Guild Wars 2

I think it worked last time I played warrior, about four months ago. It might be a bug

DGraves.3720:

Of the series ( Elementalist, Engineer, Ranger, Mesmer, Guardian, Warrior, Necromancer & Thief ) tell me which is particularly powerful.

I’ve tried to use Guardian in multiples builds, and in my opinion it’s almost good. It would just need a tiny bit more duration on the burn.

Xiaka.2814:

- Stacking classes should not be allowed (Don’t know how to implement it, but it will make games more interesting).

It would actually be easier to do in tournaments than in regular queue. Just don’t let the team join the game until they have characters of different professions. Then, don’t allow pre-game swaps: since you’re queuing as a team your composition should be on point already.

If we were able to switch characters and builds faster before the match begins, this wouldn’t be a problem at all. You could just counter comp. For that same reason, tweaking the matchmaking system is an inefficient way to prevent class stacking, since you could always switch characters once you’re in the game.

And before someone says it: you can not force players to play the character they queued with. Adjusting your composition is a key part of the game. Even if we allow only one character of each class (preventing the VERY problematic thief stacking), what will you do if you have no healer? Or if you have both a thief and a fresh air ele?

Guys stay on topic :P . Butch was talking about automated tournament for conquest or maybe stronghold, let’s discuss that instead of 1v1s or the league system.

This is a very good idea. I think Anet is sort of going in that direction, with the grouping system in the end of the game. One of the main problem I’ve had with GW2 since I started playing is that soloq in this game seems to be more prevalent than in any other team game I played, so I think Anet understand they need to do something to incentivize players to team up, especially if they want to develop their competitive scene.

I think it will be hard to get started in the beginning, but with a combination of in-game advertisement for the tournaments, good rewards for the winning teams, and achievements and small rewards for teams that participate regularly, something like this could get popular. I hope they follow your suggestion, and I’m hopeful. After all, they did it in GW1, and they know it worked there.

Also, I’ve seen a video once about how team colors can influence victory rates in team games.

It’s nothing game-breaking, but being always the blue team would be nice. The only real difficulty I see is that the in-game voice-over guy is always saying “blue team got a capture point”, and voice actors being kinda expensive, I don’t think Anet will go through the trouble of changing it

Hi everyone!

After experimenting with a lot of ideas, I think Anet is finally finding its path regarding the competitive system. A lot of the problems of season 1 are behind us (party MMR, terrible balance), and Anet is slowly going back to an MMR-based match-making. In season 5, they even plan to search for games in the entire player pool instead of just the pip range. I think this is great, because for me nothing was ever more frustrating in my GW2 experience than the 30 wins in a row I had to play in season two to catch up to players I could have a decent game with.

However, I think we can go even further in season 5. The problem with season 1 is that many people felt that they had an equal chance of climbing than worse players, since everyone was given fair matches. Also, since your MMR was stable, you would end up gaining pips and losing pips seemingly at random, which doesn’t feel really good for a progression-based system.

So here is my suggestion: make a pure MMR-based league system. I’ve been playing a lot of a recent popular FPS team-based game lately, which plays a lot like GW2 (emphasis on team work and composition, lots of people solo queuing even though the game plays better in a group), and I think they got it very right regarding their competitive system. Basically, the idea is to have MMR-based leagues. Their initial ranking occurs after playing a couple of placement matches, but it might not even be necessary with Glicko 2, which is more volatile.

If you reach a league once during the season, even if your MMR drops massively after for whatever reason, you conserve the icon of the highest league you reached. So you still have that bragging right of having reached a high league, but you’ll be mostly matched with people of lower leagues from that point.

Also, another good idea that I would take from that shooter is their system of competitive points. You can earn points either by winning a lot of games, or by placing very high in the season. You could then spend it on exclusive rewards in the end of the season. This system would allow both good players and grinders to get exclusive rewards. In addition, you could add some achievements that anyone can obtain relatively easily, as well as some exclusive rewards (titles, skins, icons) for the top players, in the highest league.

The good thing with this idea is that it goes in the general direction of what Anet has been doing lately, and it fits the current UI: just use the pips as an indicator of your current MMR. This way, your true MMR remains hidden to other players (they can still see your league though), but you can see it to see where you stand exactly and how close you are to the next league. I really hope to see something like this, I believe most players would like it more than a progression-based system, which is in theory a good idea for an MMO but can easily become frustrating. With a pure MMR system, there is no surprise, and what you see is what you get. Please tell me what you guys think.

tldr: Pure MMR-based system
Your league icon corresponds to the highest league you reached
Rewards based on both how much games you won and how high you got in the leagues, to cater to both good players and perseverant players
The pip UI is used to display where you stand MMR-wise

Art.8961:

so whatever i play pvp i lose a lot, i got 11 loses 3 wins on this ranked season
i dont play pvp much and im noob, i tried play unranked and it was worst than ranked
is there any skill balance or just random skill players ?

