Guild Wars 2

The sPvP team has done a good job by comparison at staying in reasonable communication with the players. The sigil rework discussions that took place prior to implementation should be held up as the standard from which to work. Its okay to disagree with final product, but it takes this kind of transparency and communication to build trust and acceptance.

If the direction of sPvP is going to be community driven (within the constraints of what the sPvP team is capable of), then more open communication of thoughts and potential projects is needed. This includes what the developers themselves would LIKE to do! Plucking popular ideas from the community without in-depth discussion about actual implementation is a miss:

(1) Automated tournaments seem to have largely turned out fine, especially considering willingness on additional itteration as outlined by Mike O’Brien’s statement and forum discussion.

(2) On the other hand, I’m not sure many players would have supported spending time and effort into developing a 2v2 mode if they knew it could not be supported outside of custom arenas.

As for the players … less hyperbole and cynicsm directed at the players and developers, and more examples with logical support would probably be great. For the most part the community seems to do a good job of pointing out learn to play issues, identifying what is actually overperforming at what levels of play, though it could probably be done and received in a more professional manner.

Though it is nice to have the process clarified, it misses the point by not including a mechanism by which the core of sPvP can be addressed: skills, balance, and build diversity.

Here is a portion of a statement from Reddit user Charrikayu responding to the claim “there’s actual communication [from ANET now]”:

“This is also a big problem with balance patches which are still summarily dropped on the playerbase without public testing, after which the devs retreat into silence even though people usually have issues. Again, most of these changes lack any kind of communication about design goals, long-term ideas, summary of how a class has been faring, general candid development talk about the game. If something isn’t answered in the AMA we’re pretty much left in the dark, albeit with general release schedules known to us. That’s better than pre-HoT but still not ideal. I very much enjoy the communication policy of developers like Riot who freely talk to players on reddit and post weekly “state of the game” and “quick dev thoughts” articles about things they’ve noticed, changes they have in mind, and ideas they’re testing."

The sPvP team cannot touch skills, balance, and build diversity. This is the heart and core of sPvP gameplay. New maps, new rewards, and new ways of competing are great, but that is not what the sPvP play experience is or is about.

In order for this process to work, dialogue and transparency needs to be opened with the skills and balance team with respect to sPvP. This can be done and fascilitated in a number of different ways to make sure it is clear and effective: enlist the help of mods to fascilitate discussion, or sPvP team members; create a mandatory response/discussion format for ease of reading; request build diversity exploration from the players; etc.

In the end, real success cannot be achieved until skills and balance are recognized as the heart of the sPvP experience.

TLDR: What do YOU think we can do as a community of players and developers to better fascilitate communication, transparency, and future development to the betterment of sPvP?

This post is intendend to encourage a constructive, critical, and non-cynical discussion around a segment of Mike O’Brien’s recent post, “A Message from the Game Director”:

“This year we also took a different approach with PvP and WvW releases. In PvE, we make fresh new content with the goal of surprising and delighting you with our work, but in competitive modes, the community owns the game modes and chooses what we work on, and we definitely shouldn’t be surprising you with where we take those game modes. Instead our goal this year was to develop more incrementally, test with the community on the live side, and take feedback every step of the way.”

This statement confirms a few things that are clear in hindsight but may not have been from the beginning of HOT release:
A) The iterative design process for sPvP,
B) the utilization of the playerbase as a testing ground, and
C) the community determined direction of the gamemode.

The veracity of this statement and whether this approach is best for sPvP is fair game for discussion. Regardless, it behooves the community to take this as the future foundation to grow from. Helping this process to function is to our own benefit, and two-way commuication and transparency is paramount to its success.

With this in mind:
(1) what do you think about this statement and process,
(2) what do you think about the direction of sPvP and where it should go, and
(3) how do you think we can best fascilitate open, objective, and critical communication?

It is a PvP community and many types exist: the toxic, the encouraging, and the apathetic. All types have existed since the beginning of the game, so it may be a new experience for you but it is not a new experience for the community. Your experience will differ depending who you happen to encounter and how (or even if) you communicate with them.

How you end up dealing with the salt is a personal journey because it isn’t going to stop and it isn’t going to be punished. Some like it, finding humor or encouragement in it, others take it harshly and struggle to let it go. It used to bother me, but then I realized that being bothered by it only hurts me. I look to see if there is any useful info within the vitriol that is actually worth consideration, like getting called out for making a stupid rotation, but otherwise ignore it.

Responding or trying to reason with them gets you only additional frustration, so I would not recommend it. If you made a legit mistake and you feel like owning up to it, go for it, that has usually been received well or ignored.

Personal attacks aside …

Both sides of the conversation have valid concerns and have the same common goal: improve automated tournaments and promote a healthy sPvP scene. It would help to move the conversation beyond who the tournaments should “cater to”, acknowledge the validity of contrasting concerns, and focus on what would help foster interest in automated tournaments and team formation to promote overall growth.

