Guild Wars 2

PM sent. 15 character length

Eiland.1405:

^ Sigil of Nullification?

OP you forgot the most importnant trait for decap: ‘leg specialist’ (immob on cripple). Take it instead of ‘shrug it off’.
You got 2 ranged cripple skill on 8sec and 12sec. so yeah it’s a must.

Yes you’re right and I did mention leg specialist as an alternative trait. I tried both but found that the shout engine with all three traits is key to making this build succeed. “Shrug It Off” often triggers in the best situations and adds a consistent heal, condi clear, and occasional stun break. The likely replaced trait would be Lung Capacity.

Dancing Face.4695:

Not good as a decapper, hammer 4 has a low range knockback and rifle knockback is easly detectable, especially when with a rifle you try to melee.

I would have gone to phisical skills like “kick” and “stomp” , “fear me” shout. mace and shield instead of hammer to have survivability.

I anticipated this as a common response, where only the offensive side of CC is analyzed. There are two sides to CC, offensive CC and CC recovery. The Shout Engine is what makes the build a good 1v1 node capper (see below).

I will also respond back that Rifle Butt and Fear Me! are still instants and nearly unpreventable when timed correctly.

bhagwad.4281:

Doubt it can beat a pure decap engi for decapping. An engi can even strip stability with ease. With overcharged shot, flame thrower knockback, toolbox pull, and thumper turret double knockbacks, there’s no question of even comparing the two…

This is the big part players will fail to analyze. The part where HAMIFLE has an advantage isn’t in offensive CC (although the build CC is still extremely strong).

It’s in CC recovery. The strength of the build is in its ability to get CC’ed and immediately (mid-CC) stun break or condi clear on an active 20-sec timer and a passive 20-sec timer. This hasn’t even taken into consideration Dogged March, two more shouts, sigils, and slowing the opponent down in counter CC chains.

Compare it with an engi in a decap fight. The engi may gain ticks because of having more offensive CC options, but it will likely have at most zero to one stunbreak on a long timer and healing turret (a condi clear that is not instant). The Shout Engine will win back ticks in the battle of CC recovery. Furthermore, HAMIFLE has clear advantages in the areas of pure sustain and survivability vs. ranged attackers or high damage.

The naysayers responses have been fast and “top of the head”. My response – try out the build first and come back with operational feedback. I’m also willing to have test node duels with anyone in game; feel free to message me. In my experiences, decap engis have not been the issue; rather, consistent condi/bunker hybrids are the most effective counter.

HAMIFLE build link

Description: Born out of a curious and peculiar desire to make the Warrior rifle viable, I present to everyone, the HAMIFLE! The HAMIFLE follows in the footsteps of the decap engi and hambow as a point-assaulter, a node bunker, and group chain CC’er. In minor exchange of the lethality of Hambow and CC of a decap engi, the HAMIFLE offers improved and consistent sustain. Short cooldowns with on-demand stun breaks + condition clears, give it a viable, winning edge in 1on1 node fights.

The Engines

1. Shout Engine: Tactics II, VII, XII, IV + Soldier Runes

• Conditions cleared and 1600 HP per shout with two shouts on 20 sec timers and a passive “Shake It Off!” also on a 20 sec timer. This is key to get back on nodes if cripple and immobilize are applied.
• “Shake It Off!” is also a 20 second stun break. Crucial timing of it and “Fear Me” will determine whether you win node battles even against decap engis. Use it mid-flight to keep crucial node ticks in your favor!

2. Heal Engine: Heal Signet + Shouts + Adrenal Health + Doggged March

• You will heal a lot. Coupled with almost 30k HP and 1900 toughness, dying 1on1 will be extremely rare.
• Keep adrenaline at full unless Earthshaker is needed for max passive regen.
• Use “For Great Justice!” actively to clear conditions and gain might while saving “Shake It Off!” for more dangerous conditions and stun break situations.

