Guild Wars 2

Heart of the Mist queue is the final boss of Gw2.

So many team chats turn into flaming, even when people seem to think they are calling good strategies. There tend to be issues with: people making calls in /team when they have no idea what they’re talking about, people not complying with team strategies, random bouts of anger that lead to flame-fests and distract players from the game. And the fact that conditions in spvp change so quickly that a call made in chat may no longer be accurate or appropriate by the time it is acted upon.

It would be nice to have friendly chats in team that also lead to winning, but I think it rarely happens.

Amulets are a major problem (in addition to the profession specific balance issues). They need to step outside the box, realize this and do something: i.e. remove them, change PvP statting, do something.

Phil.8901:

Honestly I always see his sustain untouched and always an high capability to stack a lot of might

And Necro now will have more difficult to kill it.

At the end, always Meta ^ 2

Necros always with the victim complex, no matter their viability.

You seem to think I want ele to be destroyed for some reason? I have been playing ele since before it was meta and will continue to do so. Currently I have 8742 pvp games played on ele. I am just sick of the design direction and how unnecessarily limited the profession has become.

And we have tempest to look forward to, while many of the other professions are getting good specs (in comparison, so far) and buffs ontop of that. I just don’t think the devs understand the elementalist. They just see a sustain-beast in pvp (with some out-of-meta burst variants-mostly scepter or dagger based), or a caster that spams high damage on targets in PvE with no danger of being attacked. Well we can hope scepter is viable next week.

Abaddon called, he wants his style back.

Sunshine.5014:

Celtus.8456:

Still not fixing the ele. We’ll just see less ridiculous burns and random blinds now, which was an emergency fix, I guess.

Also, nice Smiter’s Boon on Icebow 4.

How is it not fixed Ele?

• Sustain? Double the CD on Vigor on crit
• Might? No more might Cantrips (9 stacks)
• Burning? Huge nerf from 3 stacks 5s to 1 stack 2s

D/D Ele gonna hit like a wet noodle again. if you to a D/D Ele after patch, its purely gameplay issue. Haters gonna hate though.

Still boring, uninspired design and mostly locked into the water/arcana choice for all eternity. That is what I mean by not fixed.

Instead of creating new builds, the devs have just had a fixation on buffing/nerfing the same build forever.

I would like to see the devs compete in PvP without using a cantrip build, I really would.

On topic for Alekt: You won’t kill anyone with #4 anymore. The #5 stun might help facilitate killing (by your allies or whoever…). You can use #1 for awkward targeted healing…which you already have on staff. #2 You know you can combo through fields for multiple finishers, and #3 as you say is a mess.

I have been using icebow no more frequently than lightning hammer or flame axe, it just isn’t that good. Using icebow comes with tremendous risk (rooting yourself in place for hit-or-miss moves), and longer cooldowns than the other conjures. You already use earth shield better than anyone so stick with it.

Instead of a 10, 20, 30, 40, or 45% nerf, let’s just go straight to 50% damage nerf. Being a dev is very scientific.

50% nerf is excessive. A real “Smiter’s Boon” move, as us old timers say. In PvP it was annoying to die to frost bow, sure, but maybe the devs could have made the freeze stun-breakable (or the affected player could have paid attention to the frost bow coming out…or the slow projectile).

PvE is such a mess and will never be good until the devs increase AI. We should have monsters dodging, actively avoiding AoE when clustered together, and so on. Until this happens, the “gogogogogogo DPS” builds will be the only choice. The other issue people complain about are structures like burrows. Maybe change the way they take damage?

Anyway, a nerf was in order, but 50% is too much.

While the devs are still trying to figure out how their formulas work, would they please consider letting us mortals queue outside of this heart of the mists?

Still not fixing the ele. We’ll just see less ridiculous burns and random blinds now, which was an emergency fix, I guess.

Also, nice Smiter’s Boon on Icebow 4.