What is the goal for automated tournaments? That is the baseline question that needs to be answered. To me, it makes sense that automated tournaments are to (1) foster healthy competition and (2) isolate the most successful team(s) for recognition. Certainly, either of these can be argued and are open to discussion. Unfortunately, these two goals can be a bit at odds with one another.

Fostering a growing, healthy scene is at direct odds with pairing low skilled players with high skilled players in their first match. I fully acknowledge that ideally low skilled players that get blown out of the water will only be inspired to try harder. But this isn’t a perfect world. In my personal anecdotal experience, competitive spirit is fostered by difficult tasks that push ones abilities, but is deterred by those tasks outside any reasonable hope of accomplishment. This is because recognizing the areas needed for growth can be identified when the task is hard, but not impossible, but often cannot be identified in blow outs.

On the other hand, such seeding is absolutely critical for any individual tournament to even approach properly awarding the teams by skill. However, currently, teams are not even part of the equation at upper skill levels. If streams are anything to go by, high skilled players appear to pug it themselves, forming teams based on availability rather than investment into an actual team. This might not be the case for monthlies where rewards are higher. Either way, this is decidedly against what I interpreted the intended goals of automated tournaments as the future of competitive sPvP to be. You need players to come together to form teams and strive to achieve higher skill levels together in order to even approach offering competitive play for higher skilled players sufficient enough to promote team formation for them.

One solution is to split focus for daily tournaments and monthlies. Daily tournaments could be seeded randomly, independent of QP, and treat all teams as potentially equal. Match making would be up to luck and allow players of all skill levels to experience different levels of play. Sometimes high skill teams will be knocked out early, and sometimes they won’t. Monthlies would be seeded as they currently are, focusing on recognizing those teams of the highest possible skill.

Another solution, and perhaps a much better one, is to create a “scrim” tournament that provides experience and practice without rewards (beyond normal ranked queing) that focuses solely on promoting an overall healthy sPvP environment. Maybe it could even always be recruiting and initiate once a sufficient number of teams have joined (similar to how tournaments were at GW2 launch). This might be the best of both worlds, where low skilled teams get an environment to grow, promoting long term competition, and all major tournaments (daily and monthly) focus primarily on rewarding skill.

Whenever I take a short or long break and then come back to playing I feel this way, but then after getting demolished an embarrassingly large number of times it finally dawns on me I need to better utilize movement, positioning, and kiting techniques to help pad defenses and cooldowns. It is conquest, and it is easy to get too focused on staying on point for as long as possible, but this is often an unintuitive trap. Keeping this in mind may or may not help you to adapt.

In PvP, Earth Shield is/was also used in Marauder Staff Lightning Rod builds that aimed to use it as additional cc + defense and spike targets down.

From a PvP point of view, I feel like conjured weapons are limited primarily by the general mechanics of conjures. Currently, I find them to be horribly clunky and the 60 sec cooldown feels stifling. The actual weapon skills generated for the most part feel good and can already be fit to some purpose or synergy. This is what I’d like to see:

1) Remove ground targeting and secondary conjured weapon.
2) Reduce cooldown from 60 sec to 30 sec.

I have noticed a number of threads today asking the same or related questions to those found here that have already been answered. It may be helpful to add these questions and answers to those posted in the stickied thread up top.

Ben Phongluangtham.1065:

You’re welcome! We do plan to tweak/expand the tournament system over time, so I certainly appreciate constructive feedback and concerns. We already have a backlog of things we want to do. (I can’t talk about them yet!)

After some initial thinking, here is a concern regarding seeding daily tournaments by QP.

1) The daily tournaments do not have a qualifying requirement, using QP to seed the daily feels like a misapplication of that information.

2) What are the goals of the daily tournament? [A] Find the best team out of those registered for that isolated tournament, [B] reward qualifying points for admission/favorable seeding for the monthly tournament, and © presumedly create an enjoyable experience for the teams involved. Using QP to seed dailies also has the effect of [D] rewarding favorable seeding as the month goes on.

A and D go hand in hand, allowing A to be more true as the month goes on, compounding the ability for higher skill teams to accumulate more QP, or at least increasing the likelihood of high QP teams to accumulate more QP. This is likely to discourage low level teams from participating in daily tournaments due to immediate matching against the best, leaving no reasonable room for growth of ability without outside pursuit of scrimming. This is in conflict with C, more so as the month goes on, discouraging people to play the daily tournament unless they have been grinding QP since the beginning of the month.

The dailies become less about the thrill of competition and more about QP grinding. Using daily achievements to encourage players to participate may help alleviate some of this by always providing new low skilled players for immediate elimination, but I fail to see how that will encourage increased participation or attraction.

