Guild Wars 2

Hey, a couple of my friends and I have started to tPVP and decided we liked it a lot. We’re used to playing with a lot of communication and team oriented goals. However, we are really new to this game, though continually looking for ways to improve. We’d love to join a PVP guild/community we could play with and learn from, but it’s perfectly understandable if you’d prefer more experienced players. We’re not looking to join a team or anything atm, just a guild of people to play with. We usually play 7-12 EST

Hey, a couple of my friends and I have started to tPVP and decided we liked it a lot. We’re used to playing with a lot of communication and team oriented goals. However, we are really new to this game, though continually looking for ways to improve. We’d love to join a PVP guild/community we could play with and learn from, but it’s perfectly understandable if you’d prefer more experienced players. We’re not looking to join a team or anything atm, just a guild of people to play with.

Okay! Thanks for all the tips guys. I’ll just have to practice more and learn the animations. I see what you’re saying about the knockbacks though. I’ve managed to decap points just with my big ol bomb and flamethrower knockback alone, but then eventually lose the fight. I guess I should probably disengage after a decap if I know I can’t win.

AlmightyTroll- Engi school lol :P

Authority.6145:

Lupanic.6502:

is there a team overview? Is Ostricheggs playing? If yes, I bet my money on his team.

Ostricheggs is not going to Pax unfortunately.

Oh is Team Doesn’t Matter not going? or just Ostrich?

Oh okay. I just remember in the EU qualifiers Team Paradigm had Teldo and CC had Super doing that. Pish had an ele and I think NN did too. They had rangers but they went to the teamfight at mid, and I don’t think the necros were minion master. I’m wondering if it’s a skill thing. Like at most levels the builds you mentioned are the best at 1v1 but at the top it’s others?

Where can I look/who do I contact for info on the schools?

Ah, okay, if they’re the best at 1v1s, how come they’re not the ones defending close/attacking far? I don’t know much about the strategies/meta but in most of the matches, at the beginning, 4 players go mid and 1 grabs close. I always thought the 1 not with the rest of the team was the best 1v1 character or something but I guess from what you say this isn’t true. What exactly is looked for in this off node player then? Mobility?

Also, are you the one who set up the profession guilds for helping new players in each profession? I remember seeing something like that a while ago but couldn’t find it when I looked for it again.

Oh really? I mean I’m highly unskilled haha, but don’t a lot of the good engineers run the “Teldo” nodefighter build and do well in 1v1s? I watched a couple of the PAX qualifier matches and it seemed like a lot of the time the engis were the ones taking close, rotating to far, etc.

A couple of my friends and I are looking for a guild to play with. We aren’t really hardcoreand don’t plan on forming timed practices, but we’re also looking to win what we can. We want a guild that we can PVP with. There are four of us, but we’re not always on at the same time, and we want a group with which we can say “hey who wants to form a tPVP team” and form a team so we don’t have to solo queue or 2 man queue.

Hello all, I’ve just recently started to pvp as an engineer and am having trouble with classes with pets/minions. I was hoping for some tips on how to fight things like spirit ranger or BM ranger or minion master necro. Rangers are giving me the toughest time atm. I also have a little trouble with mesmers but I think I just need to concentrate more to pick out the real one (this is mainly a problem in bigger teamfights with multiple mesmers all hitting clones). I currently have the nodefighter build.

Hello! I’m a new player to this game- have been playing for only a couple weeks. At this point, I’m just only looking to tPVP so I was wondering how much your members actually tPVP, as it probably wouldn’t work out for either me or the guild if I only tPVPed and everyone else didn’t. I’m new to that as well, but I have experience with competitive PVP from other MMOs. I wouldn’t consider myself hardcore and wouldn’t expect to have weekly practices, though I could attend those if that’s what you do. I’m also not completely casual, though, and have started watching videos and streams of games. I’m mainly looking for a group of people who I can ask like “hey who wants to form a partial team for tPVP” and then get going so I don’t have to solo queue.

Hey Fiend,
If you’ll have me, I’d love to give your guild a shot!

Hello! I’m a new player to this game- have been playing for only a couple weeks. At this point, I’m just only looking to tPVP so I was wondering how much your members actually tPVP, as it probably wouldn’t work out for either me or the guild if I only tPVPed and everyone else didn’t. I’m new to that as well, but I have experience with competitive PVP from other MMOs. I wouldn’t consider myself hardcore and wouldn’t expect to have weekly practices, though I could attend those if that’s what you do. I’m also not completely casual, though, and have started watching videos and streams of games. I’m mainly looking for a group of people who I can ask like “hey who wants to form a partial team for tPVP” and then get going so I don’t have to solo queue.