“Don’t be so kitten them guys! MMORPGs are hard to balance!”

Most MMORPGs worry about gear/level increase raising the power level every few months, Gw2 doesn’t. What is the excuse here?

I’d like to throw my two cents in and say that Overpowered Necro and Crysis carried the broadcast and should have their own show.

Just do what is fun to you. It is not a big deal to ‘gear up’ your characters in PvP or PvE. That said, if you want to become a serious competitive player, you can only benefit from multiclassing.

I hope this is a bug and I hope it will be fixed. Right now it doesn’t really benefit anyone. I think if anything, the stealth user benefits because the map is just loaded with more false information.

At least we’ve got some drama back in the game for a moment.

Dagins.5163:

We shouldn’t be forced to sit in HoTM while in que, so we could enjoy 9999 of already done jumping puzzles outside of it.

It was like that in past, but probably some PvP devs decided to pump PvP population (or partially solve ‘4v5’ scenarios) and banned it.

I’m with you there, rather be doing the jumping puzzles in “Tyria”. And I do think PvP has a better chance to show growth if the devs would return our freedom to queuing. Now, I imagine a new player may have an interest in PvP, but then they see how much waiting around they need to do, and I really don’t think the retention rate is going to be as good as it could be. SPvP is the only area of the game that has waiting as a major feature, and it wasn’t a problem before because you could do other stuff… ugh.

Ele really needs some redesign, hopefully before or with HoT. It has just been the same build for over a year now (arcana,water, cantrips…for all of the weapon combos). And it is even more stale because ele can’t mix and match weapons and are basically locked in 6-10 skills (with very very little change) unlike other professions who have a bit more leeway.

I swung a sword, I swung a sword, I swung a sword, I pressed F to loot.

ArenaNet removed the possibility of 4v5 (or worse) in their December 2014 patch. Oh nevermind, they just made us all wait idling in HotM for 8 minutes between every pvp match. And dishonor was also removed at that time.

Now we are being sold a half-baked version of what we used to have, as content for the expansion. kitten.

There seems to be such a prejudice against 1v1/duels in this game because of the perceived impact it would have on the carebear ‘friendliest’ community feeling. We also hear that the game isn’t balanced around 1v1, that 1v1 is useless, etc. And yet, a significant part of the fighting in conquest (and WvW for the player outside of the zerg), will be 1v1.

Having dueling in a mmorpg is a great way for players to practice their profession, strategies against other professions, and increase knowledge of game mechanics. But instead of this, we will keep seeing stupid complaints by the ignorant masses about non-issues in balance. Sad times.

As everyone is saying, yes we can duel now, but we need to go out of our way to do so. And the same will continue in HoT as you need to go to Guild Hall for it.

Much of this comes from the design choice of having a set amount of skills (10…or more if we include swaps/profession specific mechanics) on the skill bar. So whenever the devs want to add more effects, it often goes into passives rather than as additional skills like you might see in other mmorpgs. For better or worse, I don’t expect this to change.

It is reasonable to ask that all of the passives are given appropriate icons and ‘tells’ though. For example, diamond skin ele should have an icon on their bar or an aura on their character to let attackers (and the DS ele himself) know that the character has that trait and are currently meeting the requirements for it to be active. Or a warrior with the passive balanced stance or defy pain trigger could have something to let you (and the player) know it is on cooldown and ready to be triggered (instead of the warrior thinking…god I hope that trait is back up off cooldown).

Changes like these are reasonable and will better inform combat decisions for all players involved.

I think the overloads aren’t even as strong as people think. The water one for example, by the time you finally charge it up (waiting around in water), and then cast it for x seconds, and then lock yourself out of water attunement…How many swaps in/out of water attunement could you have done for similar healing (proccing heal/regen/cond removal trait), while also…you know…doing stuff.

