Guild Wars 2

The thing is, even if we want to make a consideration for solo Q when balancing, even organized parties don’t take invulnerability stomps into account for their setup because it’s such a non-issue. There are trade-offs and there are counterplays, but at the end of the day the difference really is that one of your (often tankier) players has been downed.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Gaaroth.2567:

MithranArkanere.8957:

runeblade.7514:

[…]Stop saying there is no counter playing to Immunity stomps. There are counterplays.

Like what? Predicting the enemy has an invincibility skill and stun them before they use it? A skill that will probably break stun?

Stealth whoever is going to be stomped?

Every profession has access to a form of CC. Not all professions have access to party stealth.

Every profession has access to an instant revive.

Just because you don’t choose to use the counter play doesn’t mean it isn’t there. You are making a trade-off, just like the player who uses their invulnerability.

MithranArkanere.8957:

And you can’t expect both people to form parties that may counter the issue, and having solo queues. You must keep in mind that you WILL have parties formed with random unsynergized builds by people that may not be able to talk to each other because they speak different languages.
So when balancing things, you can’t just say “Well, have a party member drop a revives skill, or stealth them”, because you may not have any control at all over what your party brings.

No. PvP is a team game, of course it should be balanced around teams. If you hate your allies getting stomped because you can’t interrupt invulnerable players or stealth your teammates, you have the option to bring an instant revive, and to ask the same of your teammates.

If you’re playing solo Q, you have way bigger things to worry about than, “Am I going to be able to save my guardian/ranger/warrior/engineer/necro teammate from getting stomped by a player using an invulnerability utility?”, these other issues don’t deserve any special consideration for balancing either.

I think there’s a difference between “Win a game as profession X” and “Win a game”, those who just want to get the daily rewards and avoid PvP will go to a custom farm arena in either situation.

People who are willing to play a couple PvP matches for the daily reward will take the daily profession, and since they aren’t experienced with the profession and the comps are unbalanced, the game will just be less fun for everyone involved. They don’t have to be the type to go afk when they think they can’t get the win for the daily to have tht negative impact.

Saturn.6591:

My idea was/is, to make it “Gain 200 points personal score (with class xy).” You can tie this to a profession, or not.

[snip]

What do you think?

Edit: And of course… please, if you tie it to a class, make all classes have an equal chance of being chosen. Put it on RNG at least.

I think it’s an awful idea. Here’s why (copied from reddit):

The game gives a lot of points to your personal score for things that often aren’t actually helpful to your team. For example:

• Destroy enemy trebuchet (15 pts): Only helps if the enemy are using the trebuchet in Battle of Kyhlo throughout the game.
• Forest creature kill (25 pts): Time spent killing the mob on Forest of Niflhel is almost always better spent helping your allies with defending/attacking a capture point.
• Guild Lord kill (25 pts): Killing the enemy guild lord on Legacy of the Foefire gives your team 150 points, but if you leave your team outnumbered you risk losing control of the map, and once that happens it may be impossible to fight your way back into the game.
• Skirmisher (10 pts): If you are having fights away from capture points, you could simply be wasting your time while your opponents accumulate points from capture points that you aren’t contesting.
• Objective Neutralized/Capture (10 pts): The time it takes to neutralize/capture a point is the same no matter how many players are standing on the spot. Only one person needs to do this, and anyone else standing on the same capture point will be a lot more useful going elsewhere on the map.
• Kills (5 pts + bonuses): Joining in on a fight that your team is already winning isn’t really making a contribution, and as with the above your time will be better spent elsewhere.

I think 200 points specifically is an absurd marker, if you have a game that is a total stomp it’s not even possible because the match ends so quickly. I might top 200 points in a close game, but even then it’s not because I was MVP.

The problem is not really with the practicality of any particular point threshold, but with the reasons given above. PvP is a competitive game mode, you should be encouraging players to work with their team to win instead of completing some laundry list of side quests.

Aomine.5012:

Bertrand.3057:

Right, not even sure why we need Mesmers now that Power Rangers have more damage, more range, more stability, more mobility, more evades, more invulnerability, more stealth, more armor, more interrupts… Anything I’m missing?

Now that Mesmers have to walk like Rangers being a Mesmer is MEANINGLESS.

