Guild Wars 2

Reikou.7068:

I’m pretty sure they didn’t even reset MMR for this new leaderboard test.

What a complete joke.

The devs see resetting MMR as a disruptive and bad experience for the PvP population because people would be complaining about getting bad matchups until the MMR was re-issued properly.

What they don’t take into account is the huge imbalance that MMR has on leaderboard point generation.

I’d quit queuing if my Q times got any worse. 8 minutes is what it’s at, and that’s leaving a bad taste in my mouth when I’m streaming content already.

Every Elixir has is given a code name based on their functionality. It’s pretty cool. Almost every Engineer has noticed this.

• Elixir B: Boons.

• Elixir C: Convert conditions.

• Elixir H: Heal.

• Elixir R: Revive, refill dodges.

• Elixir S: Shrink, stealth, (previously) stability.

• Elixir U: Utility.

• Elixir X: X as a designation for an unknown effect.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elixir_F

• Elixir F: Failed batch. Failure. Fail to hit anything.

Anet pls

Technical limitation, it’s not supposed to happen, it’s the result when an evade and immobilize happen at precisely the same time.

Josh Davis.6015:

Thanks for writing up your concerns so succinctly.

This test season is intended to test an algorithm that’s tailored towards ranking players higher for better W/L ratios, in addition to using points gained from playing (meaning games played does not become valueless). The algorithm we’re using this time around is completely different than what was previously tested, and they both have different purposes. We’re already having internal discussions on how we can adjust this season’s algorithm to better suit the goals we stated on Thursday – rewarding players who play well, not just play. These discussions will continue into the next week, and now we have an entire weekend’s worth of data that we can look at and extrapolate on.

An important thing to keep in mind is that these events are tests, and the only thing we’re testing right now is the formula behind ranking. We’re gathering a lot of useful data that we can use to help us make better decisions. These “test seasons” not a final product by stretch of the imagination.

That’s great to hear.

It’s my hope that the next test season will be very different in the means in which you progress through the leaderboards.

Very different, along the lines of:

• An improved version, based on the original leaderboards.
• With normalized volatility, perhaps a sensible cap on how much leaderboard progress can be gained/lost from a single win.
• Permanent decay penalty being applied if a threshold of minimum games a week is not met.

Random Weird Guy.3528:

I don’t understand what you’re talking about, the vast majority of PvP meta builds don’t require any unlocks.
Off the top of my head, I can only think of Rune of the Traveller and the Path of Corruption necro trait that require unlocks, neither of which are that common in the meta.

Fortunately, this is true, and 95% of all the unlocks are not going to give you a meta power increase over other builds.

However it’s the philosophy that he’s right about. What if actual meta traits become gated?

100% this.

Address decay and volatility and it would have been like adding oil to a wheel.

Instead we have invented a rectangular one.

Just awkward.

What if Death Shroud

• Assume a spectral form and gain new skills, turning your life force into health, and causing all healing to be reduced as if poison was present. (Or x%)

Badda bing, badda boom.

Or maybe baby steps, all ‘Siphons’ could conveniently work separately from healing effects, and affect the Necro who’s in shroud. So the trait line is less broken.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Everyone hates slick shoes. it is pretty much universal at this point.

My suggestion to nerf it is to remove the break stun off the toolbelt skills.

I think this is only fair seen as if you want to take such an OP 100-0 damage/cc skill then you should have to give up some survivability.

Thoughts?

Your suggestion would be effective if Engineers would still use Slick Shoes, and live with the lower survivability. But that underlying assumption is really not how it would work, I’ll explain:

Engineers (every profession?) are 100% unviable without a Stunbreak. No meta PvP build in the history of GW2 to my knowledge has endured the test of time without Stunbreaks. Slick Shoes could not exist where a Stunbreak should be, just as it was if we examine Engi builds of the past.

In the Engineer build creation process, your change would simply put Slick Shoes out of the ‘Stunbreak’ slot, and compete with a secondary kit. Exactly like Rocket Boots, Throw Mine, and Personal Battering Ram currently are (they’re all worse than Tool Kit or another secondary, and thus, junk). As good as Slick Shoes are, the Engineer would be forced to take another Stunbreak, and then drop a kit to put Slick Shoes back in.