DanzelOPP.5068:

My point is that at this point with a struggling playerbase splitting your base hurts more than it helps. There needs to be a larger base before this game goes esports because if you drop off more people there can be no esports.

Ah, I see. Yes, you’re right.

JonathanSharp.7094:

pajamaboi.9534:

Wow, I haven’t been playing this game for very long and did not play the first game very much, so I don’t know much about ArenaNet but this is amazing. It’s so great that you would write a response like this for the community. I think in all my time playing other MMORPGs, I’ve never seen such a detailed forum response.

Yes, you’re right. I think nearly all players, myself included, did not grasp the extent to which ideas had to be worked on before implementation. It’s clear that the company cares about the players, and it’s unfortunate that with the tournament coming bigger changes had to be made more quickly as opposed to slower changes. But I think a post like your reply would have been very useful pre-patch. Let the players know why you can’t just take their suggestions and do them. It’s great that you replied now, but if this had been known before, I think maybe some players wouldn’t have been so frustrated. Because it seemed like you guys heard their suggestions and then completely ignored it and did something else. That, I believe, was a big factor in the frustrated, hostile feelings.

Well, as I said, the gaming industry, overall, is still not terribly transparent to most of the world. I don’t think it’s anything secretive, it’s just not to the same level as, to use the example again, the “Making of” type stuff we see for so many movies.

Also, we try to reply as much as we can, but often times, it comes down to trying to get things done within our processes, or taking time away to talk to the players. If we get to that choice, we choose WORKING FOR YOU GUYS over talking TO you every time. We realize it may not seem like that on the outside, but game devs really bust their butts.

Haha yes of course. I’m not trying to take anything away from you here. Honestly, I think you should take the reply you typed, paste it in a new thread and sticky it. Then on half the complaint threads, someone can just reference the thread in response.

DanzelOPP.5068:

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out you are wrong. There are a handful of elite players or “top tier” pvpers while there is a large majority of casuals. Start neglecting them you have no top tier. This game was created for casuals, hence no grind for level or gear. I can agree that the top tier know more about the mechanics of the game and can be a great resource, but relying on them and only them is not the answer because you will neglect a majority of the player base. Once again, they play a different game than casuals. Their builds are made to synergize with one another, they rely on each other for peels and buffs and have constant communication. These things are not available to the casuals because they either don’t have a specific team and also don’t play 8-10 hours a day.
The issue here is that there needs to be more seperation ( solo q) between the two groups because at this point we are to meshed together. You want this game to succeed? The game will ultimately have to tailor to the casual because there are so many more of us than there are of top tier players.
As far as esports goes, once again that caters to the top tier, which is still a small percentage of the population. There aren’t enough players as it is now, so splitting it in this way will only hurt the game more.
Once again I believe that the top tier can and will be a valuable resource for game development, but you cannot cater completely to them and ignore a majority of the playerbase because in the end you will have no player base.

Well, I mean for balance, I really don’t think people are going to quit just because the company takes balancing ideas from top players. I’m just looking at “the e sport” right now, LoL. They have a very balanced competitive play, and the rest of the players seem more than happy. Also, being a multifaceted game, I was just stating that if they did want to become an e sport, they would have to balance competitive play. There would still be plenty of gameplay in non-sPVP. You are right, in that it would be nice if there were a separation. But this doesn’t work until your competitive PVP is fun and balanced. SWTOR tried it with their regular and ranked, but then no one ended up doing ranked.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Oh, also, to the Op’s point (sorry, I’m about to present in China, my mind is elsewhere, didn’t mean to ignore the OP):

The reason we did a “big” change for the Necro, as I’ve stated before, is that we had the Pax tournament coming. We knew we wanted to get Necros and Warriors up with the other classes, and that’s why we had big changes.

Also, a lot of our changes happen VERY far ahead of what you guys see on live. What do I mean?

• It takes us time to get our changes to editors for writing (any text/trait change has to be edited). This can take a week or more.
• We have to then get changes to writers.
• We then have to make sure we work with artists for any visual changes
• We also have to work with sound to make sure we have sound for any changes
• We have to work with icon artists for icons if they’re needed (in the case of Death Shroud 5)
• We have to make sure the changes get through multiple stages of QA testing
• Then with the changes in, we get time to play them before we do final changes
• While doing all this, we have to take the current meta, be it in dungeons/wvw/pvp, and from that, try to extrapolate what we think needs to be done a few months in advance.

