Guild Wars 2

vana.5467:

Here’s to hoping they only mentioned 0.5% of the nerfs they’re intending to implement.

I agree. Classes should have their skill floors raised across the board except for thief, which already has a high floor. This way people’s classes won’t carry them and punish mistakes more. Survivability and CC also need toning down across the board.

Remember the sky isn’t falling and the meta needed shaking up to begin with as optimal comps and play were solved pretty early (who didn’t foresee chrono being meta?)

I foresee chrono still being meta since its biggest strengths don’t rely on damage modifiers (portals, buffs, resets, and CC) but also necro and thief next season. Reaper seems strong as it is but with the leeching bolt and grandmaster trait buffs could stay in a fight basically forever as shrouds effectively give it much more HP.

I think some abilities need to take the new stats like expertise into account and reduce baseline condition durations while maybe buffing the stat itself so you need to take expertise to make your chill count (already the case with burning).

BrokenGlass.9356:

Yep, rev sword offhand is awful. Not useless really… It just only does one thing… Which is positioning a target… Which, simply doesn’t work well on players.

You guys are right about the rest of the weaker weapons too… Buy the rev sword OH sword is sad. And it’s magnified by the limited weapon choices.

I wouldn’t say it’s “awful” and is even better than the shield (if you need the heal you’re likely going down soon anyway) since you can pull off rezzers or people from points or into DH traps/necro condition fields. The block is also good and the weaponset syncs with staff decently. It also interrupts a target but with lots of stability flying around you have to know when to use it.

“How exactly is wanting weaker weapons to be buffed to normal levels ‘power-creep’? Last time I checked, that’s called ‘balance’.”

Not everything should be for all game modes but rather some stuff designed to be optimal for PvE or PvP. Subtlety rogue (using Cataclysm as my reference point here since that was the only time I played WoW) for example has lots of good PvP tools, but in PvE big monster health pools and immunities invalidate lots of those strengths. Players don’t have those kinds of strengths and are in fact weak to CC and burst (get in enough crits and a target either drops or it’s “on” and you need to time your interrupts…then zergs from both your teams run on top of you turning your duel into a chaotic mess you you cloak and vanish away, stand back and watch for healers if any, target them, then die yourself since all your important tools are on cooldown).

So by their very natures PvE and PvP do and should have different optimal traits and weapon sets due to radically different mechanics, strengths, and weaknesses of the competition.

“Revenant; hammer”

I honestly think rev hammer was meant to be a PvE weapon.

Why not make a completely new IP and have a MOBA with some fighting game mechanics? There’d be dueling mode where it’s purely a sideview 1v1 fighting game with all the MOBA mechanics absent and winning a duel results in the opponent having a much longer respawn time. You only have one duel and in 5v5 you could theoretically duel six times per match (everyone challenges you at different times and you challenge someone else). Not all moves from the fighting mode would be available in the MOBA overhead but the MOBA mechanics would be simplified to accommodate some of the fighting game mechanics. There would be no EXP or gold, just straight up strategic and skill based PvP. Talent from Virtua Fighter can be poached to balance the fighting game portion (one of the best fighting game series in existence due to its balance).

Cynz.9437:

Agemnon.4608:

Diamond solo queue can get to legend solo, I’ve seen it. You literally have to play a hard carry class though, something that can 1v1, troll 1vx fights after everyone has died, get rezes, watch home, decap, move down bodies (to prevent mesmer rez) and rotate at esl/pro league level.

So…daredevil?

ele~

Ele can’t really 1v1 that well though at least not with staff. Your tells are easier to see in a 1v1 setting and everything has a charge. I have beaten some druids, revenants, and many dragonhunters in 1v1 on an ele though but daredevil seems to be a hard counter especially if they open with stealth. I tried calculating when their energy and initiative would be depleted so I can get in some burning, wind interrupts, and water healing and chill or the vulnerability ice drop baiting dodges but really didn’t work :(

Diamond solo queue can get to legend solo, I’ve seen it. You literally have to play a hard carry class though, something that can 1v1, troll 1vx fights after everyone has died, get rezes, watch home, decap, move down bodies (to prevent mesmer rez) and rotate at esl/pro league level.

So…daredevil?

I think it’s against the ToS to advertise your stream (don’t worry I won’t report you but others have grounds to) in the forums. You might want to put it in your sig instead.

zangato.2809:

well i dont think so.

unless they change the genre, like maybe gw3 will be hack and slash ?

That’s what I said in another thread basically. I think it’ll have PSO2 like mechanics since the trend is towards simplification unfortunately. I like PSO2 and it’s a bit more complex than a typical hack and slash but hack and slash games are typically console games, which are a notch above cellphone games.

