Guild Wars 2

Delete PvP please.

We all know that rewards are a big issue in WvW and their lack is a big source of demotivation among players. I’m taking myself as an example: I love WvW, but I’m not motivated by some number somewhere on a leaderboard. During a tournament/season that’s somehow different, because even without a reward at the end I have something to work towards, but during the normal, daily routine of WvW I’m missing a long-term goal. And here’s where the rewards come into play.

Rewards are tricky in WvW, because:

• Winning a match is about holding objectives. But defending is very hard to measure for rewards.
• Leeching should not be possible. You should only be rewarded if you contribute.
• Often the biggest contributions are those that happen far away from the actual event. For example the scout that makes sure that the keep doesn’t get attacked while the main force is on the offensive, or a small group that draws attention while the zerg attacks a different objective.
• The rewards should be better if your server does well as a whole.

Under the impressions of the HoT reward system I came up with an idea how you could apply some of the ideas there to WvW. I would greatly appreciate any feedback and general brainstorm, there are probably flaws in my logic, but maybe it’s a starting point:

• A player has a track of rewards just like the map bonus rewards or the PvP reward tracks. A selectable reward track would be ideal. Making a certain amount of progress on that track results in a reward.
• Every player has a personal contribution level from 0% to 200% just as we see it in the HoT PvE areas. Personal contribution is awarded for most sources of WXP like capturing objectives, repairing walls or killing other players. The amount of personal contribution gained does not have to correlate with the amount of WXP gained. Also, exploitable sources of WXP (i.e. building useless siege) could be excluded.
• If no additional personal contribution is gained, it decays over time to prevent leeching, maybe after each tick. It decays significantly slower if other members of your guild or squad(?) gain personal contribution. So for example, instead of losing 25% personal contribution after 15 minutes of “doing nothing” (scouting, distracting the opponent), you’d only lose 12.5% if you’re teamed up with other people who do something else and are successful. This should be limited though, for example to only 10% of all players in a squad. Also you should definitely always lose contribution over time, to prevent indefinite leeching.
• Certain events now grant track progress, depending on your personal contribution. If you have 100% or more personal contribution, you receive full progress, at 50% only half progress, and so on. Events that could grant track progress are tied to “your server is doing well” and examples could be:
  • Your server successfully upgraded an objective on your map
  • Your server held a fully upgraded objective on your map for time X
  • Your server’s tick (higher PPT = more progress)

This system could also be applied to tournaments. Let’s say making progress on your reward track during a tournament would occasionally grant a currency, like a “Token of Participation”. After the tournament ends, you can exchange these tokens for rewards, but the prices are lower the better your server did. Other than the current, achievement based sytem, this would encourage people to keep playing after becoming eligible for rewards.

tl;dr: Assaulting the enemy should grant personal contribution, while defending what you have should grant rewards (or reward progress) based on that personal contribution. Personal contribution should decay over time to prevent leeching, but decay slower for players who team up with guilds or squads to allow scouting. The system could also be applied to tournaments.

Thanks for reading! Now discuss!

Also posted on here on reddit.

People are right, once pve dies down in a week or 2 the population will rise in wvw. History has shown us this. Of course history has also shown us a couple weeks after that with the new stuff worn out, people will move on to something else.

So befor to long populations should be back to what they were before HoT. And that still isn’t enough people to fill those maps.

People say it is normal that wvw maps feel empty atm, because with HoT realese many players are in PvE, wait a week or 2 bla bla bla bla. That is stupid.

No it’s not. On the SFR server when the Halloween, Christmas, Easter events are on, the maps are always empty and we have trouble keeping up our score. Now combine that with the release of a new expansion with a new class, mastery system, guild hall grinding, new PVE maps, and the fear of exploring and learning the new BL maps, no wonder the population is low. All the focus right now is on PVE. I wonder how sPVP is right now.

Like, can you actually stop for a moment and truly immagine and visualize it how it would be riddiculous to siege such a big area AND REFRESH that siege?

Not really. I scouted yesterday Undercroft and it’s quite easy: 1 treb for each of the 3 outer gates, 2 carts on the edges next to the oil on the North and South outer gates to protect the walls, and 2 carts on the platform for the outer east gate walls, and at inner is easier, only 2 trebs for each gate and only one cart at the top to cover both inner walls. You sit at inner and from there you can see both North and South outer gates. You will not see the East one, but usually no one attacks that one. The same thing was with old BL Bay. You had to travel a lot from the North gate to the South one, you also had a lot of walls, the water walls, and the inner area was even bigger then inner Undercroft.

Sieging, upgrading and scouting in WvW was just for an elit part of players.