More stability lol? More evade? More invulnerability? More stealth?
Not sure you’re talking about power ranger , or you’re mix up with condition ranger, or you just mix them all up and form an OP perfect spec?

Eurantien’s Power Ranger build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRjEq0wa/Kusw1ag9gadAUAndregdGMChwFbUVF-TpBFwACuAAIOCA12fIxhAoaZAAPAAA
Meta Shatter Mesmer: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mesmer_-_Double_Ranged_Shatter

Mesmers basically never slot stability, because if they did that is 2s of AoE stability on a ranged roamer class, which would be an absolute waste. That’s an automatic advantage to the Ranger since they have two decent options for stability.

Ranged Shatter Mesmers get extra evades from vigor, Eurantien’s Power Ranger gets evades from GS #1, GS #3, Lightning Reflexes, and vigor.

Power Ranger damage immunity is 6s on an 80s cooldown, Mesmers can theoretically get distortion for 8s over the same period but no one actually has 3 illusions to burn when they’re in panic mode.

Mesmers get decoy on 32s and if they slot mass invis they get that on a 90s rotation. LB#3 has a 9.5s cooldown on Eurantien’s build.

The invulnerability is maybe a stretch, but the rest holds true if we are talking about the most viable Shatter Mesmer vs. Power Ranger builds.

Firebird.8324:

you know why you don’t see rangers in high level pvp (with the exception of eurantian)? This because being on a ledge is MEANINGLESS against teams that can port there, you know how that ranger got there? HE WALKED. You know when a thief shortbows from there, he teled, you get my drift

Right, not even sure why we need Mesmers now that Power Rangers have more damage, more range, more stability, more mobility, more evades, more invulnerability, more stealth, more armor, more interrupts… Anything I’m missing?

Now that Mesmers have to walk like Rangers being a Mesmer is MEANINGLESS.

Firebird.8324:

That would be awesome, I think those port spots are bullkitten anyways

Firebird.8324:

This would be a really, really awesome change.

Broken record much?

Yes, these port spots give an advantage to thieves and mesmers, but it’s an advantage they really really need in a game mode where everything else has far more sustain and rangers outdo them for damage while popping their 2k range auto attack from a ledge.

Unranked also has a 7 map rotation while Ranked has a 4 map rotation. Useful if you can’t stand Skyhammer/Spirit Watch/Courtyard.

Exedore.6320:

Bertrand.3057:

I bet you’ll be very disappointed to hear that Warriors can Kill Shot/Eviscerate through blocks using Signet of Might.

Well aware. It’s also a 6sec duration on a 25sec cooldown. The duration aspect is key because it gives the opposing player a clear window in which he/she has to react differently. Once the duration ends, it won’t be back for a while. And this is one whole utility skill, not an innate bonus to a skill.

Signet of Might is an instant cast. There is no window to react.

But I don’t know if your argument is that Mirror Blade shouldn’t be innately unblockable because that’s counter-intuitive for novice players (who have already come to the conclusion that most high-damage skills are blockable) or because you consider that innate bonus to be a source of imbalance between Mesmers and other professions.

Exedore.6320:

Bertrand.3057:

Yeah, let’s complain about 1 of 2 active unblockable Mesmer skills, never mind that the class meant to be about distracting opponents isn’t one of the 6 that have unblockable interrupts.

This is more about unblockable damage vs. unblockable utility. There are a lot of unblockable utilities which are fine because they aren’t doing significant instant damage.

I bet you’ll be very disappointed to hear that Warriors can Kill Shot/Eviscerate through blocks using Signet of Might.

Yeah, let’s complain about 1 of 2 active unblockable Mesmer skills, never mind that the class meant to be about distracting opponents isn’t one of the 6 that have unblockable interrupts.

Zefrost.3425:

Please balance, thanks.

Different does not mean unbalanced. What should Mesmers get as compensation for this proposed nerf?

Khal Drogo.9631:

You mean a team who ever played PVP couldn’t even cap one point and score a measly few points? I agree it is not an achievement to crush noobs or nubs.

Eh, if both teams go for a 1-3-1 split, all your team needs to do is win the mid fight, and then as long as your teammates didn’t lose the side nodes they can get reinforcements very quickly to win those remaining nodes. At this point you have a 3-cap, and solo queue teams aren’t great at coordinating a proper push on home to get back into the game. After a few failed attempts at mid they give up and go AFK = 500 – 0. Your players were better, sure, but not necessarily by a whole lot.