Vieux P.1238:

Agemnon.4608:

Does a chess champion’s opponents accuse him of being “unfair” when he sacrifices material for a winning attack or endgame? Of course not!

Dude! Are You comparing Chess, the most balance game in the world to Gw2 spvp?

Guild Wars 2 PvP (whether stronghold, conquest, or WvW) and Chess have their own systems. Guild Wars 2 PvP isn’t balanced as far as classes go but if everyone takes two revs, two mesmers, and an elementalist isn’t that balanced? Lots of things need balancing in this game and people are doing what’s best, and what’s best is determined by the game’s internal systems. A damage or cooldown adjustment may even radically alter what’s considered optimal.

“The fact that when two teams using this comp I’m complaining about meet they never so much as see each other because it boils down to who can rush straight into the lord room first and stomp him? At that point it stops being PvP and it’s about as fun as it sounds.”

I have a problem with how the map’s mechanics allow that kind of play (and be optimal too) but people use those comps because it maximizes winning chances.

The foundational philosophy of a winner consists of:

1.Opportunism

2.Optimalism.

Does a chess champion’s opponents accuse him of being “unfair” when he sacrifices material for a winning attack or endgame? Of course not! They learn from the experience (also a key component). The champ would start strong and look for the best move using his understanding of the mechanics of chess, since it is a system with its own laws. Likewise, people make mistakes and if you see a winning opportunity you grab it. This of course assumes legal means, pick Akuma in some Street Fighter tournaments and you’ll get disqualified.

This brings me to stronghold. Yes, it could be much improved upon but people are doing what they can to win within the context of stronghold’s system. Is it exploiting? The other side has access to the same tactics and could form the optimal comp themselves so what’s stopping them? So players shouldn’t be given exploiter punishment (they weren’t violating rules by healing doorbreakers and since they can be healed it’s obviously intended for them to be) but rather have their MMR adjusted to accommodate for how many stronghold games they played or even creating a separate MMR for stronghold.

Samnang.1879:

I swear if the world rained gold, some of you would still complain.

I think this idea is amazing, honestly I don’t know why it wasn’t implemented at HoT launch, but i’m so glad they’re implementing it. It would be great for new players, and also for old players, we can glide while doing Legendary collections in Tyria.

Of course we would because it would cause inflation thus whatever we have on the TP committed will be cheapened.

The mindblowing irony here is players stick around a game because they hear about a tough achievement they set out to accomplish: hone their skills, refine tactics, and obtain the reward but other players instead of meeting the content’s bar (giving us motivation to improve which is where much of the fun comes in) they want the bar lowered to meet their skill level.

Lots of skill based weapon and armor skins need to be in the game so other players think, “I want that!” and set out and put forth the effort to earn it.

Skateboarding quaggans.

While SoloQ would be nice I’m satisfied with the changes they’re making.

Warcry.1596:

style.6173:

Ehecatl.9172:

Why on Earth would you want to remove the OPTION to do ranked Stronghold games?

If you’re solo queuing just uncheck the box for Stronghold. Suddenly the premades can’t “cheese” the game for easy wins anymore.

Because the two game modes share the same league system. Why should someone who cheeses stronghold be considered legendary?

Why should someone who cheesed Conquest be considered Legendary? Works both ways man. I’d much rather face the much more diverse builds that are present in Stronghold, than the -be as tanky as I can be so I don’t lose a point- garbage currently in this meta =/

Because you can win in stronghold if both sides ignore other players and just zerg down the boss whereas in conquest you’re forced to fight other players. In stronghold you’re also using cheese builds and playstyles against other cheese builds and playstyles so skill wins out in the end.

foste.3098:

It’s ok there is a new outfit coming to the gem store soon.

There is?! :D I hope it has dyable effects or at least a cute skirt for female characters ^_^

MMR correlates with percentile and ladder points right?

Aidenwolf.5964:

Xirus.9675:

Don’t you just love how many people claim that their subjective opinions are objective and that the entire game should be completely changed because “a lot of people agree” these days?

That’s exactly what happened pre HoT the devs listened to one group and alienated the rest of the players. Whether or not they are panicking who can say but I did see gliding in core Tyria today which they said wouldn’t happen.

I once saw a man jump a shark.

Why would you go water skiing with a leather jacket?

Lordrosicky.5813:

Agemnon.4608:

Lordrosicky.5813:

So to stop pro teams exploiting by queuing with newbs….you basically ruin it for the huge majority of people who want to play with friends. You took a sledge hammer to crack a nut. Awful.

There’s always unranked.

People who play mmo games like progression.