And the “elites” will shout at people that took supplies from garrison when the upgrades were important or a wall needed repairs. The auto-upgrade goes like this: if you scouted your keep for long enough and protect it from invaders then you deserve an upgrade. Also building siege is faster since you use the supplies inside instead of doing 10 runs to the nearest camp (which was never always 100% available) to build that 120 supplies superior trebuchet.

You don’t want to fight in an area where the enemy is getting free stealth or you’re constantly burning.

This implies more cooperation from the commander to send a 1-2 players to get that one shrine to remove the stealth, fire etc.

The keeps are full supply and will eventually upgrade so the defenders just sit on the wall and wait for you to get bored.

The supply is only for people to build siege and repair stuff. If your keep has 1100/1100 supplies but all the siege has expired or was never built, it’s pretty much the same thing as before. You also know exactly which objective has upgrades and when they will finish by clicking on it on the map. So if you see that rampart gets fortified in 30mins, then you better knock on those defenses quickly before they do so.

The lack of WP’s at T3 gives no incentive to hold anything. The WP’s you get are instantly given to you when you flip a structure so what is the point in defending when you can just flip something back.

Only rampart and the 2 spawn towers have those WP. It’s a way for people to easily defend their starting objective. I don’t agree with the WP in rampart, if it were to me I would only leave it in the spawn towers only. Already servers that started at the north side of the map have an advantage and quickly take over the rest of the map. A WP in their main keep only gives them more advantage.

The new map rewards blobbing and helps the dominant server steamroll.

Blobbing will always exist as long as an aoe cap exists. Making these maps larger helped with diminishing the blob, but not eliminating it completely.

towers are easier since you only have to deal with 1 npc rather than a small lords room full of them

Actually right now towers and keeps are harder to cap because of the new bosses. Btw, some bosses summon minions (necropolis).

Defense Routes 2

1. From Garrison to NW Tower
2. From NW Tower to N Bay
3. From Garrison to NE Tower
4. From NE Tower to N Hills
5. From Garrison to SW Tower
6. From Garrison to SE Tower

From Spawn to the northern towers seem pretty obvious so I don’t plan to film those. I’m also going to leave out NW and NE supply depots because those seem a bit obvious too once you are familiar with getting to the NW and NE from garrison and from NE and NW towers to hills/bay.

Here’s a short video I made about routes for defenders in the northern half of the map. Intended to be the first in a series.

1. From Spawn to NE Garrison
2. From Spawn to NW Garrison
3. From Garrison to N Hills
4. From NE Garrison to Oasis
5. From Garrison to Bay
6. From NW Garrison to Oasis (typo in title)

Also, world peace. Or you can forget them both!

Actually sometimes due to range limitations I probably don’t teleport into aoe’s and danger I’d otherwise land in. So if you could increase the potential teleport distance to 1200, I should be sure to die every single time.
Thanks.

cygnus.8913:

zcearo.1897:

If I find a bug
I will post a nice haiku
To explain it all

Most considerate,
Though if you find an exploit
Please don’t post it here

If exploits are found
exploits@arena.net
Will get the haiku

Still useless in WvW, but a step forward is still a step forward, right?

You said solo roaming, do you mean in WvW? If so go hoelbrak for the -20% condition duration, with food and the GM minor cc conditions will be irrelevant.

Scholar might be another good choice, rune of the Mesmer if using dazes, Privateer if you wanna have a parrot around lol. Lots of choices but for me it’s hoelbrak that looks the best.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

MrSilver.5269:

Talking about WvW and PvP

Because you mention WvW I’m a bit scared. They will never be able to balance classes around in a 1v1 for roaming solo if that’s what your talking about. And again, you didn’t mention WHY you thought they were OP. You need to say why you think they are OP. Until then we can’t really have any meaningful discussion in this thread.

The first rule of Guild Wars 2 players is ‘Does Mesmer still exist? Yes? Its OP nerf it’

Because mesmer.

StickerHappy.8052:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Fay.2357:

So the combo you’re seeing is greatsword 2 (mirror blade), dodge, mind wrack, greatsword 3 (mind stab).

This does a lot of damage, particularly if you don’t have toughness. The way to avoid this is to dodge immediately upon either seeing the animation of mirror blade, or as soon as you realize you’re taking damage. As you said, it’s an impossible fight against unsuspecting prey. Don’t be unsuspecting prey. When you know there’s a burst zerker mesmer on the other team, always be aware of where they are and be ready to avoid their burst.

I made this just before (for something else) so you can see what Fay is talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL5uco1fDWo

Vid is a comparison of Zerker GS burst under Power Block vs Mental Anguish, so the last 8 bursts are the harder hitting. Anyway, you can see the skills used and the damage totals on a lite golem.

So in ideal burst situations, PB hits harder right?

