Guild Wars 2

There is nothing wrong with it trying to match 50/50, as that just means it predicts that either side has an equal chance at either winning or losing, and well.. that is a fair matchup. Unfortunately, if you queue solo, you will often face other teams with 2-5 players who are grouped, as there are no separation of Solo- and Group Queue, nor do the game even tend to match somewhat fairly, e..g, only pitching 3+2, 4+1 and 5 player teams towards one another—so these predictions are worthless when one team can have a huge advantage over another (voiced communication, knowing how team members play, tailored class compositions and builds to support one another, etc.).

50/50 is not a problem however.

1) Solo- and Group Queue separation (with the possibility to queue solo into Group Queue, to fill 4+1 scenarios. Group Queue to match 3+2, 4+1 and 5 player teams with one another.)

2) Nerfs across the board. Damage is too high, we’ve all been put into a power creep state. There are way too much CC. It’s not fun to be stun-locked from practically full health to Downed State within mere seconds (—albeit it is somewhat fair when you are focused). There’s perhaps a bit too much blocks/evades going on now too, but at the same time, there is an increased amount of unblockables introduced, making blocks borderline pointless. Basically, the balance patch they said would happen before each League, needs to happen. Because it sure didn’t this time, and claiming an (overall) untested release of Heart of Thorns served as a balance patch is just.. I have no words.

3) I don’t worry about being able to accomplish it personally, so it’s not why I make it a point, but I notice that in order to make the PvP Legendary Back Item, you will need to cross four Divisions at one point. That means in a easiest case scenario, it requires climbing into Diamond from a fresh season (Amber → Emerald (1) → Sapphire (2) → Ruby (3) → Diamond (4)). I do not think the casual crowd (read: the majority) will necessarily be able to do this, and ArenaNet did say that this Back Item should be possible to make for everyone. That it would just take the average player longer than someone who’s more proficient at PvP and/or has more time to invest towards it. This may be solved slightly with the introduction of a separated Solo- and Group Queue (3+2, 4+1, 5) matchmaking, but I think it needs to be reconsidered for the casual players nonetheless. Either Ruby → Diamond allows you to retain tiers, or the criteria could perhaps be altered to require climbing three Divisions, for Part III and Part IV of the achievements.
_

Obviously, bugs such as getting dishonor on accepting a queue pop, the Map Results screen popping up while mid match after having been stomped, and so on forth, should be fixed.

The majority of our players are solo queued, that much is obvious. The queues weren’t that slow in the past when we had Solo Queue, for those that used that. Those using Group Queue (e.g., the e-sport puppies that ArenaNet wants to please and cater to), they had horrible queue times (and still do granted, unless they cheese it and bring in someone with low MMR and Division), so they took Solo Queue away to please them, pretty much. And in doing so, disregarding that they can have their few pro players as much as they want, and they can try to make them happy, but it won’t go anywhere without the casual average players being pleased and interested in actually watching. The larger majority has no aspirations or interest in playing in tournaments. Simple fact. I am frequently too kittened off to be interested in watching anything that has to do with Guild Wars 2, even less a tournament of the game mode that is kittening me off.

You are making people NOT play sPvP, by not separating the Solo- and Group Queue, or at the very least only match up 4+1, 3+2 and 5 player teams with one another. People get frustrated and stop playing, because there is absolutely no fun in facing premades as a person who dominantly queue solo. They get frustrated and angry, and will in no way be interested in watching streams of Guild Wars 2 PvP, which means the e-sports community remains overall very small, instead of increasingly growing. Solo mixed with Group is just not fair. It’s not balanced (the horrible class balance currently aside). It also doesn’t help that the matchmaking creates absolutely horrible comps on one side, very often, while the other side gets a good comp. That’s not fun either. I also swear that on one character, I get far more capable players, while on another I recently switched to for Ranked, I get complete.. well.. not so good players. I thought profession-based MMR wasn’t used? Or is it? Otherwise my other char must be carrying the matches insanely well, as I have far more wins when I play that, because the team actually plays well.. which.. doesn’t make sense.. because, then I can’t be carrying.. my head hurts.

It should at best lower the damage, not make you immune to it. But hey, let’s see them implement the opposite (physical immunity) for some profession with good Condition cleansing and some healing sustain. That’d be balanced too.

Yes, Snowball Mayhem is active again. Yes, it is more fun and balanced. No, you can’t team up, as it randomly assigns you to a match so that premades can’t steamroll randoms. Oh, look.. ArenaNet actually keeping it fair in a PvP mode. Who’d have thought.

Diamond Skin is fine, as long as you give Necromancers some Trait that grants them complete immunity to physical attacks (that includes physical CC) while above 90% health. I say Necromancer, because they have some of the better condition cleansing in the game, like Elementalists with their heals. It will be balanced, I promise.

If you can’t see how ridiculous Diamond Skin is, then I’m sure you’d see it with that Trait and start the whambulance. But it’d be just as fair as Diamond Skin is though! It will just void an entire half of the way we deal damage and/or CC (there’s way too much CC now anyways), and condi-built players could deal with it, except, when they can’t because the Necro is rather good at cleansing, and the team will also remove additional conditions. All you need to do is rotate. Right?