It isn’t fair for honest players if matchmaking exploiters and MMR tankers keep them from progressing to their intended tier. Let’s say you have an 91st percentile ruby, which is appropriate for that level, and four other rubies within that range. Then you have two legendaries (top .1%) a diamond (top 1.5%) and two ambers (lowest 35%) Might sound fair at first until you realize that the skill at the top percentages far outclass those at the 90th percentile. Two legendaries, a diamond, and two ambers would equal 19 ranks whereas the rubies would equal 20. Theoretically the rubies are favored but in practice, especially with smurfs but even with true ambers the legendaries would be favored since skill outpaces percentages at the top so the legnedaries are up to 9% higher percentile wise but about twice as skilled. At least it should be the case if league reflected skill.

“People who play mmo games like progression.”

Because the progression is a reflection of our improved skills.

Lordrosicky.5813:

So to stop pro teams exploiting by queuing with newbs….you basically ruin it for the huge majority of people who want to play with friends. You took a sledge hammer to crack a nut. Awful.

There’s always unranked.

Leeto.1570:

Zoltreez.6435:

Leeto.1570:

Zoltreez.6435:

Leeto.1570:

As much as i would want to say that maybe you are not good enough i cant because any bad can get to legend. So just pick up actual meta condi necro build and get your legend.
Do you even have keybinds?

that elitsm lol

its all rng in what players you get in your team
you CAN’T solo carry a match ONLY if you go againts seriously bad people

How is it elitism, if someone would google GW2 PVP basics he would probobly stumble on some guide that tells him that you need build and keybinds before you start PVPing, so this fook has no build and no keybinds so he doesnt even have the very basic requirements for PVPing.
Yes most of the time whichever team has least amount of bad players win, but if you are bad yourself then you already decrase the chances of having the better team.

he never mentioned or said that
as i said elitsm allready thinking he is a bad scrub that does not know the basics

He is celestial necro with wells.
90% sure he has no keybinds and not that they binded to mouse or something.
Hes in PVE guild.
Hes tracking wintersday achievements.

So i should ignore all these signs of someone whos not very competent PVPer and presume that hes 1 out of 1000 exception and is actually good player?
Elitist in me says that he shouldnt even be in ranked but play unranked, cause i didnt even leave hotjoin till i knew every basic thing about PVP, but im not doing that because im 100% that he plays PVP not because he wants to be good at it but because he wants reward so im telling him that even tho hes terrible player he can still get to legend if he would play build thats considered viable because there is ton of terrible player in legendary division.

Actually ye you cracked code im kitten elitist. Sorry to OP, you are awesome change nothing, its all RNG when you stop getting bad teammates you will fly to next division like beutiful eagle

What if he has a Razer Naga Epic? Then he’d be justified in having those binds since he’ll just have to move his thumb and hit “10” for the elite skill. My Naga doesn’t work anymore so until I get another one my elite is bound to “B”.

Astra Lux.2846:

Agemnon.4608:

I love the lunatic guard outfit! :D Sword doesn’t look very sharp but otherwise everything seems thematic. Likely 7 or 8 out of 10.

The second to last one is with blacklight and golden sheen. The helmet on my guardian clashes too much with his luminescent armor while my charr warrior looks good…but the color scheme is quite safe and conservative. For my asura druid I gave her a witchy look with mistwalker coat and the witch hat and my asura elementalist has an enameled solitude and crushed bone color scheme since enameled solitude is the closest thing I can get to the traditional dark blue baseball cap color. I have shadow blue too but it’s too dark so something in between those would be ideal.

I just like my Flash reference too much on my thief but switches to Viper’s set with a dragon helmet occasionally with a shadow green, algae, and shadow abyss color scheme, sometimes swapping out the dragon hat for the gas mask.

Your Charr looks like adult Simba, and that is awesome. Also, your Asura are super cool!

attached is my main

I really like the goggles and shade of purple ^_^ And thanks.

It deserves a slight rework at worst, staying the same at best. I believe after conditions are reigned in that diamond skin will need an adjustment. I don’t do conditions primarily and when I do it’s to augment the power damage or create some pressure (like casting burn on a thief or using poison against a druid) so I don’t run into the overpoweredness of diamond skin. Likewise when I run it I’ll notice it’s hard to keep above 90% (keeping others alive is a higher priority) and doesn’t feel as OP as its reputation.

“This Elementalist version, beyond all comprehension, was introduced AFTER all we learned from the Engineer version AND is significantly more powerful.
Why does this trait, which does literally hardcounter all hybrid/condi builds still exist?”

Because viper stats and new condition abilities exists now.

