Guild Wars 2

Definitely needs some adjustment. I’ve had the problem where it won’t spawn directly next to player, but a few “feet” away and when I swap it still locks the opponent but I won’t be adjacent to him and sometimes I’ll be facing away from them if they moved laterally at all. I’ve wasted a few bursts and its made me jump back to staff for now.

I run a standard shatter build with gs/staff, sometimes gs & sw/sw for fun. Shattered concentration definitely helps. I also usually run arcane thievery so that’s a good way to steal some might stacks from them as well as other boons. I always try to avoid their initial burst either through interrupting them, or using distortion shatter, or phase retreating/blink when i see them begin their attack. Other than that I just try to look for openings for mind wrack to hit and try to put them on their heels. I play tpvp though, so help is usually never that far away.

Are you planning for pve or pvp? I’ll try to answer some of your questions, assuming you mean pve…

1. Really whatever you find the most fun, open world pve is easy and any weapon will essentially work. Greatsword is the most common as it is pretty fun to play and you can tag mobs from far away.

2. Again, whatever you think is the most fun. The best support is good damage, with some utility i.e. reflects, pulls, interrupts, whatever

3. Best builds for what? i think that people generally run phantasm builds for pve.

4. No comment

5. Sure, mesmer is my favortie class and I like to think it is a good character. It can add some decent damage and provide excellent utility. I think all classes are pretty boring when starting out, but once you get to a high enough level you really start to get a feel for the class and can decide if you enjoy its mechanics or not.

The only moment that comes to mind is in soloq when I was stomping an ele on mid in skyhammer while someone was attempting to rez him. Basically he was going to be rezzed right before my stomp went off, so I popped diversion just before he rezzed which dazed the player rezzing him and the stomp went off without a hitch.

You could always roll a few of these classes and test out their skills, particularly the builds that are in the meta right now. One definite skill to interrupt on all classes are heals. It’s fairly obvious when an opponent is casting a heal so I would be sure to always have an interrupt available for that, unless you have a teammate who you know is going to interrupt the heal.

I can’t give you a breakdown of what to interrupt for each class, as I am regrettably unfamiliar with some of the classes, and I’m sure there are others who can give better detail than I.

Neptune.2570:

I kind of disagree with this, at least if you’re building with the conquest mode in mind.
I’d say we have two builds, three at a stretch that work for conquest.
Personally I’m also running 4/4/0/0/6. Assassins amulet and either str or scholar runes. Weapon sets alternate but always a staff

What two or three builds are you referring to that you believe are viable for conquest?

I’m going to give assassins amulet a try tonight if I have time to play, I’m hoping the difference in health from berserkers will be a non-factor. I haven’t utilized scholar runes in spvp, I don’t know if I can live without the movement speed boost from travelers now that I’ve run with it for a while.

Sorry, maybe my post was unclear. I am literally just curious to see what everyone is running, and thought it may be interesting to see what different people are using. I am going to stick with shatter as it’s my favorite build, with lockdown a close second.

I understand the generally accepted meta is shatter, but I’m just curious as to what we have been running out there since the patch and why, whether it be shatter, PU, lockdown, phantasm, or some crazy mashup you’re running for the hell of it.

I play the standard 4/4/0/0/6 shatter with gs/staff and switch to gs & sw/f for skyhammer in soloq. I typically run traveler runes for the mobility since my playstyle is more so focused on good, quick rotations and creating advantages on nodes when possible.

With that said, what are my fellow mesmers up to out there?

I guess I’ll be the one advocate for arcane thievery.

I used to only use null field but have switched for a few reasons.

1. I don’t like how it pulses, it takes longer to get multiple conditions off of me, and I have to stand in the aoe
2. Related to #1, but I am constantly moving and kiting during fights. AT allows me to be on the move while shedding conditions.
3. Boon steal – always fun to take away an opponents boons

With far reaching manipulations the range is increased to 1200 making it a bit easier to activate, and you can also use it on AI (pets, minions, clones) meaning you can shed conditions even if an opponent has a counter for it up.

However, like others have said, it does have its downsides. It will occasionally miss due to a couple of reasons which can be frustrating at times, but I don’t run into this problem too often as long as I am aware of which boons my target has up and how far away they are.

I haven’t thoroughly tried out Mantra of Resolve though, so I don’t really have a comment on it.

Randulf.7614:

I’m still confused why its such a hassle for the leaders to meet. Its probably quicker even with Asura Gates to get to the Grove than it is to walk to the next zone for them. Phlunt prob would have taken far longer getting to Dry Top.

Not really seeing a reason why they would be so inconvenienced

Although it may not be portrayed this way in game, but Summits usually last for more than one day. I look at the leaders as I would normal world leaders. They are very busy managing their respective countries and a summit would take precious time away from their work. Plus the way the story puts it, most of them deem this summit to be pointless as none of them see Mordy as an immediate threat compared to all of the other problems each nation is facing.

Although I would think an active elder dragon would be an immediate need for a summit between world leaders.