Unfortunately, since the game is pretty old now, you won’t find a lot of inexperienced players in unrenked, especially when everyone is playing ranked.

However, a week or two after the season starts, the competent players have usually moved up, and you’ll probably find more players of your level. Keep at it and good luck!

I can understand your frustration but that looks like a pretty close game to me. So it seems to me the matchmaking worked in that case.

PierPiero.9142:

Glob shot is slow but if you get used to use it as a melee shot it is quite strong … EG in my opinion in in a really good state. Another thing that is really strong and i have completely revaluated, also for spvp in condi builds is Mortar ( problem is that you have to use it smartly … put down the field you need and switch ) . It can also be really strong but you have not to camp in it

You’re absolutely right, especially from an spvp perspective. However, I think Glob Shot was intended to be a skill that allows you to catch up with your opponents (it’s a ranged cripple), so in WvW, you would get more value from it if you could reliably hit a foe 700-900 units away from you, as a soft gap closer.

Fumigate is great in teamfights, especially with all these condis flying nowadays.

EG is a great utility, and I don’t think it needs any buffs, except a faster projectile on Glob Shot. I’m pretty confident this change could happen, because Anet has been buffing the speed of movement-imparing projectiles lately (pistol#5, rifle#2 in the last patch).

PierPiero.9142:

I tried many different build with pistols becouse i hate hammer gameplay. I have to tell that there are 2 builds quite strong , one with ft and the other with elixir gun and mortar. Old teldo or pistol pistols build are gone ,but there are viable builds really fun to play. Probably you will not go ESL with pistol pistol engi, but if you make season only i can ensure that you can do really really well with pistols condi.

Sure, my favorite build at the moment is a pistol/pistol engi, and it is super fun. But that’s an Alchemy/Scrapper/Firearms build. At the moment, Explosives is really lacking, and I personally think the suggested change would be a lot of fun.

Think about some of our abilities that would get a lot of love from this. I can mainly think about Rocket Boots: two condi removal and two blasts on this skill would make it worthy of picking.

There are a lot of good ideas in this thread. Unfortunately, I think you all realize that friendly fire will never be an option. “Siege trolling” would get on a whole new level.

To stay with your idea, why not a bit of splash damage when the catapult is too close to the wall. But realistically, catapults can fire from quite close, so I don’t think you would see much change in gameplay.

A neat idea would be to have a new defensive siege weapon, that would function like hot oil (but mobile), something like “machicolation”. That way, you could rain rocks from the rampart onto the catapults, if they are built too close to the wall.

Better yet, machicolation could be a defensive upgrade. When the fort/tower is upgraded, you can rain rocks from anywhere on the rampart, for a certain cost in supplies.

I don’t think we should blame the common balance for everything you listed there. Keep in mind that the balance team, with HoT, had mostly pvp in mind when designing the new professions (scrapper presence on point, daredevil finishers and CC, reaper damage mitigation, etc…).

However, there is some truth in what you say. The most obvious proof is the amulet removal. If GW2 was pvp only, cleric would never have been removed. Grouch said himself that the amulet was removed because it was a factor he had direct control about, while naturally the better solution would have been a nerf to ele sustain, or at least to ele team support. But that’s up to the balance team.

I’ve always been sceptical about this “separated balance” issue, but this made me wonder. I don’t know Anet’s internal politics, so I don’t know how the balance team works, but Grouch’s post certainly suggested that the pvp team doesn’t have total control over balance, which is problem.

Farewell countytime! I’m not gonna lie, the prospect of never reading one of your “Why is it OK for -insert any profession but engi- to be unkillable?” threads again fills me with sorrow. You will be missed my friend.

The real problem with Anet’s politics is that the dirty rangers and the stealing thieves are always rewarded, while the hard-working engineers get the short hand of the stick. This has to stop.

Guys, you are totally missing the point here. Druid is only OP when you click the skills, like Zelulose is doing in the vid. Try it and you’ll see your druid gameplay improve radically :P

It all depends on what build you use. For WvW roaming, I personally think p/p condi is still the best because it can’t be kited that easily, but I encounter a lot of engineers playing some variant of the conquest power build, so I guess that can work as well.