PunisherxDKx.8306:

Flapjackson.1596:

I’m personally not a fan of the abyss dyes since I think it takes away from the detail of the armor but I like the style of the thief and rev quite a bit. Also your characters could use a bit more diversity in their appearance, but I also like the armor pieces you use throughout them (scarf, scarlet gloves) and it’s your thing so just do you. 7/10

Here is my beloved Charr Warrior, short of a few fused weapons but I’m not made of money, maybe some day :P

I’m not sure I like the color combination, but it looks quite good on a charr. I am also a fan of the eyepatch. 7/10

Edit: (You probably have to click the gif to see it properly)

I love the lunatic guard outfit! :D Sword doesn’t look very sharp but otherwise everything seems thematic. Likely 7 or 8 out of 10.

The second to last one is with blacklight and golden sheen. The helmet on my guardian clashes too much with his luminescent armor while my charr warrior looks good…but the color scheme is quite safe and conservative. For my asura druid I gave her a witchy look with mistwalker coat and the witch hat and my asura elementalist has an enameled solitude and crushed bone color scheme since enameled solitude is the closest thing I can get to the traditional dark blue baseball cap color. I have shadow blue too but it’s too dark so something in between those would be ideal.

I just like my Flash reference too much on my thief but switches to Viper’s set with a dragon helmet occasionally with a shadow green, algae, and shadow abyss color scheme, sometimes swapping out the dragon hat for the gas mask.

My thief was adopted by my elementalist (with the baseball cap) and he raised and trained him as a great fighter. The Asura in the witch hat is my cousin by adoption, lion charr best friend since childhood, and Norn guardian my adopted little brother ^_^

Starfleck.8392:

I don’t understand how placing players in teams with similar MMR ratings is fair. Ultimately, isn’t that just placing the top 5 MMR players on one side and placing the lower 5 MMR players on the other side? Assuming we’re talking about an average solo-queue Emerald game, for example, the system tries to place someone with others close to their rating, while simultaneously placing another person with others close to their rating on the opposite team. One is closer to the high-mmr players and gets a high-mmr team, while the other gets stragglers by default, resulting in lower-skilled teammates and earning a loss.

Win streaks and loss streaks will run rampant, and MMR will reflect things like being rated low for being on a losing streak with other low-mmr teammates, and vice-versa.

Since all the players in the match are being sent there by virtue of being in a certain division, and since that division will have a wide variety of skill levels, then what? Is our only option for raising our individual MMR going to be to play Unranked for a long time and wipe out those losses?

It’s fair because it makes it easier for people getting to their appropriate league. What really isn’t fair is when most of the people who have the sense to go for mid at start are on the other team while your teammates are busy killing NPC early. The problem with the current system is good players could hit a snag in emerald or sapphire because they’re facing teams of similar strength making leagues not a reflection of skill but grinding since you’re always facing players of the same strength anyway.

On the other hand if leagues are truly a reflection of skill then good players will be paired together against weaker ones early on, then they’ll rank out of the lower divisions leaving only weaker players to face each other.

Like the armor and color combos, sword color clashes but is a cool sword. There is nothing wrong with the aesthetics, armor doesn’t look like it sacrifices practicality for looks or vice versa, and pieces and colors match. 8/10.

My character is using crushed bone with vintage silver dyes for the ceramic and titanium look.

Tahm.8290:

Agemnon.4608:

Since diamond is intended to be analogous to League of Legends’ platinum rank (Top 1.5%-0.1%) then obviously it isn’t for everyone. If you do have those diamond-tier skills then you’ll be paired with players of similar skill and reach that tier.

Since there’s 3 divisions higher then Plat (Diamond, Master and Challenger), I dont quite think that our Diamond and their Plat is similar.

Challenger is reserved for the top 200 only while master works differently from bronze through diamond. Legendary is likely intended to reflect LoL’s diamond (top 0.1%) if not master and challenger.

“The analogies you’re making don’t apply here; individual improvement is irrelevant as league progression is based on relative improvement against the entire rest of the player base. If leagues are moved to a place where they’re truly reflective of player skill, some significant portion of the player base will struggle to be able to get into, much less out of, Ruby because no matter how much time they put in their rate of advancement will only match if not lag that of everyone else. They won’t be able to make that up by playing more.”

Since diamond is intended to be analogous to League of Legends’ platinum rank (Top 1.5%-0.1%) then obviously it isn’t for everyone. If you do have those diamond-tier skills then you’ll be paired with players of similar skill and reach that tier.

Bad players will accuse you of cheesing while better players will say you aren’t cheesing hard enough. This observation spans any game.

A better solution I think would be rearranging the map so other players are forced to interact instead of both sides zerging to the others’ lord so mechanical skill plays a bigger role in winning.

