Guild Wars 2

Kylden Ar.3724:

They need to bring back /resign from GW1. When you’re down a player and losing 350+::30 just let us end it and get back in queue faster already.

You didn’t see TCG last matches I guess?
“TCG claimed a 501–42 victory in the first match, and cruised past the competition to win 500–34 in Forest of Niflhel.”

If they let it happen at ‘espurtz’ level then it sure as hell isn’t going to happen anywhere else. Not to mention the ddos where they just continued the game when one team was a player down. xD

But what the hell do I know. #espurtz2016

Seyiwaji.4082:

condi easy cheese passive game

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Just a handful of the threads on the same topic:

• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/New-Race-1/3846103
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/New-Races-1/5282548
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/New-Race/4732111
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Potential-new-races-to-play-as/6142702

The discussion is always the same:

• We should have new races.
• Everyone agrees (except about which race first).
• People point out the relative cost to produce one new race versus several new profs or specializations or living story.

tl;dr everyone wants new races, but they aren’t a good long-term investment for the game

“Everyone” is a bit of a stretch. People don’t support the alternate races already in game and humans remain the overwhelming choice, despite the efforts to make them less attractive. So… why bother with another?

Asura master race… bookah!

Dahkeus.8243:

Still blows my mind that people complain about the HoT expac from a PvPer’s perspective when WoW’s expac is basically $60 (on top of sub fee) that forces you to grind through PvE all over again just to play your same class at max level again.

Reread OP. His point isn’t that he doesn’t want to buy HoT and pay 50 euros.. his point is that elite specs ruin balance, and all the other trait lines are just garbage compared to the elite spec.

Also remove the WoW reference as PadreNike says… the fanboys are just going to QQ about that and ignore all the reasonable arguments you make.

VoidNard.7206:

I had to say it, this game’s pvp is crap and I enjoy the “boring” WoW pvp much more. I need to point out that I’m NOT talking about the gw2 combat system, action combat, which is great. First of all, everything is balanced around elite specs. This is ironic because during the summer 2015, they brought this talent overhaul with the idea of giving the possibility for more diverse builds. Yet, here we are, in a meta where if you don’t run elite spec, you’re under par compared to everyone else. Some say it normal since it is a new expansion and you need to make them stronger, but I find it makes all the other talent trees really underwhelming in comparison. It also doesn’t make sense or justify the reason to make them stronger, simply because free to play players will have a reason to buy the xpac.
Then there is also the ability spamfest going on in pvp. The combat flow makes everything happen so quickly and in a lot cases, people just spam their abilities. Some say they don’t, which is true, but things happen so quickly that there little room for strategic thinking and you end up spamming abilities. All you see is random aoe everywhere that end up one shotting someone at 50% health, while the actual player is just stading around and watching the enemy die ( a bit exaggerated but I have seen that several times, and not necessarily to me). Yes there are obviously ways to counter that, but when aoe dmg becomes greater than single target dps, there is obviously a problem.
Another weird thing, which isn’t necessarily a problem, is the weapons that are available to chose from. Why do some professions have more weapons at their disposal? This creates another form of imbalance, where some professions can be more versatile than others when it comes to builds. Yes, I do know some get kits and Ele gets 4 staff ability.
Conditions and buffs are ridiculous too. Being able to counter a few condis at one time make sense, and is fairly easy to do. But when you have 8 different kinds of conditions on you plus the 20 others you will get from the 2 other enemy players, it becomes a bit ridiculous. How is this even fun? How the hell is this an enjoyable mechanic? This is also true for the buffs you get. The duration of some are a bit ridiculous. This is also another terrible mechanic, when yourself or even your allies, can simply just stack these at will and never go away. I like the idea of revenants being able to buff allies, but how do you counter infinite buffs?
Don’t get me started on the match making….. 4 guards in one game, really?
There are so many other annoying things to say about the pvp in this game, bu those are just some really annoying ones. How can the devs fix this, and what are your thoughts? And please try not to say, l2p or get gud. Someone could be terrible at this game and still encounter these problems.

I have not played WoW so I really can’t tell if it is good or not. But allow me to comment!