Thieves
Thieves shouldn’t give you much trouble once you are used to your skills. They are very agressive, that’s why they are hard to deal with when you’re new (and why you see so many of them in WvW, thinking they are good). If you are having trouble with them and are playing condi, try to use Tool Kit. It’s pretty old school, but using the Block while they are stealthed mess with their gameplay, and the Box of Nails ticks help you to get rid of their blinds!

WvW thieves are unoriginal, so they will typically open on you with either a Black Powder -> Heartseeker -> Steal -> Backstab combo, or a Cloak and Dagger -> Steal -> Backstab Combo. So when you see the HS or CaD animation, dodge (don’t block: they use Basi venom), and I kid you not, 80% of the time they will waste their initial steal, which means you get to keep your boons, they miss their burst, you are not weakened, and not interrupted.

Other than that, if you play Sneak Gyro (and you should in WvW), abuse the toolbelt skill, preferably when you see the HS animation, so they can’t sneak a backstab during the animation. Kite when they stealth, don’t spam your skills, keep your head cool. Usually, it’s best to deal with them defensively when they initially burst: when your health gets low enough they start spamming auto-attacks (or HS, for the worst ones) and get reckless, that’s when you need to turn around and unload the burst.

Chronomancers
Let’s be honest, if they play the condi chronophantasma build decently, and you don’t play Elixir C, you don’t stand a chance. Usually, I just throw some punches to see how good they are, and if they play well, I just run away. It’s not a fun fight, and they can’t chase you, so you don’t have to take it.

If they are not that good, well, you should try to play carefully, by kiting them so you can see the shatters coming and dodge/block them. One thing I like to do is run away from them to make them waste Blink, and then turn around and CC them to death. You may think it’s not fair play, but WvW is a jungle.

Warriors
Most of them play power. It’s been said above: kite for days, especially when they are in berzerker form, or when the stance you don’t like (zerker for condis, endure pain if you’re power) is up. It’s a game of patience, and warriors always win the full ham duels. Try to keep them poisoned, EG#3 is your friend.

Engineers
It’s a game of CD management. In pvp, I’ve noticed that most duels are won by the engineer that dodges or kites the hammer skills most effectively, while landing his. Also, be very careful of EG#4: a lot of new scrappers don’t use it, or only to blast a water field, but it deals a lot of damage if your foe stands on it. It’s also unblockable.

If you play condi, keep your blowtorch for when the other scrapper uses the reflexion dome from Bulwark Gyro: he often feels invulnerable, but Blowtorch is not a projectile. Also, I like to just tank the last hit of Rocket Charge, because it has a long after cast that most scrappers don’t cancel (you can cancel it by swapping to a kit anytime during the animation, and dropping the kit just after the last hit). During this small window is a good time to land a condi burst (Or a hammer #2).

Sorry for the wall of text. Hope that helps.

Tragic Positive.9356:

It makes a bit of sense. I still think that Druids are one of the most vulnerable to focus fire which makes them a very debatable pick for games where stacking is allowed …

This is why I think ranger is a very well balanced profession, and definitely a good pick in many situations in pvp. If the enemy team has a thief or a warrior, who can CC to to death rapidly if you don’t have CA or SoS ready, then ranger is a debatable pick. If they don’t (and most pro league teams don’t play thief at the moment), then druid is the best pick as a side node defender: the strongest in 1v1 along with scrapper, but with better mobility and team support.

Hello animal lovers! I’m back to playing my ranger, and I’m having a ton of fun playing a LB/staff version of the meta Menders build in pvp.

I just have a small question: why is every druid playing Vigorous Training in the Nature Magic line? I used to run Evasive Purity even on builds that had a lot of sustained condition removal, and on a build with mainly burst condi removal (Druidic Clarity and SoR), and so reliant on healing and kiting, a frequent poison and cripple removal seems at first glance more valuable than perma-vigor, especially since vigor was nerfed. Am I missing something? Thank you.

The Game Slayer.7632:

So be it, I just find that it would be far easier in terms of balance to adjust the condition itself than to adjust countless traits, sigils, runes, and weapon skills to make weakness less prevalent.

Easier, sure. Appropriate, I disagree. Again, weakness, like protection and stability, used to have a big impact on a fight, something you would try to use at the right moment, or save a cleanse for. Going back to something like that would be more fun than just having yet another condition you don’t need to care about.

Anet did this with confusion. Once upon a time, when you had 5 stacks of confusion and you spammed your skill like a pianist, you would die almost instantly. Now there is very little need for careful confusion management (with the exception of a good Crow Bar when the rev is casting UA, that’s always fun), and confusion is another glorified bleed/burn.