This process can take a LONG time, as you can imagine. It’s not as simple as, “Oh, let’s change this to a 2, and change that to a 7.”

I know the video game industry in general is not very transparent when it comes to how things actually work, but I wanted you guys to know that a lot of times, there is a LOT of process for even the SMALLEST balance/content changes.

Hope this makes sense.

Oh, also, the reason we can’t give Necro’s too much disengage has to do with the point of “purity of purpose”.

In this game, we want to allow classes the ability to deal with all situations but in different ways. But, if we give all classes all TOOLS (which is a different thing), then players get confused as to which classes fill which roles, and in what way they fill those roles

Example: In PvP, the Necro and Engi both vie for the position of condition pressure. The engineer has more physical alternatives, the Necro has more boon/condition manipulation, the Engi has more escapability, and the Necro is a little squishier. If we gave the Necro too much mobility or escapability, then all of a sudden their “tools” start to line up exactly. If this is the case, one of them will simply be better than the other, as far as efficacy goes, and thus, one will push the other out of the meta for that “role” on the team. This class would then be the “apex” predator for that role. So, in order to prevent this, we try to make it so that the classes don’t have all their tools overlap perfectly. This means you have to say (following our example), “Well, if we take a Necro, we get more condies, but a squishy body that can’t disengage…..but if we take Engi, we lose some DPS and control (depending on utils), but we get someone who can stand up to a spike better”.

Make sense? If we just gave the escape to Necro’s, then all of a sudden, the Necro is just the clear choice. Not all decisions come down to a clean break like this, but this is the type of thing we’re trying to do when we “deny” some classes certain tools.

-Chap from China

Wow, I haven’t been playing this game for very long and did not play the first game very much, so I don’t know much about ArenaNet but this is amazing. It’s so great that you would write a response like this for the community. I think in all my time playing other MMORPGs, I’ve never seen such a detailed forum response.

Yes, you’re right. I think nearly all players, myself included, did not grasp the extent to which ideas had to be worked on before implementation. It’s clear that the company cares about the players, and it’s unfortunate that with the tournament coming bigger changes had to be made more quickly as opposed to slower changes. But I think a post like your reply would have been very useful pre-patch. Let the players know why you can’t just take their suggestions and do them. It’s great that you replied now, but if this had been known before, I think maybe some players wouldn’t have been so frustrated. Because it seemed like you guys heard their suggestions and then completely ignored it and did something else. That, I believe, was a big factor in the frustrated, hostile feelings.

Israel.7056:

pajamaboi.9534:

Consider the following two theoretical situations, and decide which would be better:

Your hypothetical is a textbook example of the logical fallacy known as the false dilemma or the excluded middle. It assumes that only two eventualities are possible when in fact there could be other alternatives.

However if I personally had to choose I would choose thereotical situation 1. I would rather see every single top level player quit if it meant that there would be a thriving middle and lower level. I believe it’s far more important to cater to the casual, semi-serious crowd than the hardcore crowd because they by definition must outnumber the top level/hardcore crowd.

I believe that the absence of a broad playerbase is the ultimate evil for a game. It means that the middle and lower tiers disappear and no one has anyone play against except maybe at the higher level tiers. I believe that the absence of a broad playerbase combined with the absence of key features like solo queue and an extremely protective matchmaking system are far more likely be to driving away more players than the absence of balance at the highest levels of play because by definition only a small number of people are even capable of playing at the highest levels of play.

If I were a developer my main concern would be broad market appeal, not niche market appeal.

It may be extreme but what other alternatives are there? Is there any MMORPG out there with good overall balance at every level of play? I honestly don’t know of one, but if you do, I’d be more than happy to be proven wrong.

Also, I was under the impression, perhaps falsely so, that they were trying to make their structured PVP into an e-sport. If this is not the case, then it’s fine. As you say, it would be much better to appeal to the casual player. But if they are trying to make their sPVP into an e-sport, then they have no choice but to listen to the top players. And then let the casual player have fun in PVE or WvW. I don’t believe it’s a realistic goal to try to make your PVP into an e-sport while also having it cater to the casual player, at least not at first. Once it does develop into a big deal and draws more attention, then that’s another situation entirely. Then you get to make tiers of play and match players based on a rating/skill system, but that’s quite a ways off. So my opinion is that they should grab the top teams and work together with them. Make this somewhat more objective by taking, say, the top three finishers at the next tournament. However, again, this is only if they actually do care about making this competitive.

Israel.7056:

Xeph.4513:

This is mostly incorrect, fact is people who want to play this game competitively need this game to succeed in order for them to succeed, so they are more likely to throw bias aside in order for this game to become better; what we have here is not a flourishing game, but rather a game that is struggling, so there is no real reason for players that are taking this game seriously to try and derail balance.