No, that’s just Legacy. Any other map (except possibly Courtyard) would have had a closer score.

Low tier and the fact that there’s a whole lot more new players with the PvP bonuses active.

The old PvP dailies and monthlies were just earned by playing the game, and I do think that those simplistic dailies were better. However, I do understand that the new daily system (across PvE, PvP, WvW) is meant to push players outside of their normal routine, which is also why there was some backlash.

As far as that angle goes: If you really want to encourage people to practice different professions, please don’t tell them, “Today everyone is going to play profession X or profession Y!” Instead, tell them, “Play two different professions today.” The rank point and reward dailies push people towards queue games because they earn more points. But as much as I’d like to encourage people to vote for different maps, it’d be boring to play the same map for a whole day. Combat dailies (dodges, interrupts, etc.) I feel would be disruptive in the same way as other PvP objective-focused dailies.

I understand what you’re getting at (which is that no unique alternatives have been given), but I think you’re asking the wrong question and that you still missed my point.

I’m getting the sense from this thread that PvPers don’t especially care for dailies and would be fine with them being as generic as possible. It’s not only that these dailies are problematic, it’s that dailies as a concept aren’t actually constructive for a competitive game mode.

Dailies tied to specific actions will promote counter-productive behaviour in many instances. This means that the only dailies you can have are wholly neutral, but these don’t really give anything good or bad to PvP (apart from encouraging people to enter PvP).

A Map Variety daily might be neutral enough to be included in the list, although it could still be frustrating because of the RNG involved.

The point is that there an inherent conflict between PvP Dailies and actually playing and enjoying PvP. PvP is not a walk in the park (i.e. open world PvE) where what you do won’t negatively impact other players’ experience of the game. The profession dailies are the worst example, but even the capture, defender, and player kill dailies encourage players to do things that don’t necessarily help their teams. A “Specialist” daily like the one you proposed would engender similar problems.

There’s really only one way that players want their teammates to play unranked/ranked PvP, and that is to win. How do you win? It depends on the match, and giving side quests like daily reviver or daily trebuchet operator takes away from that.

1st place (Orange Logo): Guardian, Elementalist, Engineer, Thief, Warrior
2nd place (The Abjured): Elementalist x2, Engineer, Thief, Necromancer
3rd place (The Dankening): Mesmer, Ranger, Elementalist, Warrior, Engineer
4th place (Heaven and Earth) same as Orange Logo

Thanks to all the participants for some really entertaining matches, and congrats to Orange Logo on the hard-earned win!

Wolfey.3407:

I think it’s a mutual agreement with everyone that this daily has to go.

Question that still remains, is what should replace these?

Bertrand.3057:

3. Daily Map Winner (from ranked pool) with 2 options, too many people vote Legacy right now. Don’t know if people would quit/afk if they don’t get a map they need, but it’s not like they can queue during the match for a different one.

I’m not necessarily 100% behind this, but it might be worth consideration.

There is already a feature in the game that lets you turn off forced balancing and rewards you for winning the match on the team you started with.

It’s called entering queue.

William C is right about MM necro. The extra damage and survivability may help you against players who don’t know how to counter your build, but against players who know what they’re doing, you’re helpless. I play mesmer, and I love seeing MM necros on the enemy team because I can wipe their pets with just one button (Polymorph Moa).

I see that you usually try to push for far point. Why? If you are playing a class that can survive in a 1v2 situation, it’s better to be holding home point where you can expect some support from your teammates to turn the fight for you. Mobile classes like thieves and mesmers are better for pushing points because they can kite and escape if they are facing too much pressure.

William C has pretty much explained what’s wrong with your strategies on Foefire and Kyhlo,on TSS you need to make sure you know the buff times for the buffs at the top andcenter of the map as they are game changers.

Rotation is something that always has to be dynamic and you need to adjust to your opponent’s strategies, but with your build your priority nodes by default should be close and mid. Generally, you should focus on holding and keeping two nodes, pushing a third node when you already hold two is often taking an unnecessary risk.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

PvP Specialist here

Few questions about this:

1. How often do you swap from your main class to the class daily to get the AP?
2. Do you enjoy the encouragement to try another class?
3. If you were to change this daily, what would you want it to be changed to instead?

