Guild Wars 2

I really hope they don’t plan on releasing one a year after HoT as HoT already messed up enough as it is. The fact they’re even working on one makes me afraid that it’s going to be as much of a headache as HoT has been.

I remember a time when they said they’d never release an xpac as they didn’t believe in making people pay for them. I really wish they’d had stuck to that.

I swear I saw those in game once upon a beta ago.

Roxanne.6140:

Anomaly.7612:

Sarrs.4831:

Anomaly.7612:

They also pretty much told us that we won’t be seeing separate balance between WvW, PvP, and PvE because it’s just “too hard right now.”

It’s not hard at all. It just takes too long.

Do you really want balance changes and new content to take even longer to come out?

Yes. Here’s why:

Ok, great. We get new content. That’s awesome, I’d love for more things to do. After we wear the content out in a week, what’s left? For me, I PvP/WvW most of the time. Because of that, I first hand see how balance is out of whack right now. Balancing the game is the foundation. We play the classes to then play the content, so if the classes are imbalanced, the content will be less fun (for those with classes that aren’t performing as high as others).

Example: I started the HoT maps on my Thief. I died instantly numerous times to all the AoE/Pocket raptors/etc that’s littered around like glitter at a rave. I got mad and logged onto my Necro (which I don’t like playing), went into HoT, face rolled everything with ease. I understand that Thief is hard to play and it takes time to learn to play it at a level in which you don’t die to fluff as much as a Necro, which is why I’ve been playing since vanilla beta, but the QoL shouldn’t be that low in contrast in my opinion. Now, I can go on to talk about ranked PvP, but that’s a big wormhole. TL;DR, Thief isn’t viable in the current meta. The imbalance is there, and I like playing my Thief, but when I’m shown constantly that the game just doesn’t want me playing my Thief, and to play Rev/Engi/Necro/Ele/Guard instead, I’m not given much motivation to even try the content out.

That is why I personally would rather have balance over content. I can wait. That would just make the content more polished and give players more time to play in the (hopefully soon) WvW beta maps to give more feedback. We’ve already been waiting for a long time, if they can take a couple months to create separate balance throughout WvW/PvP/PvE, I’d never leave this game. It really shouldn’t be that difficult, but it seems that Anet has a hard time developing anything in an efficient and timely manner, given the good volume of workers they supposedly have.

Well what build are you using on your thief in HoT, there is a particular build that makes daredevil really tanky without loss to dps. Or not that much loss. Maybe you should go find more or read more guides. I just found that build to have a clunky playstyle so I don’t play it much

I’m running meta D/P, and that’s probably my issue. I’m very open to try new builds. I’d just have to install the game again, first. xD

But seriously, I’d love a new build with a guide. SOMETHING to make Thief more viable in this AoE/Condi spam meta. I love this game. It has PvP like none other and I’m clinging to unraveling strings here.

Feel free to PM me builds/ideas.

Putting everything at an equal state is best. OR you can just be like Valve and make everything so OP that everything is….In an awkward way….Balanced. It doesn’t feel great to be blown up in 0.05 seconds, but it sure feels great to be on the wielding side of that giant flaming sword of insta-death.

If we look at the most underperforming classes, from bottom up:
1. Warrior
2. Thief
3. Mesmer

We see that warrior is at the bottom. So to reset all this power creep, we can balance everything around them and the other two classes. If you don’t agree with my class choices, that’s fine, it’s merely an example. From there, we can buff or nerf things as necessary to bring this game back to a good medium.

I remember a time when they said they wouldn’t be buffing ANYTHING. There was a long lull when no matter what the community said, they just wouldn’t give out buffs. Well that was like, 3.5 years ago. We’re here now, and need to go back to that strategy, as it was working for a long time.

I also remember a time when they said they’d never release an expansion, but hey, we can’t live in the past I guess.

Sarrs.4831:

Anomaly.7612:

They also pretty much told us that we won’t be seeing separate balance between WvW, PvP, and PvE because it’s just “too hard right now.”

It’s not hard at all. It just takes too long.

Do you really want balance changes and new content to take even longer to come out?