1- Elite specialisations kill diversity: I agree completely
2- Too much spam: this is true
3- AoE stronger than single-target dps: in most cases, agreed
4- Weapons, I never really perceived this as a big problem, but it is indeed a strange thing for some classes.
5- Condi is, for me, one of the major reasons why I do not enjoy guild wars 2 PvP, it’s just too easy to apply conditions that tick passively… passive play is bad.
6- MMR, well idk, I think it’s really relative

mysticsicness.7598:

I would love to play d/d ele or rifle engi again (rifle engi probably being more viable for the two), but if you do not support Anet by purchasing their xpac, then why should they support you by making everything viable?

See this right here is what I think is problematic.

Your argument is that we need to support ArenaNet for making more builds viable. That’s something I can agree with. Everyone needs a living, and I have had access to this game for 3 years (including a lot of periods I didn’t play) for 50 euros.

But if I do buy the expansion, does that mean I support the current direction of the game? Now, I personally think most elite specs are total cheese and it just so happens I really dislike playing cheese.

Just to give an example: long before HoT there was the dire p/d condition thief (also often named the condi cancer thief). This build was overpowered in WvW but most good players hated it, because it required minimal effort to win. I could have played this build to win, but I refused to because it made winning fights too easy and the game downright boring.

The same applies to elite specs. They are cheese in the same way. So if I ‘support’ ArenaNet, I get to play elite specs… but I don’t want to play them. If I buy HoT there won’t be more balance. Next expansion will just see more cheese added.

Fyi: I am now playing another game than GW2, but I think it’s sad that ArenaNet is kittening up it’s own game.

penelopehannibal.8947:

The answer is tonics. Allow tonics to let you use your normal weapons. That will still need some animation work though, but probably still a lot easier than adding a new city, new storyline (with three possible starts), two voice actors, and so on…

This though, is still work for little gain of course.

Potion of Ascalonian Mages works in combat. Should be more like that.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Potion_of_Ascalonian_Mages

Furious.1283:

Sirendor.1394:

I refuse to play SPvP because of the horrible class balance, but I don’t really see your point OP.

You lost a close match… what’s the problem? Most people look for games with <100 score gap. The image you posted has this, so it should all in all have been a really good game.

I have not mentioned anything about the results, it was a good game.

My point is just matchmaking and as I mentioned above, just testing.

Oh okay, I’m sorry looks like I misunderstood. Good luck testing. May RNGesus be with you in your quest for good matchmaking.

Ithilwen.1529:

Uhm condi inmunity is already being spammed so hard that players appear to be having more than 50% uptime on immunity. Yet another kitten to Mesmer. If anything, the immunity is too high as it is.

Anyone who enjoys playing condition mesmer is just to bad to play anything else. Srsly, condi mesmer was always broken cheese. I tried it out once, saw how cheese it was, went back to shatter mesmer.

I refuse to play SPvP because of the horrible class balance, but I don’t really see your point OP.

You lost a close match… what’s the problem? Most people look for games with <100 score gap. The image you posted has this, so it should all in all have been a really good game.

Something I suggested in another thread:

“I think some of the conditions are balanced: confusion and torment seem in a good spot, because they do not damage you a lot all the time. Confusion requires you to stop using skills, torment requires you to stop moving. These are things that can be countered and therefore are good for strategic play. Poison is also a good example: decreases heals when applied, so promotes strategic play (e.g. first cleansing the poison, then healing up). Imo, the permanent tick damage on poison, confusion and torment could even be decreased to 0, so long as their other effect is more effective.

The problem is with conditions like bleed, burn, chill that do excessive amounts of damage and do not have counterplay other than condi cleanse. If all conditions worked as a ‘conditional’ rather than a ‘damager’ that would add a whole new dimension to the combat."

Also one more point I would like to make is, balance can be seen on several levels:

• inside a class: certain trait lines might be stronger than others, certain skill trees more durable or useful
• between different classes: a certain build of 1 class might counter a certain build of 1 other class, but it might be countered by a certain build of 1 other class etc. This is what should be the case. Nothing should rule unwarranted.

Due to the high amount of possibilities in GW2 there is no clear counter from class to class, but rather from build to build. This is as much something that diversifies the combat as something that obstruct balance and in turn creates meta builds that destroy diversity.

Aza.2105:

Allie Murdock.8152:

*

Without a viable counter it allows players to spam endlessly without much thought of being punished for it. I doubt this will ever change either, since GW2 has been out since 2012 and the game has been having the same extreme balance problems since launch.