Poplolita.2638:

benOTK.4961:

Worst teammate ever? This bot during tPvP.

Spammed about a gay dating site the whole match. He spammed team and map chat, and then whisper spammed me.

We still won though, so I wasn’t too mad…. until I got him again on my team in the next match..

Wow, photoshop? Are you god kitten serious? ahahahahahaha omg

uhh wow, I didn’t photoshop.

Worst teammate ever? This bot during tPvP.

Spammed about a gay dating site the whole match. He spammed team and map chat, and then whisper spammed me.

We still won though, so I wasn’t too mad…. until I got him again on my team in the next match..

They’ve been working on and testing Deathmatch and King of the Hill.

I think just adding these game types to sPvP will increase the sPvP playerbase by a good amount, at least at first. Then it will be up to how well these game types play that will determine if the population increase will stick around.

As far as 2v2, 3v3, and other player count settings go, I think it would be a bad idea at first. Better to stick to 5v5 and 8v8 when introducing these game types to see how they play. If you have too many splits, it will divide the already thin playerbase for sPvP. If the Playerbase continues to rise after these game types are introduced, THEN begin implementing 2v2, 3v3, and so on.

I’m okay with removing Skyhammer from tPvP, but I really don’t mind the map too much. It accentuates character positioning much more than the other maps.

Getting knocked back off of the map is relatively easy to avoid as long you’re paying attention to your positioning. It’s the fearing and the pulls that can be very dangerous.

Anytime I’m at a point, I make sure that I’m not close enough to the edge to be knocked off, which I shouldn’t be because I should be on the point trying to decap or capture it.

I also really enjoy the hammer room. All of the pitfalls and the edges of the room make for a very exciting and difficult place to fight. Positioning really becomes key here, as well as baiting and kiting.

If anything really needed to be changed, I think I would change the actual power of the hammer, or the CD on the attack. It’s too easy to aim and covers the entire map, so its basically a more powerful trebuchet that can be fired anywhere and aimed much easier/quicker.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

So everyone knows its a nightmare for us, How do you protect yourself from them? I find it a bit annoying to say the least that we can only get access to removing them from traits or a Poor 45 second cool down skill that can be dodged and that only transfers 3 conditions or a terrible AoE which you can easily be knocked/feared out of with a 40 second cool down. This in a Meta where you can easily have 5+ instantly applied.

The moment i come up against a condition build i simply know that i will either be forced to run or die. Unless i actually TRAIT for them it seems very weak and no matter how you are looking at it you are making yourself weaker either by having to take certain traits or taking certain utilities.

Now i know that we cant be masters of everything, but what exactly do we get in return for this big target above us saying “lol kill me with conditions”

I don’t know if you play sPvP, or WvWvW, but I can speak from an sPvP point of view. I run an interrupt build that has manipulation skills on a shorter cooldown, so I run arcane thievery which works whenever I’m in a jam and need to cleanse a few conditions, but mostly I try to play a prevent style of defense against condition builds, and really all builds for that matter.

Since I have an interrupt build, I always try to lockdown an opposing opponent and interrupt/daze/immobilize them so that they can’t get off any of their skills. If I can burst them down quick enough and/or keep them locked down long enough, I can put them on the defensive and not have to worry too much about being bombarded with conditions.

Again this is from a tPvP point of view, I’ve only played WvWvW a few times so I don’t really have any insight there.

And just as a disclaimer, there will always be times where you get bombarded with conditions and there isn’t much you can do about it.

Haha yeah that’s happened to me too. It was extra kittenty because it was during a tPvP match and I had to wait for a wurm to down me, then kill me, and then wait for the timer so I could respawn.

Gandarel.5091:

They’ve tried CTF and other gamemodes before settling with conquest, not spirit watch.

Yeah sorry, I guess my post was confusing. I didn’t mean Spirit Watch was the game mode they settled with, I meant Spirit Watch was the CTF style game they implemented, instead of a true CTF.

They’ve added a Solo Queue and Leaderboards, which aren’t anywhere near perfect, but they’re a nice addition.

It’s still the same game mode, Conquest, but they’ve been testing out Deathmatch and King of the Hill.

They’ve added some maps, I don’t know if you’ve played them or not yet though. Whether they’re good or bad is really up to you, since there are mixed feelings on them and where they belong.

The only thing I find too chaotic about the PvP is all the on-screen clutter that results from pets and AI.

Class balance is how class balance always is… unbalanced, but the recent tournament showed a decent spread of classes, besides elementalist which had ZERO representation in the tournament.

Finally, GW2 is technically an esport now and is a part of MLG, but it’s only just started so it’s relatively small. The first MLG tournament only had 1,500 viewers, but you need to take into account that only two days notice was given about the tournament.

I would try to find out how many viewers the PAX tournament championship round had, that may be a better indication of current viewer popularity since it was announced and promoted with ample time before it actually began.

