Guild Wars 2

Meta warrior is pretty good counter to both. As an avid Druid, I can tell you a well played warrior is the most difficult match up. Spam as much interrupts as you can on the Druid.

If they are farting around on mid together, push the sides, split them up, then pull out the skull crack. The Druid has better mobility than the Ele, so you can usually bait and split them up.

Druid is queen of 1v1 matchups. Warrior is king, and is more mobile than both Druid and Ele.

kappa.2036:

Let’s talk about the skill that is carrying all the warrior meta-builds, both condi and power.

Right now this skill provides:

• Good base power damage;
• Blind (5 sec);
• 4 stacks of Bleeding;
• 4 stacks of Confusion;
• Cripple (8 sec);
• Daze (1 sec);
• Blast finisher;
• 300 range (basically, a small leap. Eviscerate has the same range but is a leap finisher.);
• Spammable every 5 seconds.

Is possible to have all these things in a single skill?
Anet nerfed the #5 revenant staff skill because of his damage-evade-cc triple effect, which is perfect. So why this skill remains untouched?

Seriously? Oh my kitten! I need to try that out!

Orangensaft.7139:

tbh i think the divisions finally have the prestige they deserve
and it shouldnt be changed

you pretty much see only real active pvpers in the top 50 in EU

and i think someone doing pvp only should have something to show in comparison to people who like pvp too but dont focus everything on it

only problem that i agree on is with alt accounts taking spots :/

That’s funny, because it has the opposite effect. Most people rightly think the top players are exploiters.

The top 10 is more like a wall of shame. The top 250? Not much better.

OGDeadHead.8326:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

defending blatant bugs

I’ve missed the dev response to the SotW issue, and would like to read it. Please share a link, thanks.

Exactly! I think it is intended. It came at the same time Ranger was given unblockable pet attacks with call of the wild. I mean, the signet morphs you into a supersized 12ft giant.

Good luck blocking that!

Hm, I have a hypothesis that this term has suffered from Symantec Diffusion. Why don’t you (OP) describe what you think it means, and see how many people agree or disagree?

:)

kdaddy.5431:

Just a FYI I took that comment from reddit, there was a post by Jeff on reddit as well but he comments on this forum so i dont want to speak for him in any fashion.

I posted those comments to let everyone know what i was referring to.

I honestly didnt know that EU and NA had legit beef. So hearing some of the top level players in the game kind of messing with one another is a interesting find.

Oh yeah, totally got that. It fun to know as well. Seems like there is more activity on Reddit than on forums. I wonder why?

sephiroth.4217:

The soft reset already f’d over my games by putting way less experienced players into my matches, a hard reset would only f this over even more.

I’ve quit the game 2 days ago from the horrible “match making is working perfect” crap, it’s not. If anything I would petition for a revert of our MMR, complete scrubs in the games I played because of soft reset.

I could see way more experienced players than myself in bronze and way less experienced in platinum, what the kitten happened to the matchmaking, I dunno but apparently it’s working perfect and there has been no communication from Anet to say what they think about it, if they would atleast admit something is wrong and they are looking into it, then maybe I would keep logging in but when a captain has abandoned ship so must the crew.

..and we have no reason to believe they won’t do the same soft reset every season.

Long Live the AFKer!

kdaddy.5431:

NA is a joke and the scene constantly destroys itself.
It’s pathethic. They could have elevated the game to such a higher state on their side, finally getting some proper competition rather than the dumb circlejerk they have but no, the egos of a bunch of underachievers is way too important so they continue to destroy what they have.
Meanwhile the top of eu all have 150+ games now, actively try to snipe eachother to have games as competitive as possible and discourage alt accounting and qing in odd times. (see; the treatment of zapddos and blackjack who are the only people who legit try to do what you guys do, funny that the most hated (and banned) team of eu basically just does standard NA actions)
The same was seen when the guild ladder leaderboard was out – all NA teams started trying to farm it in all the most dishonest bs ways possible. When carcrash decided to do the same on europe the EU scene decided to just do inhouses and scrims so that there was healthy competition while freezing CC out and shutting down this behavior.
Everyone on that leaderboard part of the problem while doing this and I’ve spoken to p much everyone on there about it. The problem is from the top down since NOBODY on NA will actively try to take a stance for making your own scene better. That is your job to do. Instead, you kitten up your own ladder and then come to EU ladder in a sad attempt to kitten it up aswell.
Grow up, all of you. If you spent half the time you did finding out ways to ruin your own community on getting good instead maybe you would have produced more than a single good team that had amazing record of going 4-10 vs eu teams in games in 2016.