Random seeding for dailies removes D and weakens A, but is more likely to attract a wider spread of teams from all calibers. It creates the potential that a high skilled team may be eliminated early from any single daily tournament, but loss of QP should be addressed by increased participation in other dailies. Luck of the draw for dailies seems favorable if it leads to increased participation, enjoyment, and an overall more healthy scene rather than systematic discouragement of fresh meat.

I think the compounding element of QP is elegant, but in the long run may contribute more to killing any potential scene before it even has a chance to take off.

Exciton.8942:

Do you srsly think full bunker works?

All your enemy team needs to counter is necro+support. They beat support+support easily.

For the most part I agree with you. The developers/players have done due diligence and generated a counter and associated strategy. However, I do not fully agree with “easy” because “easy” is representative of an associated individual skill level.

Here is my thought process and source of general, perhaps unfounded, concern. If AT are reasonably successful, there will be teams of all caliber joining to take part in the fun. Like ranked, these teams will stratify based on their overall skill level. Part of this stratification will be build dependent, much like how we see Dragon Hunters mop the floor in lower ranks but less so the higher you go. These builds/strategies will create a blockade, defining the micro-meta for teams at that skill level and lower. At some level there will be a successful bunker strategy where a team focuses solely on support, defense, and decap potential. This will act as a gate keeper and force teams that cannot respond to get better and develop strategies that overcome it. This sort of overall behavior is a good thing and unavoidable. How “easy” it is for these teams to successfully execute the counter depends on their skill level, general balance, and how easy it is for the bunker team to efficiently and effectively compound support, defense, and decap potential.

I would imagine allowing for multiples of the same profession may increase the ease by which teams can compound these factors, wherein the counter may or may not compound so readily. Removing the ability for multiples of the same profession at least removes this part of the equation for the developers to balance.

Playing against this kind of team and strategy is not an enjoyable experience, as we saw in early HOT release, regardless of how successful it is. Because the tournaments appear to be structured such that one loss equals immediate elimination, this sort of behavior may be partially mitigated, but I’m not fully confident in that statement.

Abelisk.4527:

Inb4 3 eles and 2 scrapper comps, simply unbeatable.

This. Bunker Meta. It is reality that there will be teams that run full bunker, or rough equivalents, and it will be to the detriment of those players matched against them. In the long term it hurts the game mode and overall experience. It will not be enjoyable to play against, legitimate though it may be. Preventing class stacking will not prevent some teams from trying this or experiencing success with it, but it would be a good first step or show of faith to try and limit its negative impact on the experience.

Ben Phongluangtham.1065:

Thank you for responding. I have some additional follow up questions.

1) Is there a cap to how many teams may enter a single daily tournament and is there a cap to how many games a player must play for any single one of those?

We’re starting with a cap of 100 teams for now. It’s likely we will be able to raise that number. I’m not quite sure what you’re asking for the second part of your question.

4) Without some kind of cap, it sounds as though QP can be grinded to some degree by those with greater availability, not necessarily indicative of highest skill, pushing out players with less availability but potentially higher skill. Is this intended?

QP can be grinded. It will get you higher seeding, but unless we hit the tournament team cap, you can’t knock someone else out of the tournament.

I apologize for the lack of clarity. The factors of 100 team limit and single elimination address the concern that generated the second part of the first question and so was addressed.

Concerning the fourth question, I was referring to the monthly rather than daily tournaments. I thought the monthly was very limited in team size and could imagine a higher skilled team of players being pushed out of the competition by a team with more time available could lead to some animosity.

Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions, I am very grateful for the level of thought and transparency. That gives me plenty to think about for now.

ArthurDent.9538:

Meta seems to be in a place where stacking any class just results in a sub par comp, so not really worried about it.

I feel this, for the most part, is a pretty accurate assessment, but hasn’t really been put to the test publicly by organised teams. There is a reason class stacking was banned in tournament play and, in the end, I think those same reasons are just as valid here to provide the best, most competitive and enjoyable experience possible to those players participating or viewing via streams or the monthly.

Ben Phongluangtham.1065:

Thank you for responding. I have some additional follow up questions.

1) Is there a cap to how many teams may enter a single daily tournament and is there a cap to how many games a player must play for any single one of those?

2) Do only the winning players receive qualifying points, or do lower places receive them as well in diminished amounts?

3) Because players are awarded qualifying points individually, it sounds as though players may enter individual, different tournaments with a different team. This also suggests monthly teams competing may not be those that were played with over the month, but rather an assembly of the highest QP folks you can find. Is this intended?

4) Without some kind of cap, it sounds as though QP can be grinded to some degree by those with greater availability, not necessarily indicative of highest skill, pushing out players with less availability but potentially higher skill. Is this intended?

There are many more questions related to automated tournaments that have not been addressed. Vague notice of upcoming reward structure is nice for those so motivated, but the recent information releases stop short of providing key information on the underlying mechanisms of the system.

1) What times of day will the daily tournaments play? When will the monthlies play?