3. CC Engine: Hammer + Rifle spec’ed with Arms IV, Crack Shot

• With Crack Shot, Rifle Butt will be on a 12 second cooldown and it pierces, meaning it can push back multiple targets. Use this as much as possible.
• Follow up with Aimed Shot to cripple your opponent and win node ticks.
• Hammer, as usual, is one of the best Warrior weapons and continues to provide one of the best AoE CC and damage solutions.
• Between all the CCs on short cooldowns, you will be a beast at node decap and group fight CC. Keep the CC pressure on (a good offense is a good defense)!

4. Swap and Might engine: Fast Hands + on-swap sigils x4

• Swap… all the time, for maximum abuse of your sigils.
• No problem generating 15-25 stacks over the course of a fight with “For Great Justice!”, Signet of Rage, and Sigil of Battle.

Notes

• This build has a nasty CC Chain. Wait for the enemy to be low on health and without Stun breaks. Rifle Butt -> Earthshaker -> Hits x2 -> Hammer 4 -> Hammer 5 -> Swap -> Fear me! -> Hit -> Rifle Butt (repeat). The extended CC chain with Rifle Butt and “Fear Me!” makes it even more of a fearsome CC finisher compared to Hambow.
• Alternative considerations: Lung Capacity -> Leg Specialist, Signet of Rage -> Juggernaut, any sigil -> Sigil of Intelligence (offers occasional delight with “Kill Shot”)

For my final thoughts, I’ve had a lot of fun and objective success with HAMIFLE this past week at Rank 200-800. This includes winning a couple of 4v5s and having a hard time thinking of of a lost 1on1 decap fight vs. the whole spectrum of node fights GW2 has to offer. Whether this prove to be a winning build or a sub-optimal build, I think it is definitely a viable way to play rifle warrior and I hope the community can come up with ideas to improve it!

Build, remember to pose, and enjoy your HAMIFLEs today

First set of changes in a long time that seem to be in the right direction. ANet doing a better job of rebuilding confidence in the PvP community.

That being said, it was long overdue. Reversing the damage/negativity of ~6 months will be an uphill battle.

Mrbig.8019:

My experience after going up to >top 500 is completely opposite.
…

Actually, it sounds like your experience is synonymous with my experience and others. Players don’t get good til you hit even higher ranks, and then you have to deal with stacked team vs. unstacked :P.

All the posts and bumps are great, because it shows how congruent community experiences are. I think ANet has unfortunately shown that their testing doesn’t lead to the desired results and that they have an issue recognizing a player’s frustrations in a typical gaming session. The more people chiming in and sharing their experiences, the more we can hope ANet doesn’t miss the boat in the next closed fix.

Justin ODell.9517:

Urejt.5648:

I think system MMR should give first player to team A, then second player to team B. Third player to team A, and thourth to team B.

Doing this biases the outcome in favor of team A.

Alternatives, ordering players from 0 to 9 by rating:

Less bias
0 3 4 7 8
1 2 5 6 9

slightly less bias
0 9 2 7 4
1 8 3 6 5

Justin, I like the way you respond to posts. You’re more transparent and it feels like a human instead of pasted community manager policies.

I guess I can’t understand as to why leaderboards / PvP match data weren’t setup in a manner that could allow for piece-wise fixes. A sensical backend setup would have had results data architecture, rating results calculation, and matchmaking algorithms split. Only the matchmaking portion would require a tweak; even random assignment of 0-9 (which could be argued as having +/- to the above bias) would be better than what is currently in place and should be easy to implement.

Anyhow, I guess we have an answer now and can only wait.

Flumek.9043:

I had exact same experince. Went 1-21 in one day. From 95% to 55%
Note: old system

Rollercoaster started with 8x consecutive 5v4 on my side . Mathematicaly very small chance. Then some unlucky close loses (tempel buffs) and finaly some teammates, who arent leavers, but play just as bad.
…

70% – One r9 player , amongst 30-40s… Or just who doesnt know the basic rules, leaving home, attacking far , basicaly hotjoin zerger mentality
Which ever teams gets this player, will lose.

60% – 3x players on each team are like the one above, playing hotjoin free-for-all instead of conquest.