Yes. Here’s why:

Ok, great. We get new content. That’s awesome, I’d love for more things to do. After we wear the content out in a week, what’s left? For me, I PvP/WvW most of the time. Because of that, I first hand see how balance is out of whack right now. Balancing the game is the foundation. We play the classes to then play the content, so if the classes are imbalanced, the content will be less fun (for those with classes that aren’t performing as high as others).

Example: I started the HoT maps on my Thief. I died instantly numerous times to all the AoE/Pocket raptors/etc that’s littered around like glitter at a rave. I got mad and logged onto my Necro (which I don’t like playing), went into HoT, face rolled everything with ease. I understand that Thief is hard to play and it takes time to learn to play it at a level in which you don’t die to fluff as much as a Necro, which is why I’ve been playing since vanilla beta, but the QoL shouldn’t be that low in contrast in my opinion. Now, I can go on to talk about ranked PvP, but that’s a big wormhole. TL;DR, Thief isn’t viable in the current meta. The imbalance is there, and I like playing my Thief, but when I’m shown constantly that the game just doesn’t want me playing my Thief, and to play Rev/Engi/Necro/Ele/Guard instead, I’m not given much motivation to even try the content out.

That is why I personally would rather have balance over content. I can wait. That would just make the content more polished and give players more time to play in the (hopefully soon) WvW beta maps to give more feedback. We’ve already been waiting for a long time, if they can take a couple months to create separate balance throughout WvW/PvP/PvE, I’d never leave this game. It really shouldn’t be that difficult, but it seems that Anet has a hard time developing anything in an efficient and timely manner, given the good volume of workers they supposedly have.

UnderworldSkull.1863:

It’s been 2 years since I last played Guild Wars 2 and I remember next to nothing on how to play and have no clue where to start. On top of that, so many things have changed, it feels like a completely new game to me now. I have a level 50 guardian but have no clue how to jump back into the game. I’m thinking of just starting a new character and playing slowly from the beginning again. Then when I understand things again, I’ll go back to my guardian. Does that sound like a good plan?

Any recommendations?

Come back in April when they actually start fixing things. Otherwise, you might be highly disappointed and just quit again. I know I am. 0/

JustTrogdor.7892:

They might do some house cleaning of staff first (not saying that is what happened to Colin) in hope of some change in performance but I’ve seen that fail many times as well. In many cases as far is investing that is a huge red flag.

What you should be hoping for instead is some acknowledgment from Anet that they are working to improve the current product as well as expand into future products. Wait.. Mike O’Brien pretty much said that during the AMA on reddit.

Honestly, I really think Colin leaving was just Amazon promising him more money to be on their team, as they’re extremely rich. Also, of course Mo would say that, isn’t he expected to? He wouldn’t say, “Oh, and we’re not working on the game anymore. #sorrynotsorry.” That just wouldn’t make sense.

But I agree, I don’t foresee investors putting a lot of money into the game because it’s not producing a lot more than what’s going into it. The game is literally hemorrhaging veteran players, while not creating vets out of these new players as their lag in content production is massive. When the rose colored goggles fall off of these new players eyes, they’ll be more apt to just jump ship like Colin did and move onto LoL or something else that holds people’s interest longer than a month at a time.

I’ve loved this game since beta, but I just recently uninstalled it because of so many issues. I’m hopeful that things maybe, hopefully, could be, might, changed for the better, but knowing this company’s (ncsoft) track record with games cough Aion/W*/CoH cough I’m not really hopeful. They have a history of dropping games completely and moving on. They don’t care about games as much as the players.

Just as you said, in the biz world, if a product stops bringing revenue, just move on and make a new shiny for people to get hyped about.

They also pretty much told us that we won’t be seeing separate balance between WvW, PvP, and PvE because it’s just “too hard right now.”

I really don’t understand how that can be too difficult. It’s something that should have been there from the beginning. Because of it, we’ll always see balance issues in some game mode. The mode they’re focusing more on will be balanced, and the rest will have to just deal with it. I left WoW for that reason, but WoW is smart enough to make that needed change finally.

Get with the times. This game isn’t THAT old, but it sure feels like it.

I can’t say that I’m at all surprised at the number of people apathetic about this kind of behavior. I think we all understand that this is a joke post, but jokes aside, this kind of behavior really harms a game’s community.