2) Do players register as teams or guilds? Are players rewarded qualifying points as a team roster, as a guild, or as individuals?

3) Are players allowed to switch professions before a match? Is there anything in place to prevent multiples of the same profession?

4) After the registration window, how are teams matched? Is it based on registration time, current qualifying points, truly randomised, or what? How are they matched for the monthly?

5) Is there a limit to qualifying points that can be won in a day or week?

6) Is there a free agent mechanism or full 5 member teams only?

Maybe I missed it somewhere, but I haven’t found this sort of information anywhere. I am sure there are many more, non-reward questions others have too.

With the talk of giving an outlet to teams (not just pro or former pro) and players who want to play with their friends, I am surprised to have not seen these questions asked or answered.

Assuming opponent is 1,3,1 (opponent home, mid, far) where Mesmer pushes their far for portal drop, allies go 1,3,1 or 1,4,0 (ally home, mid, far). Mesmer is attempting to create a no-win scenario for home player while outnumbering or matching numbers at mid, likely pushing for a Moa kill and momentum gain. If the Mesmer pushes their home they are denying themselves use of the portal in the short term.

If you cap and then push mid you give the Mesmer the opportunity to quickly decap and return to mid or full cap, in either case your team loses the cap UNLESS you or an ally can return fast enough to deny decap. Additionally, you give them longer mid support time while you cap.

If you give up point to follow Mesmer to mid, pressuring along the way, you may be able to force cooldowns and/or portal, denying them the advantage.

If you follow to mid you’ve matched their numbers or have outnumbered them. If Mesmer now portals to your home they are giving mid advantage to your team, or you can push back home quickly and deny the full cap.

If they are coordinated, the enemy team can port or split and play sides. However, this gives your team mid and acts as a reset, allowing your team to choose the more favorable fights against the split opposing team.

It is certainly a mind game, and I think the general rule of thumb (but not necessarily perfect in all scenarios considering compositions, splits, and matchups) is to refuse to play and deny the advantage by focusing the other two points (hopefully quickly and decisively) and/or pressuring/harassing/focusing the Mesmer to force cooldowns/portal.

In team fights my understanding is that Mesmer’s primary goal is generally, but not always, to provide Moa kills to push momentum. If you can effectively deny that by harassing/forcing cooldowns on the Mesmer, and/or supporting the Moa and denying the kill, you’ve largely denyed the Mesmer their utility (map presence and Moa kills) for the interim.

Don’t be silly! The solution you are looking for is match making that does not allow for profession stacking, likely combined with a system that prevents profession swapping simultaneously. Forcing a player into a play experience against their will is only going to result in trolling and idling around the map in protest.

In the meantime, considering your willingness to change to team comp by profession and/or build, aim to support the two thieves as best you can just as much as you’d aim to support any comp as best as possible. A good bet is probably something with great self sustain, decent damage, and plenty of cc so you can survive while the two thieves rotate to burst. Another option may be to suggest at least one thief goes staff to provide a more diverse role set to the team assuming the first is a standard dagger pistol setup.

Low population for various reasons. If you enjoy the combat and want to stick around, I would change my perspective. Don’t play to win your games and try to climb rating. Instead, play in such a way as to (1) focus on improving regardless of teammate ability (think of it more like a puzzle to be solved), (2) try to find a way to play around teammate behavior even if it is otherwise incorrect, and (3) most importantly use the matches as a vessel to relax and have fun. From what I can tell, this season is not likely to be one that fosters competitive matches. If this is a deal breaker for you, then move on and keep an eye on the game from time to time to see if the situation improves. It isn’t a knock to you or the game, it is just a statement of where the game is at the moment.

There is still limitation there: precision, expertise, and concentration being mutually restrictive without historical justification for example. As cool as an kitten nal selection UI would be, freeform selection might have a better chance of reaching the end goal because rules would need to be added to place restrictions rather than fear missing possible stat combinations and waiting for later addition. A small icon that opens the wiki for rules explanation could be included for clarity.

jacim.5904:

Please just give us a 3 or 4 stat amulet where we are able to choose the major and minor stats.
Allow us to play the way we want.
Not only that but it would stop certain classes from being benefited by the available amulets while others might not have that privilege.

Custom amulet creation via stat selection has been requested a lot, but I agree that it would be a nice step forward that makes the player feel more in control and not as limited by the request, test, implement turn around time.

I understand that certain stat combinations are problematic, and will always likely be problematic because of the nature of the game and players. Perhaps this could be accounted for via built in rules rather than amulet availability limitations.

Offensive stats: Power, Precision, Ferocity, Condition Damage, Condition Duration
Defensive stats: Vitality, Toughness, Healing Power, Boon Duration

Initial Rule Set for stat selection (assuming 4 stat selection model for streamlining; if other combinations were available associated rules could be generated):

1) offensive stats may be chosen in any combination without limitation

2) only two defensive stats may be chosen in total, only one of which may be a major stat

3) if Toughness is chosen as a major stat, Healing Power may not be chosen

4) if Condition Damage is chosen as a major stat, the other major stat must be an offensive stat and may not be defensive

In the future, if any other problematic combination were to arise they could be dealt with by additional rules.