1. I used to occasionally, I don’t anymore.
2. N/A; I want to get better at my class, which is best accomplished by playing that class. My knowledge of other classes is good enough that it isn’t a priority so I’m not going to spend time working on it.
3. Daily Map Winner (from ranked pool) with 2 options, too many people vote Legacy right now. Don’t know if people would quit/afk if they don’t get a map they need, but it’s not like they can queue during the match for a different one.

Yeah really, conditions only affect me as mesmer if I get blindsided by a condi bomb build (poor rotation), or let a ranger/warrior root me (inattention). Everything can be avoided, and you shouldn’t be in harm’s way long enough to let conditions stack up. Condi cleanse utilities give some more staying power, sure, but if you are playing the class properly then staying power isn’t a high priority. This is from a solo queue perspective, with a party you can just lean on your team for cleanses.

Halvorn.9831:

But I am unsure what would be really best

Your tactics will depend on your class and your build, which shapes your role on the team. It would be helpful for you to say which class you play. From your description, it sounds like you are uncertain what your role is.

Normally I look for my team mates and try to create outnumbered situations close to a cap point. Irritatingly very often my team mates seem to be not so much up to team work and spread out into all directions, which is not the best tactics, at least as I see it.

You’ll need to be more specific about what you mean by “outnumbered situations”. In Conquest (every map except Courtyard) it’s often best to have your team spread on at least two different points, because what matters most is capturing and holding the nodes. Being a +1 to a fight can be helpful, but a +2 or +3 is overkill, and you would be more useful elsewhere on the map.

I can survive a lot of 1v1 situations, but if it’s 1v2 or more I can only try to survive and keep my opponents busy as long as possible, hoping for my team mates to use this as an advantage, but often it doesn’t work.

Generally a prolonged 1v1 is good if you are holding a node (which I hope is what you mean by survive). If you are simply attacking someone who is defending a node, and you can’t push them off, then you aren’t helping your team. If it’s a 1v2 and you can’t survive before you get reinforcements, or you aren’t defending a node, then it probably isn’t worth dying.

Greasy.7609:

I drop damage with them on the field even if my crit rate is low. And stay alive a while when I can remove conditions and hobble away with prestige and or decoy. Me and a guildie were bunkering a point annoying the other team.

Even if you can survive on a point while outnumbered, a smart team will just ignore you and go for the other two caps. Then the rest of your team is fighting for the other two points 3v5.

You really don’t do any appreciable damage if you cannot land critical hits, so you can’t force the enemy team off of a point. 15%+ damage that really only matters for your 1 DPS phantasm is nothing compared to a ~200% damage modifier that occurs on half of all your attacks (which you have if you equip a Berserker amulet).

I hope this answers your questions so far i’ve been playing a good mesmer with this build.

What steps are you taking to judge your own performance? It’s easy to tell yourself that you’re doing well and contributing against competent players. But if you are not getting feedback on your gameplay from experienced players, or at least watching footage of good players, that’s a pretty empty assessment.

Wait, what? The logic is this: “I can die in this game in a 1v1, so I should get a buff!”

Everything you need to know about turret engis

If you think you can shake up the meta, take your comp to ESL. Using an AI-driven build to fill in your comp so that you can clean up a low-tier tournament for newcomers is just sickening.

Probably different opinions here, but I’ll offer one:

Unranked – Know how to play your class/build, know the basics of other classes and common builds (elite skills, important cues, mechanics, CC skills), understand the scoring system and unique mechanics of each map, and know how to communicate.

Ranked – Understand your role in a team, have a firm grasp of how to play your build, know which professions counter you, know how to counter other classes/builds, know how to synergize with other classes, understand rotations and how to really read the map.

Titles and rank aren’t very important, they can be acquired by grinding without actually learning how to win against good teams.

Edit: Rising Dusk makes a good point that the most direct way to learn is to go straight into ranked, since your MMR will settle to reflect your skill you will eventually be facing equal opponents. However, working through the entry points I outlined will put you on better footing when you initially enter the queues.