They seem strong because they are an action with compressed power, but how much are you gaining by doing so, instead of continuing with your normal rotations? Occasionally I get a nice spike off with overload, but again, sacrificing a whole traitline for it, and the opportunity cost of use is ridiculous and usually fails.

Or it is a “feature”?

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/meet-the-tempest/

Remaining attuned to an element for a period of time will now allow you the option to overload that attunement for a short while. Once you’ve attained a singularity with the attunement, you can reactivate it to perform a special channeled ability. These abilities are so chaotic and draining that they exhaust your current attunement, locking you out of it for a period of time should you move to another element.

As has been requested, the amulet system is a disaster and should be replaced by a point allocation system (or just import PvE gear/stat system and TRY to balance that).

Point allocation system would be something like: everyone has x amount of points (3000 for example) to put into their various attributes. The player can put no more than 1200 into a single stat (how it is now with the amulets I think), but otherwise the player can spend them into as many attributes as they wish.

Right now the amulet system is just a continuation of the gimmick “look how simple it is to get into PvP and look how balanced it is!” But really it is just limiting and causing balance problems. How many amulets do we ever see in play in sPvP? Realistically I think the number can be said to be 5 or less (emphasis on the cele, marauder, soldier, cleric, and [insert condi amulet]).

And don’t get me started on armor runes which were ‘redesigned’ so more would see use (p.s. once again only a few of the many are ever used).

It’s not like anyone has asked for the game to be less of a visual clusterkitten.

Overloading is fun (ignoring the silly animations and sound effects…), but how much needs to be sacrificed to actually use an overload in a PvP situation? …And to complete the whole thing? Do we need to use our “defensive” skills like lightning flash and armor of earth just to complete an overload cast without being interrupted, or focus fired hard while camping the attunement and then overloading?

Looking through the spec’s traits, it seems like a choice between bad filler traits, and traits essential just to attempt to make the spec work. And the shouts are underwhelming too as everyone has said. Just remake the entire ele profession please. It has been stuck in the same boring role forever, and now everyone wants that role nerfed, leaving nothing left (or another boring version of that same role).

Am I a man trapped in a moa’s body, or a moa trapped in a man’s body?

Ranks are at stake here. /sarcasm

Nova Stiker.8396:

Konfu Schnibli.9807:

Bye Guild Wars.

I am an adult now, that just recently bought HoT, to revive the good old GW1 PvP-glory.
My nostalgia and the similar names raised my expectation, that there was a chance for that but Anet flipped its design priorities.

Ah yes, nostalgia.

Let us forget Sway, Smiteway, RoJ Spike, ranger spike, palm strike, RoA way, spiritway, shoutway, signet assassins, hero battles, ele ball, discord spike, spamming /stuck, body blocking under bridges and the 90% skills in the game that are completely and utterly worthless. So worthless you even forget their entire existence.

Hell, here is a test for you GW1 vets, tell me ANYTHING you remember (without googling it) about the skill Spoil Victor. It can be anything from it’s skill type or what profession even had it.

---

Yeah, lets just forget ALL of those yeah? Clearly, GW1 PvP did a lot right?

Necromancer blood magic hex to make target take damage whenever attacking someone with less hp. Pretty sure Green People Eater used it to farm random arena with a low hp build before being banned over and over for language. At least that is the iteration I remember.

On topic, yes Gw1 had a lot of problems, but it was still a unique game and pvp experience and many are still looking for a successor.

I’ve been rioting since December 2014 changes. Riots will continue until SoloQ, queuing out of HotM, leaderboards (ok you’re kinda doing that in HoT release…), etc.

I paid for tickets to watch a movie in theaters a while ago, now I see it being shown on TV for free?!? Wtf wheres my money back?

And this will be another bad reason they will claim for why they do not need to let us queue out of HotM again. “Look at how many people are there now!!!1”

Anet once again giving the community what it wants and needs.

Dodgedevils

Seems cool though.