Edit: may require an additional rule to prevent Mercenary combination seen previously: if Condition Damage is selected as a major stat, Toughness may only be chosen if it is the only defensive stat

PaladinVII.1647:

My suggestions:

1. If these changes are going to affect the other gametypes (WvW, PvE, Raid) as I suspect they are, this post should be moved from the sPvP forum to the general forum for general public review and commentary. A post of this importance does not belong in a focused forum.

2. Post a preview of changes before releasing them. Allow time for the community to digest the preview and respond. Then make any changes based on community feedback, and then release your changes. We have a very vague and limited idea what your goals are, from what you have said; as such, the feedback we can provide without a full preview is limited.

3. Make any changes to sigils split from other gametypes for a period of time. Have the changes restricted to sPvP (where it is free to change equipment) before introducing it into the live world where people will have to make potentially costly changes to their characters.

They have only stated an interest in changing sigils for this gamemode specifically to address the goals stated in the OP. Until stated otherwise, there seems little to suggest any changes would apply across the game types especially considering the disparate balance needs/goals.

Even with a full preview our feedback would be extremely limited considering (1) the inability to experiment in-game, (2) the community’s aversion to any kind of change, and (3) the diversity of opinion on how the game should play. We need look no further than this thread for examples. Opportunity for feedback is certainly ideal, but some degree of trust in developer vision and responsive iterative adjustments will be necessary for any kind of major change like this.

Exedore.6320:

Still, it could be argued that sigils shouldn’t give new effects to a build.

This is something certainly worth discussing. Should sigils give new effects to a build that otherwise does not incorporate them or just increase the effectiveness of those effects it already incorporates? Where is the line drawn for classifying an effect “new”?

Adding new effects to a build via sigils feels fun for the user, but focusing on increasing effectiveness instead should make effective PvP balancing easier by removing the additional things a build can be made to do.

Reducing RNG gameplay and increasing counterplay in a competitive game mode sounds like a pretty solid high level design goal. If any sigils are holding up certain builds then perhaps those sigils are only bandaids and the builds require (1) more tuning and consideration on the part of the developers or (2) the build is not intended by developers to work in the fashion it is trying to be used.

Solid, clearly stated design goals that are shared with the community feels like a great way to move forward. Clearing the field of bandaid sigils, especially in the name of improving gameplay, should lead to improved balancing for over performing and under performing builds in the long run.

Edit: The added damage from fire and air feels nice, as does landing a hydromancy and leech or a geomancy and doom, but feeling nice and good for the game are two very different things. It is important to take a step back and look at the over all picture and try to judge by what you think is meaningful choice and good design principle.

An important distinction to make regarding the stated high level goals would be clarifying the replacement for RNG gameplay. Do you mean “X% chance on-hit(crit) apply Y effect (Z cooldown)” becomes:

1) Like RisingDusk suggests, “Apply X effect on hit (Y cooldown)”

or

2) “On weapon swap, your next X hit(s) apply Y effect”

(1) will always feel a bit RNG to opponents regardless if there is a buff notifier. (2) has more counter play (particularly if “next X hit(s)” is replaced by “next X attack(s)” and can be avoided). (2) would be a pretty large shift from current sigil use and would feel less rewarding given their current use, but also may feel more meaningful.

A high level goal of increasing counter play would probably also encourage trading unique buff/effects for boons/conditions wherever possible. For example, trading Intelligence for “Gain fury on weapon swap” or even “Gain fury on your next hit/attack after swapping to this weapon”. Another example would be replacing “heal” with “gain regeneration”.

So, in general, a little more clarity on the stated high level goals might be useful in eliciting better feedback (or crazy witchhunts judging by usual community response to change).

I think I get where you are coming from and trying to go with it, and I fully appreciate a disconnect in what we might each think an elite spec should bring to ele. That said, I still don’t see it. If you were to get rid of the every four attacks I would be more on board because otherwise I don’t think it forces the interesting choices you suggest and if it is powerful enough to have you stick around in an attunement it probably shouldn’t be passive or on skill proc. No sweat though, just an opinion.

They get a lot of heat from the removal of specific amulets since HOT release. However, when faced with the choice between defense by amulets or defense by skills (because together they were too effective), I would choose defense by skills every time.

I love the concept, but I do not like the execution.

Ammo is a great concept sort of touched on, but might be better expressed using the venom mechanic from thief and simultaneously provide a new set of utilities.