Warrior is worth even less than thief while on warrior (when it’s in a good spot) I prefer sword and shield since shield gives an extra interrupt while the sword has a gap closer. Hammer is the best two handed weapon due to its interrupts. Don’t go for pure damage since damage can be mitigated with actives like signet of stone and healed out of whereas interrupts and knockdowns give some control.

From my observations tiers are as follows:

Akuma tier: Nothing is unanimously OP since there are lots of overtuned classes.

High tier: Chrono, Scrapper, Revenant, Tempest.

Mid tier: Druid, Dragonhunter and Reaper. Tempest and druid beats DH and reaper very well in 1v1’s though revenants would have more trouble but can still beat a reaper, though tempest is easier for rev than reaper in a 1v1 setting. Certain dragonhunter builds will be trouble. Druid would be top tier but can be easily focused. Yes, the class with CA form, overtuned pets like bristleback, signet of stone, and strength of the pack is mid tier, and pets making 1v1’s 2v1’s practically, let that sink in for a moment…

Low tier: Thief and warrior. Daredevil can be very strong in 1v1’s against druids, reapers, and tempests but since the fights that matter are the big ones at mid thief drops off drastically due to the conditions and AoE CC flying around.

Doon.2364:

Rolisteel.1375:

First fix the matchmaking to players skill level before rewarding. As this system giving out Division titles and Legendary Pieces free for lower skilled players, pve players ( there is a good chance they will abuse the system like a lot of peoples out there), ( farming random pug with premades ) While i stuck in Diamond as a true solo q pvp’er because rare when my team is not just keep dying at mid for 10mins they don’t have the brain power to don’t try hard what doesn’t work ( most of games are like that ) and do something else that have chance to change the score. and can’t get out of that hell bad Division. and watching pve players and random names i’ve never seen in my pvp life get the Legendary title and Legendary piece so we can see here the system failed as much as possible. Your system is punishing me with Amber and Emerald like skilled Diamond and Ruby players. PvP titles and pieces should be awarded for your perfomance not abusing and premade farming randoms and win trading. so in pvp i should get teammates a bit lower skill, same skill or a bit better. Not the ones that can’t stomp/revive/ and hit the focus target also some matches i see they like to select focus target the hardest one to take down. like ele and mes so 1 player troll 2-3 of my teammates while 3 or 4 enemy doing gang party on me.

Why you trying to change the subject? You should read Gaile’s Thread on Upcoming Season 2 changes.

It’s kind of related though. Those who obtain the rewards should actually deserve them.

Eolirin.1830:

My only concern with these changes is that they may make completing the league progression achievements impossible for too large a portion of the playerbase. Having to get out of Ruby to get tier 4 is difficult enough as it is. Will you re-examine that particular set of achievements in light of this change?

Why people want prestigious rewards is it communicates, “I overcame these challenges” and, “I completed hard content and am therefore skilled.” That value needs to be maintained. If you’re an average player you’ll become good much faster than a good player would become great for example. The better one becomes at something the higher the diminishing returns. For example if you spent eight hours sprinting (over a long stretch of time not in one go obviously) you might shave three seconds off your time whereas an Olympic sprinter would be lucky to shave off 1/10th of a second. You need bigger amounts of effort for increasingly smaller gains and in fact most RPGs reflect this as well (grind for months to go from level 200 to 201 but spend only a few hours going from 1 to 10).

What I’m trying to say is if you have sapphire tier skills (75th-85th percentile or 32 through 60 ladder points by my estimation) you’ll get ruby tier skills faster than a ruby (86th-98.5th percentile) would obtain diamond skill.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Hi ArenaNet PvP staff, welcome back from your two month vacation…. Thank you for taking some time this week to huddle up and figure out how to improve leagues moving forward. Clearly you have no intent to address the issue of mixed solo and team queue and queuing outside Heart of the Mist, etc…

There is no way to take ranked pvp serious when you have a blended solo and team queue. As I’ve explained in other post, you would not have an NFL team go up against 11 random NFL players tossed together. The NFL team would have a huge advantage in terms of communication, strategy and the overall advantage of trust, respect and coordination a TEAM has. Five players who solo queued together even have a disadvantage when the opposing team has a duo queue who between the two maintain these elements. This is common sense.

The FACT that ArenaNet blends solo and team queues for League divisons shows that as a company ArenaNet does not believe this level of scrutinization and seriousness should be applied. It does not matter which MMR algorithm you use to try and allow the server to create these random teams for solo queuers, the other TEAM elements are missing. It’s not good enough to assume a new or poorly performing guild team is an ok fit for give man solo queue team. The disadvantage for the solo queue players is still there. You can’t argue this.