I believe anyone can conquer the jumping puzzle, if they put some time and effort into it. You got until January 12th. The more you throw yourself at it, the more you will start to master it. You will learn how to do each jump and know where each snowflake is, you will know how to jump across the presents, you will know where it is safe to stand past them, when to move, when to stop on the sides, when to dodge roll, and so on forth. You just need to give yourself the ability to learn it, and not give up. Can it be frustrating, yes, because of other players, but it is probably within reach for everyone that plays the game, as long as they are willing to actually learn to master it. There’s roughly a month left to get past it, just 3 times.

You get 10 gifts per Winter Wonderland run too. You can easily get over a hundred gifts in a 30 minute time-span, granted you take the time to get used to the jumping puzzle and rarely fail it. I’d say the hardest part is the gifts that explode on someone touching them, and you start to hate other players who foolishly jump too soon, triggering it and falling to their deaths, while you have to wait for them to respawn (—poor design, this game should not make you hate other players, and this jumping puzzle does).

Other things to do, PvP Reward Track, it will grant you some gifts, and at the end, the Ultimate Wintersday Gift, which will allow you to select your gift, including the Ancient Mariner’s Oilcloth Bag containing the unique-effect Rime-Rimmed Mariner’s Rebreather. Unfortunately, it seems the effect is tied to the Aquabreather, and not a skin, and now with Ascended being available, this is no longer as good as it used to be. Perhaps ArenaNet could introduce an upgrade recipe to make it Ascended and/or turn it into a skin so we can apply it on our Ascended Aquabreathers?

As stated above me, I get about 300-400 drinks per day too, and I ain’t even fully focused on earning the gifts, but are spending time doing other things as well. I think I should be able to get rather close to the 10,000 mark by January 12th. At which point I can either take it easy and try get the remaining ones slowly from the tree in my Home Instance(s), or toss a few Gold towards the Trading Post, if the price isn’t too bad. Worst case, I can wait until next year and continue. They already made an announcement stating the achievement stays active.

I hope not only this achievement stays active, but the Sweet Tooth one as well. I loved how you could work on these in Guild Wars throughout the year, outside of events. The shoulder piece is still here next year if I can’t make it for this Wintersday. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing that certain items are prestige, but possible to earn by everyone over time. This is way better than limited availability from items only being available during a certain time period and never returning in the future (e.g., Bunny Ears).

PS: Thank you for letting us know how long the event is scheduled to last. I wish all events would do this, not only tell us when it starts, but for how long they are intended to last. We don’t always know, and it can help make people feel a slight bit less stressed and frustrated to know that you have x amount of time to do something.

Sorel.4870:

Maybe you’re just in the division you belong to? I won 15 games in a row since sunday, solo queing, as a thief. That was in saphire. If you’re stuck, it could just be the system working as intended.

That being said, you can still get lucky and grind your way to ruby. The system caters to both categories of players.

You are 20% of a team, you are 1 out of 5, there is no way that you won 15 games in a row since Sunday (that’s very few games over the course of 4 days I might add). I know, we all tend to say “I won”, but technically we are wrong, our teams won. If you are stuck, you may just be getting bad dice rolls with your team mates. If you are a full premade, you have no excuse, as a team. Without separation of Solo- and Group Queue, you can legitimately put some of your stagnant blame on being paired up against premades, because it happens, and they steamroll your team of randoms.

MMR is perfectly fine for matchmaking, and in many cases it succeeds at what it is designed to do, to give each team involved an equal chance, 50/50, of winning or losing. When the matchmaking system actually pairs up 1+1+1+1+1 vs. 1+1+1+1+1 or Grouped players vs. Grouped players, the matches tend to be far more even, and this is good. So, the problem is not MMR specifically. The problem is that there’s way too many mixed matchmakings in the bag; 1+1+1+1+1, 2+1+1+1, 2+3, 3+1+1, 4+1 and 5. The more grouped (premade) players you got, the better your chances are of winning, as that gives you huge advantages over those who are queued solo, aka. randoms. It should separate Solo- and Group Queues, or at the very least narrow matchmaking down to 3+2, 4+1 and 5 to keep it actually remotely fair.

The ratio between the two teams points at the end of the match, their score. As far as I can tell at a glance, without looking into the way it predicts outcomes, I imagine that a 0 in Odds should be 50/50 scenario predicted for both teams, with neither side being favored. If one team then has a landslide win of 500 : 0 points, they’d get 3 pips. If it were a outcome of 500 : 1-100, they’d get 2 pips, and say 500 : 101+ would grant 1 pip. I will just take a guess it takes something like (Winner Score – Loser Score) / Winner Score(?) and rounds the figure to get the ratio. Basically, it’s pretty much impossible to get 3 pips, if it is very strict on the rounding and how it handles going from 1 to 0.8 in the score ratio.

Honestly, the MMR system is fine. It’s good that it tries to pair up through matchmaking, two teams that are supposed to have an equal chance at winning. It often succeeds at this when Groups face Groups and Randoms face Randoms. These matches will often be very even overall. What is not fine is that Groups face Randoms and vice versa, that is the biggest culprit in the Leagues as a whole. As a Group you got several advantages against those who are Random. Unfair advantages which makes the Randoms only serve as food and artificial boosts for the Groups. That should not be acceptable when Divisions are supposed to be a way to progress within PvP and show your prowess at the mode (with a team) outwards.