The Reload mechanic expressed sounds too passive and lacking player input. I’m not sure about a replacement for the mechanic you suggest, but spellslinger isn’t hurting for inspiration. If you are going for a cowboy kind of feel, creating the opportunity for moments of bravado or recovery might work well while staying true to the core of your idea. (1) Critical hits build resource (promotes damage oriented builds), (2) use F5 to spend resource, (3) how you spend resource changes based on attunement: Fire-deal damage and/or increase damage output (burst opportunity), Water-heal and/or cleanse conditions (recovery opportunity), Air-gain superspeed and/or cc and/or blind (kite and/or rotation opportunity), Earth-gain invulnerability or a blocking shield of sorts (defense opportunity). The mechanic is selfish, situationally useful, creates an opportunity for player choice, and its flexibility allows room for optimal use that rewards skill.

Considering baseline elementalist and tempest both cover support roles, the weapon skills and traits may be better suited with a damage focus rather than a jack-of-all-trades. Elementalist already provides plenty of damage in PvE I hear, specializing in AOE, so a single target focus might be key. Scepter already sort of fills this niche, so making it different enough would be important so as not to just create scepter 2.0. I like the idea of a flexible mid range weapon like you suggest, so focusing on a skill set that supports moving in and out of melee and 900 range could be cool, like a combination of scepter and dagger skill mechanics. Thief pistol sets could provide plenty of inspiration (dagger/pistol and pistol/dagger).

Making the weapon functional for condition and/or power might be possible depending on weapon, trait, and utility selection, design, and availability.

There may be room within boon and condition duration stats and effects to include additional builds or variations of current builds that focus more heavily on boon/condition manipulation and control.

Request: Concentration amulets that trade burst for defense
Explanation: Additional Concentration amulets or the existing set (Diviner’s and Seeker’s) reworked to trade burst for defense: Ferocity for Vitality, Toughness, or Healing Power.
Con: Certainly the last thing the majority of the player base desires is a return to the bunker meta of early HOT release. Careful consideration of the combination of vitality, toughness, healing power, and concentration required.
Pro: The existing set of concentration amulets are too glassy to see use. Potential builds are likely to see a heavier reliance on boons and open up greater emphasis on boon removal and corruption counter play.

Request: Expertise amulets with power damage
Explanation: Power variations of Expertise amulets (Deadshot and Wanderer) that trade Condition Damage for Power. These builds would effectively trade burst damage available in other power damage amulets for improved duration of conditions, of which non-damaging conditions would be the focus.
Con: Power damage builds that focus on control in place of burst may slow down (or speed up) gameplay depending on use.
Pro: Allow potential builds to focus more on a control functionality via emphasis on soft cc and offensive utility conditions.

Request: Concentration and expertise amulets
Explanation: Non-traditional “support” amulets that provide both Concentration and Expertise. One or more additional stats would need to provide a form of defense (Vitality, Toughness, and/or Healing Power) so that the amulet is not too glassy for functional use.
Con: Damage would be low to non-existent and push potential builds to support and/or control functionalities. May slow down (or speed up) game play depending on use. Careful choice of secondary stats (Vitality/Toughness/Healing Power with Precision) could help control gameplay impact and profession availability.
Pro: As with other concentration amulets, heavier reliance on boons may open up greater emphasis on boon removal and corruption counter play. May create interesting “support” roles/builds that do not focus on healing.

Request: More rune set equivalents of those already in game that manipulate condition and boon durations
Examples:

• Anti-Rune of Leadership: +36 All Stats, +30% Condition Duration, elite skills corrupt two boons on nearby enemies.
• Anti-Rune of Nightmare (Rune of Larceny?): +175 Power or Precision, +15% Boon Duration, elite skills blind and steal boons from nearby enemies.
• Rune of “Balance”: +36 All Stats, +20% boon duration and condition duration

Explanation: More diverse selection for similar reasons to those given for other suggestions above.

One mechanism of balance PvP devs possess is the availability and introduction of amulets, runes, and sigils. This tool can be more “readily” used due to the isolation of their availability in PvP without impacting other aspects of the game. As seen in various threads, many players desire increased build diversity and a more dynamic meta. Though this tool may not single handedly create a more enjoyable experience, cautious and considered use may help move us towards such a goal. To this end, please suggest new or reworked amulets, runes, and sigils you would like to see available.

For the sake of consistency it may be useful to keep amulet suggestions to 3 or 4 stats. Runes and sigils might be newly conceived or from elsewhere in the game.

To ensure the integrity of the discussion, please include a brief consideration of the pros and cons of your suggested additions or alterations.

Wider discussion centered around these aspects is certainly also welcome, including their impact on roles and professions.

Though not called out in the patch notes anywhere I could find, Phantasmal Duelist is now a 0.5 sec cast time in addition to the attack.

I was thinking a little more about this, and I know it has been suggested elsewhere in the past, but “what if” the elite slot was elite optional and allowed for utilities OR elites to be selected across the game for all professions? Just a fun thought.