The solution has always been there, INTRODUCE more counter play mechanics. Dealing with players who abuse evade? There should modest portion of skills that go through evade. Got a player who abuses block? There should be more skills that are unblockable. Got a player who abuses stealth? There should be more anti stealth skills that exist for each class.

Furthermore each classes role should be distinct. At some point Anet released a design philosophy for each class and why they functioned the way they did. With the xpac, anet just tossed that philosophy out the window.

Hey Aza.
I have thought about this a lot, and read many posts by other people. You are right in one way, the meta today shows that certain things in the game are too strong.

However, introducing more counters isn’t perfect either, because of the way GW2 combat works: there are 9 classes, on which you can just combine whatever you like, with some limits (weapon sets, trait lines). Adding counters on classes may not fix the original problem for some other classes, or might be overkill.

Say blocks are overpowered. There are too many people blocking stuff and are basically unkillable, which makes decapping points impossible or extremely hard. You add unblockables to several classes. Now the risk is there that instead of balancing block/unblockable, it tips the scale in the other direction: blocking isn’t worth kitten anymore. And even when that isn’t the case, by ‘countering’ one mechanic when it’s overused, you might cripple playstyles/builds that rely on this mechanic but do not overuse it.

So where to start? They should revisit what they want each class to be and what each class is supposed to be good at and what it’s supposed to be bad at.

Some hints, when you abstract from the current meta, and hypothetically think of a state of the game that is less “overpowered” in all aspects:
→ Thief is in a good spot; it fulfills the role of high mobility & deception class, is great for decaps and as a penalty has no tank ability. It might need some damage nerfs when you tone down other classes.
→ Berserker is in a good spot; it has some reliable sustain, stances still are great, can still dish out enough damage (so realistically the sort of main man who doesn’t have great team utility, but can just survive under focus) – also needs some damage nerfs when you tone down other classes.

Big offenders:
→ Damage: Herald
→ Sustain: Tempest & Druid

Broken mechanics:
→ Celestial Avatar
→ Continuum Split

~Visibility

This post is old but applies more than ever.

No Walking.6349:

Stopped reading when you said that Mesmers lacked defensive abilities before HoT, because at that point I knew you had no idea what you were talking about.

If you are talking about the time when PU condi mesmer was so strong, mesmer did have some defensive abilities.

That was nothing compared to what chronomancer has now though.

Awesome video. We had similar action yesterday on borders. Great fights all around, for camps, towers and in open field.

WvW

You can toy with amulets all you want, but they will not SOLVE anything. Nerf elite specs, balance your game.

/thread

vana.5467:

infantrydiv.1620:

Too many boons, too many conditions, too many dodges, too many low cd skills, too much condition removal, too much damage, too much tankiness, etc, etc, etc.

This has all been exacerbated to an extreme degree by HoT.

While I’m not particularly fond of the click-bait title, your point is spot on. Unfortunately, despite the fact that it seemingly has caused a lot of players to quit the game, ArenaNet has yet to acknowledge this problem and likely never will. It seems to be a deliberate design decision.

XGhoul.7426:

Nothing can be toned down pre-expansion, otherwise people that only pvp wouldn’t have a reason to purchase this expansion, with the next expansion (more power-creep) looming and disregard of core skill balance, I think it is time to accept the game for what it is.

Side grades with new play styles (the way the expansion was advertised) would have been plenty incentive for people who enjoyed the game pre-HoT to buy it.

I agree completely with what you say. But we have had sooo many threads on this since HoT and all of them got ignored, and some of them even got closed by moderators.

ArenaNet knows all of this, but they’re ignoring it deliberately.

lil devils x.6071:

Sirendor.1394:

mcarswell.3768:

i don’t think people voting for “Adjust scoring to be relative to current activity and population (Large)” understand that this is what everyone was railing against in the other scoring thread…

Ehm.. ‘everyone’? I really think it is better to have lower scores when there are less people playing.. it doesn’t make sense to award points per tick for structures when nobody is fighting over them.

You are still awarding points per tick when no one is fighting over them proposed in this system.. People fighting over the objectives is not even being addressed. They left passive scoring in the game, they just wish to treat players unequal over it instead.

You PvD undefended objectives during the right time of day = WIN! You PvD during the wrong time of day = LOSE!

Nothing at all in this system encourages players to not PvD at all. The proposed systems by multiple players addressed that issue, but not the one people are voting for here.