Groups have the following advantages, at least;

• Tailored professions
  • with strong builds complimenting one another
• The knowledge of how the others on their team play
• Voice communication
• The knowledge that each of their members are relatively decent at PvP

Of course, this doesn’t mean that a 1+1+1+1+1 can’t beat a 3+2, 4+1 and/or 5 player team. There are bad teams out there too, the same way there are exceptional solo queuing players as well. But overall, a team will have a huge advantage, and win in most cases, versus those who take the risk of getting paired up with horrible profession compositions and/or players. I would love to go Grouped with my friends I might add. Friends I know are rather good at PvP. But I refuse to do so when I know that we would frequently match up against Randoms, and basically most likely steamroll them, getting free wins which boost us and in no way serve to help determine how good and/or bad we ultimately are. I hate facing premades as a dominantly solo queuing player. I won’t inflict that annoyance/frustration upon others if I can help it.

Give us Solo- and Group Queue, ArenaNet. It’s cause for more unbalance in sPvP than profession balance is. If you don’t want to separate the queues, at the very least limit the matchmaking to 4+1, 3+2 and 5 player teams. At the very least this will even out the odds greatly. And yes, 2+1+1+1 can become a huge upset in balance against 1+1+1+1+1, duo queues are not innocent either, they belong in a Group Queue scenario as 3+2.

Yup, had this happen too, in a weird fashion. Queued, accepted the pop, I guess someone declined and it went back into matchmaking, accepted the new pop after a while, had Dishonored, map voting popped, timer counted down to 0 and stayed there until everyone had voted some 14 seconds before the Dishonored message were about to time out, got into match, upon death, the Map Result screen was permanently in my face, with no way of closing it, as happened to anyone else who died, and we were facing a premade as randoms, so there was that too. That screen takes up like 80% of your screen estate, so it was pretty much impossible to do anything at that point. They have seriously bugged something.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Absconditus.6804:

Good Mesmer players has always been good.

And the PvP meta has been jam packed with them!… or something.

There’s always been some Mesmers represented in the PvP “meta”. It’s just been a difficult profession to master, you should know that just as well as any other long-time Mesmer, and average people flock to whatever is easy to play. The kind of players that’ll go copy-pasta builds from websites based on what a tournament/profiled player are using on a stream and call it meta, even though there may often be better builds out there and the player they copy-pasta it from, often copy-pasta’d it elsewhere.

Right now, Bunkermancer was incredibly easy to play, kinda like DH is (which is why you see so many play it—and very few being good at it), and as such, you slowly had an exaggerated amount of players filling the spot in the current “meta”. These past few days prior to the patch, there were at least one in almost every single match I did. Bunkermancer was/is something that is boring to fight against, and it is boring to watch. I didn’t mind too much, they were actually fairly easy enough to kill on average, given you use (and have access to) unblockable skills as they try blocking, because terrible players on a easy to play build, will ultimately be terrible players. But when facing actually good players, it was pure annoyance.

What is that image of anyways? If it’s some sort of build website, I would take that with a grain of salt. Those are often just copy-pastas from certain profiled individuals who are actually decent players (e.g., those on good sPvP teams who compete in the tournaments), and serve to just get copied by those who can’t really fathom how to make their own builds. When a bunch of people who can’t make builds are voting on builds.. well.. you should be able to see where I’m going with that.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

I think if they really did it right and put work into properly polishing and balancing it would dominate the Twitch charts…. I can dream.

Except the formula to create a hyped “e-sports” game is to make it easy to grasp, harder to master, whilst being accessible for your average “casual” players. To separate Solo- and Group Queues (or at the very least only match 4+1, 3+2 and 5). This game could easily get to that point, but ArenaNet doesn’t seem to understand that when the players are frustrated, when the players feel like they lose unfairly (Randoms vs. Premade), they aren’t going to be interested in going to Twitch to watch more—who goes to watch streams of games they are not hyped about due to frustration? You simply can’t feasibly grow your viewing community, when you fail to make the game feel fair on the very basic level. A whole lot of people are requesting Solo- and Group Queue separation. They should listen to these requests. It would at least make the League feel a tad bit more fair and balanced, class balance aside.

Ithilwen.1529:

I think it’s a campaign to return Mesmer to trash tier, where we languished for 2 years. I honestly think anet doesn’t like/want mesmers.

As a 3-year Mesmer player, this was obviously a needed change. I already spoke out against the Well back in September, prior to HoT, saying that it would likely be overpowered as it were. I don’t see this as any sort of campaign to make Mesmers bad. Good Mesmer players has always been good. All this allowed for was for bad players to play Mesmer too.

I experienced this ridiculous Dishonor bug as well. I queue, I accept the queue when it pops, someone declined I assume, it went back to matchmaking, I accept the new queue that pops and get Dishonor inflicted on me. But for whatever reason, the Map Selection screen pops, and counts down to 0 as some players, myself included, has voted. It stays like this until finally the last 4 players vote for a map some 14 seconds before the Dishonor status is to time out. Ok, so we get into the match, we get to the mid push, where we unfortunately get killed (opponents being a premade vs. us being randoms, so it were already a bad matchup). Upon resurrecting.. the Map Result screen pops into our faces. This huge blob of a screen which we can not remove, covers 80% of the screen estate, and we are running blind in other words, against a premade, as randoms. End result, we obviously lost our pips (I believe we even lost 2 since we couldn’t play well at all and basically got farmed). Thanks for your amazing bugs, ArenaNet.

Those are two Revenants, obviously. Staff- and Hammer #3.