I totally understand where you are coming from how this could be a branching point for a lot of possible, additional tools to be used. Unfortunately, this is a problem I am having with the discussions going on all over. Until they clarify a vision of these possible, additional tools they may seek to implement, we are just talking in circles and it behooves us to look at what is right in front of us presently than what may or may not happen. Guessing at intention isn’t going to get anyone anywhere. They need to clarify intended vision and, if requesting feedback, allow that to be debated in its entirety rather than having the player population grasping at straws.

Personally, I have to disagree about the mender’s amulet example. I wouldn’t be able to predict who wins without knowing professions and builds. Some professions do not require mender’s or assistance from a mender’s support for adequate survival, others do. Some mender’s builds hit like a wet noodle, others do not. Factor in speed of rotation, ability to focus burst with others, etc.

I think this misses the point. The poll was about whether or not to lock profession on queue. Yes would enable them to use profession specific mmr for the matchmaking. The poll was not about creating a balanced team composition or about profession stacking.

However, if we consider profession stacking, disabling profession stacking is likely not about eliminating stacking of the same profession in the same role as much about eliminating stacking of a singular profession’s mechanics that may not scale linearly when there are multiple. In your example consider Team A with the 5 druids. Regardless of the amulets used, if each Druid was running Ancient Seeds many players would be frustrated playing against the team regardless of whether they end up winning or losing. This may not be the best example in comparison to the often cited Dragon Hunter traps, but hopefully you understand the sentiment.

I’m genuinely having difficulty understanding the niche or non-meta build arguments. You made it to that MMR on that niche/non-meta profession build and deserve to be there as much as the player that made it to that MMR on their meta profession build. You found a way to make it work regardless of what other players on your team are playing. People can be upset you are not running the meta build, but you made it to that MMR just like them. Balance between non-meta and meta builds is a separate issue.

OriOri.8724:

Class swapping will be locked regardless of which result wins. Its only a matter of whether its locked as soon as you accept the queue or when the final 10 sec CD before the game starts happens. Either way will still allow for class specific MMRs so I don’t know what you are going on about.

No, I don’t think it would. To use profession specific MMR would require using it to form the match, when you enter queue. The match created would use that profession specific MMR, but then would allow you to swap professions before the match started. It could swap to record the win/loss based on the profession you swapped to, but that would still undermine the formation of the match.

I am also obsessed with a musically themed elite specialization and am completely inspired by the ideas you’ve shared. I’d be down with the elite specialization having support and boon options, but I’d really love it if it had sufficient build diversity for damage, control, and utility options as well.

I was so inspired by your ideas in fact that I spent the afternoon fleshing them out into a rough sketch of how I would go about doing it. There is some fun stuff there I hope you like.

Elite Specialization: Minstrel (apparently Bard can have a more “warrior-ish” association than the more delicate, artistic type I was interested in)

Yes, the idea was to fundamentally restrict the way in which Portal is currently used, not to make it better at what it already does.

The skill suggestion aside, the primary commentary was as follows: (1) Portal is so strong it is mandatory, (2) taking Portal limits builds to two utility slots, (3) having a third utility option may be sufficient to open build diversity, (4) if build diversity is desired, Portal would need to be made not-mandatory.

I think Silverkey’s suggestion is simpler to implement and more elegant. I would still worry that the issue would be moved to elites now, making Portal push out other elite options. If Portal were to swap places with an elite, it would have to be done carefully lest that third utility slot still be made mandatory, now by the swapped elite.

For what it is worth I agree that changes could be made to various skills and traits to increase build diversity, but I believe the primary culprit is the forced utility selection of portal because of its strength. So long as portal remains as is, Mesmers will be forced into its selection because no other skill can compete. This restricts alternate utility skill use, alternate synergies, and alternate playstyles.

With this in mind, the first change I would want to see to encourage build diversity would be to alter Portal. I have one idea that follows, but please do not think I am under any illusion that it is the best alternative, would actually be implemented, or may even be the best solution overall considering the current implementation of Portal has become such an ingrained part of GW2 Mesmer identity and I am not a professional developer.

Portal Entre: (60 sec cooldown) Create an entrance portal at your location that you and allies may later return to. (Creating a new portal entrance while you have an active portal destroys the active portal.)
>Range Threshold: 1200
>Duration: 60 seconds

Sequence Skill= Portal Exuent: Break stun, create an exit portal at your location, and immediately return to your portal entrance. You and allies may teleport between portal locations for the duration.
>Range Threshold: 1200
>Duration: 5 sec
>Breaks Stun

Alternate Sequence Skill (Changes at >1200 range)= Weaver’s Recall: Break stun and teleport towards your portal entrance, destroying it in the process and setting the skill on recharge.
>Range Threshold: >1200
>Travel Distance: 1200
>Breaks Stun

This would limit the focus of Portal to a personal and team recovery tool while maintaining localized mobility usage. Lowered cooldown to remove downtime when Portal Exuent or Weaver’s Recall is not used. Added a stun break to contribute to the new in-combat recovery focus of the skill. Removed action delay to allow for immediate relocation to be consistent with similar stun breaks and new skill focus. Added Weaver’s Recall for limited personal use outside of the localized range and to allow for consistent behavior with similar skills (Flesh Worm, Shadow Step).