As for the casual player, he will always have opinions on what little experience he has, plus the fact that his skill level might not allow him to judge situations correctly, meaning that most of the time they don’t see the bigger picture.
I am in no way saying that their opinion isn’t valuable, but I think that the casual ’s opinion is a lot more subjective to bias, because of their limited understanding / knowledge of the class match ups and overall balance that is required to remedy the problems.

I reject the premise that the desire to play competitively somehow shields one from bias.

I reject the premise that bias must be the result of intent. Bias is often simply the result of an imperfect (incomplete) perspective.

I reject the premise that greater experience necessarily makes any opinion more valid.

I think you reveal your own personal bias towards yourself and people like you when you use phrases like “judge situations correctly” and " seeing the bigger picture."

I understand that you are a “top player” and so you personally stand to gain from being given greater influence over the development of the game. You obviously care deeply about the game and I know you want to see it succeed. You are free to express your opinions and anyone is free to take you seriously or disregard your advice. This is how it should be imo.

Consider the following two theoretical situations, and decide which would be better:

1. The PVP is completely balanced at the casual, noob-friendly level. Anyone can come in, pick a class and build, and play it well enough to compete with other players of the same level. However, with enough player skill, certain classes far outweigh the others, to the point where top level tournaments cannot exist, and good players leave for a new game.

2. The PVP is completely balanced at the top level. Coming in as a new player, there are certain faceroll builds are are ridiculously easy to steamroll other new/casual players with, but at the top level the game is done well.

I personally believe the second is optimal, as one can always play or practice more to to get a higher level, but cannot “downgrade.” This is a problem a lot of other MMOs have, actually. Many players complain on the forums about something being OP, it gets nerfed, or something else gets buffed, and the top players get shafted and leave the game. And with them, the PVP leaves. As a new/casual player, I’m perfectly fine with the devs working with only top players and teams to balance, and then letting the rest of us deal with it, since at least we know that it’s possible to reach a skill level where there will be balance.

Is this too unreasonable? As devs come up with changes and balances, they do it with the tournament teams, or something invitation only. They let these players test the changes in matches on a ‘beta’ server, or something. I don’t know if this is a completely stupid and unreasonable thing to accomplish, logistics wise, but it would be a nice thing in general I think, especially before the big tournament coming.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Arheundel.6451:

2. Consider the creative mind of the playerbase.
Sometimes, there are really good builds that are not discovered for months on end. This is affected by our current playerbase, as well as a revolving meta.
This is not meant as a slight, but the truth is that sometimes things are changing so quickly that you guys just don’t have time to explore new builds and find that one gem that has escaped others.
3. Allow previous changes to settle.
This ties in to the previous two listed. The balance changes we make are very deliberate and calculated. This means that we need to give you guys time to find the gems that we have put in the game, and then allow the meta to adapt to your creative mind.

Sadly the majority of the player-base does not want to adapt, they find a build and that is it, they want to run with that particular build over and over again , as soon as they lose to a counter build..they’ll come to complain on the forum, while maybe using a different set up, runes, utilities they would be perfectly able to beat that counter build.
To put it simply not everybody follow a strategical approach, the majority only wish for “a build to rule them all” .

Aww, that’s not fair! I think a little more credit is due. Consider this though: the players that spend their time arguing on the forums are maybe not the ones spending all their time in the game trying to find that innovative build. Not saying that’s always the case, but it’s yet another thing we have to consider. The amount of active participants on these forums is actually an extremely low percentage of our playerbase. That’s not to say we ignore them.

But we’ve seen some of the top teams/players on these forums, and are there opinions on class balancing not worth more? If the game is balanced at the top level the rest of us can just try and slowly get there.

More to the point, though, it’s unfortunate that so many are, as you say, ‘bashing’, but at the same time, I think Xeph’s post is a very reasonable and detailed description from one of the top players in this game. I don’t think these top players have such a huge problem adapting, but it seems like he honestly believes these patches have been a step backwards. The thread is almost 500 replies long, and if even 90% of those are just useless complaints, that still leaves 50 posts with constructive criticism.

Sylentir.8913:

This is just a copypaste from another similar thread:

With engies, the general rule of thumb is that if you can justify your choices logically and run the build acceptably, it’s a viable build. There aren’t any engie skills considered worthless, and its very easy to put together a build suiting any particular skillset.