Ok maybe I am wrong on this, but I thought the proposal included that when side A has high numbers but side B and C have low numbers, scores for side A will be lower too.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, also would like some developer answer on this, cause it’s not really clear.

Also Lil, I am not trying to defend PvD and passive scoring, because I personally find it a rather bad system, but maybe when they change the way PPT works (based on activity) there will be less PvD and karmatraining and more organised defenses and fights.

mcarswell.3768:

i don’t think people voting for “Adjust scoring to be relative to current activity and population (Large)” understand that this is what everyone was railing against in the other scoring thread…

Ehm.. ‘everyone’? I really think it is better to have lower scores when there are less people playing.. it doesn’t make sense to award points per tick for structures when nobody is fighting over them.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Sirendor.1394:

What was inspiration for herald? :o

Oh I know.
https://youtu.be/tgj3nZWtOfA?t=1m59s

Very true, up until the running away part. There is no running from the herald XD

Hahaha. And no holy handgrenades either. xD

Flatley.1620:

A lot of my characters are named after Indian and Nepalese cuisine – there’s tons of mileage in that.

QFT. Cuisine offers the best names in history.

Actually… I am all for less stat-based combat, and more skill-based combat.

Yes, thief has low health because he has access to stealth. That one actually made sense back in the day, but right now it doesn’t make sense any more. Necromancer has a giant health pool, and for no obvious reason. Sure, it lacks mobility and toughness, but during Season 2 reaper was overpowered (until they nerfed).

I think, to make GW2 combat less about random complexities like stats, and more about the player’s actual skill… it would be a big step forward if they normalised health and toughness. And maybe if they deleted toughness/vitality (maybe even healing) stats on amulets altogether, so it would make room for specific avenues of playstyle that rely on active and not passive defenses.

Does it stop there? Of course not, there will be a lot of balancing needed if they finally make a standard health/armour that is equal on all classes. In line with this, they should reduce the overall number of passive effects on traits, runes and even signets. Once they cut the passive defenses they will also be able to cut the overkill in condi/dps, so GW2 is actually playable.

Substance E.4852:

If GW1 was like chess then GW2 is like taking all the pieces and putting them in the laundry dryer.

I lol’d.

StickerHappy.8052:

Alex Shatter.7956:

Wolfric.9380:

Topher.5631:

Wolfric.9380:

I already disagree on the first sentence. Yes there is much work to do to bring back diversity. But if the route is elite + 2 core being more powerful then it´s acceptable and also easier to balance then keeping all trait lines an combinations at the same level. Not to mention the selling point of expansions. What would be very bad if power creep continues. The game needs to settle at a level for elite or we can never reach diversity and balance all 9 classes or at least come close to this.

Not trying to sound rude, but how is one build per class acceptable? There are the elite trait lines, which you need to be viable, and then there are trait lines that you need in the class, otherwise you won’t work at all.

For example, I play thief. The mandatory lines are Trickery, Deadly arts, and Daredevil. In most cases (unless you have a really odd build), you need these to play properly. So that locks me into those three trait lines. It is like not taking alchemy for scrapper, or beastmastery for druid. That isn’t really build diversity when you are locked in to most of your choices already.

I agree that diversity is on the floor. But this does not mean that base classes must be on the same level as elite.

Your stance on this is hand-wavy and inaccurate. Part of me thinks you don’t want the elite specs to be nerfed because you enjoy playing the big bruiser in video games, in which case I suggest you go play Skyrim or something. There is no valid justification for elite specs that are stronger than core

It should be. Elite classes were not supposed to be an upgrade from core classes.

Yeah, that one really bothers me aswell. Before elite specialisations were released ArenaNet stated that they would not be an upgrade to core classes, but just a new way to play without actually being top dog.

They have clearly gone back on their word. Reason? Poor HoT sales compared to core game sales.

Razor.9872:

Don’t forget that new elite specializations will be introduced in the future. In theory, they should be just as powerful as the current ones are now. On paper, build diversity should increase as more of those are introduced.

And how long will that take? They said they’re working on the next expansion, but how long till that comes out? 1 year? 1 year a half? Meanwhile we’re stuck with this crappy balance and a few meta builds while the rest is nearly trash level when you compare to the meta builds.

Voted bad.