(New player wants to play warrior/thief/mesmer):
“Oh, this is so much fun! I always like peeveepee in other games, might as well try it out here!”
(Enter match)
“Boooo, what a kittening scrub! Piece of kitten, play a different toon!”
(Leaves match)
“Well I guess I’m not going to do peevekitten anymore. Byez! 0/”

This situation happens on a regular basis with games that put up with this behavior. Granted, this has happened due to the major imbalance issues seen in PvP, but the fact remains that people are still acting out in this manner. A lot of people I know don’t play LoL due to the terribad community, myself included, even having been players since the beta.

The way a community treats each other can have pretty big detrimental effects on their reputation, and will negatively contribute to the community’s existence.

But I’m prepared for the flames my post will inevitably receive. I’m wearing my flame kittenant gear, so bring it on.

Yes, I’d love the old maps back. These are too big and don’t allow for more PvP to happen due to the size alone.

Ario.8964:

Plus with the right combo you can still have a really heavy burst in only a little more time than d/p would be bursting so the choice really comes down to preference)

What’s the good burst rotation for S/D? It’s been forever since I’ve played it.

Thank you all so much for the ideas. I’ll use some of these and hope to get some good results after learning how to fight better against that cancer. 0/

Here’s to hoping the next balance patch will nerf condi to be a little more in line with power.

Loboling.5293:

I responded in the META thread in the pvp section, but I can hold points. 1v1 I can beat necros easy without losing the point, only rev and dh can force me off the point and get the cap, but if I have enough time I can wear them down. (not usually what I do though) Druid, scrapper, can often decap a point from me, but I can do the same for them, the pressure thieves put out is too much to sustain without leaving the point with the lack of tanky amulets. I’m sure there may be some druid cleric builds that could hold a point, but I don’t ever see that. I find both scrapper and druid can be pressured off the point. (helps that engineer is my second most played profession, after ele and before thief) Druid just has no pressure that isn’t easy to avoid.

I’m really curious as well and would love to try your build out!

So in WvW, I’ve been noticing that everyone and their mother runs condi now. I just hate it. I feel so helpless against condi guards/wars/mesmers/necros.

What can I do to counter this? I’m already in Valk/Zerk gear with pack runes. SA/Trick/DD and yes I trait for condi cleanse, but it’s just not enough it seems.

Condi just needs a flat nerf. It’s killing this game for me.

SPvP might be one thing, but in WvW, I hate playing Thief. Everyone plays condi and it just tears us apart. I have no idea how to counter some of that at all. If anyone has suggestions, I’m all ears, because this meta makes me want to quit the game.

He also needs a defiance bar.

I just don’t understand why slick shoes isn’t effected by stability. On my Rev, I can dodge, get stab, but still get knocked down from slick shoes, and yes, I was watching my stacks. They were still on me as I was kitten first on the ground.

I’ve been having a fun time playing P/P cheeseball in PvP lately. I don’t get hit with as much kitten flying around a teamfight. which is nice, and the burst is so good with bound and steal.

DrMatt.9408:

As stated in the title, alacrity received a needed nerf from 66% to 33% reduced recharge on skills. However, this is now inconsistent with Chill, which still increases recharge on skills by 66%. To make matters worse, Chill also reduces movement speed by 66%. Then we have the Reaper, who can not only endlessly spam it, but can take a GM trait allowing it to inflict significant sustained condi damage in addition to all its other effects!

People have been asking for a nerf to Reaper chill, well seems to me that giving it the same treatment as alacrity would be the obvious choice, rather than nerfing the condi damage or screwing up the trait line.

I support this. Chill is just ridiculous right now.

I’m looking for some help with learning Revenant in PvP. I’ve played Thief extensively since beta as well as Ele, and Rev seems just as complex as Ele but with a Thief-like feel to it for me.

Can someone who’s experienced in PvP with a power Rev whisper me to help me out with the learning process?

Thanks in advance!

I really like the 15 ini baseline idea. That’s really cool. Also the blinding powder being F2 seems really neat. I’d like even more that if, depending on your specs, you get a different F2 skill. Better yet, let’s have three of them like a guardian, all depending on what specs you use.

Trickery – Steal
Shadow Arts – Blinding Powder
Dare Devil – ???? (something evade related)?
Acro – ???? (something to help sustain)?
Deadly Arts – Some kind of knife to throw would be neat.

Just throwing ideas out there. Feel free to recommend different options. I’m curious to hear what others think.