In general, I advocate focusing yourself on one area: choose between bunker, support, cc, crit damage, or condi damage. Pick a weapon that is applicable to your role (shield is amazing for bunker, pistols pack a punch with condis, rifle is godly for cc or crits) and in general, you’ll also want at least one kit that fills a similar or synergistic function. Toolkit is the canonical bunker kit, bombs function well with bunker and support if you take Elixir-Infused Bombs in the invention line, elixir gun works well with support, flamethrower works well with bunker or crits, and grenades work ok with crit or amazing with condis.

Once you’ve got that, you’re half done. Pick your utilities to complement your function: gadgets give cc and mobility, elixirs give damage buffs and support, turrets give CC and meh damage, and an all-kit build has crazy versatility but might not use a kit as well as a more specialized user.

Your elite skill, 90% of the time, will be supply drop. It’s too good of a skill to pass up, and is a really wonderful elite. Elixir X is unreliable, and the mortar, while a lovely idea, is extremely bugged (don’t use it).

Got this far? Now you’re in the home stretch! Choose traits to complement the big parts of your build. Focus on damage with grenades? Take explosive traits. Focus on damage with anything else? You’ll want firearms. Use elixirs? That’s what alchemy’s for. If you do WvW, I’ll strongly strongly recommend that you put 10 points into tools and take Speedy Kits, since it allows you to keep 100% swiftness on yourself.

As far as gear goes, see the same guidelines as the traits. Take what most enhances your primary focus. White damage will enjoy Berserker’s or Rampager’s (Typically Berserker > Rampager), condition damage will prefer Rabid or Carrion (Engineers typically benefit more from Rabid), bunker characters will want to look at Shaman’s, Soldier’s, Cleric’s, Apothecary’s, Settler’s, Sentinel’s, and/or Magi’s depending on the contents of their build.

wow this is exactly what i was looking for thanks!

okay so gearwise which stats are you guys going for in your mentioned builds?

Oh actually do people even use grenades in WvW? I can imagine it being quite difficult to aim your grenades, and can see it more as a dungeons thing.

I really like using grenades and have been using a 30/10/0/20/10, though this was just arbitrarily picking a forum post and copying it. I wasn’t sure which slot skills to use so i just took bomb kit and throw mine to stack might at the beginning of every fight, and also glue bomb for when my chill grenade is on CD to kite. At first, I think I’ll probably do a couple dungeons, but I honestly can’t do a dungeon that many times before getting bored. I’ll probably end up in WvW or PVP a lot (but you use different gear for sPVP anyways right), but just waiting on my copy of Windows (currently on a Mac and it lags during big events). I just wanna know which exotic gear to spend money on haha. I’m guessing if I wanna still use grenades I should put more into firearms for condition damage? I wouldn’t say my skill level was anywhere near good but I’d prefer to learn from dying a lot than playing it safe lol

I was looking around on the forums mainly to see which gear set I should aim to get (am just about to hit 80). It seems most people are saying berserker/rampager/rabid, depending on your playstyle. What exactly does this mean? I get that berserker deals more direct damage and rampager deals more condition damage, but what are the builds for each of them, in both PVE and WVW? Also if I just want to purely maximize DPS in dungeons, which build+gear set would do that? Or be the most effective in WVW? There doesn’t seem to be a sorta comprehensive guide out there, and I’ve been reading so many different things that I’m just really confused.

Also more specifically, I’ve heard quite a lot of people say that in “endgame” dungeons, defense doesn’t matter since not dying is all about dodging and positioning, and if this is true, why would you ever take rabid over rampager?

Okay, well mainly I was interested in playing an engineer or warrior, but it looks like a lot of top players have put their engineers on the shelf for the time being, and warriors don’t seem to be that great. More generally, though, I was wondering how the history of patches has turned out. For example, I played SWTOR and for as long as I played that game, mercenaries were never used on top tier teams. Whereas in WOW, I’m told PVP sorta alternates between ranged and melee dominating. So would the warrior/engineer stay as a less-used profession or does ArenaNet throw out enough patches with big enough changes that soon they’ll alternate from underpowered to overpowered?

Hey all, I’m new to this game (got it like three days ago) and am wondering how often there are big changes to the classes for balancing. From what I see, it seems like there was a very recent patch that nerfed/buffed a lot of things. There are a couple classes I’d like to play, but according to the posts here, some of them are at the bottom of the PVP barrel at the moment. So that’s why I want to know if Guild Wars 2 has lots of changes often with FOTMs coming and going, which would mean that the good and bad classes sorta just alternate. Or if they take a while to apply balances, leaving certain classes good for a long time and certain classes bad for a long time.