Lets be realistic:

• Viewing GW2 is annoying: too much cluster kitten on the screen, too many and too big particle effects
• Combat system takes a lot of time to get into and understand what’s happening, which scares off new viewers
• No stand-alone PvP game like most other streamed games, and no seperate team for balancing
• Tied to this, classes are rather unbalanced
• Match-ups often result in blow-outs with 200, 300 or even 400 point differences.

Result: Guild wars 2 is fun to play (but I still rather play other PvP games because of poor class balance/matchmaking), but not fun to watch

Also, next expansion, everyone jump on the next elite generation of elite specialisations, because it will probably be SUPER DUPER OP mode too.

#LegitMarketing

Swagger.1459:

Aza.2105:

Guild wars 2 will never be balanced. The foundation it was built upon isn’t balanced so anything built on top of it won’t be either. GW2 is destined to always have very extreme shifts aka something is either really good or something is either really bad. No in middle ground.

That’s all about to change soon I think

What do you know that I don’t? :o

Nice work! WvW hasn’t seen this amount of attention at any time. This is great to see, and all of the proposed changes look amazing too.

MadVisions.4529:

Zelulose.8695:

The thief in the video is condition. The same can be done with the staff. Please Nerf it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2GJp1GFfrQ

XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

skillCLICKER player @ it’s best ^^

Not sure which one of the thieves is the worst one. The one who dies to clicker, or the one who is clicking?

Great troll tread OP

When I read this:

Sunshine.5014:

Now that the conditions buff is announced.

I was like: O_O condition BUFF?!?!

then I saw it was posted last year.

However, this is actually a pretty good suggestion.

Thelgar.7214:

Jotun Greatsword is the one notable skin I’ve never seen anyone else using.

shhhhhh :p my fashion exclusiveness!

Also nobody mentioned Ebon Vanguard weapons!

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/a/a7/Ebon_Vanguard_Shield.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/5/51/Ebon_Vanguard_Staff.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/f/fc/Ebon_Vanguard_Sword.jpg

These are some of my favourite weapon skins, but I rarely see anyone else wearing them.

Just another aspect of the dumbing down of GW2 combat.

Todd.6573:

Im so sick of people wearing these nostalgia goggles.
There were meta builds, useless traitlines, kittenty utilities long before HoT.
Now that mesmers are more viable than ever, it makes no sense to balance it around the “core” game when the core game isnt the actual content being invested in…

Or maybe people like you could agree that balance and build diversity post-HoT have decreased a lot when you compare it to pre-HoT? Call it nostalgia if you like, I call it matter of fact. Either way, I’m done with GW2 PvP. It’s not balanced now and it sure as hell wont be balanced later… there are F2P games with better balance and diversity.

FYI, this isn’t just about moa nerf, it’s about the progressive and continuous nerfing of core because elite specs are overpowered. As long as they do that instead of fixing the broken stuff, to hell with balance.

Entropy.6784:

This nerf was for the preservation of the chronomancer and has not negatively affected core mesmer in any regards, because let’s face it, nobody uses Moa, outside of chronomancer.

That is a two-cutting blade you hold there.. if nobody uses Moa, outside of the elite spec, maybe that is exactly because Moa wasn’t and isn’t overpowered on core mesmer because the huge cooldown offsets it’s strength. It makes even LESS sense to run moa now on core mesmer.

So why instead of nerfing Moa didn’t ArenaNet nerf chronomancer, which was the real reason Moa became “overpowered”?

What was inspiration for herald? :o

Oh I know.
https://youtu.be/tgj3nZWtOfA?t=1m59s

Redenaz.8631:

Hall of Monuments weapons seem surprisingly rare. The Gnarled Walking Stick and Fiery Dragon Sword aren’t super rare, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a Wayward Wand in-person.

You basically need a combination of a person who played GW1 pretty heavily (and, therefore, probably played GW2 from the start,) and hasn’t replaced it with another skin they like more since then.

I use the wayward wand skin on my guardian, elementalist and mesmer. It has a very cool look, with the blue flames around the claw.

Skins I don’t see at all… well there are plenty of blands skins that nobody uses because they are bland, but I have only once seen Infinite Light, and Mjölnir only a couple of times aswell. Immobulus is also one of my least seen. Vulcanus is a lot more common, but still very cool. Aether/Foefire weapons also more common.

If you’re so annoyed by duelers in WvW, go hunt them instead of complaining on forums?

Also WvW is an open game mode, anyone can do as they please.