This happens to me even in pvp, where there is no ambient creature. It is very noticeable, and happens only when I play mesmer. It is indeed rather annoying, I don’t know what causes it. Maybe it is only a matter of perception.

The Game Slayer.7632:

The overwhelming majority of people in this thread agree that weakness needs to be changed, somehow, if not that then nerfed at the very least.

I’m not sure about that conclusion. I’ve seen many saying that its application is too frequent, which is not quite the same as proposing a nerf to weakness itself.

Anchoku.8142:

Play as you like but prioritize getting every hero point you can, as fast as you can. You need to grind PvE. Your build matters a lot less than your travel time from one hero point to another so build for speed.

Pull up maps on another monitor, if you can, and run. You do not need to complete the map, just grab hero points.

You will need to grind xp, though. Add events and personal story using consumables and an xp booster.

I have unlocked 4 other elite specs already, so I have enough masteries unlock to go anywhere. I’ll just grab my zerker LB/GS build then and run like the wind! Thank you both for your advice.

Hi all,

I enjoy playing druid in pvp, and I would like to play it in WvW as well. To this end, could you please give me tips on how to build for open world HoT content? I’ve never played my ranger in pve before, and the pve builds on metabattle are only dungeon/raid oriented. Thanks a lot!

Against rangers, your best bet is always to use F4 (Distorsion) when you get knocked back from range by LB4, if you have the reflect trait. If you don’t, then just stun break and evade: if you do it quickly you won’t get immobilized. If you do however, stunbreak and sword #2 instead.

Weakness in itself is fine, it just has become too easy to apply, the two main offenders being necromancers and rangers. In the old days, it was important for a thief to blast his poison field to apply weakness in a team fight, now you just assume that everyone will be weaken anyway because of the necromancer.

We have the same problem with protection, and with damage reduction. Double endure pain warriors, bulwark gyro, minions, Guard and such have completely detroyed old power builds. The only power builds you can play now deal ridiculous damage to deal with this increase in survivability: scrappers, revenants, even daredevil and guardians. This is not very good for build diversity.

The best choice would be to either rotate a druid, or another scrapper.

Necros and condi wars should win a duel against the scrapper, but you usually don’t want to rotate them into a long 1v1 on a side node. That’s what scrapper and druids are made for.

Mesmers can also win, but it takes too long, and you would concede the cap most likely.

My favorite WvW build uses EG and Rocket Boots. Naturally, it’s condition based, and for me it works better than the hammer build, because it can’t be kited that easily (thank you Tool Kit):

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vdQQJAqancoC9dhlcBubBEqiF2iiO4H+lXsjminA8DLxAA-TViHABnpDgJlBlo+DlKBtQLBAPAA02fY5TAwRK9IEgi1A-w

Frankly, I don’t understand your problem. You can’t kill anybody with this build. Just walk on the trap, cleanse your condis, and move on.

I agree that Ice Shard is useless. It was very good in a time where elementalists were hard countered by chilled, if it was applied just as they left water (where all their condi cleanse were except Cleansing Fire), but with the condi immunity they have now…

Throw Gunk has always been useless for power thieves. It’s good for cleaving on a condi thief. Chaos Armor was nerfed, so there’s that.

I don’t know why you don’t like Mace Head Crack. It’s a death sentence if used when the guardian used his stunbreaks already: 3s daze!

The rest of the skills are fine. HoT even brought one of the best ones, the revenant projectile that hits like a truck and inflicts slow.

I’m pretty sure Sigil of Draining will never come to pvp. Or if it does, with considerably lowered damage.

However Sigil of Absorption should be more balanced (especially since Slick Shoes are not a thing anymore, and multiple interrupts are less common). I could see myself playing it on my thief instead of a damage sigil, just for the lulz.

While we’re on the topic, I think Sigil of Cleansing should really come to pvp. It compliments a lot of builds that are not in a great state, like warriors without LB, or condi engineers.

A cast time reduction would be nice, but please, no more block/evades and the such. If anything, some of the skills that now have a built-in evade should have it removed.

Azukas.1426:

Funny the engies are claiming it’s there safe stomp yet they kitten out stability and protection…..

Make it completely interruptable then it’ll be balanced

Don’t forget the automatic Elixir S proc :P

You should try to practice a bit more. Try to create a character of every profession to see how they play, and ask a friend to duel you with these professions.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

I miss the old bomb kit hobosack, it was awesome

Our kind, the hobosacks lovers, were a minority, so I guess it’s fair that they changed it, but I’m still not over it. The bomb kit, the EG and especially the FT were so beautiful. Now we are wielding a flamethrower without a tank, that’s just silly.

