Guild Wars 2

This would be great. I think it would create more counterplay style of combat that I miss from GW1.

Right now I just look at each soloq match as a way to learn/improve. I can’t really be too concerned about movement or progression because I’ve had some extremely strange and uneven matches.

I agree though, I don’t like waiting in a queue period and having it be a 4v5, on either side. I like close, fun matches.

Forsaker.9213:

from what i see the lower u are on leeder the decay hit harder so necx broken thing :P

From my own movement I think it’s that if you’re on the lower end there are naturally more people passing you. For example, I had a somewhat unfortunate streak of losses that I’m climbing back from but if someone who wins their first game, they will probably be placed higher than me. So, it looks like it’s a fast decay but really its people quickly passing where I am even if they’ve only played 1 or 2 matches.

Romek.4201:

ok, its not all the “decay” often its people just passing you who play more

thread was to early^^

That’s what I figure. I just wanted to see if anyone else could confirm that. It makes sense that on the lower end of the board the more people would pass, which is what I thought. I was just a bit unsure since I have a few friends who played 2 games and have sat in the 50-100 range because they are 2-0, whereas people who’ve played more games seem more susceptible to movement.

I’m somewhat confused about the volatility of the LB now. I went from rank 34 down to around 280 in 1 night of decay, and then lost two games and lost 200ish slots for each. Now I’m climbing back up after those losses dropped me off the board, and was at 840 when I stopped last night, but now decayed completely off the LB.

I’m fine with this as I had a few bad matches/I messed up and I’m only at 5-4 since the reset, but what I don’t understand is this. I notice some people in the 50-200 range haven’t played a game at all since Weds. and have only decayed roughly 20-50 spots, whereas I didn’t play a game and dropped quite a lot. Perhaps this is a function of more people playing and entering the <500 range?

I’m not complaining or anything, it just seems to be super volatile the more you play. Had I only played 2 games, I would have been ranked higher even with the decay than if I play more often, as I had some iffy matchups.

Anyone else noticing this?

Relentless.7023:

Mobas dont’ really require as much communication, so much as knowing the game inside out and making good individual decisions with itemization, ganking, and pushing intelligently.

I quoted you in the other thread too. I think this is a big point. It’s a lot less stressful/more manageable to soloQ in a game such as LoL or Smite than it is in gw2. I’ve been playing a ton of Smite lately and if there is a lack of communication it’s not nearly as devastating as it is in the Conquest style soloQ games of GW2. Most people join soloQ because it’s fast and somewhat competitive, but there’s also a lot who join for the convenience and just don’t really care about strategy. In Smite, even if that happens, one or two players who understand the game and strategy can still win a match.

Relentless.7023:

I don’t really care how anybody takes this, but Conquest is way over the heads of most people. They just don’t get it, which is sad, but Anet made the game too top level for the majority of boom headshot kittens.

This really does seem to be a pretty big issue. A lot of times questions about how many enemies are still on the map/what nodes/rotations are met with silence or bewilderment. I think people really just want to kill each other and not focus on nodes :p

I’m definitely thankful for the reset, but I think it’s going to take some time to get used to these huge fluctuations. I had played soloQ often since the Nov 12 change and I noticed more consistency. I lost 250 ranks on the lb for one loss just now, but I’m assuming these massive shifts are due to the new MMR and things needing to settle in. I’m just used to one win/loss moving me 1% or like 50 ranks, not 250 per loss.

Edit: I’m sure the huge jumps are also due to population. Since 90% was the cutoff before the top 1000 before reset and now it seems to be 35%, I’m guessing once more people play we won’t be seeing 250-300 point jumps per match, right?

I find the combat extremely enjoyable but I think the population is the main issue preventing anything from moving forward. I’m not sure why but everyone I brought to this game just couldn’t get into pvp, even though I’ve pvped/still pvp with them on other games. I think it’s a very hit or miss style of play for a lot of people.

I enjoy the combat mechanics and pacing of GW2 quite a lot. I play other online games (mainly Smite) and I still find this to be highly enjoyable. Even though there are deficiencies with some things, the devs do seem to be working to progress the competitive aspects of the game.

If you enjoy the combat, keep playing. The balance/meta can be frustrating but it’s really what you make of it. Things such as leagues/solid matchmaking/etc will help strengthen how seriously people perceive GW2 to be, but the bottom line is really whether or not you enjoy the game’s mechanics and flow of battle.