Todd.6573:

The problem with moa is that the duration really WAS too long. It was a must have, and as such a nerf was needed. Now you’ll of course disagree with that if you play mesmer, but you are far from the king of useless elites. Moa is still useful, just not an “I win button” in ranked, or atleast requires more coordination, wich is good.

10 seconds of being useless is a LONG time in any pvp scenario. Especially with some amount of coordination.

Also, while you are right that the cooldown on the skill is 180 seconds base, you are also wrong, since no one ever uses moa outside of continuum split unless they really, really, really have to. And even then still think twice about doing it. That sets the CD on a comfortable 90 seconds instead of the 180 listed.

Now lets talk about gravity well since you mentioned “king of useless elites” gravity well is still very viable, it has reasonable counterplay and good CC, just fades in comparison to a 10 second period of being cannon fodder. Maybe now it will see more play.

EDIT: Obviously not counting alacrity wich will lower that CD even further.
EDIT 2: Also, all the elites you mentioned can be broken by a timed moa. Lets not forget!

There’s a reason I said “core mesmer” in title. I totally agree that on chronomancer using continuum split Moa is still very strong, and I wasn’t trying to defend 20 second moa on chronomancer. However there’s no reason at all to pick Moa on a core mesmer now. Mass Invisibility is the better pick because of it’s 80 second cooldown and 10 second stealth when traited. I am totally willing to see complete rework of Signet of Humility so it doesn’t involve Moa transform, since so many have a hate toward it… I have never experienced it as game-breaking when I play warrior, thief or guardian (warrior is my main), but maybe that’s just me.

Bottomline: seems like I have to accept that the way ArenaNet is going they are making all core specs unviable and elite specs mandatory, which leaves me with the choice to buy HoT so I can compete, or quit this game.

Cyanon.1928:

Guys dont be dramatic. 10 seconds moa was evidently too much. With 6 second Moa you have a chance to get out of the moa with at least 10-15% hp if you are good dodging and moving while moaed.

Except it’s possible to come out of moa with nearly no health losses if you know how to use it. Two dodges, Flee and some kiting will go a long way.. also moa auto-attack can hit hard (I killed people with it).

The main problem is, if you don’t have CS, why use Moa at all? A 6 second duration transform on a 180 second cooldown, with no guaranteed kills? Some chainstuns have bigger effect than moa.

ResJudicator.7916:

Directly nerfing elites rather than the Csplit + Elite interaction will also lead to problems with new Elite Specs.

At this point, I think it’s pretty clear that A.net doesn’t intend for Core classes to compete with Elite specs, but rather for different Elite specs (from new expansions) to compete against each other.

But if A.net starts nerfing all the mesmer elites based on Csplit — rather than making Csplitl not work with elites — then A.net is prematurely nerfing all of the future elite specs (who presumably won’t get Csplit but will instead have some other new mechanic).

Which means A.net will inevitably end up overcompensating some other way to make those new elite specs more one-dimensional.

I also thought something along these lines. Also, the continuum split mechanic is so out of bounds that they will have a hard time finding anything remotely on the same level for the next elite spec.

What can compete with a full cooldown recharge? What new mechanic will they bring next time that can be as good (read: overpowered) as Continuum split?

What title says.

Mesmer is quickly becoming a second elementalist (the king of useless elites). You, the ArenaNet balancing team, nerfed Moa… while the problem is not at all moa.

Let me give you the statistics:

• 1 sec cast time
• 180 sec cooldown
• previously 10 now 6 second duration
• can be interrupted, dodged or blocked
• changes opponent in moa: replaces weapon bar, heal-utilities-elite are inaccesible for the duration of the transform.
• It doesn’t stun, it doesn’t heal, it doesn’t even damage the enemy of it’s own accord.
• Transformed players can still attack, dodge, run away.

Similar skills, which are not a debuff transform on the enemy, but a buff transform on yourself are: rampage on warrior, plague form on necromancer, tornado on elementalist.

Rampage is probably the best-known of these and has the same 180 second cooldown but a duration of 15 seconds. Plague comes next with 180 second cooldown and 20 second duration.

TLDR: nerf continuum split, not moa

Svarty.8019:

The Alpine maps are too small, simple and boring. Please can we have the Desert maps back?

I beg to differ.

Anyways, relax please, they’re coming on a rotation. I really prefer alpine for it’s layout.

I have played core D/P trickery thief a lot.