Well it looks and sounds cool. In practice though, we will see…

Plenty of 4v5 nowadays. If not at the start of the match (person apparently never loads), or they quit early because they have a bad attitude (seriously people quitting when score is nearly tied and/or quite salvageable). I am honestly noticing as many or more 4v5 than pre-December 2014 patch.

Can you at least let us queue outside of Heart of the Mists again? I know you hoped to distract everyone with your announcement of leagues, pips, and guild leaderboards (which, god help us, might bring the game back near where it was before you kittened it in Dec. 2014) but would you realize that the PvP game is still in shambles now, even despite your parading of the ESL banner?

assassin.7895:

i hate this kind of streamer. just because he has 300++ viewer he doesnt interact with viewers anymore. when he was still under 300 he thanked for each follow, answered questions and now that he got beyond that threshold he has become yet another twitch streamer only streaming for his own gain. disappointed

this streamer (rom on coke for anyone curious) is a bad example for every gw2 player and someone who wants to become one

And yet it is their decision to keep watching or not. If the streamer’s viewership or donations decline maybe they will change their methods. It is just a person playing videogames anyway, why throw money at them?

On topic: Queuing out of mists. Gw2 pvp is dead til then.

Ignoring the dead-end argument of matchmaking, my question is: Did you enjoy staying in Heart of the Mists for that duration? As more players are turned off by queue times and being locked in HotM, guess what happens? Longer queue times and more waiting in HotM as people play less. And as this downward spiral continues, matchmaking and queues get worse.

Note to the devs: I know we always yell at you to do Gw1 stuff. Forcing us to queue again inside of a zone is not a good implementation from Gw1. If queue times went longer than 1 minute in Random Arena for example (2 resets of the queue), you knew the game was kittening dead at that time. Here many of us are happily expected to wait 7+ minutes. Let me also remind you that the only other mildly successful ‘e-sports’ mmorpg attempt (to my knowledge), World of Warcraft, allowed queuing across the game.

Poliator.7021:

Please guys, try to bring solutions as well. If you think that the new League system, with the information so far, is likely to be a “Grind League System”, bring possible solutions.

In my case, as I pointed out in the initial post, the solution if the Grind was the case, would be to tie Matchmaking to Divisions, this way high MMR players will stay in higher Divisions while kicking out lower skilled players!

Stay constructive and keep the SoloQ issues Salt level low.

There would need to be some mingling between the similar leagues though, otherwise we have longer queues than ever (and still forced to sit in this god kitten zone).

Chicho Gosho.6507:

Celtus.8456:

I hope I am wrong, but I am envisioning Leagues to just be another grind in the style of “animal ranks”. The closest thing to a positive I saw in the blog was the mention of Guild Leaderboards. This seems like it will be the true ranking system for teams, and the closest thing to a PvP leaderboard we will be getting.

But then what happens if it is a big guild or one with a desire to have multiple teams? Are you forcing us to pick 1 team? Do all of the ranked games under the guild tag count toward the leaderboard (regardless of which members are playing?). Thinking about this, I think many players will make small guilds of 5-10 players for serious leaderboard play. Another failure.

You can be a part of multiple teams and the rewards is based on the team performance as a whole not the guild. It was in the announcement but i guess they forgot to put it in the blog post.

As long as you can form multiple teams per guild, each with separate leaderboard consideration (and, I’d think, a unique name for each), then it sounds like it can work.

I hope I am wrong, but I am envisioning Leagues to just be another grind in the style of “animal ranks”. The closest thing to a positive I saw in the blog was the mention of Guild Leaderboards. This seems like it will be the true ranking system for teams, and the closest thing to a PvP leaderboard we will be getting.

But then what happens if it is a big guild or one with a desire to have multiple teams? Are you forcing us to pick 1 team? Do all of the ranked games under the guild tag count toward the leaderboard (regardless of which members are playing?). Thinking about this, I think many players will make small guilds of 5-10 players for serious leaderboard play. Another failure.