I’m still looking for the source, but I believe Anet said they tried out capture the flag and it didn’t work out too well, so they didn’t really pursue it. So, we ended up getting Spirit Watch instead.

I’ll edit post with source if I can find it.

Divinity.8041:

The winning team had a mesmer on it! He was GS/Staff phantasm.

I do not know if the halting strike was an error or not, but I am curious to see what Helseth used.

The only other mesmer in the tourney was a phantasm build, which is actually exactly the same build I am running at the moment.

Interesting…GS/Staff

I think Helseth runs a GS/Staff shatter build, with a little emphasis on phantasms through phantasmal fury.

Most of his traits and build are geared toward shatter, along with some traits geared toward the GS/Staff such as illusionary bounce and halting strike.

I do love the GS/Staff combination though

I think it’s a tower form GW1. It used to be located over Kessex Peak.

It also used to have a different resident, but now apparently the wizard Isgarren lives there. It looks a bit different from GW1 but a lot of time has passed.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Wizard's_Tower

I don’t think it will be hard to get back into. The core of the game is still the same, there are just a lot of moving parts. Once you understand how all these moving parts work (such as the Living World and ascended gear), then you will be caught up to speed. Otherwise I think you will be fine.

Also, as Morrigan mentioned, creating a new character would be a great way to reintroduce yourself to the game.

Good luck and have fun! Hope to see you at out there.

I really enjoy the living story, however I work 40 hours a week and am in college taking classes, so my playing time can be very limited. I think my scenario is a reality for a good chunk of players.

I used to want to complete everything but I’ve had to let go of that philosophy and adopt a new one. Instead of getting frustrated or stressed about missing content, I’ve decided to only play the content that I think will be interesting, and if it’s not, then I just don’t play it.

Right now I primarily play tPvP, but if I think the current LS update is interesting I will play it.

For example, I played all of the Crown Pavilion and Queens Speech content, and made sure to get all of the meta achievements and any other achievements I wanted such as Liadri or the gambit system achievements. However, then came the SAB update and I decided not to play this one at all. I didn’t find it interesting, nor did I find enough value in the rewards to play it. But now Tequatl is out and I’m dabbling in that a bit.

So really for me, the LS is something I’ve learned only to participate in if I think it’ll actually be fun for ME.

So unless you adopt a philosophy similar to this, then yes the Living Story could be a reason not to return, or play, since it can be frustrating.

I rotate through different builds pretty often but I do enjoy playing a GS/Staff build.

The main reason I play it is because I enjoy both weapons. I didn’t really think it would be that effective, but it actually fares pretty well.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQJARWlwzKqHTzmGZ9IiJF9GyR6RrpapWJF42FC-ToAg0CnIkSJlTKjUSpsSNgY9B

It’s more or less a defensive power phantasm build, with decent shatter damage that is used mainly for a quick burst, while phantasms are more for sustained damage.

It’s great for 1v1, providing sustained/burst damage, as well as the survivability that staff brings. I’m also capable of holding points 1v2 for a good amount of time. The trick is not to phase retreat or blink off of point.

It’s also great for team fights with the aoe it provides through zerker and chaos storm, plus all the boons/conditions that staff can generate.

I usually run with moa morph because I find it the most useful in SoloQ. Most people are zerging around and I find that mass invis and timewarp go to waste most of the time. Plus moa morph is pretty easy to land (especially in teamfights), despite what a lot of people say.

To sum it up though, it’s just an enjoyable and effective build to play.

I actually enjoy skyhammer, but only in hotjoins. The fact that it’s in tPvP is really frustrating at times.

I wouldn’t mind the hammer doing less damage, mainly because it is easily aimed and can cover the map fairly quickly unlike the trebuchet which takes some time to aim.

I don’t think you should be able to dodge it though. I mean it’s a giant mega laser that’s blasting down on top of you. Dodging the trebuchet seems a bit more practical.

deda.8302:

I play on gandara and these days believe me u can wait longer then 10min…
There was a time that you could log in any time and find ppl to play with now after 03:00 till 9 or even 10:00 you can hardly find players to play with.

I don’t believe server matters, since servers are all connected by region through spvp.

I can’t speak for EU since I play on NA, but I do occasionally get 10 minute queues, but it’s pretty rare. I think I’ve had maybe three 10 minute queues in the past week, give or take a couple days.

Sylvari. Female Sylvari to be more specific. A lot of them have some very cool looks, plus the glow in the hair and on the skin.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Sifu.6527:

Because the gear system in PvE and PvP are so alike? It is already vastly different. Spliting the two game mode will make PvE and PvP better. The real reason they can’t do it is because of money/resources. Please don’t give me this lame excuse that it will be difficult for PvE…

I’m not saying there shouldn’t be splits, but there is a problem if things are too different in PvP compared to the rest of the game. Things like splitting pet health is a great example. It doesn’t change the basics of how to play the game, but it will be a welcome change to both PvP and PvE.