…or just enhance the algorithm that determines initial rating.

I have no idea how it works. Last time I played I won almost every game on both accounts. Today, couldn’t get any wins. Loss after loss. Games not even ballpark close.

The matchmaker is clearly stacking teams to win or loose at times (maybe all the time). I guess it’s kinda fun when you win everything. Kinda sucks when you can’t win anything.

I have no idea how it works. Last time I played I won almost every game on both accounts. Today, couldn’t get any wins. Loss after loss. Games not even ballpark close.

They matchmaker is clearly stacking teams to win or loose at times (maybe all the time).

Rickster.8752:

NA doesn’t count. Seriously, I rolled on NA during the last solo queue era and was shocked how bad the standard was. There are a few good players there no doubt. But in general its woeful. I would estimate that 100th best player on NA isn’t in the top 1000 on the EU.

So NA leaderboards are an irrelevance anyway.

That’s inconceivable!

NA Players are very smart and capable of creative thinking on levels not seen anywhere else in the world. This needs to be fixed, or soon everyone will learn how to make the 10-0 top five placement happen.

EU players aren’t creative enough to figure out how to game the system. That doesn’t mean it should not be addressed.

Really, OP?

As a Druid, I will always +1 or even out a 2v2 fight with a Mesmer. Why not, it’s better than standing on an uncontested point and twiddling thumbs.

Don’t you think Mesmer and Druid pair well? I can bounce a Mesmer up, almost indefinitely if it gets downed. Mesmer has to be the easiest ally to raise as Druid. Both are tanky, and can mess you up fast if you get immobilized.

The only time I leave a mes to itself is if it is farting around on far at a bad time.

Soothsayer.9206:

Occam’s Razor – all for that – start at zero every season, wins and losses only so you have to earn what you have; doesn’t get any simpler than that. although that would be ideal, people don’t want to have to play with “subpar” teammates (which leaves little to no room for growth in the sPvP community).

People don’t want to play with cry babies that curse into chat and AFK the first time something goes wrong. We want those players to degenerate into low tier sub-bronze and languish there for years.

Honest John.4673:

Malediktus.9250:

This video proves nothing other than Helseth being an excellent player multiple divisions above bronze.
To get out of a division you need to be significantly better than the average player in your division or they will pull you down.

Anyone who cares to check knows your winrate and knows you don’t deserve even bronze 3 with it. Sure you have thousands of games played, and with that the experience of thousands of games played, but most people can average a win rate of better that 46% man, I mean come on.

You’re the perfect example of what I’m talking about, you can pin-point all the flaws of other people yet you’ve never taken it upon yourself to improve your own gameplay. At some point, it falls on you.

Critical thinking is clearly not something you excel at. For all you know his current win rate could be 80%. Maybe he lost a lot of games when starting out. Maybe he frequently queues with friends who aren’t that good. You assume way to much.

A 46% winrate in Legendary might be great if he only looses to ESL players and beats everyone else. Winrate might be indicative of skill, but it’s just one factor.

My alternate account (Magnus) currently has a much better winrate, and has climbed higher than my main this season. Winrate means little.

Fergus.4208:

Unfair ladders has a fair and simple solution.

Keep skill rating as is, but introduce a cap to your effective rating.
So, you need say 30 games for your effective rating to break gold; 50 games to break platinum, and 100 games to completely remove the cap on effective rating.

This ensures that all players in higher divisions at least has a decent amount of games to determine their skill rating.

This is a very good idea and would fix the ladder and reduce the number of alternate accounts in platinum and legendary. I think it should be matches won though. 30 Ranked games won in the season, etc.

Lucius.2140:

Gonna be honest: People alredy give you the answers.

´* First: Matches played =/= skills.