If you don’t want to play Scrapper, would a Rev be a viable option?

Thanks for all the great answers! My road to learning Rev is definitely harder than when learning other classes. At first glance, Rev seemed easy to me, but I can now see that it’s so much more involved than I believed!

thebatman.6250:

It sounds like you’re not pressuring hard enough during team fights. I average out 6-700k per match. my lowest is usually around 400k and my being 1.2mil(full 15 minute game.) My current setup is Marauder + Scrapper runes. Fire/Air on Sw/Sh and Leeching/hydro on Staff.

Hmm, that definitely seems to be the case then. What rotation do you use when putting down some heavy pressure or damage? Are you running Ret, or Invo?

zaced.7948:

gw2 just isn’t for soloquers. get a full team or gtfo.
in a system where one single bad player can mess up the whole match you’re just not supposed to play with rng strangers.
soloq only works in games where you have roles like a carry that can compensate the mistakes of others.
you’re playing a game 99% based on team coordination without a team. isn’t the result kinda obvious?

i do have sympathy with the one or other person frustrated by this, tho. i have had enough matches with people that seemed like they play pvp for the first time in their life even in ruby. it stops in diamond, tho. take this with a grain of salt, i did this on a smurf since my main acc mmr has flattened out over so many years/matches.

the best advice i can give:
if you want to play pvp get a team. if you can’t leave for greener pastures and spare yourself the stress and misery.

QFT

I’ve played Thief for years and it’s really in its worst state right now due to the sheer amount of condi/AoE spam.

They have no ON POINT sustain. If you have to run away, they out-sustained your damage and whittled you down enough that you’ll run or die. Now that you’re off point, they can cap it and proceed to win the game.having even one thief on your team right now is a huge liability. You’re pretty going to be in a 4v5. Sustaining and running for your life are two different things entirely. Seeing you say, “thief has condi clear in stealth” tells me you don’t play thief because no high tier player with a brain runs Shadow Arts in ranked PvP. That’s a WvW trait line at best.

Silverkey.2078:

I just want to mention that I don’t think the problem is thieves. The problem is how f****g tanky scrapper, druid, elementalist and revenant are. Especially scrapper, let’s be honest, there is not so many class/builds that can kill a scrapper 1v1 (is there any actually?), and 2v1 is not that easy either.

On metabattle, under the area that says “counters” for scrapper, it’s reads “TBD.” This is the only build I’ve seen with that.

Darknicrofia.2604:

vulneraria.4865:

yes if you start to lose this system bring you to probably lose more.
every member of team have similar mmr but the system select a random team for the matchmaking.
so if you start to lose mmr you probably lose again and again…till all this team with 0 mmr are left at zero pips, then you will have a fair match, you win (yes 2 pips!) and then at 2 pips you gonna probably lose again
they need to remove random team matchmaking, they need to have similar mrr avarage as possible.

no, that would just go back to the season 1 model of bad players being able to advance to legendary because they’re farming worse players.

at least this new system ensures that the people that are legendary/diamond actually deserve it.

Yes because being spoon fed artificial win streaks due to the luck of the six shining down upon you at the beginning of the season is definitely representative of them “deserving diamond.”

Of course people on on win streaks aren’t going to complain. A friend of mine who’s a new player of three weeks using a necro was carried to a higher MMR by good players. He soloQ’s into winstreaks. This person also had no idea that reaper shroud 3 gave stability and an AoE fear. They didn’t know where stillness or tranquility are or what times they show up. Do they deserve to be in sapphire or ruby? I don’t think so, but the broken matchmaker seems to.

I can feel the cancer cells forming in my brain when I see I’m about to face a 4 necro team…

I’m quitting ranked. I tried it again tonight on my support Ele. Lost 4 games in a row with one friend of mine who was on a five game win streak. Every match went down this way: team gets mid and home. Team goes far, gets wiped while I beckon them not to overextend. We lose the rest of the game as it snowballs out of control from there.

Oh, and said friend can soloQ without me and go on more winstreaks. He’s only played the game for three weeks and is on a Necro and he didn’t even know where on the map Tranq and Stillness is at, or that his shroud 3 skill gave him stability and can AoE fear. #MatchMakingLogikitten

erally every game. Oh, and people playing weird builds. Like P/P Thief who when asked to switch out says, “this is the only character I have,” or a ranger who refuses to play druid and use search and rescue. When asked to use search and rescue they respond, “don’t die?” Then they proceed to die right after they say that.