It’s freaking idiotic, yes, idiotic to even consider that you may not be able to progress further based on your skill, and that Divisions is in any way, shape or form are supposed to actually reflect how good you are at playing the objectives. Matchmaking will pair you up with complete imbeciles at times, those losses counts into your MMR and further matchmaking. You are but 20% of the team, 1 out of 5. If the rest of the team is absolutely rubbish, you are not going to be able to carry them when/if the other team is anywhere near remotely decent. So no, it actually seriously matters a HUGE freaking deal that there is no Solo- and Group Queue separation. It also ruins my fun, and I am certain it ruins a whole lot of other players fun as well. I refuse to go premade, which I want to do mind you, unless I know I ain’t going to be on a team that steamrolls people who queued up Solo. I don’t want free pips, I want to actually earn them. I also hate facing premades when I queue Solo, so I ain’t going to be a hypocrite and do the same to others.

I will never take this game seriously as a e-sports game, unless they have such basic things taken care of and covered. At the end of the day, I am simply kittenized off, and I sure as a kitten is fluffy don’t feel like watching more Guild Wars 2 at that point. I often loathe the game as I calmly log out, until the next day where the cycle repeats. It seems as if this really straight forward principle, flies straight over ArenaNet’s heads. You need to please the average player, so that they want to see more, when they are not playing. That is how you get your “e-sports” badge. If Leagues is supposed to be a way to reflect on a players skill level outwards, then you sure shouldn’t give premades practically free wins against randoms. That only serves to make the Solo player feel like their only purpose is to feed premades, and this makes the Solo player salty, and rightfully so. 1+1+1+1+1 should face 1+1+1+1+1, and otherwise people can queue solo into Group Queue to fill 4+1, which then face other 4+1, 3+2 or 5 player teams. Simple—fair.

Fact is; Being able to communicate with voice chat, knowing how your team plays and having a tailored set of professions and builds to compliment one another, is a massive freaking advantage over those who wish to roll the dice and just queue up with randoms.

Weren’t able to find any Skritt I can hit with Snowballs either. I even went to Skrittsburgh without them even flinching. Anywhere in Tyria is a blatant lie. If it’s only the ones from the event, that is a horrible idea.. considering people are constantly body blocking and kicking them all over.

Same issue. Teleporting NPC’s that otherwise stand still when you come across them. Ironically, Brekkabek’s bear would actually move the path as per usual, but that doesn’t really help all too much when Brekkabek is bugged.

All Guilds are seemingly facing this issue on any progress level. My personal solo-Guild is also capped with 3550/3550 as Lv.17.

Assassin’s selection also magically disappeared. Very disappointing. I think the entire idea is to make us salty one way or another. First because the stats were more in line with Exotic stats, now by taking away the options we had for stats selection when it’s updated to Ascended status. I’m feeling salty, ArenaNet, heh—mission accomplished.

You can reach them on Asura, but you need to jump very close to the very edge of the platform to reach it. Alternatively, you could try to do the dodge-jump by rolling your fingers over V and Space using your thumb, as you move forwards. That will get you a tiny bit further and make the jump a slight bit “easier” (once you master the dodge-jumping).

Keeps resetting, Windows 10, 64-bit client. The auto-loot feature of the Pact Commander Mastery also doesn’t seem to mention that it needs it, which it used to do. The game also isn’t tracking my selected Achievements anymore between restarts, so that’s pretty annoying as well. Guild Experience is for whatever reason showing as capped for me, with my personal solo-Guild being Lv.17, it says it is at 3550/3550 (—say what?).

Not related to Options and UI; I also noticed that seemingly every Guild Bounty NPC is not updating their locations in-game properly, but are rather teleporting once in a while, so they’re not possible to interact with (as I assume they are not where you see them, when you see them).

I beg to question what ArenaNet did this patch honestly. In what way were these things related to the Wintersday patch? It’s more bugged than I think I’ve ever experienced GW2 from a single patch. I mean sure, we have bugs here and there, but these are rather big bugs.

All I got from this initially, and it caused me to stop reading, something I rarely do, is; “I like to use Hammer, please buff Hammer so that I don’t need to consider anything but Hammer, because I like Hammer and Hammer is the greatestest thing since Stop, Hammer-time! Hammer!”

Yes, fix terrain issue with a number of our skills, please.

Longbow, but I have always wanted to make Kudzu and never played a profession that uses it as my main, so I’m biased. Legend could be: Eir, unless she ain't dead.

They have the metrics we don’t. How many of us are on Windows 10? How many of us have a DX12-ready GPU? These things would need to be factored into the pros and cons of performing a engine upgrade. Would it be worth it in the current market?

Better yet, they could perhaps offload more graphical things to where it belongs, the GPU. And not be so overly reliant on CPU overloading. That is where the game has “problems”. Not the lack of DX12.

lxghostxl.5097:

I find it ok to play but when it comes to cc breaks or sustain is just the worst class. DPS rev does not do much damage in pvp anymore and some times when you switch legends all weapon skill goes unavailable for a sec.

We got a Minor Trait to make swapping Legends a Stunbreak in Invocation, if you use the Legendary Dragon Stance, you got a Stunbreak in Gaze of Darkness, if you’re a Shiro lover, you got Riposting Shadows. Personally I get by fine with Gaze of Darkness. Can’t say that I think Rev does little damage in PvP either, nor do I think I’ve ever experienced all weapons becoming unavailable.

lxghostxl.5097:

pro players will build a high heal class and a high burst condi or when it comes to physical attack will be Daredevils. all pvp team will always have at least 2 DH for the aoe daze and CC spam. and when you want to play a pro Herald you cannot go DPS or you will just end up as a food so best choice is to go Condi Tank but this build does not have cc break.