I think this is happening because everyone has the same starting/base MMR at their very first match entry today. If you que at the same time as a rank 1 and rank 3 and it’s their/your first match since reset, you would have the same MMR. I thought that there would be a 10 match stabilization before leaderboard rankings started showing to help with this. I could be mistaken about this, but this seems to be the case and seems consistent with several other posts about matches since reset.

I’m not sure how this would really work. It’s somewhat irritating when this happens (last match was against 4 warriors 1 mesmer) but there would be gigantic que times. Sometimes weird lopsided matches happen in random pairings. I think it’s what keeps it interesting as these groupings wouldn’t happen in structured team matches.

As Requiem said, role diversity is way more important than class diversity, as classes such as warrior, engi and guard especially can fulfill more than 1 role. This would be impossible to create in each match. An artificial class restriction wouldn’t help with making sure roles in each soloQ are balanced per team.

I was thinking that with the MMR/leaderboard reset there was going to be a 10 match stabilization period before people would be on the leaderboard again. Strange.

I am too. I had this issue last update and I remember finding a thread/dev response saying it has to do with trying to pvp while the patch is going live.

I find that if you want reasonably balanced matches you have to que in prime/peak hours (for solo q at least). If you’re not/unable to do this, expect a certain amount of unbalanced matches. Out of my last several matches, I’ve been fortunate enough to only have had a handful that were definitely one sided, and these were during early AM hours. The issue really does seem to stem from population more than anything else.

Is this something that could potentially be an option? I just had a soloQ match where someone/someones on my team pinged the entire map nonstop the entire match. I don’t know if this was a glitch or what, but the map was seriously blowing up with pings from the start to end. We ended up winning, so I don’t know why someone on my team would troll us, but you never know. :/

Edit: Just to clarify, I’m not talking about single pings here and there. I’m talking about the map was blinking red for the entire match.

Thanks for all the answers. Realizing that the top 1000 are included makes the motivation to get there a lot better than thinking I had to get another 12%, which would mean 12 more wins over losses.

Yeah, it makes sense that under the old system people would climb a lot faster due to the MMR of the opponent, whereas my matches have been somewhat even.

Hello, sorry if this question is obvious/answered somewhere (I tried to find anything related) but I’m curious how the percentages work. I realize that your % rate means that you’re ranked higher than that % of people. I’m wondering how this then translates as far as the top 1000. Is there a certain % where those reside? Like is it from 98% onward?

I’m just curious as I’ve won 8 of my last 10 games and I’ve really only been soloQing since the latest change to shuffling and teams. I’ve played 29 games in the last week, and I’ve won 66% of the matches. I’m only climbing about 1% a match to 88% where I currently am. I know that MMR has a good bit to do with it, but I’ve been looking at some of the win/loss rates of those that would be somewhat near my range (800-1000ish) and I see they have a win/loss rate way worse than mine at the moment, yet I only climb about 1% per match.

Does this mean I need to hit another 12 unanswered wins to get to 100% to be on the top 1000, or does the leaderboard top 1000 itself represent a certain percentage?

Sorry if this is redundant, I’m just wondering how this actually works so I can keep working on climbing.

Edit: Thanks a lot to Lux for clearing this all up for me.

I just made a thread about this. Similar issue, different error code. I can’t join any matches or tournies. I found an old thread with the same error code saying that a new build may be in progress and that’s why matchmaking is locked.

“Guild Wars 2 has been updated. Please exit and relaunch it.” I’ve relaunched 3 or 4 times and still can’t Q up. Anyone else having this issue tonight?

This is definitely a huge improvement. I had 10 great matches tonight and actually enjoy que’ing now instead of wondering if the match will be hugely lopsided. I can feel that my individual play matters now, since teams are generally balanced.

I use it for a 5v5 setting so I can quickly pull those matches up w/o having to sort through the main list.

This is great! I had 10 great matches tonight. I’m feeling as if my individual play makes a difference now because the matches aren’t so lopsided. I’m really enjoying this and am eager to actually do tournies now instead of extremely apprehensive.

I’ll have to give that a shot to get used to it. I really enjoy venom share and I guess I’m trying to just enjoy the last days of s/x.
That’s not a bad idea, I already get absolutely insane immob stacks. It’s a shame since I think s/d pairs extremely well with venom share.

Cynz.9437:

wouldn’t be venom share thief better off with condi spec?