Seriously, I don’t deserve to be in this hellish state of ranked. I’m on the second tier of sapphire and this is the most agonizing time I’ve ever had in this game since beta. I’m just done with ranked. It’s the worst design I’ve seen in any game I’ve played from Halo, CoD, LoL, Heroes of The Storm, WoW, TF2, etc. This system trumps all of them in the level of bad that it breeds.

So 50 people looked at this and have nothing to say?

So here’s the tride and true build on metabattle. I’ve been noticing that my average damage done per match is around 250K and at my best so far, 300K. I was wondering if this is normal, and how I can increase my damage output? Would taking Invo over Ret with a marauder’s yield better results?

What are the best options right now? Even if that means the regular Paladin/Ret build. I just started playing Rev and love it! Such a fun class having come from a Thief main. RIP Thief June 23.

A brilliant idea. I support this. +1

Deniara Devious.3948:

Father Busho.2796:

When after 1year+ of community driven competitive scene in WvW (regardless of 0 support from Anet) a developer interrupts a GvG by saying “Stop violating my game mode”.

GW2 on the other hand gathers very few streamers and very few people watch those streams.

I’ve tried showing my friends this game saying, “PvP is so great! Watch this! I’m about to kill someone!” They watch, I turn to them bright eyed and giddy, and they look at me like, “, what exactly happened?”

In other games and sports, it’s easy and clear to see what exactly happened, and why. Who is winning and why. In this game, unless you really know the in’s and out’s, you’re going to be lost. Hence the tiny viewerbase on twitch for this game. WoW with it’s outdated graphics and old combat system has 1,000+ more viewers than GW2. Go figure.

Having 8 playable characters with many various builds but only having 5 be viable with only one respective build each.

Spending all the company money on esports instead of making meaningful content and balance tweaks.

Not having a public test realm for players to personally test new changes to offer feedback.

Allowing WvW, dungeons, fractals, and spvp lack any type of meaningful rewards.

Creating a system where good players are matched up against bad players to synthetically push the good players to higher ranks.

Having a large off period between PvP seasons.

Letting the beginning of a PvP season be full of incredibly OP specs, pushing out anything else.

Time gated content.

Not separating stats/damage/number coefficients between PvE and PvP.

Can confirm, people in map chat have been talking about this a lot recently.

Would you recommend power over condi, then?

Shovel Face.4512:

Get Gud? I can 1v1 any class except engi, DH and Druid. I’m season 1 legendary so don’t say I didn’t face people of similar skill level. Heck even now I can 1v1 a lot of classes who are legendary. The class you should be 1v1 easily are Necros, other teefs, Warriors and mesmers. I can kill ele essily too but takes a while so I usually avoid, revs are 50/50. DH I avoid. Druid and engi I can poke around and run away if I feel they’ll kill me.

I’d really love a vid as well. It’d really help us other thieves out who are struggling.

Supreme.3164:

Callendor.1840:

Hate to be that guy but…
If a new player is switched off pvp after a dozen losses or around it, well I don’t think PvP is for them; in pvp you find people who played well over 10k games and lost around half of it.

How can you learn anything if you don’t lose enough times?
I saw people complaining about their MMR, they created posts with screenshots attached and…most of them had like 50 games in total, I mean wow….50 games and you think to be already entitled to a constant stream of victories?

People don’t want a constant stream of victories. They want a fighting chance. The people in here that have had said stream of victories also said that it wasn’t even fun.

Vieteriukko.6075:

For season 3 I would propose that sesson 2 legends and diamonds start first. Four days later the season opens for S2 ruby and sapphire. Four more days and it opens for all the rest including those who didn’t participate S2.

Or they could just start them at a higher division and out of the pip range of newer/not as skilled players.

Pakkazull.6894:

Anomaly.7612:

I hope Anet reads these forums, because I know that I’m not the only person who’s stepping back from this game. It wasn’t easy for me. I’ve loved this game since beta, but the current state it’s in makes me hate it.

It’s like my partner/spouse I’ve been with for years suddenly turned into this different person that gives me anxiety and depression just to be around them. Thank you all for the support and help in the forums. It’s been appreciated.