There are already a lot of PvP/PvE splits, such as guardian healing, revealed debuff, Save Yourselves, CnD, etc. So I don’t think it makes sense to say that they can’t do it because of money/resources, since they have regularly done it in the past. They’re probably just trying to be careful with how much they split so they don’t alienate the two playerbases more than necessary.

Agreed. They need to be careful while doing this in order to not make them vastly different. It would only create a barrier of entry for those trying to enter in PvP from PvE and vice versa. You don’t want to split them up so much so that it’s almost as if one class is now two different classes that don’t play the same.

Caine.8204:

Unfortunately, although it would make you happy, to automatically kick the afk guy, and then have the timer start over, would be immensely time consuming.

Scenario: You wait the timer. One person gets kicked for being afk. Timer starts over. Match begins.

Scenario 2: You wait the timer. One person gets kicked for being afk. Timer starts over.
“Omg i’m not waiting for another”, player goes afk. Player gets kicked. Timer starts over. At this point, everyone goes afk, because there is nothing to do before the match begins other than just sit there and wait for it to start.

Better system would just be a vote-kick system, and for the game to take somebody from the queue and throw them in your game. Maybe a -game pause, searching for player- and the points stop ticking away and everyone is placed back to spawn.

I was thinking instead of the the “Go Now” option, there would be an “Accept/Reject” button. If you accepted, you would be put on the roster for the match, but not immediately ported into the arena, you would simply still be out in the open world doing whatever it is you’re doing. Only after enough players have chosen “Accept,” will you enter into the arena and be placed on teams.

If you were to decide to “Reject,” you would leave queue, and the system would continue to search for players before placing everyone on a team and into the arena. That way you could continue playing while you’re waiting, and not have to sit in the arena waiting for another player.

The only problem with the vote-kick you mentioned, is the fact that you’re voting during the match(unless I misunderstood). This would mean whoever gets thrown in from the queue could potentially be put into a game where the score is lopsided and is unrightfully put onto a winning/losing team. Not to mention unrightfully kicking people who you just don’t want on your team.

James Megawatt.9021:

Yesterday I had again two times 4v5. I am losing a lot of ranks due to this, went from 65 to 140 due to these two losses. Please fix

Just wondering, is it actual 4v5’s, or someone is AFK causing a 4v5?

I seem to mostly get 4v5’s due to AFKs and not due to it actually being only 4 people on my team.

If I ever get a true 4v5, its usually someone who has gone through the trouble of entering the match, and then just leaving, which is incredibly frustrating. However these true 4v5’s are rare for me.

Favorite Weapon – Greatsword: It’s just too much fun to run around and kill things from range before they reach you with a pretty looking weapon. I just generally find all the skills on this weapon to be fun to use in open world pve and in spvp for certain builds.

Favorite Weapon Combo – Sword/Pistol: Magic bullet, iDuelist, blurred frenzy, ileap, boon stripping. This weapon combo is extremely effective and very satisfying to use. I pretty much have to employ this in any spvp build I use since I enjoy it so much.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Decay should be permanent. And should start after a day. And the leaderboards should be reset monthly with a winner of each team q and solo q getting something like 4k gems. Unless all this is done then there is no point. Each part of this doesnt work without the other being done. You cant have temporary decay. That is simply the worst idea ever.

I like your idea of a leaderboard reset and reward system. I don’t know how this would be implemented but I do like it. This would mean we could have Seasons, which is something I definitely endorse.

The idea of a reward is a great idea, but I don’t know what a good reward would be, whether it be a title like “Season 1 Champion” or just something as simple as gold/gems, or maybe even some sort of skin. I think the reward should definitely be something that could show other players that you were top of the leaderboard though.

I think a monthly reset would be a bit too often though. Maybe like a quarterly reset, or probably something a little bit longer would be ideal in my opinion.

Adding some sort of a playoff system for top players/teams could be interesting too, if only to offset the possibility of a team/player winning due to a possibly easier path to the top for whatever reason.

Divinity.8041:

Writetyper.1985:

Hotjoin hero? Forever and always thief.

Sadly I think you are right

Yeah, I agree it would probably be thief, they seem almost tailor made for it.

Although, I have seen more and more warriors fit the criteria as of late.

Divinity.8041:

I love how people say when you get “higher” this happens less.

That is like saying, well when you get wealthy, you won’t have to beg for food.
How am I supposed to become wealthy if every system in my world is currently keeping me poor?

How am I supposed to get higher when i am being dragged to the bottom based on things out of anybody’s control?

Sorry if I offended you. I was simply stating to OP that from my experience the higher you go, the less of it you see. That may not be true for everyone.

I didn’t mean to imply, or think that I did, that it was easy to go up, nor did I imply that he would. I was just stating that it appears to be less of a problem higher up. Yes, the current way the system works, it is difficult to “rise through the ranks,” mainly, I think, due to the reasons discussed by OP.

James Megawatt.9021:

Dear ArenaNet,

as everyone is aware, 4v5s are a big big problem right now in SoloQ. I am not going to exaggerate on numbers here, but in my personal experience at least 1 out of 10 games starts as 4v5 (in my team’s disadvantage) and another 1 out of 10 games starts 5v5 but with a person AFK for at least half the match.