I know your primary concern is taking care of your core. It’s undeinable that your GW2 core is a PvE focused player base. As a business you would be making incredibly bad decisions to not take care of your majority base. You business model demands that you take care of them. I believe the current sPvP system is designed for the casual player in mind and to provide a sense of progression for the casual PvE player who occasionally does PvP instead of it representing true rank. Until you split solo and team queues there is no way sPvP in GW2 can be taken seriously.

They’re at least doing stuff to close loopholes and make league progress fairer. Besides there were many times I was soloQ and beat premades ranging from two through five. Yes teams have an inherent advantage (can’t get a random two thief and warrior team if you premade two chronos, two revenants, and a tempest or druid for example) but are beatable.

Cogbyrn.7283:

I thought throws were specifically designed to engage during blocks to create openings. I don’t see what value it adds in Guild Wars 2.

If you can throw people off of points, then the game would probably just be Throw Wars 2. That could work, but it sounds like a different, completely new game.

You’d have to time and manage your throws skillfully and be in melee range while some weaponsets and classes have no viable interrupts. I think it’d need a bar similar to the endurance bar or even consume some of that to avoid spam. I contemplated if I wanted it to go through stability or not and ultimately decided that stability maintains immunity since stability is a finite resource that needs to be skillfully managed and if throw cut through it then it would completely invalidate entire skills like armor of earth or traits like harmonious conduit.

All classes would throw far enough to get the opponent outside of the center of a small node while warrior can throw far enough for getting them out of graveyard. Decap times would need to be rebalanced accordingly and indeed should have anyway with all the new AoE’s from HoT.

“that mechanic is already in game
you can clearly see it in work on the Temple of the silent storm map when you are 150 points ahead and your team gives up Tranquillity + Stillness and loses the game
Kek’d too hard for something so silly, yet..to close to home :c”

I hear you :( It’s why I hate Temple despite winning my last three.

I have some ideas:

1.Sparkly and glowing Stalwart, heavy scale, etc.

2.Same effects as above but applied to glorious.

3.Weapons.

4.A completely new, not reskinned armor set with special effects.

The common themes are flashy, showy, and complex without being pretentious or the armor/weapon parts themselves having ornament at the expense of practicality. Any ornamentation wouldn’t compromise the practical design since if there’s very narrow metal near a greatsword’s hilt for example we’ll think, “Wait a minute, wouldn’t the rest of the sword snap off?”

Practical, complex, gaudy, and showy are the common denominators.

As for earning them you’re able to get more pieces as you cross legendary divisions. If you reach legendary 1 you have a choice of gear, cross legendary 2 for another piece, etc. So you’d need to cross legendary 18 times total for all gear pieces and can be awarded lamas instead if you have all the pieces you want.

Terrorsquad.4802:

Yes, we def need more CC right now..smh

I qualified after a proper balancing so it wouldn’t be on top of the current CC (at least its current sizes and durations) and only be single target (so you can throw that elementalist putting his static field on a 6 second CD even creating a net loss of CC scenario in that particular battle). A proper balancing could even mean a resolve mechanic where you’re immune to CC for a short period of time.

If the mechanic can’t be plausibly added even with proper balancing then at least give warrior his bigger distance throw (large enough travel distance to throw someone from Foefire’s graveyard center)

The shrapnel mine throw idea for the engineer where he attaches a mine during the throw and inflicts 10 stacks of bleeding and small explosion damage upon landing sounded really cool.

I think adding throws would be a good idea. They would be interruptable and dodgeable. How they’d work is as follows:

1.After a successful throw a skill is interrupted and the opponent is in the air for 2 seconds.

2.Enemies are invulnerable while in the air in this way. Interrupted abilities are longer after being interrupted via throw than a traditional interrupt to accommodate this fact, but still a smaller cooldown than dancing daggers.

3.Throws have small cooldowns.

4.Not all classes’ throws are created equal. All do the basic 2 second invulnerable airtime and 6 second ability interrupts (if they were in the process of casting something when the throw is executed) but different classes can trait for different throw effects like five stacks of confusion upon landing or daze.

5.While there is strong potential for cheese I intentionally minimized it with the invulnerability since being taken out of the game for 2 seconds with a six second ability interrupt is powerful enough.

I think after proper balancing and fixing many of the issues this would be a good mechanic since it adds a fresh element to the game without taking away from the core mechanics.

Zoltreez.6435:

put revenant staff there too

outside of a good bar breaker it does not offer anything good really

Mobility, reflects, and interrupts.