Aveigel.2601:

I find the stomp problematic mainly because of how good it is in a 1v1 or 2v2 situation.

It is good for rezzes, but no more than the ranger rez trait. For stomping however, it changes absolutely nothing. The 2v2 is over once one of the player is down, and in 1v1, you don’t need a gyro to stomp: either you bleed the guy out off point or you stomp him on point, in neither case using your gyro.

It’s very strong in winning 1v2 scenarios, but those rarely happen in conquest, and when they do it shouldn’t be considered competitive.

Yasha.5963:

I think its pretty self explanatory. You can get a guaranteed stomp (= kill) with the gyro while doing something else. It also takes away a large chunk of the downed counterplay because it can’t be interrupted.

I also think stomping is still a key part of the game despite the excessive aoe spam and cleave these days.

If you can guarantee the stomp while doing something else, then you don’t need the gyro in the first place. It is useful in a couple of rare situations (like winning a 1v2), but I think, because stomping, while still important, see less use in competitive play, that it is balanced.

If really it can’t be interrupted, it’s a bug that needs to be corrected. But the thread is about the gyro being OP, which it isn’t. It’s arguably a power creep compared to base engi, but Anet made it clear that it was their intention with elite specs.

Electro Whirl and the toolkit from Bulwark Gyro are a bit problematic, I agree. Especially with Tools, the CD on the reflect bubble is plain ridiculous. Electro Whirl CD is probably too short, because I find myself constantly using it, while on other weapon sets, you are forced more often to use either your AA or an offensive kit.

Hi! Power engineer with hammer is the best build we have now, and it is a point holder, meaning you’ll do a lot of 1v1s on capture points. You can also play condi, it’s viable though not as strong, with double pistols, and in that case you would be more of a team fighter. You can also play a grenade build (with either hammer or rifle), which is not as strong but rather fun, and it is also a team fighter (basically, stay out of the melee and spam nades).

We have three offensive kits, grenades that are mostly power-based but can be used in a hybrid build, bombs that are mostly condi based (but are weak), and flamethrower which can be used both in condi and power builds.

The rest of the kits are more utility-based. The toolkit is great if you don’t play with a hammer, because it has a block. It is overall a great kit, even if it is out of fashion. Elixir Gun is our best kit for point holder builds (like hammer scrapper), since it cures conditions, breaks stuns, and offers a short CD blast finisher. Mortar is ok-ish in a condition build: it has a lot of combo fields.

It’s a question of match making. If you play during prime time, the algorithm does a better job in finding you appropriate foes. That’s all.

I don’t get this thread. When I started playing pvp back in 2014, stomping was a big thing, but these days you just cleave your downed ennemies a lot more often. It feels weird that you are complaining about this now.

1) Interrupt Channeled Vigor
2) Kite
3) Kite more
4) Train with a friend who plays thief

Yeah, that always bugged me, especially when using Toss Elixir S for rezzes. It should be a 300-radius skill.

Can you please post a gw2skills link? It’s more convenient for most of us, especially phone users.

I’d go with mesmer. If you take the condi road, a Chronophantasma-Mistrust-Ineptitude-Power Block build with a thousand condi clears, blinds, stab and boon strip seems pretty deadly to me.

This would probably be overpowered. The trait is already very strong. Engineer already provides group stability through Toss Elixir B, if that’s what you’re looking for.

That would be hilarious against Pocket Raptors. There is little chance of something like that being implemented though: it isn’t very roleplay.

Frankly, this is the most even final quarter I’ve ever seen in a GW2 tournament. The four teams have reasonable odds of winning in my opinion.

Let’s get real: in any team-based pvp game with classes, they are different roles. Support builds are a crucial part of balance, whether they are offensive support builds like old d/d ele, or druid to a certain extend.

The real problem here is that there is currently only one support build: cleric ele. So naturally, you have to have one. The real solution is for Anet to keep in mind that they are different roles, and that different classes should be able to play different roles if possible . The two good candidates for a support role would be support druid and ventari rev, if they were made viable.

I said “if possible” because it’s tricky balance-wise to try to create two really different builds with one profession. The two infamous examples were fire d/d ele post 23rd June, that had offensive capabilities that were waaaay out of hand, and bunker mesmer, a monster created by the idea of a “support” mesmer, but with all the escape mechanics characteristic of burst builds.