In reality numbers will be higher because the other team experiences the same issues, though it can occur that each team has one member missing and the disadvantage gets ‘cancelled out’ but let’s just make a safe estimate that 30% of games start with an unfair advantage on one of both teams.

This is of course way too much. Everyone hates to lose, but losing because of a disadvantage like this can be really dissapointing especially when you are trying hard to climb up the ladder. I do think though that quick and easy solutions are available that can drastically reduce this issue, because the dishonorable-buff obviously is not doing enough right now (it helps I am sure, but just not enough!).

Games with AFK people: The reason people start a match AFK is because queuing right now takes somewhere between 10-15minutes. People walk away from their computer, are doing other things, browse on the web, and forget that they are in queu, or don’t come and check often enough. Would it not be possible to have a sound played when the queu pops and the Guild Wars 2 game screen trying to take foreground (the Guild Wars 2 icon would start flashing in taskbar). I think it’s safe to say that this would solve most of the problems on AFKs.

Games that are 4v5: I think this one is a little more tricky. People have suggested a real ‘Ready’ button, and let the game only begin when everyone has pushed it. I think that people would fake-AFK/disconnect if they see strong opponents, and if a person was really AFK then the game would never start. I feel that when the counter reaches zero and both teams do not have 5 people, it should kick the person that has not been able to make it into the game, restart the counter and choose a random player who is in queu at that moment, it doesn’t even matter if he does not fit in the rating of the other people, everyone prefers a random player over a 4v5.

If people have other ideas, please post them here and let’s have a constructive discussion! And please try to keep this thread free from hate and trolls.

Thank you for your time and have a good day!

In my experience, the higher up you go up in rating, the less matches you have that start 4v5, but you still get plenty of AFKers which can be incredibly frustrating. I like the idea of a “true” ready button that would be required to be clicked in order to start the match, and if everyone didn’t click it, the match wouldn’t start and either everyone re-enters the queue, or the match is stalled until another player can be found.

You mention people performing a fake AFK to get out of competing with players that that they didn’t want to play against, but I think a simple solution to that would be to not let players see the competition, only their teammates. It may cause more leavers during the match, but hopefully that could be resolved in some way through better punishment.

Also, I hear everyone saying queue times are 10-15 minutes, but I really haven’t experienced this. I usually play at 10 p.m. EST however, and the queue is usually between 3-5 minutes. I have had 15 minute queues but that was when i had first began playing soloQ. Either way, more players would be the solution to long queue times, it’s just a matter of attracting them to sPvP, and tPvP in particular.

Just my two cents. Oh, and good post btw.

Are you guys finding GS more viable in this build than staff?

GS #5 is a more reliable interrupt than Staff #5, but the overall team-support that staff adds seems way more valuable compared to what the GS can bring.

The GS seems good for 1v1ing and roaming, but in the current pvp scene, I generally think mesmers are better suited for the team support they can bring, which is something I think Sensotix’s build has been able to emphasize better than anything before with the might stacking/spreading and the interrupts/lockdown mechanic of the build.

I mainly prefer the staff due to chaos armor and chaos storm. Chaos armor will provide you with plenty of boons, with the 30% boon duration, to spread to your team, as well as spread conditions to anyone specifically focusing you. Chaos storm provides an aoe boon/condition applier, as well as an interrupt, and it is an ethereal combo field. The combo field is what really sells it for me, since it sets up combos for the team and applies chaos armor to them as well, giving them a boon/condition applier anytime they are attacked.

With staff you can still get plenty of might stacks, and you get the added boons and support that staff usually brings. The only things is the boons are a bit short, but with the 30% duration, they should last plenty long enough for any team fight, plus you can always reapply rather quickly depending on your traits.

Hey Sensotix, really loving this build. I’m having a lot of fun with the build and think it’s great. I’ve only played it in hotjoin though, so I’m unsure of how it will truly fare in tPvP, particularly Solo Arena, which is where I usually play the most. Do you have any idea of how well it puts up in the Solo Arena environment over an extended time?

Also, have you played around with Lyssa runes, along with Staff instead of sw/sw or sw/p? You end up having one less sure fire interrupt in exchange for a random interrupt from chaos storm, but you also gain plenty of support and boons from chaos storm, along with Lyssa Runes’ added elite effect. I personally use Mass Invis which can be played offensively or defensively, gives you every boon, and then use Signet of Inspiration to copy every boon to teammates. I’ve only played a couple games with this setup, but it has worked wonders. It’s a shorter duration on might stacks, but I’ve found I don’t really need them to last for too long before a fight is over or decided, and it isn’t difficult to get them back up again anyways. Plus you’re receiving plenty of other boons from staff.

I haven’t quite decided on halting strike or empowered illusions however.