I run venom share with Barbarian amulet/jewel and as s/d shortbow. This is just my personal preference, but I think the vit from Barb helps with the sustain. Since a decent amount of utilities need to be devoted to venoms, I think s/d and high vitality rounds out the build a bit and keeps it safe while still outputting decent damage. The vitality boost makes up for the lack of acro spec.

Venom share for sure. I already run it as s/d and the initiative boost will benefit venom builds since you don’t have the spread to run crit strikes anyway. I run it as s/d and shortbow, and the extra initiative is going to make this build even more powerful until immob stacking is inevitably changed.

The new s/p pistol whip may be interesting depending on how it is changed.

d/p trickery will still be strong but until things shift away from super stun super condi it’s a bit vulnerable.

Since I don’t run any condi builds the only build I’m somewhat excited about that will benefit from the opportunist change is my venom share build as I don’t have the trait points to allow for crit strikes. Other than that…

It’s been happening to me since the 10/15 patch. Today I can’t stay online for more than 2 minutes without being disconnected. The entire time I’m in Heart of the Mists and it’s not even super populated. I wasn’t even getting error messages anymore. I would just log on, tell someone I just dc’d, and then dc again.

Same issue with me. I log in and crash after about 10 seconds. I was getting messages before, but now the game just logs me off out of nowhere. I don’t like to complain or feel a sense of entitlement, but I have been dealing with this since the 10/15 patch, and now I feel as if I can’t even enter tpvp matches for fear of gimping my team. This is completely ruining my gameplay.

I’ve been running 10/30/0/0/30 for the last two months or so and I’ve switched to trying out P/P with this trait spec and it’s extremely effective. With proper positioning and knowledge of combo fields, P/P is very solid in large group fights.

I just wish I could actually -play- as the lag is so bad I’m not even bothering to log on. I wait in que, play for 3 minutes through unbearable lag, DC, and then have to wait again.
Which is all quite a shame since I actually enjoy playing thief and want to play more often.
Smite it is >:o

I’m super upset because I can’t even do spvp/tpvp now. The lag for me is so bad that I DC from these game modes as well. This is new as of tonight. I’m able to play Smite perfectly fine, so I know it’s definitely just with GW2. :/

I went from being moderately unable to play (lagging, dcing every 30 minutes) to completely unable to play (lagging constantly, dcing every 5 minutes). It’s way too frustrating so I’m really not planning on playing until this hopefully lessens…

I can’t roam at all for this reason. I lock up essentially every 3 minutes, and then have to sit in a queue again. I really hope this is resolved soon as I cannot play.

I essentially am unable to play. Very upsetting considering wvw and pvp are all I really do, and I’m even receiving massive skill lag in pvp now.

Hi KOPPER, I know you asked dDuff but I run almost the exact same build in wvw. I use 10/30/0/0/30 and take DA: III, CA: V, (VI or combo crit chance or signet use if taking Sig of Agility instead of Roll For init.), XI, and Trick: V, X(ricochet for groups, VII for solo), and XI(sometimes XII if solo focusing more on D/p).

I use withdraw, shadowstep, roll for ini or sig of agility, infil sig, and daggerstorm. For wvw group play, I take as many stunbreaks as possible since hammertrains are still pretty dominant.

It works very well, as most people underestimate the use of p/p with ricochet if you have good positioning and take advantage of combo fields. I run a mix of soldier/zerk gear and take traveler runes.

dDuff.3860:

Hey man, nice build there, think it will work (probably) but as P/P you don’t have so much profit from landing poisons like you do with P/D (which benefits from constant condition pressure). IMO you just sacrificing your potential into teamwide buff, which is good, but there are sets that synergize better with it.
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-cRR3R;0VwF_07-BOFd0;9;49T;0T2;047A;449ALJV4U;1KJG4KJG45By
If you want P/P try this.
Stay in touch!)

Hi dDuff – It’s funny, I ran pretty much your exact s/p build in wvw and I also now run something extremely similar for p/p in wvw group fights. I agree that people don’t expect p/p and then if you switch to d/p they melt.

Look forward to seeing your tpvp vids with it!

I run 10/30/0/0/30. I run the mix of zerk/soldier’s gear that wish outlines in his ‘building a better d/d’ thread. I use traveler’s runes, and switch heal/utils depending on how I feel. I tend toward withdraw if I’m using more s/x and HiS / Malice if using d/p. I run basilisk venom unless taking a camp, then I use s/p and daggerstorm. I always take shadowstep, infil. sig, and either blinding powder or another signet.

Traits are customizable depending on what you want, but I’d recommend DA: III, CA: III, VI, XI and Trickery: V, VII, XII.