Groonz.7825:

Welp, just had a match against a premade as soloqueuing and to make it even better a new guy with 120ish ap was on my team.

Just curious, how did you know that this player was new? I have an account with 270 AP which I use exclusively for PvP because I am actually based in NA and can’t get good matches on my EU account when I’m online.

Mesmers have high damage in a lot of situations.

In endgame PvE and large-scale WvW, their damage is average because they need to keep up phantasms (pets) to sustain high damage, but these die easily. However, they have a lot of reflects which are useful against specific bosses, as these can do far more damage than normal attacks. As well, the high burst damage that Mesmers have might be more useful with new boss mechanics in the expansion.

In PvP, Mesmers have some of the best burst damage in the game, which makes for lots of fun plays.

If you are just doing open-world PvE and leveling, Mesmer damage isn’t that great. Mesmer becomes much stronger with more access to traits which you don’t have at the start.

As someone who plays mesmer, I’m thankful that there haven’t been more mesmer dailies. Too many mesmers hurts a team, and I still see our class represented fairly often in matches. I’d rather miss out on the daily reward than have a day of broken team comps.

BikeIsGone.8675:

maybe its a rotation issue? (i know, i know, there are no “rotations” in pvp but until my judgement is good enough i still need some guidelines)

for my standard rotations i usually start by getting 3 clones (in order: phantasm > clone-weaponskill > dodge) followed by F2/F3 (F2 for light and medium armored targets and F3 for heavy ones), getting 3 clones again + F1. For the F1 shatter i try to stand in melee range as well, to get the IP bonus. After the F1 shatter and blurred Frenzy-dmg i try to put some distance between me and my target again.

As a shatter mesmer a rotation really won’t do you much good since you have to try to land a burst. That means patiently waiting for an opening to drop your mind wrack. Keep in mind GS can be a lot more effective for a burst than Sword if you are able to land Mirror Blade in melee range. Your Sword #2 is also really useful just as damage negation, don’t think that you need it in combo with Sword #3 for a burst.

You don’t want to just spam F3, it’s an interrupt and should be saved for things like when your enemy heals, plus you want to try to chain it out so you land multiple dazes. F2 is generally useful as another boon removal, or if your opponent has spent their cleanses. If you can instantly land a full shatter then you should just use F1.

BikeIsGone.8675:

Personally i think that my shatter combos get evaded / blocked / mitigated too often. Are there any tricks on how to secure a burst?!

That’s a pretty typical issue that mesmers find when they are struggling. You can try to draw out blocks and evades, for example with Sword #3 or iZerker, and generally the less predictable your actions are the harder it is for your enemy to avoid the burst. It’s pretty obvious when you are trying to set up an immobilize + blurred frenzy + 3 clone shatter, but you can land a lot of damage in other ways, just watch your opponent’s blocks and evades and grab the opportunity when it presents itself.

I was looking for this thread… Bump!

It actually stands for Celebrex®, an anti-inflammatory medication.

It doesn’t work though, I still get flamed even when I do use it.

How do you normally deal with shatter mesmer and what did you do against these shatter mesmers?

Donkeyhacks.4391:

Narkodx.1472:

You shouldn’t go anywhere near the ranked button

And why is that Narkodx… please do tell

You don’t know what shatter mesmer is, meaning that you don’t know what the meta builds are, i.e. you lack foundational PvP knowledge.

Yeah, especially with fire and air procs thrown in the mix. Saved a guard from being stomped (downed skill was already used) by using that knockback and blinking in just in time, instantly downing the thief and mes who had gotten her. Easy res after that.

Of course it takes time. It took me weeks to get used to having a gaming mouse (Naga Razer), I changed the keybindings again after half a year and that took another good week or two to get used to again.

It’s worth it, having hotkeys in sensible places will allow your action to keep up with your perception in PvP.

Sensible thing to do would be to remove rewards from practice mode entirely. Then we won’t get people complaining about not getting rewards that they never earned. Might spoil unranked a bit, but hey there’s two tiers of queue for a reason.

Ah well, it’s hard to fight superstition.

Sam Gem.1246:

You haven’t read all of the site, partly because you’re not french. You looked at one section and made a conclusion, when, infact, the sum total of all the TRIALS expressed on the website is in the tens of thousands. Not rares crafted, TRIALS.