I think this would retain the essence of Portal’s concept and use for support mobility, but on a considerably more limited scale that eliminates its use for map dominance. The skill would remain arguably strong, and may even stay best in slot, but its more limited scope would increase alternate utility skill use. Alternate utility skill use would allow for different synergies and increase potential build diversity.

Arcanist Traits

Arcanist Weapon Skills

Please find below an elite spec concept and associated conceptual thinking for your perusal, consideration, and criticism. Some ideas were taken elsewhere as inspiration, others were more original, and all tried to build from Elementalist themes. Text has been parsed into spoiler bits to try and make them more accessible and contained.

New Field: Magnetic field – Projectile-Bleed, Whirl-Bleed, Blast-Aegis, Leap-Magnetic Aura

Conceptual Preamble

I, too, have seen this happen during stuns (specifically Static Field and Mantra of Distraction) and when a player is downed. However, I have been able to AOE cleave downed bodies at their original location even though I visually am watching them meander away.

First of all, I personally think this thread has inadvertently hit the nail on its head and simultaneously run its course by identifying a much larger concept: required investment. I propose a new thread be started with this concept in mind that clearly identifies the concept in the title and as the primary topic in the initial post, complete with spelling out a working definition to promote further discussion.

Second of all, I would like to rant a little about this topic and how I see it fitting into the overall scheme of sPvP, albeit a bit vaguely. Feel free to peruse, but I will otherwise save you the screen space.

Death Knight

“Unliving, Undying, Eternal.”

Calling upon spirits to aid them in battle, Death Knights wield shields to protect themselves with razor shards of bones and unleash angry spectres upon any foe that would desecrate the graves of their fallen comrades. With the help of their ghostly allies and necromantic magic, Death Knights support allies while chanting sacred Mantras, reaffirming the vows that bind them to their sacred cause.

Find an empty server and duel your friends. Use meta builds, builds you’ve encountered, and things you’ve thought up. This gives you a chance to learn skill animations with less clutter.

Practice combos and rotations. Watch other players to learn combinations and rotations. Practice these with what you found to be effective in your duels. Use target dummies, use duels, use PvE, just keep practicing.

Play with an aim to learn. Don’t worry about winning or losing, worry about learning. Pay attention to what works, what doesn’t work, and try to figure out who killed you, how they killed you, and what you might have been able to do to avoid it. You may not always get all this information in, but even one thing that you can recognize is helpful in the future. You don’t have to figure it out all at once, just piece by piece.

When you are dueling and playing, go in with a plan of approach in mind and put it to the test. This allows you to structure your learning.

Experiment. Try different professions, different meta builds, different builds you think up, different in-game tactics, etc. Then, just like with dueling and practicing, spend time thinking about what worked, what did not work, and why that was the case. Wide exposure doesn’t mean you have to multi-class, it just means you are aware of what other professions do, how they play, what to expect from them, skill animations, etc.

Recognize when you are panicking and try to calm yourself. Having a plan of approach in mind, and aiming to execute that plan to the best of your ability, should help with this.

Give yourself permission to fail. Every failure is an opportunity to get better. Don’t queue right away after a game, spend a few moments thinking about it and what you learned from it. Discuss it with your friends you’ve queued with. If you get too frustrated give yourself a break, walk away, and come back later when you are more calm, more collected, and ready to start learning again.

I have very little experience with GW1, and I never played its PvP. I’ve read a bit about it and watched a few videos. Maybe you can talk more about that so we have a better understanding of what it is you feel you are missing.

I really like where this idea is going, converting Corruptions to be non-channeled, pulse oriented for positive and negative effects in a sort of upkeep fashion. What if you sped up the effects and built in some risk and reward via sequence skills that transferred the built up condition to really make a player’s heart race. Give the sequence skill a cast time for counter play.

Numbers could be tuned as needed. This would make Corruptions self contained, allowing other weapons and traits to enhance the skills without requiring a specific setup. In a similar vein allies healing you would not be a negative event, but instead be positive by allowing you to maintain these pulsing effects longer.

The cast time makes it a balancing act and drives home the risk/reward factor as you can be cc chained into condition bombing yourself, miss due to random dodges or blinds, etc.

Make Corruptor’s Fervor also apply on self inflicted conditions to help make it more viable for condition builds.

I don’t think this was suggested yet, but … what if Null Field (or all Glamours via Temporal Enchanter) applied a non-condition based debuff to enemies that was an inverse of Resistance? “Illusion of Weakness (3 sec): Boons currently on you are ineffective.”