50% – All players are like that, rank15 max. Theyre also all glass canons with mostly no stunbreaks.
…

Thanks for adding your experience; I think the experiences are congruous throughout the community and more people chiming in helps. To me, the obvious issue here is that new players are entered near the middle of the leaderboard (50%) rather than having to work their way up. This is clearly bad and makes games a dice roll of “who gets the nub” for anyone in this range.

I thought a quick summary of my experience might highlight issues with the game and leaderboards. I’ve played around 2000 tPvP matches (Solo Q and Team Q combined) exclusively. When Solo Q first started, I decided to test as many extreme builds and found myself in the bottom 20%. Before then, I was consistently a top 500 Team Q player.

Observations:

• I rollercoastered between 35% to 75% for a long time, feeling unable to affect the outcome of matches even when I was playing my best . The usual culprit? This range is filled with 4v5s and games with one or two bad teammates. My guess is bad teammates are often a result of new players starting at 50% and/or getting a lucky start. Conquer mode and current game balance are such that unfavorable odds are extremely difficult to surmount. This range has high volatility and gravity towards the center of the bell curve, and unfortunately, it’s mostly artificial due to 4v5s. Once you reach certain rating %s, the outcome is decidedly more deterministic.

• Tweener builds don’t really cut it in Solo Q format, because they take more coordination. If you want to affect the outcome in a game with strangers, you either run faceroll glass or bunker.

• Matchmaking at the top is broken. The best 5 will get matched against 5 scrubs for the majority of matches. I’m pretty sure everyone in the top 200 knows this as fact. Consider that when I hit <500, my win % was somewhere around 53%. My win % is now 60%… this is with hundreds of games weighted against my win%! I didn’t get better; the matchmaking system gave me easier matchups.

• Players don’t start to get “good” until the top 200 (consider how many of these are dual or inactive accounts). I say this as objectively as possible and trying not to be elitist. This is just an unfortunate reality of the state of PvP atm. Matches at rating >500 still regularly have both teams ignoring Stillness at 11:30, both Tranq and Still at 8:30, getting Svanir kill-stolen in the beginning, or still unsure about how to efficiently stomp classes. This unfortunate reality is also why 95% of forum posts are noise.

• As a corollary to the above points, Solo Q is much less frustrating after passing certain %s (I also suspect that there are certain “bad matchup” boundaries one has to pass to get bumped up to the next deviation group).

• There are clearly better times to play if you want favorable matchups. Matches in early mornings or late nights have a high % of being 5 top vs. 5 scrubs due to the small PvP population.

• Queue times for me are now 7-10 min, likely either because of my rating or the population. [edit to add this bullet]

I guess my concluding statement is, “How can this not be a frustrating experience for the majority of players?”

Please read my former thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Open-Alpha-Dishonor-Math-Leaderboard-Rtngs/ (thumbs up to testing grounds, but unsure why other simpler fixes are taking so long)

If these patch notes are true, there are very few gameplay changes that will impact PvP. Warrior/Necro remains completely intact and no classes were equipped with tools to affect the meta.

There are some nice points such as UI changes , tab targeting, and improvements to engi/ele but overall the patch is really underwhelming.

Looks like another month of negativity PvP.

Anthrage.2519:

The original post made me feel good, confirmed someone knows what I am going through, and how I feel…ANet’s reply made me feel bad, underlining the fact that there is nothing of substance we can comfort ourselves with.

Thanks Anthrage for the kind words.

I think everyone would love a substantial response from the Devs but I wholeheartedly recognize how busy they are. I think in particular, it would be awesome if a Dev were to address their policy on talking more detailed about upcoming changes (ie. have more of an Open Alpha stance towards changes).

Consider all these points ANet:

- Major gameplay balance seems to happen on a monthly or bi-monthly cycle historically. You guys probably have statistics regarding the loss of PvPers after a poorly received patch, over the course of a month. With such long release cycles, a “bad” patch is extremely costly. One to two months of ill-received gameplay; I’m curious as to what turnover statistics say of the current necro/warrior meta?.

- PvP content is ultimately about consensus balance and fun. There’s no IP protection, there’s no author-to-audience (PvE), the participants directly generate the content, and it requires high level players to analyze. Even PvE and Living Story release much more info about new content before launch. For what reasons do PvP changes need to be a closed discussion?