I run a Condi Bunker build, that I tailored to be a bit more of an all-rounder. Celestial amulet, Superior Rune of the Berserker (PvP), Force and Bursting Sigils on both weapon set (Mace/Axe + Staff). Retribution, Corruption and Herald lines.

lxghostxl.5097:

some people does not know this but the worst enemy of a Revenant are cripple, ice, slow, daze. a DH Test of Faith skill or Dragon Maw have no way of escape even with Reposting Shadows, and DH can pull you down 4x is short time.

Conditions are hardly a enemy to most Revenants and their nearby allies. You just focus on maintaining Pain Absorption to both remove their conditions and apply Resistance. And DH is hardly a threat to most players, there are a few good ones, but most are terrible, and dodge-activating their traps makes it trivial to fight them on their own. Unwavering Avoidance in the Retribution line also gives you Stability on dodge, so that doesn’t hurt. Most DH will die to some Banish Enchantment spam. It’s unblockable, it loads Confusion up on people it travels through and it removes Boons rapidly. It’s one of the better skills in the Mallyx utilities, besides Pain Absorption when applicable.

lxghostxl.5097:

Rev has been very slow in movement terms (just as I see and feel it) that other classes who just received swiftness run hella faster which makes it for Herald to have hard time to get in and hit target.

I can’t say I ever have problems hitting my targets. Banish Enchantment is 600 Range. Searing Fissure creates a 480 range field. Temporal Rift is 900 range. Echoing Eruption travels 410 range. Are you running too far for me? Frigid Blitz is 900 range, and it’ll Chill the target (sure, you can miss, but you can miss with anything). Surge of the Mists on Staff will send you forwards a bit too. You can use Unyielding Anguish to travel 600 range at a time. Chills your foe(s). And honestly.. who cares if your foe can get away anyways? It means you got the point. You shouldn’t fight off point anyways.

lxghostxl.5097:

the energy refill just feel so slow and takes you 4 to 5 second to be able to use a skill in mallyx while leaving you with no way to deffend your self in that time of you gathering energy.

You can use every Mallyx skill instantly upon swapping. It’s 2 seconds before you can use say Unyielding Anguish a second time. You can spam Banish Enchantment twice, then it’s two seconds before you can use it again. Sure, it’s 5 seconds before you can use Pain Absorption again, but that’s a really good team utility skill. You’ll easily have Resistance up for more than 5 seconds when you need to use it.

lxghostxl.5097:

there are so much problems that a revenant cant do which makes them food. that is how I see revenant when I play against one using DH or Chrono. so for those who will say they are all pro and you just need to do this and that then please feel free to explain how to fight sustaining with DPS build and snare cripple and the most annoying skill that keeps knocking you down when you pass it or even try to evade it. which are DH skill traps….. post a vid please or let ANET know this problems.

DH traps.. dodge. Just dodge. You should easily be able to see where they lay them down. It’s easy to predict when a DH will try to use their traps. Dodge. It activates the trap, and they can’t do anything as you use your ranged attacks outside of them. Well, besides trying to poke you with a few shots. DH’s are squishy. Too many of them rely on trying to use trap spam to win. Which works against inexperienced players (not saying the players are bad, just not accustomed to dodge-activating the traps and laughing on the inside when the DH is absolutely rubbish at anything but their one-pony-trick), but not too many experienced ones. A really good DH, those can be painful. But how often do you really come across those, let’s be honest here.

Personally, I don’t see why people run Viper’s. I think Celestial is better. I think Revenant makes a excellent offensive, team-supportive bunker. The Berserker Runes compliment it well, together with Force and Bursting Sigils (+10% to both types of damage). In the traits, you find a whole lot of defense for various issues that may come up, with the perma-Fury, your Crit Chance will still be 50%. Our utilities aren’t too bad, even if we can’t tailor them. And yes, there are times when I feel Mallyx is a bit too costly, but then I remember how freaking powerful every single one of the abilities are. It needs to be that way. Weapon skills are cheap anyways, I can use those while I generate Energy again.

Same here, patches at 2 KB/s, which is agonizing to say the least.

Got myself a brand new Staff

The circle is really jarring and stands out within the GW2 world, in a bad way. The dragon graphic on it is terrible. Sorry to whomever designed it, but it is absolutely appalling to look at, within Guild Wars 2. It looks like the kind of thing a beginner with Photoshop would draw and it stretches on different surfaces.. ugh.. no, please ArenaNet, re-design that hideous monstrosity. I liked the idea of floating 3D crystals of some sort.

A lot of my friends and the occasional stranger has mentioned how they don’t want to micromanage their Energy (which is something I love about the profession). That can be one thing. Others may be tired of the numerous bugs the profession has (—I especially love how Staff should remove 2 Conditions, but it works like 1/15 times). Others may just have been leveling their Revenant, then gone back to their old mains instead of switching.

Personally, it was a easy choice for me to switch mains from Mesmer (Chronomancer) to Revenant (Herald). I love playing Guild Wars in Guild Wars 2. Energy, Upkeeps and Pips. It’s also a fun profession to bunker with in PvP, and there I sure use a whole lot of skills, I dare say every single one (Glint/Mallyx).