Thanks for the response. Very few people have refuted what I am actually saying. Most are just beating on the straw man exemplified by the following flawed premise. I would like to assert that:

* Matches Played != Ranked Matches Won

I assume you and everyone else who keeps misstating this fact is because it sounds silly to say:

• Ranked Matches Won != Skill

What I am saying is even less strong that this, to be clear, I am saying:

• Ranked Matches Won is a factor indicative of skill

If you disagree with that premise, we can talk about it. 500 Ranked matches won in bronze is not equivalent to 500 Ranked matches won in Legendary. The following formula, takes that into account:

Skill Rating = (1200/PAST_PERFORMANCE)/2 + 1/10 points per matches won

…takes past performance into account and weights it much higher than the offset due to matches won.

/forum bug post

No way! No hard reset! I almost don’t want there to be another soft reset either. Just leave everyone where they are at the end of the season. Games are finally getting better in Gold. Lets just leave it as it.

Ryan.9387:

Noscoc
Marvin

How would your system rank these two players?

I have no idea. I assume they had over 2000k MMR last season, so how many ranked matches have they won this season and over the lifetime of their account?

Keep in mind what I am proposing is only a modification to the initial seeding of their accounts, so they are more accurately seeded based on skill.

They would have been initially seeded at something like:
(1200+2000)/2 = 1600.

Modified initial seeding would be more like:
(1200+2000)/2 + lifetime_offset

Modified current position would be:
(1200+2000)/2 + lifetime_offset() + seasonal_offset() +/- performance()

performance() is calculated the same what it is now, with 10 placement matches and games won/lost.

A new account with 0 pvp games played would be seeded like:
(1200+0)/2 + 0 = 600

Perfect performance in the placement matches would land it significantly lower on the leaderboard that noscoc or marvin (I assume?)

Lucius.2140:

December 2014 and first half of 2015 leaderboards, that crap was based on matches played, without a doubt the aberration you are describing its an improvement of it (point 2 its flawed but probs better than that system) . But still xd.

No, what I am suggesting is nothing of the sort. I am asking for the same system we currently have with an added offset to initially separate accounts with positive experience (Ranked matches won) from those that have none. It’s just an offset to the existing system. Take a look at the top of the N/A leaderboards. A glance can tell you that 4 of the 5 accounts don’t belong there.

My suggestion would change skittledness position in the following way:

2066 + seasonal_offset(150/2.5) + lifetime_offset(2000?/10) = 2066 + 60 + 200 = 2326

The seasonal offset alone would place him in first place with 2126 points, while the lifetime offset would put his account out of reach of newly made alternate accounts created to mess up his position. I assumed his account has won 2000 ranked games, but it is probably more than that.

In addition to fixing the top of the leaderboard, the lifetime offset would also go a long way to make gold and platinum league more exciting. People would have a much harder time getting their alternate accounts into those leagues. This would increase the competitiveness and open up more top 250 positions for players who just want to make it there.

Gwaihir.1745:

It would help people realize how bad they are if the announcer would boo them.

“Player x is being a little kitten.”

Ha, ha. I like it!

“Archon is on a death streak!”
“It looks like Jim Bob is AFK!”

UmbraNoctis.1907:

I’m pretty sure, there are “new” players that are better than some who played thousands of games. And if new players are bad, they will lose rating quite fast so unless you are at the bottom of the rating already, you won’t see that much new players anyways, because i doubt ranked PvP gets flooded with new newbies all the time.

And your comparison with experience in real life jobs or sports is bad, because there you have to do a good job over time, otherwise there will be consequences. Meanwhile in GW2 you could play as bad as you want and don’t even notice how bad you actually are, because of how the matchmaking works.

I am pretty sure the only new players who are better than bad players with thousands of ranked wins are smurfs. That or GW2 PvP is a joke where anyone who mashes buttons can succeed.

I am surprised more people are not annoyed at the mismatched games and cheating that is going on with smurf accounts. Top 250 is a joke. Many positions locked in with alt accounts. Smurfs throwing matches and disconnecting to promote main accounts. Bleh. Something needs to be done to ensure smurfs don’t start in platinum or legendary.

If nothing changes, the season will end with exploiters taking position one and two and many of the top 250 positions.