- Historically, look at the feedback from the “leaked” patch notes in July/Aug – simply a great case example. Imagine if this discussion was upfront, direct, and mutual.

- This format loses your power fans. The current format is “we decide, release, then you judge” … and this is why the forums turn out the way they do. Imagine the alternative: “here are options, let’s discuss, come to an agreement.” You will get the power fans doing your work for you and the top players arguing against “the noise” for you.

So while I would love for some specific upcoming substance to be revealed to the players, I challenge this meta! And would like Devs to respond on why the policy seems to be to avoid being specific on upcoming changes.

Disregarding gameplay and maps, these listed items represent basic pain/frustration points in a competitive PvPer’s daily gaming cycle. They’re simple fixes that I wish would get attention before lateral changes like map improvements. Also, could a Dev possibly reply to ANet’s stance on discussing upcoming PvP changes more directly or providing a sandbox for testing before they happen?

The thing about the leaderboard is that the algorithm is decently functional right now but you have to do your own analysis to determine its value. Ultimately, that means it’s non-functional for the community at large. The suggested fixes I listed would not impact the base algorithm, only how results are shown. Games I’m sure have timestamps; have a more aggressive filter as to which historic games are calculated in the algorithm (ie decay), and require more minimum games to rank. The leaderboards will instantly have more value.

The entire purpose of my post was to present a post that doesn’t have as much “noise” (whining or abstract interpretations), present it in the form of an actual daily gaming cycle, identify the pain points (non-gameplay), and then suggest simple fixes (come on monthly agile scrum schedule). Thanks for all the nice posts above (keep this thread bumped or +1’ed if you believe in its value) and I hope a dev recognizes + responds to this thread.

… cont

#5, #7: Dishonour and Uneven Matches
he tPvP scene is for your competitive players and dishonor is the single most frustrating thing in soloQ. My estimate is that 1 in 4 of my tPvP matches involve a person leaving early as a lower bound. A single player is able to leave at the rate of one match per 15 hours. A single disconnection incorrectly affects the rating of 9 players. Consider that for a second and the variance. Are you expecting each player to average over many hundreds of matches so that regression towards the mean kicks in? Make Dishonor penalties harsher and more aggressive at at least 3 penalties, over 1 week.

#6: A Simple Easy Reward
I’d personally be satisfied with rewards if it was just easy to make dyes… seriously. As it is, I can’t even be bothered to make them. This won’t satisfy everyone of course, but I hope the point gets across: there isn’t even a simple and easy reward right now. While we’re waiting for the new, shiny reward system, even money making dyes would appease a large portion of the playerbase.

#1: Finding Players, #4: Build Swap I don’t want to get into these as they get away from the theme of the post. However, I do believe other than gameplay/balancing, these two will tremendously help the growth rate of tPvP.

Ok, my post has gone on for way too long. I’ve purposely left out gameplay issues or larger systems as I think they’re not simple fixes. Although the content isn’t new, I hope I’ve presented it in a different manner and reinforced some of its importance. Please take time to consider implementing some simple, faster changes, much like how you shaving is your new lingo for balance. Likewise, if you have a larger, complex system or powerful dhuumfart planned, maybe you could talk to your community openly about it.

Thanks for your time,
Sokal Voral

And the Perception of tPvP

I applaud ANet’s (Chaplan’s especially) recent community-facing posts in addressing current PvP issues in a more upfront manner. PvP is a competitive activity; tensions and emotions can quickly escalate. Simple corrections in the perception of your product/service can avert increasing discontent in the community. Chaplan’s posts especially acknowledged the community voice, identified the points with due effort, and responded about how they are addressing them. Relatively, what he did was a simple fix to the perception of the product.