Seriously, just give it a week and then try again. It’s to be expected that matchmaking is “terrible” (or at least very random) until people settle into their respective divisions. Uninstalling the entire game two days after a whole new matchmaking system is rolled out seems like an extreme reaction. Unless, of course, it’s just the last drop and you dislike HoT, the balance, etc.

Well, good luck to you, I guess.

It was really the last drop for me. The balance, HoT maps, and overall feel of the game just isn’t to my liking anymore. Also, when they said, “we’re going to release minor balance changes,” I was hoping my thief and mesmer might have a fighting chance in ranked, but I can see they just don’t want us playing them in ranked at all with the way Necros, Engi’s and Revs are right now. Just couldn’t do it anymore.

I hope Anet reads these forums, because I know that I’m not the only person who’s stepping back from this game. It wasn’t easy for me. I’ve loved this game since beta, but the current state it’s in makes me hate it.

It’s like my partner/spouse I’ve been with for years suddenly turned into this different person that gives me anxiety and depression just to be around them. Thank you all for the support and help in the forums. It’s been appreciated.

I’m trying to uninstall this game because I’m not having fun anymore. PvP matchmaking has paired me onto a losing team every game I’ve played for days. My favorite classes aren’t relevant right now, and I’m having a lot of grief with playing this game in general. I just don’t want it anymore. In fact, I’d also really like a refund. I could use the money, please.

But my issue, I go into my programs and features, and the game isn’t even there. I installed it via my downloads folder, but all that is there is the launcher. Please help.

Thank you all, but I’m uninstalling. This game has just been unfun for me since HoT released. I really hope they make some needed changes because this game is just not what I want anymore.

Thank you again. 0/

Spartacus.3192:

The phrase “Better to be lucky than good”

if you get lucky in your initial games (team mates, DC’s on enemy team, whatever), then you MMR will increase and you will get progressively better team mates. Which snowballs to the (pros wreck noobs).

Conversely if you are unlucky in your initial games. (your team mates DC or you get internet lag or simply get enemy teams with voice comms), you will get matched with progressively worse team mates. Now you will get wrecked more.

How is this even ok?

Engel.6029:

Anomaly.7612:

Engel.6029:

You are getting teamed with people close to your mmr too so them being amber shouldn’t matter to much.

I didn’t think MMR was even taken into consideration anymore.

It is for making a team. That’s why there are all the one sided matches the better players are all being put on one team. .

So…..It doesn’t seem possible to move up in the ranks with that kind of algorithm. That system just sounds awful, and I don’t even want to play anymore at this point.

How exactly are we supposed to rank up with this system?

Engel.6029:

You are getting teamed with people close to your mmr too so them being amber shouldn’t matter to much.

I didn’t think MMR was even taken into consideration anymore.

Well I’m playing the meta aura share ele right now. What needs changed?

So, I’ve been q’ing with a friend and I, we’re both Emerald now, (phew, finally got out), and now, we’re getting stuck on teams with Amber players? Every match we’re in so far, we’re the only emerald players on our team. The other team is usually mostly emerald and a couple amber.

So…..If this is supposed to be based off of pips, how is it even possible that we’re getting put with Amber players who are losing the games for us? We can’t carry that hard, but I wish I could.

Sekai.2987:

Kythan Myr.4719:

First I’m glad to see necros getting some attention. However, is anyone else thinking it’s a bit ridiculous in PvP with all the necros? I like necros, so this is not a hate thread, but I’m just asking for honest opinions.

I play PvP every day and it seems so different, I had 2 matches today where 6 or more of the 10 players were necros.So there must have been some change to warrant this, because it’s not been this crazy before.

In the past 2 days I have not been able to play a match without 20+ minions and reaper shrouds pulled off at the last minute before the last of their HP vanishes, just to be about full when the shroud ends. Again to all the sensitives here, not hating here, I know that there’s been crazy stuff before which eventually settles out somehow.

the change from season one is diamond skin got nerfed, in season one ele countered necro 100%, as a necro it was literly imposible to kill a decent ele in a 1v1. Now that diamond skin got nerfed there is no heavy counter for necros anymore

Besides Thief, but barely, and everything else counters Thief now, so go figure.