Justine.6351:

trunks.5249:

Shaogin.2679:

I assume we’re talking about Ranked matches here? It’s fine as long the player is experienced with that build and is effective with it.

It’s not fine when that player is testing the build in ranked (we have unranked for that) or is playing some wildly ineffective build.

i agree with that i do not think there would be that many people taking a build they just made into ranked without testing it for a few days in unranked that would be a little weird

And yet that’s what you did to get out of silver lol.

And Gold as well…

Honest John.4673:

There are people who’ve played thousands of games and are still terrible. I’ve met them. They come on here to post how they’re vets and don’t deserve to be in bronze. Sure with skill comes experience but it’s not necessarily true the other way around.

That’s fine. Do you know people who have won thousands of Ranked games who are worse than players who have never queued in ranked?

The leagues are seeded with beginners in all levels. The algorithm to determine initial seeding was over simplistic. There are many factors that can be used to get a more accurate seeding…. like Ranked Matches won. It’s not perfect but better than nothing.

Shaogin.2679:

Archon.6480:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Number of times doing something does not mean you are good at it, especially if the player never actually try to improve.

Of course, that is true. But is not relevant. I am saying experience is a factor that should be taken into account when evaluating skill. I mean seriously. How many resumes have you completed that did not require you to list prior experience? Would you really pay a software engineer with 10 years experience the same as one with no experience?

So, my suggestion is to include it as a factor.

If that software engineer has been fired from every job he’s had then no, I would not hire him. Experience alone is not proof of skill. With your suggestion, players would slowly but surely continue to move up in rank despite never actually improving.

No, I am going to post a few examples to clear this up. They would be seeded higher but would loose placement just as fast as they do now. That part is working well and would stay the same.

Honest John.4673:

How about this guy? 3,800+ games played. Seems pretty experienced…. at losing. (data is real and taken from gw2pvp.de)

Yeah, you really should read more carefully. I said that “ranked games won” should be the metric. Not total games played. There is a significant difference.

@jcbroe

I agree with your assessment and don’t consider Menders Shoutbow to be stronger than bunker, except in the 2 necro situation. But, to be honest I will usually swap to Nila’s Remorsless build when I see two necros.

I’ve been using Paul’s variation and really think it is a bit stronger than the the classic bunker in non-condition heavy match ups . (Signet of Wild with leadership runes)

Hm, I like having two players in some kind of support. Ele + Druid or Engi seems like a nice base to work from. Besides, Menders is more of a bruiser build. I frequently get both top damage and top healing in gold tier (on Druid, that is)

Spoichiche.1290:

Improving accuracy by adding a completely irrelevant factor into the equation?

Next time you go on an interview. Tell them experience is completely irrelevant. Heck, why not try out for captain of the nearest professional football team. Tell them experience is irrelevant, when they ask why they should consider you.

Don’t want to be mean, but you just won the worst suggestion of the week award, and there’s some serious competitors for that award.

No offense taken. I think you just won it. I mean look at the top 10 leaderboard. You think maybe there is a problem with the metrics that determined 1st and 2nd place?

Entenkommando.5208:

A number of games will never represent your skill in any meaningful way just like anything that just accumulates over time.
I myself have never played ranked PvP besides the first year simply because I didn’t see a representation of skill in grinding your way through divisions. I wasn’t even rank 80, yet got placed mid plat (EU btw) after my placement matches, because I very well know how to play the game without the need of having played ranked before.

Are you sure you belong there? Perhaps you are one of the players making platinum a complete mess. How could you know the difference?

Honest John.4673:

There are people who’ve played thousands of games and are still terrible. I’ve met them. They come on here to post how they’re vets and don’t deserve to be in bronze. Sure with skill comes experience but it’s not necessarily true the other way around.

I’ve met far more who have no experience and can barely find the keys on their keyboard.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Number of times doing something does not mean you are good at it, especially if the player never actually try to improve.

Of course, that is true. But is not relevant. I am saying experience is a factor that should be taken into account when evaluating skill. I mean seriously. How many resumes have you completed that did not require you to list prior experience? Would you really pay a software engineer with 10 years experience the same as one with no experience?

So, my suggestion is to include it as a factor.