Eh, I don’t think so. A PB interrupt on a full zerk build can net you 2-4k extra damage, which brings them about even, more or less. The difference is ONLY made up in additional interrupts throughout the course of a fight, pulling PB ahead.

However, as any experienced player will know all the difference in a fight can occur in that burst instant. If the target scraped by with a few HP, they can pop their invulns and heals, prolonging the fight and potentially escaping danger altogether. So which is better? Circumstance is everything. You can’t just look at a few numbers and call it :p

Yeah, we’ve been through this discussion many times now. If you think making it an on interrupt effect you don’t understand what you’re asking for.

You keep saying “Adapt trait, adapt trait!” but the days where 20, 20, 30 meant something are gone. You pick entire lines now, and where traits fall in comparison with one another in different lines is meaningless now except for when they compete for picks.

CS already has an ICD, it’s 5s. It stops you from chain stunning with dazes, such as using an MoD for a 1s stun, followed by a OH sword 4 within the next 5 seconds. The usual beef is with the synergy CS provides with Mantra of Distraction, meaning a Mesmer can time his two daze into stuns accurately just by using them in conjunction with his two mantra charges. Of course once that’s done he has to wait 20s + recharge + opportunity to ready them again <- Always ignored.

But why stop there? Who cares if you can stun with MoD twice in six seconds. What is the second stun going to net me exactly when my F1 burst skill is on a 10.5-12s CD (add on potential setup time/circumstance), meaning I cant just GS2 MR MoD to my hearts content?

But wait, there’s more! If CS Lockdowns into F1’s/Bursts are so bad on Mes, why aren’t we looking at this “problem” writ large? It isnt as though CS+MoD is the only way to lock someone down for a MR burst. Pistol 5 and Sword 3 should probably get a look at too since you can produce the same result (if you can produce a result at all).

So yeah, sure, make it an on interrupt effect with a 15s internal CD, that sounds balanced. -_-u

If squads stay as they currently are, my guild, and I know for a fact other guilds, will completely stop using commander tags.

Being able to see party/squad boons and conditions is a must.

Being able to give boon/heal priority to party is a must.

Being able to call targets in party is a must.

If your intention is to make commander-tag completely un-usable for all PvP players, you couldn’t have done a much better job of it.

Let me point out the flaw in your whole argument. It’s right at the start so no one will miss it.

• Flaw: The assumption/assertion that Chronomancer should have to “give something up” as compared to base Mesmer.

Forgetting, of course, that the Chrono line is 1 of 6 trait lines that upon taking, means giving up one of the other 5 lines.

This is not insignificant.

There’s no precedent for dropping Distortion, or any other shatter for that matter.

Why is it okay that any other class is strong other than Mesmer?

I can 1v1 people all day on any of my other characters and win and not get 1 word via grief. Win 1 time as a mesmer in pvp and I get whispers about what trash I am.

Any complaints shouldn’t be taken seriously anymore. We’re honest about what needs to be nerfed and what doesn’t. Listening to anyone who “fought one and lost” and ran to the forums to complain. . . just xD

Back to being more pleasant! Chrono makes me feel like I’d finally be more welcome in PVE content other than for a portal-bot. It’s really enjoyable to play so I find it a winning situation for me personally. ^.^

Doug Whisper.2465:

Isn’t destroy the point of CS can stop it and pull the Mesmer back the that point?

It does, but people ignore the obvious and cry regardless.

The “combo” you discribe only can happen on 1st encounter on pvp when all CDs available, and cause of that easily countered… You know its coming.
Remember if u want to use cs mid match for sure you will have some skills on CD and activating cs will just prolong that CDs.
Its, at max, a 5 seconds time window… just kite. Wells are static on ground, rest of combo easly telegraphed.

TL:DR > l2p

Jofu.9637:

not complaining about PU builds but i just hate it that it’s the only way build to go.

You talking about WvW roaming? Because it’s really not “the only way build to go” anywhere else.

And as far as roaming goes, there’s only like, 4 builds in the entire game that can roam anyway. That’s because it’s not supported gameplay, the only builds that can roam effectively have to have some way to escape/engage 1v3 or 1v4, which they are never going to balance around. They expect WvW to be dangerous, they expect people to travel in groups for safety.

banner skills cd is not shared between people (turtle, dragon, centaur)

ex-le i take turtle banner put skill 3 (5s endure pain) i put it down next guy takes it in 5s and puts antoher 5s of endure pain, he puts it down and next guy picks it up and in 5s gives 5s endure pain (overall cd on skill is 15s) so in this case it’s possible with 3 people to rotate 10 men AOE endure pain. in blob with a tiny organization…..together with quickenss from dragon banner, resistance from turtle it’s OP and it’s an exploit pls fix, thanks.

Wells Suck Hard

More Sharing Alacrity

Already Getting Nerfed

Disapointed yet again.