While a brunt of my DPS in Raids are from Sword auto-attacks and Impossible Odds, I do use a fair amount of other skills too. If I played it the no-brain way, I would not play the profession to its potential. E.g., you should use UA at times, if you want to maximize, especially on Gorseval. Maybe people just can’t see all the things you can actually do, and get stuck in some rut idea of it being all about auto-attacking. Very few professions comes close to the amount of Breakbar damage the Staff can do as well.

Here’s my specific stats since Leagues started: 57 Wins, 45 Losses, Win Rate: 55.88%. I am in a 50/50 average across my roughly 100 matches for the Leagues so far. I am in Sapphire too I might add. And yes, being a person that queue solo makes that a bit of a hellish journey at times, but I don’t blame that on the 50/50 intention of keeping matches even, I blame that on poor matchmaking when it puts teams vs. randoms.

And how does that affect your ability to climb? I only queue solo. I have had a 9-10 win streak, with the last match even granting me two pips, meaning the other side should have been favored to win. Sure, you do get handed bad cards, as in terrible team mates. But that it’s 50/50 has nothing to do with it. It should obviously be as even a match as possible, or any sort of progression would be absolutely pointless. If you were destined to win every single match, where’d the excitement be? The problem for me, the thing that makes me salty, is losing to premades as a team of all randoms.

It’s fine to win 2 matches, lose 1, win 3 matches, lose 2, win 3 matches and climb a tier. You don’t need to win 5 matches in a row to climb at any point in the Divisions. Is it frustrating? Kitten yes, beyond belief. But again, I mainly get super salty when I feel the matchmaking just kittened me over and kittened my kitten’s kitten because I am pretty much always on a team of all randoms, and then get faced with team after team who have some players grouped (—not saying my teams never win these, but that team had an unfair advantage). I just want that to stop. I want to either queue as a team, facing teams, or solo, facing others who are solo. I want Solo- and Group Queue, 1+1+1+1+1 matching, and 2+3, 4+1 (solo players queuing for Group Queue) or 5 matching respectively. Then things can actually be a bit more fair.

I think people forget that the 50/50 is actually meant to apply to both teams and that it’s supposed to be a tossup on who will win. It’s not 60/40, it’s supposed to be 50/50, as best as it can match you, to create even and balanced matches where either side can win. That’s good, that’s exciting. But that won’t happen when it doesn’t separate Solo- and Group Queue, as grouped players has a massive advantage on completely random teams. Sure, you get dealt terrible teams sometimes, but those terrible teams can also win, so chances are the other team weren’t that great either. If it truly was meant to make you lose, then as a player who only queue solo, how can that explain the 9-10 win streak I had the the other day, with the last one even granting me two pips meaning the other team should have been favored to win.

It also doesn’t help that a premade can take one-two really low MMR players and as a result drop their total down to face (potentially) lesser skilled players (—this needs a fix, as it should check the highest MMR player(s) to factor in how much their average would be across 5 players of similar MMR, and ignore the lower MMR players completely in the calculation).

Chaith.8256:

When I return to Rank Q after its matchmaking & queue time issues naturally balance themselves out, I’ll be able to hit Diamond – this is the division where you get the third tier of Wings.

I’ll assume that to obtain the fourth tier of wings, it should be maybe, legendary division, level 2?

For people who aren’t able to reach this level, my mental math expects reaching Sapphire or Ruby in both seasons should earn you the precursor.

But I believe one of the components require you to pass four Divisions within a Season for Part IV, meaning when they said everyone should be able to create the back item in due time, that might actually turn out to be a blatant lie for some players. That means needing to pass through Diamond.

Going to Sapphire didn’t even count for passing through two Divisions; Amber -> Emerald (1) -> Sapphire (2), so going by that, you actually need to reach Legendary Division to cross four. If it’s a bug, then you still need to reach Diamond Division. Unless you actually go ahead and do queues as a group of relatively skilled PvP players, playing the system perhaps (taking someone with low MMR), stomping on the randoms because ArenaNet hasn’t had the foresight to re-introduce the Solo Queue and separate it from Group Queue, the odds of even getting there are hellishly frustrating.

Getting the precursor is actually the easy part.

Elia.7193:

Absconditus.6804:

I just want to know why climbing to Sapphire didn’t trigger the achievement for crossing two Divisions in Part II. Amber to Emerald is one, right? Emerald to Sapphire is two, but it still says 1/2. So why is that exactly? I know Amber is impossible to drop in, but if it’s not counting as a Division climb to get Emerald, why are Emerald called Division 2, and Sapphire Division 3? I climbed two Divisions as I see it. Through hell I might add, as I only queue solo until/if they ever add Solo Queue and Group Queue.

I think is because you need to complete the part I , in order to start achievements for part 2. The only one that seem possible to get without completing the part 1 first, is the essence collector

But I haven’t finished Part I yet. There are a number of them that are possible to get without Part I completed. Like getting the second set of wings, the Veteran ones. These should honestly count through Part I to IV from the very start if you ask me. And as such, I am still confused as to why my climbing to Sapphire didn’t trigger it as completed. It’s hard enough getting to Ruby, but getting past Ruby will be pure hell when I want to queue solo (unless they separate solo and group).

BeepBoopBop.5403:

muscarine.5136:

About the 50% ratio, yes, and i think it’s fair, i personnaly know i won’t get past ruby and i’m fine with it, people who go past that 1/ team queue 2/ are better than me.

This is actually, despites its flaw, a system that will reward the best, like it should be.