A lot depends on your team when you play thief. As thief you are not the one who takes the fights, you’re the one who turns fights into your team’s favor or who backcaps.

grhayes.5192:

What is needed is items that have to be replaced regularly that characters need to get a greater power level they can’t get other places. Make it so each region has its own and they can’t be traded.

But what about “play how you want”? I dislike playing on the PvE maps… I have never gotten 100% map completion on any of my characters, and I have powerleveled most of my characters with crafting and tomes of knowledge. Maybe the maps in PvE are just not very entertaining after you ran through them once… and renown hearts become repetitive fast.

Edit: just saw Stand The Wall’s suggestion above me, and yes I think that would interest me at least. Hard mode in GW1 was pretty challenging, which made it fun.

FogLeg.9354:

Sirendor.1394:

But Fog, PPT is generally also a matter of having the most population, so what’s the difference? Server with most coverage is guaranteed to win, because they will be capping everything while other servers are weaker in numbers. Example: my current match-up (Deso/Elona/Riverside). During primetime Desolation ticks for max 300, usually around 200-250. Then in the offhours 5am it ticks 600. That has everything to do with having more population at that time.

Sure but consider options from one player point-of-view. Without PPT you are left with 2 options: go and fight enemy that is outnumbering you, so you die and enemy increases PPK. Or quit.

What PPT provides, is third option. While you may not be able to battle enemy face to face, you can still avoid them and take objectives somewhere else, increasing your server score. You can outsmart the enemy by not fighting them when you have no chance of winning. And you still help your server.

For a match result this may look like same thing (and yea, server with more people will and should win most matches), but for each player it is huge difference.

Of course I agree with you that PPT has some merit in trying to encourage strategy. And I think PPK and PPT both have a place in WvW, but maybe we need to see some changes to the way PPT works. In general I am not really in favor of the current ‘coverage wars’.

How to change how PPT works?

• The current situation looks like this: passive ticks over time that generate ‘points’ over time no matter if there are players contesting camps/towers/keeps.
• What to change: generate points based on activity!
  - There needs to be more rewards for successfully defending objectives
  - There also should be more points awarded for capturing a defended tower/keep
  - I don’t think we need to do away altogether with the passive mechanic of holding objectives to generate points for them… however they should be supplemented.
  - And the points awarded should scale somehow with the amount of people on the map per side. For example; defending a tower with 5 against 20 – defending a tower with 20 against 20?

It makes sense that a bigger group wins against a smaller one, and that’s okay because if 5 people win against 20 equally skilled players that would just be broken. However, there could be some mechanical work done to split up zergs.

An idea I have is “structural integrity”. For example: if you hit a keep at one gate only, that should be less effective than hitting it at 3 sides at the same time. However currently it isn’t. Maybe they could add something to keeps that makes defending easier when the attackers do not spread out.

I always ask “duel?” if the answer is negative I usually help the ally. If it’s a duel I back off.
_________________
Also Vii, next poll idea: “What do you do when an allied player jumps in on a duel?”
a) Continue the fight.
b) Stop fighting and ask them to stop attacking.
c) Let enemy player kill allied player.

I am surprised 30% of people responded to the poll that they would gank the duelist. I mean, I don’t mind, because you’ll end up chasing after the duelist OR getting killed by him and his friends anyways.

FogLeg.9354:

Swagger.1459:

PPK has to be an important thing, sorry. Everything else should be secondary.

To reduce whole WvW into PPK would be extremely silly. PPK is based on population, you could as well give up any scoring and simply reward most populated server with first place. It would be, in 1 word, boring.

PPK also assumes there is always enemy to fight. Have you considered situation where there is not? What will players do when they show up and they have nothing to do? They quit.

Whole PvE aspect of WvW is what makes possible to fight back when you have less players. It is what keeps the WvW interesting and unpredictable because winning or losing is not just about bringing more people and running over the enemy.

But Fog, PPT is generally also a matter of having the most population, so what’s the difference? Server with most coverage is guaranteed to win, because they will be capping everything while other servers are weaker in numbers. Example: my current match-up (Deso/Elona/Riverside). During primetime Desolation ticks for max 300, usually around 200-250. Then in the offhours 5am it ticks 600. That has everything to do with having more population at that time.

Proposed suggestion: debuff blobs – 10% – 20% – 30% speed debuff based on group size.
How to? Register number of players in an area around the commander.

Aaaaay, forum bug.