For group play I tend to use the same set up with shortbow or (gasp) p/p with ricochet slotted in and roll for initiative. If you weave in and out of zergs and take advantage of combo fields, p/p actually isn’t bad. If you’re having trouble with surviving, I’d give that a try.

I use d/p and s/p (up until recently, when I’ve switched to s/d) when roaming. The d/p, s/p was my absolute favorite build up until the recent change to pistol whip. Now I tend to run d/p and s/d.

The only issue I’m having in wvw/pvp is the ridiculous skill lag since the last patch. I know all classes are impacted, but playing a thief relying on evades and positioning is nearly impossible now.

After you double click the finisher it adds it to your finishers tab in hero panel. From there, you need to set it for it to work. I did the same thing, and mine was set to my rank finisher even though I double clicked the Halloween one.

I’m actually having the exact same issue since the update. Everything is completely fine – guild chat, other programs, webpages, etc. As soon as I do anything related to skills, I lag out completely.

I’m so disheartened. I’ve endured all the past changes to thief and I’ve been okay with it, but I’ve always stuck by S/P as essentially my staple set. Since it isn’t stealth based it didn’t get as much hate, but this last patch essentially (and shortsightedly) nerfed Pistol Whip into near useless against a good player. It doesn’t even really work great anymore in PvE as the .5sec less on the stun is certainly noticeable against camps and stacks of enemies.

Guess the lesson is I should have invested more time/hours into warrior.

ensoriki.5789:

Archaon.6245:

Am I the only one here playing s\p without paralization like i always did? u.u

It’s not about Paralyzation, it’s about the change to rounding on stuns. Which affects PW as a fractional stun.

As someone who has played S/P pretty much since launch I’ve noticed this immediately and I’m very upset about it

I really enjoyed the feel of S/P and it really seemed to be in a good place.

I just posted about this in another thread, but I’m extremely disappointed by the nerf (unintended? shortsighted?) to Pistol Whip and S/P. I don’t run the perma D/P build that every non-thief complains about so I’m not upset about some perceived stealth nerf. Rather, I’m upset that A-Net doesn’t seem to address that D/P perma-stealth is one of the large issues that people hate thieves. Nerfing a build such as S/P that really doesn’t use stealth seems completely ridiculous and shortsighted :/

I agree about warrior. I really really love thief and particularly love S/P and even the D/P trickery build that Caed often runs, but I’m just getting really disheartened. Oh well.

I don’t use stealth at all and I’m extremely disappointed with this patch. I’ve used various S/P builds and never really relied on stealth with the exception lately I’ve been using the non perma stealth trickery D/P, S/P build. I’m let down by the fact that Pistol Whip has taken another huge nerf to the point of being unviable, while perma stealth is still rampant and untouched. Thief hate will continue for this reason, whereas thieves who don’t run that build will continue to be hit by a barrage of nerfs.

Fun times. Really tempting to just switch to my warrior unfortunately.

I am. I’ve never had connectivity issues and today I can’t even stay on for more than 5 minutes without rubberbanding so badly that my client DC’s. I’m done playing until later today because I can’t stand this. Hope it’s just temporary for me.

I love that Desert Rose dye you’ve used!

Here’s my current look.

This matchup has been a lot of fun so far. Good roaming and a decent amount of 1v1s. Sportsmanship seems okay as well other than I must say I’ve run into some 5 man squads on CD that seem to find it funny to spam emote and corpse jump after killing a lone roamer, but whatever there’s always a few :o

Just wanted to post about how I’ve enjoyed this week so far.

Cheers

Four of the roamers I’ve fought in the last 10 minutes are using these runes. I don’t care if they are OP or whatever, it’s just leading to extremely boring fights.

I made a thread about this, but I’ll put it here too. The camp npcs being buffed could possibly make it even more impossible for an outmanned server to accomplish anything. Previously when my servers were outmanned/unrepresented I would at least solo roam to flip camps to feel as if I was contributing something. I’m noticing that this is much more difficult now that the npcs at the camps have +150 stats.

While most people will be able to adapt to it, I’m afraid this may alienate solo roamers/small servers even further.

I’m not sure if I didn’t do enough reading on the matter, but I certainly didn’t think that supply camp npcs, including claimer, would receive this buff. I went to solo cap a few camps today and found it extremely difficult when they are buffed by a large degree. I guess it’s time to begin coming up with new strategies for this.

Anyone else really noticing this difference at +100 stats?