To move up a tier in a division, you have to win 5 games in a row. With a 50% chance each game (assuming a perfect system, which ofc its not), that is a 3.1% chance of going to the next tier. When you add in the complexities from issues such as solos vs premades and class balance, it all adds up to a mountain of horsekitten.

Well, technically not in a row. I just spent what felt like 20 matches yesterday, winning, then losing , then winning, then losing (queued solo from the start of Leagues for what it’s worth), and so on forth, on the last pip to reach Sapphire. It felt like a endless cycle of being back to needing 2 pips, then back to needing 1 pip, rinse-repeat. Eventually I won two in a row. There are also several times I’ve climbed a few pips, only to drop down one, then climb a few more. I’ve even had a 9-10 win streak, all solo queue.

The biggest offender is when I get queued against good grouped players, especially when it just repeatedly happens and I lose all the pips I’ve gained towards a tier. That just leaves me salty. That makes me frustrated. They have such a huge advantage. MMR balancing can take a seat when it comes to that scenario. Grouped players always has a massive advantage over those who are randomly put together. Losing to teams, is kitten horse and fluffy kittens kitten. Nothing makes me saltier, and I have to vent by asking for water in the map chat, because I am salty as kitten.

NA is not a race, so I don’t see how it in any way or form could be interpreted as racial. Come on now, Ross. And who cares, when Mesmer’s are the most fabulous of all, every- and anything anyways. Butterflies!

There is mainly one issue as I see it. Solo- and Group Queue, as these are not a thing and separated from one another. The game is literally trying to match 1+1+1+1+1, 2+1+1+1, 2+2+1, 3+1+1, 2+3, 4+1 and/or 5 players, on each side with a relatively equal MMR total to balance it out (and keep in mind that one low MMR player can pull higher MMR players totals down in the matchmaking). This results in matches where you have 1+1+1+1+1 of completely random players, facing off together against a combined equal-ish MMR (and Division) rating of someone who are grouped in some way or form, which is no matter what, and advantage. That are two or more tailored professions that can be favorable to one another. That are specific builds likely meant to compliment the other(s). That are two or more players who are likely communicating with one another rather well and/or that are well versed in how their friend(s) play (no communication required). It’s honestly not fair, and it’s not balanced.

MMR for matchmaking is fine, I have an average of 50 or so percent win rate since Leagues started, but at the same time I don’t think it’s fine as-is, when it matches us like this. Losing to an obviously better tailored team just leaves me salty. Where as if I lose to all randoms, as all randoms, I have no problems about it. I may question what my team was doing, as I am infallible (—please don’t take this seriously), but I am generally feeling far more alright with losing in those scenarios.

The system should match 1+1+1+1+1 with 1+1+1+1+1 and otherwise 2+3, 4+1 and 5 together, and that’s it. Keep in mind that there should be no reason why some players wouldn’t and/or shouldn’t be allowed to queue solo into Group Queue to fill 4+1 setups. But at least random 1+1+1+1+1 would be actually facing random 1+1+1+1+1 of equal-ish MMR rating (and Division) and not (repeatedly) get stomped by a team far better tailored than their own randomly distributed one. E.g., I love it when the matchmaking decides that 4 players of the same professions should be on one team. Those are great. 4 DH and a Herald anyone? Good Game, Matchamaking-kun! You so trolly and kawaii.

I just want to know why climbing to Sapphire didn’t trigger the achievement for crossing two Divisions in Part II. Amber to Emerald is one, right? Emerald to Sapphire is two, but it still says 1/2. So why is that exactly? I know Amber is impossible to drop in, but if it’s not counting as a Division climb to get Emerald, why are Emerald called Division 2, and Sapphire Division 3? I climbed two Divisions as I see it. Through hell I might add, as I only queue solo until/if they ever add Solo Queue and Group Queue.

I don’t honestly agree fully. I do think DH needs some changes, as it takes literally no skill to just spam traps and pew pew high damage shots from afar inside your safe little burst “bubble”, and these traps will basically deny you from contesting a point for rather long periods of time too, effectively at least. But I don’t think they are particularly tanky (although they can heal rather well of course).

Their traps are rather easy to deal with once you get some practice at it. You dodge near the outside of the DH trap range, where you expect them to be, and/or away from them if they try to justice-trap spam you (I can’t help but laugh at that tactic) and their traps trigger and do practically nothing. The problem then is you are stuck without being really able to get close to them if you don’t have some semi-ranged options. Personally, I’ve fought two, two decent DH players in the last 100+ matches I’ve done. And they were in the same match too. Every single other DH I’ve faced, has been incredibly predictable, and terrible at anything besides relying on their traps.

Do I die to them. Sure, because they have team support knocking me into their traps now and again. But if I find one alone, I rarely have much trouble dealing with them. They are squishy, and most of them are just one trick ponies with no backup plans once their trap spam has failed.

Riya.2678:

Was it not the intention of league divisions to be a visual representation of someone’s actual PvP skill in comparison to the rest of the PvP community […]

It will never be this. You are 1 out of 5 players. You rely on 4 players beside you being relatively decent. In no way can Leagues or even the MMR, in parts, truly measure how good you are as a PvP player, because you rely on four other players to not be completely garbage and actually play to the objective(s).