Exedore.6320:

1. No. How many games you played has no correlation to skill.
2. See #1.

That’s completely untrue. The professionals have played several thousand games and are, obviously, very skilled. Likewise, new players (having no experience), have played very few games and are low skilled. By suggesting there is no correlation you are saying experience doesn’t correlate to skill. I’ve never heard such an axiom. That’s ridiculous.

I would go as far as to say there is not only a correlation, but a causation. Show me someone who is good at anything without experience? You can’t have skill without it.

Do you think it is fair for the top 250 spots to be loaded with alt accounts? That makes a mockery of the whole thing. Look at position number one and two on the leaderboards. Another mockery.

Faux Play.6104:

That is European bronze though. that is like starting American gold. still not possible to get out of US bronze xD

Seriously? Watch the video again. It looked like half the players could barely find the keys on the keyboard. They ate multiple shatters in a row and pretty much stood still in AoE fields. /facepalm

Can we add two new variables to skill rating to improve accuracy and match quality while eliminating the unfair mechanics in the ladder?

1. Add a lifetime skill point variable which increases everyone’s skill rating by the number of lifetime Ranked matches won divided by 10. So a player with 3000 Ranked matches won would get +300 rating added to their base.

2. Add a seasonal skill point variable which increases everyone’s skill rating by the number of matches won during the season divided by 2.5. So a player winning 100 matches during a season would get a skill rating bonus of +40 points.

This will better separate the player base by experience and skill and discourage people from creating multiple alternate accounts and stealing multiple places in the top 250.

This will also correct the inaccuracy of the top 10 positions on the leaderboard. The point is to factor lifetime and seasonal experience into the skill rating.

In gold tier there are tons of DH, but it seems to me the matches are won by well played bursty Warriors, bouncy thieves, well supported necros, and slippery druids or engies…

Oh, I forgot the rare portal slinging, birdie loving Mesmer.

The DH is a free win for the other team if your team is chosen and used in a placement match for a sub bronze beginner…

Ryan.9387:

Ensign.2189:

Kreweless.2196:

Am I missing something?

You are missing that ratings are not uniformly distributed. They are normally distributed. The top 250 are the upper tail of that normal distribution.

Fitting a normal distribution with a mean of 1200 and the rank 1 and rank 250 ratings mentioned estimates a total ranked population of ~32,000.

Can you show the math behind this? I’m curious how it is done.

Step 1: Go to a liberal college and learn about “numbers”
Step 2: Make up some numbers that look kinda plausible.
Step 3: Observe the numbers and gauge how they make you feel.
Step 4: If they make you feel good, call them real, because reality is subjective.

:). All joking aside, I feel 32,000 sounds good. There are many, many PvP players. The top 250 is full of several alt accounts so there is probably only 70 or so breathing people there.

I guess the question is: Do we enjoy seeing 4 or 5 in every other match? I don’t mind it because Remorseless LB/GS Druid chews them up like the noobs they are. But, one must ask…

Is this healthy for the game?

phokus.8934:

The anectodal statements here about whoever has the most DHs win is out of control. DHs are really easy to kill. The problem in my opinion is that they were so kitten down by Eles and reflects that when things were changed people expected to just faceroll them again.

This is still nothing more than a l2p issue and nothing more. With that said, I still believe they need to put in stacking restrictions.

Every beginner and the mama is playing DH and succeeding with it. A class that requires so little skill to play should not be a thing. Focus them and they melt like Olaf in a sauna.
We get it.

Doesn’t mean that the class is not too easy to play. L2PEZ (Learn to Play Easy)

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Archon.6480:

albostan.6719:

blah blah blah…
…you are for sure on the rank that you deserve :-)
blah blah blah

The biggest mistake you can make this season is doing your placement matches solo. The system is clueless and can place you anywhere. That’s true.

If you want more points for winning than loosing dual queue with a smurf friend who is unranked or in bronze.

I dual queued with my buddy (who barely every plays PvP) during his placement matches and he ended up in T1 gold. Meanwhile my smurf was placed in t2 bronze because I was farting around and solo queued my placement matches.

My main was pure solo queued and placed in t2 gold. The placement matches don’t work. The matchmaker is getting quick matches by pulling players with disparate skill levels and tries to keep a 50% w/l ratio with beginners.