Here’s the actual build I’ve tweaked it to.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQJARWlwzCoHTzmGb9IipH9mvJckUoapWJF42FC-ToAg0CnIKSVkrITRyisFNEZFB

Edit: Forgot to post build.

Safire.9143:

Pyriall.5027:

You must be new, so please allow me. Ahem…this is one of those things we’ve actually had many discussions internally about. It is definitely on our list of things to do, I can’t say where on our list it is or respond with a release date until it is official. Please know that although we do agree that it is a feature players desire, we feel we have adequate ways for dueling to occur. If we were to bump this up on our list something else would need to get bumped down.

Well game is out for 1 year so we must to wait one year more for them to finish next 5 spvp maps and some balance things to move dueling into 1st place in their DO DO LIST ?

benOTK.4961:

There are custom dueling servers you can join if you’re really looking for some 1v1’s.

Just look on the hotjoin list and you’ll be able to find one usually

Yes, and its very funny you must to doing this way… i also must to buy ticket to be able to make my own 1v1 server… its sooo funny….

Yeah it’s definitely not optimal, but if you’re really desperate for some 1v1, you can always join a custom server, however inconvenient that may be.

There are custom dueling servers you can join if you’re really looking for some 1v1’s.

Just look on the hotjoin list and you’ll be able to find one usually

Volrath.1473:

benOTK.4961:

Henqquli.5078:

Was this the “balance” patch for this month?
Because this patch was horrible. All that feedback has been given to a-net and they refused to look at it and did this?

Necro is still ridicilous.
1200 spam meta is still there…

Just wondering if this really was the balance patch, because didn’t really look it.
So terrible.

I think the big patch is still due to come in two weeks time, or so I’ve heard.

This was just a baby patch, but still in the right direction. Better than nerfing everything all at once and causing a HUGE shift in the meta again. This way they can introduce at least part of it and see how it goes.

sure but…. we are playing in the worse meta ever seen in this game (including beta) i believe a “HUGE shift in the meta” was required.

So basically were starting of with the worse meta ever and work from there little by little?! that’s no doubt the way to go!

Wile the game was close to balance they introduced a big balance patch that F-U-B-A-R the meta and the pvp experience for all of us….

If we were close to balance WHY NOT take the baby steps THEN?! Not now that the game is horrible PvP wise, the competitive play is almost gone there are very few teams still competing forcing them to split up to play soloQ since teamQ dos not pop due to lack of teams. More and more ppl quit every day, so yeah… and “HUGE shift in the meta again” for the BETTER (unlike the last one) was actually a good thing.

I can’t comment on whether or not it’s the worst Meta ever in the game, but I believe what I posted is probably their logic behind this small patch.

I also can’t really answer your question on why they didn’t do baby steps before when we were “close” to balance, seeing as that wasn’t my decision and don’t work for them.

Again, the big patch is still coming, you’ll still most likely get your massive shift. This is only a baby step before that massive shift. I’m assuming they can see how this baby step will affect the meta, and then make some adjustments before the big shift again.

Henqquli.5078:

Was this the “balance” patch for this month?
Because this patch was horrible. All that feedback has been given to a-net and they refused to look at it and did this?

Necro is still ridicilous.
1200 spam meta is still there…

Just wondering if this really was the balance patch, because didn’t really look it.
So terrible.

I think the big patch is still due to come in two weeks time, or so I’ve heard.

This was just a baby patch, but still in the right direction. Better than nerfing everything all at once and causing a HUGE shift in the meta again. This way they can introduce at least part of it and see how it goes.

Risiko.7412:

I started playing the game just over 3 weeks ago. It wasn’t’ really at all like I was expecting. I am assuming that I am just missing significant portions of the game and don’t even know they exist, so please point me in the right direction if that is the case…
1) Fastest level cap EVER!
2) Gear is easy to get.
3) GW2 is a Farm Fest!
4) Level scaling is cool
5) Picking a Norn was a bad idea
6) Personal story is lackluster
7) Crafting – why bother?
8) Group dungeons
9) PvP
10)WvWvW

1) Fastest level cap EVER!
It took me about 50 hours played to get to level cap, and that includes leaving the game AFK basically every night (auto logs out after ~an hour I think). I had not done any research into the game, I just started playing. Between running around with a zerg group in the QJ gauntlet place and completing a couple zone maps I was at 80. I had not even entered a map zone with monsters above level 40 by the time I hit 80, didn’t even have the final talent book purchased! It was very anti climatic!

2) Gear is easy to get.
I most recently played WoW where gold comes out your ears, so I didn’t think I had much gold, til I realized that you can buy level 80 exotics for a whopping 3-4g! I just walked into the TP, bought a full set of exotic Berserker gear for my Guardian and a set of superior sigils to go with it. Berserker gear was the expensive stuff, too. I have ~45g left over and could easily buy another complete set of gear if I wanted to try a different build.

There is no better gear in the game to get so far as I know. There are better looking things I can get, but the effectiveness is the same. So at this point there is nothing to strive for gear wise. Just prettier pixels I guess.