Reinstating dishonor feature, but still requiring you to queue inside of HotM. Nanny-state much.

I am glad that it is an infrastructure improvement, and hopefully this solves the leaderboard void.

Still we need queuing freedom to return. But I did not expect that to be announced on such a stage, because that would be admitting that they (ANet) were wrong (plus it isn’t a new feature to advert). Maybe some day they will ninja patch it back in. Until then, enjoying the frequent 4v5 matches that you sought to prevent…

Hopes: Freedom to queue anywhere again, working leaderboards, general infrastructure things, connecting NA/EU/CN (like Gw1…).

Probably will be a new reward track or some other vomit inducing joke.

Jelzouki.4128:

PvP Programmer Evan Lesh (Bluxgore) told me the reason is because some people would miss their queue window of 15 seconds to hit accept if the queue prompt popped during a loading screen.

Imo, I would rather wait an extra MINUTE for the person to load into the map, than to have us players stand around doing nothing the hearts of the mist.

BRING IT BACK PLEEEEEEEEEEASE. It makes pvp so much less frustrating.

“Some people”…So bring back dishonor, how about a little personal accountability. If someone is teleporting all around the world while in queue and they have a slow computer, give them a slap on the wrist when they inconvenience the queue. Or better yet, I don’t know, do your kittening jobs and program a queue popup into those loading screens, or think of extending the accept time, or jesus christ just force the person out of queue because they didn’t accept and the other 9 will need to wait just another few moments for the next player to be selected. But they wouldn’t really be “waiting” like they are now, they would be doing 1000 things in Gw2 that they would rather be doing.

…No, we’ll just punish every PvP player instead, for 8 months now. Un-kittening-believable.

And yes, everyone does feel defeated and doesn’t feel like arguing with Anet anymore. Talking to a wall.

butch.8136:

Announcements incoming at gamescom about PvP. Hopefully we get some good stuff.

Source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/check-out-guildwars2heartofthorns-at-gamescom-2015/

Unless they announce the return of leaderboards and the ability to queue outside of Heart of the Mists, then it is just more hot air to melt the iceberg.

Since the June update I typically use this in sPvP:

+Celestial amulet
+Strength runes
+Sigils of Battle/Doom

Heal: Ether Renewal
Utilities: Armor of Earth, Lightning Flash, Any conjure weapon (usually ice bow)
Elite: FGS, sometimes Tornado or Glyph

Traits:

Arcana: Middle, Middle, Top
Water: Top, Top, Top
Earth: Top, Bottom, Top ~or~ Fire: Bottom, Top, Top

My experience: Over 8,000 PvP matches played on staff ele, reached r1 solo arena/r8 team arena on old NA leaderboard.

Purpose: Team support, winning fights, being a powerful and majestic wizard.

Strengths: Survival, AoE damage, healing/support, CC, range, on point fighting.

Weaknesses: Off-point fighting, larger capture areas, boon rips, being focused hard, enemies with smart positioning, allies with bad positioning, having slow attacks/delays on spell effects, etc.

Not sure what else to say, have fun.

Despite everything, the game is still fun. It started out as a promising sequel to one of the best MMOs ever made (especially for PvP). Still great graphics and fun, polished game at its core with plenty to do and worthy value (the game as a whole…not PvP). But since release the game has consistently seen some of the worst design decisions imaginable for a game of this quality. And still these devs show week after week that they are out of touch and have no kittening clue about balance or the infrastructure of their game.

I’m not leaving because there aren’t really other good mmorpgs out there now. Seriously, this industry seems to be in a race to the bottom. Compared to like 10 years ago the quality is kitten. Graphics and tech have advanced but developers have not. And I’m staying because I’ve already invested some 10+ years on/off into this franchise and a couple hundred dollars on Gw2. I’d be happy to invest more into Gw2 but I just know these idiots aren’t using the resources properly.