Below, I wanted to present what my gaming session looks like and list the common frustration points. Then below that, I suggest a few simple fixes that could address these points and imo, help the daily perception of the product.
———————————————

My daily gaming tPvP session looks something like this:

- I log on, go to HotM and apply a PvP booster. Many of my friends are not on at the time (or no longer play) and well… meeting players through forums/chat is a hassle and hit&miss. No pre-mades for now.
Hurdle #1: Finding Pre-Made Players

- I jump in YoloQ instead. While waiting, I open up the leaderboards. Hmm… so many of those Spirit Rangers at the top haven’t played since they got nerfed. What’s worse the same 14-3 or 11-2 guys ranked in the top 50.
Minor annoyance #2: Leaderboard Rating Decay

- I’m looking at the leaderboard and half the guys never play or have played under 30 games. How am I supposed to get an accurate perception of my ability from a leaderboard like this? Whatever. Queue pop.
Annoyance #3: Leaderboard Effectiveness and Minimum Games.

- I random’ed Skyhammer. I don’t mind the map, but kitten , I have to switch chars or do the two minute hustle to change my build. I’d actually change builds according to each map, but I usually don’t bother.
Annoyance #4: Build Swap

- I play a few matches but WTH!! A guy on my team left in this match when the score was 80-180. Do meditation and youtube “cute kitten plays piano” to relax.
Major frustration #5: Dishonour and Uneven Matches

- While waiting for next queue pop, I think I’ll make some dyes from the winner chests as it’s my only reward for PvPing. If I want AP, I have to hop outside HotM. My fingers start to go numb from the amount of clicking and I stop.
#6: Simple Easy Rewards

- In the next match, a guy disconnects again. Looking at the Leaderboards, I’ve actually managed to lose some ranking even though I’ve won more matches today. I log off.
#7: More of #5

- I head to the forums so that I may take comfort in the tears of my fellow PvPers. Chaplan has posted some good bandaid threads – a major plus. But how come it seems there’s always only bandaids and no Open Alpha?
#8: Prevention is Less Costly and More Efficient than Bandaids
———————————————

By the end of the gaming session, I’m probably a bit frustrated and doubting ANet’s claim towards the tPvP scene. I reckon this cycle describes a good percentage of tPvP’ers.

Let’s quickly address them, with what I think are the easiest and most important on top.

#8: What happened to Open Alpha?
This is one of the most basic tenets and popular concepts in software engineering. We always hear, “we’re planning on giving necros a type of burning next patch” or “we’re going to be shaving the beards of necros next.” How about, “We’re considering adding a trait called Dhuumfire, 100% chance to inflict burning for 4 seconds on critical hits (2 in PvP) that is a GM trait in the Spite line. It’s basically the equivalent of Engineer’s Incendiary Powder as a GM trait. We’ve also provided a sandbox server for you guys to come and test it and give us feedback before we launch it.”

Clearly the focus groups have been hit and miss thus far.

A healthy lifestyle is less expensive than doctor visits. Investing in insulation will save you money compared to utility costs. This is the most cost-efficient, patch time-saving thing you can do for yourself and your players. If it is ANet policy not to reveal, you should go to your bosses and argue with them and show them this post. When software companies don’t do this, it boggles my mind as it is easily one of the most time-effective development resources (and it’s not like you have some IP or content privacy needed here).

#2, #3: Leaderboard Effectiveness, Decay, and Min Games
As is the theme of this entire post, how things are perceived are key. As it is, a player questions the value of the Leaderboard and has to use a fine comb to analyze it. Make decay occur at a faster, accelerating rate and increase the number of Min Games to 30 or higher. Both are fixes that can be done fast and will not affect the base rating algorithm.

…cont

Hi everyone, I’m only week old in the game and am looking for a friendly, social guild to join. To be honest, it feels lonely sometimes playing as the lowbie areas are kind of empty. I share this account with my bf, he’s made a lot of different classes but still hasn’t stuck with a main one yet.

Name: puggernaut
Main Character: Edelynne (lv 20 ranger)
Current Server: Sanctum of Rall
Interested Activities: Everything!
Active: US Pacific time zone – random times throughout the day
Additional Comments: We just moved back to the US after living 3 years in China, so happy to have unrestricted internet access again (re: great firewall).
Are you willing to participate in Operation: UNION’S project, Y/N?: Yes