If you want to do well, be skilled and play with a similarly skilled friend. Don’t do placement matches solo.

The bolded shows you don’t understand how the system works, if you Queue with someone of a much lower Mmr you gain next to no points between 2-6 points per win and if you lose you lose anywhere from 20-30. And this could be as small of a gap as mid Silver and high Bronze to have the point disparity.

Well, perhaps it is because my smurf account was originally put into bronze and was in silver when duo queuing with my friend who never plays pvp. It’s really funny, to get 16pts per win and only -9 on a loss, must then mean we were beating high rated players. Right?

Whatever, the system is bonkers. On my main I get placed in Gold, smurf goes to bronze and I destroy almost everything I encounter and duo queue my friend to Gold, who never plays PvP. That must mean a PvE hero and bronze noob (with over 5000 games played) are better than the average PvP player base…

Well, I am confused a little. You say you need advice about a versatile build but the build you posted uses a Condi DPS amulet that is more for Druid than anything. It’s not versatile on Ranger without Druid. You don’t have anything of significance that benefits from healing power.

Ask yourself: in two 10s time-periods how much more healing will you get out of 560 healing power than 0? Once you have figured that out, consider how much more damage you could deal over the same time period, say with wanderers, or rabid amulet.

The 560 healing power doesn’t really do much for your regen power and healing. Really take a look at the numbers. I think if you want to be versatile with Ranger, you should think about Rabid more than anything.

The torch won’t save you against a thief or rev. You’ll still be a free kill. No toughness and very little evasion. Whamo! Of course…if you used Rabid amulet, that would be a different story.

You should also be a free kill against Necromancer, Warrior and Mesmer. You can’t tell me you are doing well against these with so little evasion? How do you keep from getting shattered or skull cracked when you swap to Axe/Warhorn?

^Its sweet, right?

I feel like I can really control the flow of the game with it. Looking forward to videos. I am sure there are some tricks to learn.

I give this build 10/10

albostan.6719:

blah blah blah…
…you are for sure on the rank that you deserve :-)
blah blah blah

The biggest mistake you can make this season is doing your placement matches solo. The system is clueless and can place you anywhere. That’s true.

If you want more points for winning than loosing dual queue with a smurf friend who is unranked or in bronze.

I dual queued with my buddy (who barely every plays PvP) during his placement matches and he ended up in T1 gold. Meanwhile my smurf was placed in t2 bronze because I was farting around and solo queued my placement matches.

My main was pure solo queued and placed in t2 gold. The placement matches don’t work. The matchmaker is getting quick matches by pulling players with disparate skill levels and tries to keep a 50% w/l ratio with beginners.

If you want to do well, be skilled and play with a similarly skilled friend. Don’t do placement matches solo.

Oh stop it… Everyone know DH is perfectly balanced. Don’t believe your lying eyes, I tell ya!

Shadowstep.6049:

Tiefsee.3647:

Don’t worry, if you aren’t placed in bronce, you won’t have to deal with them – ofcourse you should win most placement games if you want to be placed outside of bronce

You would be surprised. I had people in plat throwing games like mad. We have 2 points, they run to enemy spawn and wipe. Or just let enemy cap point literary next to them.

People ragequit, people afk there as well. I had 1v5 games few times.

I suspect a great many are trolling or taking gold to loose on purpose. I think ANet needs to increase the MMR volatility a bit, and add more divisions to further divide the population.

Or simply add 30s to the matchmakers algorithm to find more closely matched people. Decrease the range of players you can be matched against.

Ele and DH because… reasons.

Thief and Mesmer… If you are smart and have mad skillz.

Saiyan.1704:

Merry Christmas you filthy animals!

Ha ha, I hear that in a Home Alone mobster tone…

Yes, then later had a bunch of wins. Don’t think too much about it. Stop queuing after 2 losses in a row is a great rule of thumb. Just come back 10 or 15 mins later.

Aw, thank you!

Merry Christmas to you, all the PvPers, and ANet folks as well!

It’s been a fun year.

Ha ha, no! Say it ain’t so! That couldn’t possibly happen!

10/10