hour.
You know, if 5 players max use that macro I would be surprised.
I use an A4Tech X7 G600 keyboard ( 10 euros ? ) and a A4Tech X7 mouse ( 10$ ) – they were on sale 30% off buy them together! Yet accusations of using this so called macro have been thrown at me by various players ( good and bad ).
Mesmer is OP. Deal with it or ask for nerfs.
P.S. Shattered strength shouldn’t have been buffed and the change itself should be reverted. Maybe nerf quickness as well and buff other specs.
But going as much to say that naked clones was the best thing to happen to PVP….

Welcome our shortbow thieves overlords.. oh wait you were here before. It will be even more fun for those moments when you die and it takes you 40s to get back in the fight.
Let’s hope the change they mentioned making swiftness more easily obtainable across classes will actually be something – or all classes will play with 25% signet speed increase?

Pretty good but would have been nice to talk a bit more about :
1) Balance and representation of classes ( guardians being in every team, yet almost never rangers ) .
2) Quickness

To the other posters – don’t forget that except Jonathan Sharp , there are 5 more people there which are players. So don’t shoot all your questions to Jon, but to the others as well.
I posted this on the gw2guru forums as well , but just want to add them here too.

1) QP Inflation @ All
This week’s Leaderboards for Qualifying Points has shown a huge inflation. More then all the other weeks combined. The minimum number QP to be on the leaderboard has gone from 22 to 58, while rank 1 has gone up from 189 to 370. In a few weeks, this will make reaching the QP leaderboard for a new team a colossal task. People want to be on top and need their achievements to be recognized. Isn’t this an issue itself in the sense it provides a counter-incentive for a new team to play paid tournaments? Does the QP system make you play less then you would with a ladder/ELO system?

2) Tournament Tickets @ J. Sharp
The current system promotes a “rich get richer, poor get poorer” type of environment. New teams will struggle with tournament tickets, while teams on the Leaderboard have already amassed thousands of gems and hundreds of tournament tickets. Isn’t this another stop for “new blood” to join the PVP scene? What are your ideas for encouraging more people to join Paid Tournaments?

3) Area of Effect Damage @ Players
What is your view on Area of Effect damage? As someone on the official forums stated : the team with the best AoE wins. Does it feel this way ? What are your thoughts on Epidemic centered teams?

4) Burst @ Players
Some players have voiced concerns that the Time to kill is too low in GW2 and burst is to easy to setup with too few risks and a lot of rewards. Do you feel that toughness is a weak stat? What are your thoughts in increasing TTK without making bunkers immortals?

5) New respawn timers @ Players
Has this created issues for you and has this changed your encounters and strategies – do you feel the current 15s system is a good replacement or it needs change?

6) Revitalize the PVP scene @ Players
If you were to chose one thing to implement in hopes of revitalizing the PVP community, what would it be

A personal question to Xeph : Paradigm has seen little presence in tPVP lately and on streams. As someone on gw2guru mentioned – paradigm is a community team. People like to see you play. The decrease of your presence in tPVP is linked to the state of the game ?

Pets have 0 condition damage. This is true both on the pet management screen and in real damage. Currently they do 43 damage on bleed per second. This is consistent with a player having 0 condition damage and applying a bleed.
Adding 30 points in Beastmastery does not increase the condition damage stat. Currently the only way to increase pet condition damage is trough Expertise Training trait that increase condition damage by 100. This increases the damage of bleeds from pet from 43 to 48 – way too low.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Expertise_Training
Increasing the player’s condition damage, while it does modify the tool tip for their abilities, in reality the damage stays the same.

Can we please have condition damage for pets?

3 loading screens in same game for 3 different team members and one loading screen on the opponent’s team. How can this be more of a joke ? Even Minesweeper has better PVP then this.

This change is one of the worst things implemented in tPVP. It actually helps the stronger team win easier. Same as orbs of power in WWW