I don’t know what evidence you have to draw conclusions about my French literacy or my nationality. However, it’s not the point here.

You looked at an individual sample (a subset of your own experiments) and made a conclusion. I found a sample that was part of a much larger experiment, but which is comparable to the sample that you provided.

I’m not making any statements about averages, which was the purpose of the entire experiment posted on that website, I’m simply pointing out that the type of results you encountered are not really that extreme and have been encountered by others when using comparable sample sizes.

Perhaps if you attempt to answer the question that I posed, then you will understand how ridiculous your position is.

Sam Gem.1246:

It’s amazing how only one person has sympathy and the rest are in denial.
[…]
Whatever. I’m staying the course. My account is cursed and unless some strange fortune change occurs that evens out the odds, I’m leaving.

Rich.

Sam Gem.1246:

I had the rate at 0.0018. But even at 0.001, I’m well below that stat.

http://www.gw2shop.net/topic-2310-theorycrafting-precurseurs-et-forge-mystique

On the site you linked, expand the entry titled February 12 2013. It reads:

also noteworthy: i havent gotten a single precursor from the last 7955 Rares. I’ve never done this with the intention of making profit but rather to get a correct dropchance. Still, i didnt expect to make a big loss, which unfortunately happend now.
Seriously, 8k rares, this variance is ridiculous..

How would you compare the precursor forge chance of the person who wrote that thread to your own? Was it

a) Higher than yours
b) Lower than yours
c) Equal to yours

At 0.001, your experience represents one person out of every three. At 0.0018, that’s one out of seven.

That’s not a condemned account, that’s just tough luck.

Even based on his calculations, not getting a precursor at odds of 0.2% over 1100 attempts happens 11% of the time. That’s not highly unlikely, those are low odds but if there are enough people throwing rares into the forge then it’s bound to happen to someone.

Of course, if the odds are not what he thought, then all his calculations can be thrown out.

Not quite a “good riddance”, but:

What would be the point of staying even if you did get a precursor? Why does this matter so much?

When you change your password, the system won’t allow you to pick your previous password, or any password that we’ve seen tested against any existing or non-existent account. Thus, after changing your password, you’ll be confident that your new password is unique within Guild Wars 2.

To be honest, that second sentence does suggest the conclusion Photonman has drawn here, although I’m not sure that’s actually the case. It would imply that the pool of blacklisted passwords was “Every password ever attempted including the legitimate ones.” I do think it makes more sense the way that you described it.

sorudo.9054:

Khisanth.2948:

sorudo.9054:

i actually hate the blacklist system, if they really are concerned about leaking then don’t keep old passwords in the system……SERIOUSLY!!!
i have one password in several different ways (and there are allot), there is no way that i am ever gonna change my password ever again with this crap system.

The reason for the blacklisting is other people leaking their password list and way too many people having the tendency to use either the same password or the same password with minor changes for multiple things.

and who’s problem is that, exactly…..
if you can’t shut up about your own pass then it’s not for Anet to fix things, i have never bin hacked even ones ever but i really don’t like this blacklisting at all.
what if i have no choice in the matter and Anet forces everyone to change the pass, if that happens i am screwed.

remove the blacklist part, i hate the whole system, i had to change my pass to something completely unknown because of that piece of crap system.

This is not about someone leaking their own passwords, this is about someone leaking your password on a site that you use. If any service that you use gets hacked, and you use the same or similar password everywhere with the same or similar account name, then every account you have with every other service is now compromised. It doesn’t matter how secure those other services are.

Let’s say you have an account name and password on a service like Facebook or Amazon, if they get hacked then someone out there now has your account name and password from that service. If your account information for Guild Wars 2 is too similar, then it doesn’t matter if ArenaNet never gets hacked, the person who has taken your information from another site can use that information to figure out or guess your password for Guild Wars 2.

Using the same password, even variations of it, is not secure. You get one compromised and it’s really easy to guess the others. You’re also specifically instructed not to use a password for this account that you use anywhere else, and here you’re complaining that you can’t use a password that’s identical to one that you have on another site, but that you have to make a new variation of it.

You need to rethink your strategy for online security and start taking it more seriously.

Hugh has been partied with Five Gauge on his stream a couple times this week, I don’t watch it regularly though so maybe more than that.