E.g., there are so many people who neglect to help a bunker when they call out that opponents are invading their space (I’ve been on points barely juggling 2-3 players for up to four-five minutes on occasion.. while some of my team fights off point with someone else and others are at least trying to cap something but failing). There are so many people who fight off point. There are so many people who when “camping” close with no opposition, don’t do simple things such as rotating to mid/far/objective when applicable, if someone else on the team has just died (as they will respawn soon, and can rotate into close if needed). There are so many people who seem allergic to using /team chat. There are so many people who will run one by one into a team and just feed them kills. And these are the kinds of people who causes you to lose. Which in no way is your fault truth be told. No matter how good a player is, they can not carry four bad ones. It won’t happen in most scenarios. Unless perhaps if the opponent team is really bad.

So while I queued solo the entire way to Sapphire (and that feels like an “entire way” when facing premade after premade, for the most part—Please, implement the Solo Queue again, Anet!), that was not because I was a great player. That was because I had good/great random team mates, I had on occasion great teams, that actually played the objectives instead of having some of us kittening around off points and not supporting where needed. So all in all, my [III] badge, and while it’s not the biggest accomplishment ever, is not a testament to me having gained Sapphire as a PvP player. It’s a testament to every random individual that has been a part of each of the wins I experienced as I climbed my Tiers, lost and gained Pips. I would like to think I contributed a small part on my own of course, but I was 1 out of 5.

PS: I would very much like to Group Queue, ArenaNet, but I refuse to do so without you separating Solo- and Group Queue (—you should be able to queue solo into Group Queue to fill 4+1 scenarios mind you, otherwise matching 2+3 and/or 5 together, but Solo Queue should only match 1+1+1+1+1 teams). There has been so many nice players who has asked me to join up for premades, which I have felt I have to decline, because I feel like I’d be a rotten hypocrite if I complain about the lack of Solo Queue, but then go ahead and play with good PvP players in a premade, so we indirectly end up with matches where we just stomp randoms. Please reinstate the Solo Queue so I can actually have some grouped fun too, without feeling like I earn pips for little effort (every so often).

Klangy.8293:

Well you will have other with you that is a group. How else would 4man get thier 5th? Dota2 have a good matchup always same comp. Either its 2+3 or 4+1 it’s The same on both teams. Solo/duo and team que = 5 man. That how it suppost to be.

Single players can queue for Group Queue to bolster 4-man teams. If that happens or not frequently enough is down to question, but there is no reason why Solo Queue should not exist and for those who queue in it, to only face others who has queued in it on their own as well. If Group Queue suffers, that is purely because it’d not be as popular. Serve the majority on this one, if you want to see sPvP remain flourishing and prosperous in the “e-sports” scene.

You can compete without Elite Specilizations and/or Revenant. But yeah, it’s pretty much premade vs. solo queue that is the main culprit now with the way League is set up. In a very poor fashion. Completely takes any sort of League ranking legitimacy and throws it out the window (besides exploiters who are throwing games on purpose to get a series of easy wins afterwards—I do hope Anet has a way to find these and punish it).

Eh, just give us an option to hide it if we don’t want to see it on other players. That’s fine enough. I have no problems with seeing it on people as I run around. It’s a nice little touch for someone like me who are invested in all game modes (although I do get seriously frustrated with PvP atm. without Solo Queue, and WvW just feels dead since HoT).

Sadly, this is likely why Guild Wars 2 will never become a proper e-sports. Its players, the majority, those who just want to jump into PvP games leisurely throughout the day and not need to wait for a group of friends being available to play with, get ticked off. They get frustrated. Salty.—If you are annoyed/frustrated/kittenidized with the PvP you try to play, why would you ever want to go watch a tournament of it? E.g., I watch streams of things that engage me. Things that excite me. Not things that literally makes me spew salty micro-droplets of spit all over my keyboard as I rage at the ridiculousness of premades vs. solo queue, and how blatantly unfair it is that one team has a tailored comp, while the other is already taking a risk with randomly assigning the slots of their team mates. It’s a horrible system.

All a person who queues solo right now truly serves to do, is to over time artificially boost pips on premade teams they get paired up against. That can’t be considered right. That has to be considered a flaw. Any sort of legitimacy in the league climbing goes out the window when a group of five good players can just steamroll a group of randomly put together solo queuers and get free progression. Even if said solo queuers may be decent in their own right. As a note on that; Team comp from the randomization can be severely out of whack, as it often is. E.g., throughout the day you will see 2 of a profession on one team, 2 of a different profession on the other team and so on forth. Why weren’t the matchmaking mixing those up? 1 of each to each team instead. MMR matters to a degree, but class composition matters too.

Yes, by re-introducing solo queue (and it should be proper solo queue too, and not encompass people who duo-queue, as that is a small premade and as such, you should acknowledge that you wish to face others who group), the group queue is likely to get somewhat slow again, as it were way back when (when PvP weren’t even remotely close to as “popular” as it is now, for the time being—unless something is done and people get so frustrated they stop playing (the mode)). But you know what? That is not the fault of those who wish to solo queue. If the majority wish to solo queue, why isn’t that taken into consideration? It’s the majority that you want to please so that they are engaged and willing to invest more time into spectating tournaments, bolstering the e-sports scene. You should not try to only please the few e-sport puppies you wish to pet and keep happy. Doing so will alienate the spectators. And those are the ones you need, almost more than the few players that wish to compete.

PS: I hate how in the current system, I am pretty much always (ok, not literally) matched against teams that has premade groups (of 2-4). But these groups are practically never on my team. It’s seriously frustrating. Give us back Solo Queue!