The best time to play is typically around a balance patch because it’s basically anything goes. Your new build hasn’t been refuted yet and it’s a time of freedom and discovery. You decide on a build because it speaks to your values as a player and you haven’t found a refutation for it (and if there is it’ll likely be just from one build on one class specifically designed to hardcounter your style but that’s normal balance if that build has a counter, and the rock paper scissors cycle continues). You may change things around when in an organized team for better synergy. Then pro teams reveal their builds and everyone copies them. They solved the optimal comps and builds for them and a meta gets established. Sometimes you can find a happy medium, like I took the remove chill and flame upon dodge trait instead of the meta one because I hate chill and have come to terms that I will be below 90% health. Stop drop and roll cleanses these conditions from nearby allies too so it seems more useful to me than soothing ice anyway.

And this is why we need frequent balance patches, to ensure the pendulum swings towards improvisation instead of narrowing builds. You can find potential cheese before anyone else and take advantage of that before the pros reveal their even bigger cheese and everyone uses it.

Mightybird.6034:

Agemnon.4608:

It was a high skillcap class though so you actually had to be good and situationally and tactically aware to pull any of that off. If a rogue shadowsteps into a flare I’m sure no one would say he’s overpowered and rogue is a single target specialist anyway who had no real use in high end PvE. The rogue on top of skill needed to rely on crit damage to actually kill someone, if they lived through the burst then it was bailing time, so vanish away! Oh, but cloak of shadows doesn’t wash bleed.

Likewise, you may think you’re getting into a 1v1, signs are there but all of a sudden armies are fighting on you now, it’s no longer a 1v1 but a big group fight so the dynamics radically changed. Some of my funnest moments in WoW had this happen.

Oh come on. I mained rogue, it was not a high skill cap class. You walked into people stealthed, and pressed a few buttons. And there are actual videos of rogues fighting people naked, so no he didn’t rely on crits to kill.

Who cares about PvE? Not part of the discussion.

WoW had terrible balance even if you think rogue’s somehow where balanced.

this is the part chibbi is talking about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7JYsuRD0nY

I only played WoW during Cataclysm but from that video Vanilla rogue definitely needed fixing. I remember some 1v1’s against death knights and paladins that were very tough while hunters and especially warlocks were much easier. I did battlegrounds mostly.

Mightybird.6034:

chibbi.3706:

Maybe you should watch this video as a memory refresher :
http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=26540

I don’t think i’ve ever seen a game where people complained more about balance than wow now that i think of it.

That brings back memories.

People complain about thief here…WoW rogues could literally kill you without giving you a chance to even move.

It was a high skillcap class though so you actually had to be good and situationally and tactically aware to pull any of that off. If a rogue shadowsteps into a flare I’m sure no one would say he’s overpowered and rogue is a single target specialist anyway who had no real use in high end PvE. The rogue on top of skill needed to rely on crit damage to actually kill someone, if they lived through the burst then it was bailing time, so vanish away! Oh, but cloak of shadows doesn’t wash bleed.

Likewise, you may think you’re getting into a 1v1, signs are there but all of a sudden armies are fighting on you now, it’s no longer a 1v1 but a big group fight so the dynamics radically changed. Some of my funnest moments in WoW had this happen.

Ritt.3069:

Agemnon.4608:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Checked the logs and that player had relatively close ladder points, but the UI won’t show correctly if they NEVER connected to the match.

Evidence of a smurf or a good PvP’er who’s just returning to ranked?

Even if he was the best player in the game, matching an Amber against people of 4 divisions higher than himself makes no sense. Either the matchmaking bugged somehow or the system is really borked.

MMR really isn’t compatible with leagues. There’s no way two top teams should face each other in amber at the start of a season but leagues should rather follow tournament rules somewhat. Ever notice in a tournament of any kind bigger skill gaps are found at the start? Good players eliminate weak ones (Good and weak being relative terms, an expert in chess may be weak compared to the international masters he’ll face at a tournament but still be very strong compared to most competitive players) early.

Leagues aren’t Swiss or knock out tournaments but elements can still be drawn from them. Instead of elimination you’d hit a wall when you reach your current skill level. So let’s say for example you have 86 ladder rank points and are better than 95% of other players. You would hit your wall somewhere around mid to high ruby where you’re paired with those of similar skill (and better, diamonds and legendaries would walk over you at that point but after they rank out you’d just have to worry about equals) until you improve.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Checked the logs and that player had relatively close ladder points, but the UI won’t show correctly if they NEVER connected to the match.

Evidence of a smurf or a good PvP’er who’s just returning to ranked?

Aomine.5012:

DONT use Longbow under the current meta.

You’d totally get owned by the bejillion reflects throwing all over the place under the current meta.