Hold up. Are you actually saying that bearbow was considered strong/op/anything other than awful?

LOL

Bearbow rangers have always been the go-to build when talking about bad players that have no idea what they’re doing, that don’t contribute anything to their parties, and are never a threat. So you’re taking that build and trying to use it as another argument as to why Mesmer should get nerfed?

Honestly, I’ll give you points for creativity on this one. 10/10, would give a sensible chuckle again.

I sucked it up with iDisenchanter.
I never used torch, so didn’t worry about iMage
… But shield is the last straw.

STOP BEING AFRAID OF OUR PHANTASMS!
Phantasms with bounce-based projectiles do not work anet. This game isn’t balanced around 1v1s or smallscale encounters, bosses obliterate phantasms in a single swipe, and any block/dodge/blind/reflect/wiggle completely ruins the effect, leaving most of these phantasms on a rather long recharge before their next (likely failing) attack.
I understand if these phantasms are given bouncing attacks out of fear of them being too powerful. On paper, a phantasm that can remove 2 condis and boons per hit seems really strong, so is a phantasm that applies alacrity/slow and so is fury/burning. But in practice, giving these phantasms a bouncing projectile out of fear that any other application would be too strong is actually crippling them. It doesn’t matter how good it’s “supposed” to be if it never has a chance to actually work!

BOUNCES DON’T WORK. SO WHAT DOES?
Phantasms with bouncing projectiles tend to offer a bonus to allies and a detriment to enemies, but more often than not they just tend to do nothing. The bounce often doesn’t even reach back to the Mesmer if they’re not within range, and that’s assuming the projectile ever hit in the first place. As a result, these phantasms have extremely situation application and tend to be nearly forgettable. Ontop of that there’s other problems with said phantasms.

• iDisenchanter has a low cooldown & and a fast attack rate. That’s all well and good, but it dies way too often and has the most obnoxious cast-time ever. Despite the fact that it’s effect is great, this is one of our worst Phantasms simply because of how it attacks. This phantasm only excels in small-scale fights of 3v3 or less, and even then it struggles.
  - (Casts minor Null Field (one pulse), removing 2 condis and 2 boons every 6 seconds in an AoE)

• iMage is still forgettable, because while burning used to be cool.. One stack is pitiful compared to .. oh.. every other kitten thing that applies a condition! The fury rarely makes it back to the Mesmer, and even when it does it’s easy to go unnoticed.
  - (Creates a line of purple fire that lasts 3s every 8s. Enemies that cross the line gain 2s of burning, allies gain 2s fury)

• iAvenger "FOR FREEDO- /miss. "STARS AND STRI- /block “GOOD WORK, SOLDIER!” Even when iAvenger hits, it’s only achievement is the slow it applies to an enemy. Then it just kind of sits there and happily dies thinking itself a martyr. If this phantasm is to be our only consistent method of sharing Alacrity, then by god please allow it to actually share some effing alacrity!
  - (Raises shield and shouts " ’murica!" granting 2s Alacrity & inflicting 2s slow to all targets within 600r every 6 seconds)

What do you think? Do you not mind our bouncing phantasms or would you rather see them changed? If so what tweaks would you make?

Regarding wells…

I enjoyed using them. However, even the good ones are pretty bad.

The well radius is really tiny, some of the wells have insane cooldowns, and they have significantly long cast times. On top of all that, the final pulse effect is often rather lackluster.

Unlike necro wells or ranger traps, our wells take 3 full seconds to do something impactful, and they’re blockable. This means that unless you chain cc on someone, they’re going to either walk out of the well or just dodge the last hit. Making the wells larger will help somewhat with this.

The cd for the alacrity well is insane. 45 seconds for 3s of alacrity and a bit of chill? No thanks, that well will never see the light of day unless it gets a drastic cd reduction, something like 30/35 seconds. Can’t remember the cd for precognition off the top of my head (mainly because I never equipped it on account of it being awful), but I think it’s too long as well.

The final pulse of the wells and the preliminary pulses are just so weak. The damage well pulses for ~500 and then ~2500…crits on a damage build. That’s really wimpy. Yeah, it also does cripple and weakness, but for a persistent aoe that you have to stand in for 3 full seconds, I expect a bit more bang for my buck. Gravity well also has problems, but we’ve got threads devoted to that.

On top of all this, there’s another problem. Unless you’re playing an aggressively shattering build, you’re going to have close to zero access to alacrity. On the flip side, if you’re playing an aggressively shattering build you’re going to have close to 100% uptime on alacrity. This is broken in both respects. Alacrity availability needs to be split between shatters and other mechanics (possibly traited wells). This way if you want 100% uptime you’ll need to spec purely for that, but otherwise all builds will have some access, but not have crazy access.