3) GW2 is a Farm Fest!
I think this has to do with the timing of when I joined the game, but between zerging through the QJ arena and the Clockwork Chaos farming extravaganza what else should one spend time doing? You get crazy money, lots of achievement points, tons of XP to get stat points (I have researched everything and still have 150 points left, since those scrolls come out of every box it seems!). It is not that entertaining to run the same thing over and over, especially in a zerg where your individual performance is meaningless, but for a new, “poor” character, why not?

1. To be fair, you joined at a hectic time where we had a rather large and chaotic Living Story event that was catered to farming and leveling, thus you leveling extremely quickly and having a lot of gold.

2. Gear is more about looks once you’ve obtained exotics and ascended. The cheaper exotics are the most common ones. You do have to work though for certain gear, and to have the correct stats on certain gear. I don’t think all lvl 80 related exotics have equal stats, I could be wrong but I believe some are better than others.

3. Same as point 1. I mean there definitely is farming in the game, but it’s not necessary whatsoever.

This game is what you make of it. You are not given goals by the developers to achieve(to an extent), you get to make your own goals.

If you truly want to give the game a try, I would suggest starting a new toon and leveling it normally through the personal story and zones, and not grinding levels on a farming event.

I would answer the rest of your points but I’m at work and have been typing for an unusually long amount of time. Good luck!

Toat.2761:

I am talking about even in LA it being dead quiet. maybe it is just my sever?

Personally I have no interest in being in a guild or developing closer online friendships, so this saddens me.

It’s quite possibly your server.

I play on Sea of Sorrows and LA is plenty crowded and chatty, even more so as of late with the Clockwork Chaos Event going on and people flocking back to LA after invasions.

I too don’t have a lot of interest in guilds, but even so there have been plenty of people who I group up with or just shoot the crap with.

Places that come to mind are LA, QD, Orr sometimes, Frostgorge, and then a couple other various zones. Again this is more representative of Sea of Sorrows rather than the whole game.

Hey all,

I tried searching for a thread on this but for whatever reason the search function wasn’t doing anything.

I’m wondering what basic strategies everyone employs or tries to employ during ranked SoloQ.

I started thinking about it after a short heated debate on the subject between a couple players in this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Tried-solo-queue-for-the-first-time

Normally, only one or two people on my team will actually want to use a strategy, everyone else just kind of does their own thing, but the strategy usually starts out with 1 person grabbing near and everyone going mid (or 1 more person grabbing hammer/treb). Then we just kind of do whatever from there, with one person roaming between mid and near. We only take far if its a 4v5 or if it’s blatantly open. Also note that I’m not saying this is a good strategy, its really just the only one I’ve been introduced to and have experience with.

I have seen some people who like to rush far and near and just forgetting mid until back has been capped. And in spirit watch, I’ve actually won everytime with me being a dedicated runner and my team just zerging from point to point.

Just curious to all of the strategies being employed out there. Keep in mind this is for SoloQ which is a bit more hectic than TeamQ, so you may or may not want to incorporate the likelihood of unexperienced players, or players who refuse to communicate, or follow a plan, in your strategies.

Hey all,

Just curious as to what all of you think a mesmer’s optimal role is in the current state of tPvP?

Is it damage? Utility? Support? Bunker?

I currently run a glass cannon phantasm build, which still has some survivability due to our inherent abilities to avoid damage, but besides providing good damage, especially in 1v1 situations, I at times feel that a more support oriented build would be better for tPvP at the moment, most likely using a staff & sword/x setup.

Just curious of everyone’s thoughts on the matter, and what role they believe works best for tPvP.

uberkingkong.8041:

Well just do what Darnis said, we both are in agreement that you need to play the cheese “meta” professions and we both mentioned warrior, necromancer, ranger and guardian.

Like I said before GW2 keeps changing the meta and if your one of those people that quit not too long ago but when mesmers were op, well they aint op anymore, its time for a change. GW2 doesn’t welcome people returning back to GW2, hence why they change there professions abilities so many times that I lost count of them.

I just called you out because you seemed like you was one of those 4v5 or 3v5 whiners. I’ve played 170 games like 3 weeks ago, only 5 of them were xv5 at start and entire game, some people be overexaggerating about this stuff, if they truly get those kinds of games printscreen it and show it on forums. GW2 has very nice way of saving your screenshots, all you do is hit printscreen and it saves instantly.

If you didn’t know, I’d bet you that guy I mentioned has 4 or more accounts and he got to top 1000 3 times on 3 different accounts 2 days ago, of course he started from 0 as well. If he can go 46 wins and 2 losses starting from zero 3 times, than it sure aint that hard. Like Darnis and I been saying, play those cheesy “meta” builds and youll win, that’s how Anat ….. got his wins most likely. If you haven’t watched one of those euro guys either they got that far as well doing same thing, playing warrior, playing necromancer, playing ranger, using meta builds.

9 times out of 10 in GW2 if your doing something wrong, it aint your skill level, GW2 has little skill cap and its mostly the build your playing is wrong.