Tempest and Scrappers, 2 of the most popular classes, well tank your arrows like nothing while faceroll you.

I use staff and longbow and do just fine in ruby. Yes there are lots of reflects but you should watch for them and switch to staff in those cases. Longbow 5 also doesn’t get reflected. I’m also on a celestial druid too.

“Heart of Thorns has changed the game. I can no longer reliably Rapidfire, Stealth, Stun, Maul, and when I do. It’s lack luster.
Am I missing something?”

If you want reliable stealth use smokescale, its special move creates a smokefield (watch for ele and mesmer combo fields so you don’t write over them) and can be staff 3’ed into for temporary stealth. It’s short group stealth but works for some rez progress and washing their targeting off.

“However, I can’t seem to kill any class reliably. immunities are everywhere, stability is everywhere, even thieves just dodge chain while running away.”

I reliably defeat reapers, dragonhunters, and even some engineers, revenants, and daredevils 1v1 and yes I’ll carelessly LB 4 an elementalist with earth armor (I use the skill too on my tempest, good for secure stomps and rezzes) or other with stability but that’s largely a learn to play issue. Use your pets too. A druid 1v1 is effectively a 2v1 because we have pets.

Wait for CA form, use power before then, bait signet of stone, make smart use of reflects or projectile destruction, and after CA form use conditions since CA skill 2 washes them.

Liam McColgan.7689:

Remember for 1 month when everyone cried about the power creep, how mesmers and thieves could 1 shot. How power engi could 1 shot (not literally)?

Well they soon nerfed all that, and this is what you get. Mesmers forced into being bunkers because of all the conditions and sustain around, and thieves forced out.

What were ANET thinking!?

I’m sure their idea of this game was to not have *GUARD*ians as longbow dps spammers, yet mesmer and ele, the 2 traditional magical dps, forced into being guardians.

And to top it off….Thief and Warrior, the epitome, the bread and butter, of any MMO…don’t have any space or love in this game in terms of pvp. Sad.

Anet most certainly intended those things or at the very least gave those as viable options. If they didn’t want elementalists being viable bunkers they wouldn’t be given very strong defensive traits and utilities. Likewise they programmed in the longbow numbers and gave traps. Thief still has an excellent role as a roamer, decapper, +1, and dueler if specced right but the problem with thief is classes have lots of AoE CC tools that hardcounter it in big group fights whereas other classes can fill in daredevil’s niche. If we’re really going to talk developer intent then rogue classes are traditionally very strong in PvP but weak in PvE where mobs have a different set of advantages and disadvantages compared to players yet that clearly isn’t the case in this meta.

Being good involves the methodical and deliberate application of basic maneuvers and tactics and that applies even in this meta. Your mechanical rotations could consist of X skill, then Y skill, then switch legends or attunements, and generally reading the battle. Classes should also be balanced for skill, so we can see a bad rogue loses to a bad druid but a great druid loses to a great rogue kind of a deal. We also need play on top of counter play. Top players are top because they’ve mastered things lower ranked players didn’t. A ruby for example knows the same stuff as other rubies (well, should, league abuse says it isn’t always the case), how and when to rotate and what to expect from what classes, but the top players have some extra skills that are lacking in other levels. Tighter interrupt timings for sure, but there’s something deeper there as well.

You could jump to the other two points easier from mid so it has good lines of communication and in Foefire’s case you aren’t forced to give free progress by getting out of an AoE.

I remember when people talked about how hard some dungeons were. I actually felt accomplished when my team and I beat the three knights just before the boss in Twilight Arbor since that part really got to people. I’d get in some good dodges and really mind my mechanical rotations (I did that dungeon on thief.)

From my experience what would help is:

1.Reworking most of the passives. The upkeep is simply crazy and boonstripping seems futile at times.

2.Introduce more soft rock-paper-scissors approaches, so anyone could beat anyone but a soft counter still has an edge over what it counters. Perhaps too general to be a useful suggestion but could be a goal.

3.Rework defense and offense across the board.

4.Utility needs to be looked at. Most elite specs were balanced around raids. Players are not elite mobs who can shrug off a long stunlock like it isn’t a thing and the game expecting you to or bosses with breakbars and don’t have the one shot mechanics of bosses. Thus the need for separate balancing between PvP and PvE is obvious. Balanced for fighting a million HP boss and two hundred thousand HP elite mob that hits hard, used against your 20,000 HP self.

5.Rework acrobatics to make acrobatics to make daredevil a viable point holding bunker. The class (daredevil) is actually strong in 1v1’s but not that good outside that niche role and trickery isn’t optional if you insist on using thief this season.