Heard. I get what you’re saying. It’s more about what class/build you run than actual skill with any certain class/build (I’m not saying that skill doesn’t matter). That’s a bit unfortunate, I don’t care about winning so much as to play with classes I don’t enjoy using. I also never played when mesmer was OP, I just started ranked PvP.

I’m not saying that all of my matches are Xv5, but a few of them have been (with me both having the advantage and disadvantage), I do only have a very small sample size to go from through. I was mainly putting the fact out there that it does seem to happen.

uberkingkong.8041:

Oh quit whining, you see all these good players easily get to top 1000 leaderboards, you think they got lucky with teams each time? You have people recently starting from 0 and going to top like:
Anat My Prof Broke 19 wins 1 loss… rank 3… 2 days ago
Anat Fix A F K 14 wins 1 loss…. rank 5…. 1 day ago
Anat Plz Fix Decay 13 wins 0 loss…. rank 6…. 2 days ago
Also its obvious they didn’t sync together because the win/loss doesn’t match up at all. They all started from 0 like 2 days ago and here they are still going through this leaderboard like its some kind of joke to them. Also they didn’t play with some name that makes people think they going to win or its game over, they played anonymously as in someone who is pretending to be a nobody.

Well to help you win, one thing is for sure is your playing the wrong profession.
The next thing you need to play a meta build. However you can continue with your builds, but don’t come here crying that your not winning, because 9 times out of 10 its your build that sucks and if your not willing to change than its your loss. Currently Mesmer isn’t in the meta. Play warrior, ranger, necromancer or guardian they currently the best professions to win with these days.

Also don’t forget every month or two GW2 changes balance and a whole new meta is out. Like right now everyone is crying ranger, not too long ago it was engineer not too long ago it was Mesmer, not too long ago it was elementalist, a while ago it was warriors.

If you haven’t figured it out right now GW2 doesn’t welcome people returning to the game, hence why they change a lot of things about professions every month or two rather than make new game modes, new maps, better WvW, PvP, PvE.

Changing professions every month regardless if its balanced or not is #1 on there priorities, hence why its always happens compared to new PvP maps. If they could make a new map as much as they change the professions we’d have a lot of maps, and the game would still be balanced. Game has been balanced, they just too dumb to realize it.

I didn’t intend for it to come off as “whining,” I’m trying to understand the mechanics of SoloQ; and I never stated they got lucky. I stated that I don’t understand as of yet how they are achieving such records if they are getting paired with poor teams, and I stated I’m unaware of a way to truely carry a team in a Conquest match by yourself. The only reason I mentioned luck, is if they were “lucky” enough to never get any extreme mismatches, both opponent and teammate wise, or 4v5 or 3v5 matches. I also don’t fully understand the match leaving mechanic, which apparently many people use. If sync queuing is still possible, then that is a very broken mechanic.

As far as those on the leaderboards you mentioned, it seems like they cheesed their way to the top in order to show Anet how broken it is.

I think being frustrated with losing is an acceptable and natural thing, and something I can accept. I have no problem losing if i deserve it. It just seems as if the way SoloQ works is extremely unreliable, I don’t know about TeamQ yet, as I haven’t tried it.

Thank you all for the input though.

So I began playing SoloQ just this past weekend. I have gone 6-9, which I don’t believe is good, but maybe for SoloQ it is somewhat normal. I am very new to PvP in an MMO. I am mostly familiar with PvP in console games and Warcraft 3 which I played extensively.

First off, I play solely as a Mesmer, and I’d probably receive a B minus to a B in my current ability to play the class. Meaning I am rarely downed, and I can dispatch or hold off most players that I come across, and I have a good level of knowledge on all of the classes, as well as the maps.

Basically, what are people doing to be getting these high win percentages on the leaderboards for SoloQ?

Games are often 4v5’s and many players do not seem to know how to play a Conquest game type, and many refuse to communicate, or flat out ignore any sort of communication both before and during the match.

I understand that I’m just starting out on ranked and will naturally be paired with lower level players, but I don’t see how people are attaining such good, and sometimes perfect win percentages on the leaderboards, unless it is just pure luck. As far as I know, one player can’t carry a team in a Conquest game type and capture/hold points by yourself.

So, is there anything I’m missing when it comes to SoloQ? Or is this very typical and something that I should just get used to?

I’m very competitive and have become frustrated with my win/loss. I know I haven’t played many games yet, and there’s plenty of time to turn it around, but SoloQ just seems so unreliable. I also fear other players like myself becoming turned off from PvP in this game because of it, which I definitely don’t want, because PvP is one of the only things holding me to this game.

And please don’t take this as me saying I’m better than everyone else and should have better teams or whatnot. I am in no way a pro, and make my share of mistakes. I’m just looking for tips or anything that could help me or others out in SoloQ.

Also, do you think that Anet will ever reset the leaderboards, or add a Seasons type system similar to WoW or LoL?