Right now, running Slick Shoes all the time in PvP is a poor decision. Immobilize comps, DPS Guardians, and Entangle Rangers demands Elixir S be taken. The ‘Stunbreak metagame’ Engineers have is fairly balanced, with Slick Shoes and Elixir S being A Tier, E-Gun being B Tier, and Goggles and Thumper Turret being niche/troll.

In light of the Stability boon changes especially, a more practical way to nerf Slick Shoes would be to change how the utility spawns oil slicks. Perhaps reduce the number of puddles spawned, in perhaps a way that makes more Stunbreaks save the user from repeatedly getting knocked down.

Hope that helps put it in perspective, from an Engi player

Prysin.8542:

Chaith.8256:

Prysin.8542:

BlackTruth.6813:

Patchi.9061:

There is counter to all of them. Please stop complaining about it, it’s a learn to play issue

That aside I think their cool down is pretty low for what they offer , so what is “overpowered” is the fact they have really short cool down.

Slick shoes and Ward just waits out stability then GG. You think it’s hard to bait out cool downs on Hammer Guard or Cele Engi? LMAO.

Entangle and Fear me have EASIER counterplay such as getting condi cleansed by others. The complaint is Ward and Slick Shoes is harder to deal with for the same cool downs, why is it so hard to understand balancing?

AOE stunbreak is present. Mesmers and guards just dont use it for various reasons.

Hey, this game is based upon effect and countereffect.

If you fail to add condition cleanse to your build, you deserve to lose to conditions
If you fail to add sufficient armor rating and or protection or evasion to your build, you deserve to die to direct damage
If you fail to add sufficient amounts of stunbreaks, or kite when against classes with spammy stun attacks, then you deserve to be CCd
If you fail to acknowledge that all of the aforementioned scenarios can be, almost in their entirety, be countered by building correctly, then you deserve to lose.

AoE stunbreak won’t affect Entangle, Slick Shoes, or Ring of Warding.

The Guardian just takes AoE stability in place of AoE stunbreak, lmao. Which actually does many amazing things. Like escaping Ring and Slick Shoes, and reviving, stomping.

And Mesmer’s Stunbreak Mantra could be alright, but Portal and having better personal survivability takes precedence.

you see, you make a CHOICE and that CHOICE has an effect.

Example:
If i build my ranger with zerk LB in mind i got several options, all of which has several outcomes.

I can do 62600 and have more armor and passive condi-cleanse with lower damage output
I can do 66020 and have zero condi cleanse and massive damage output
I can do 60260 and have active condi cleanse and medium damage output
I can do 04460 and have active condition cleanse, more armor and unreliable spike damage

Either choice i make have an undesirable side effect. You compromise.

This translates into a collective choice for a team, do we all build for individual sustain through a more balanced build in for all our members, or do we have one player which will have a weakness that we all gotta cover?

This is your choice as a team, but also as an individual. So Chaith, knowing you are an experienced PvP player, please tell me, if you got low stability uptime or few stunbreaks or low cleansing or, all of these. Then shouldn’t there be a little alarm saying “i should probably not enter a fight against this profession without help”??

I do this mistake all the time, i get greedy, knowing full well what the limitations of my chosen build is. Sure it is easy for me to say “i shouldn’t charge in head first against prof X”. But i get greedy, i get narrow sighted and do it either way, knowing how stupid it is.
Why do i do this? Because i am human, i make mistakes. So do you, so do everyone else.

However MISTAKES is not what this game should be balanced against.
Entangle, Fear, Slickshoes, Ring/line of warding – all of these have COUNTERS. If they pose such a threat, simply BUILD against them.

Infact, it is just as easy to counter all of the above mentioned skills, as it is to counter longbow rangers. However it comes at a cost. So either one build against ones fears problems and open up for new problems, or one accepts ones limitations and admit that “i need help”.

It is that simple. When in doubt, bring a friend.

This post is next-level .. I simply said Guardian’s AoE stunbreak doesn’t even succeed at building to counter the things you said it does. As with all simple break-stuns. Gotta get dat secondary stab effects, or displacements to escape Slick Shoes or Ring

Prysin.8542:

BlackTruth.6813:

Patchi.9061:

There is counter to all of them. Please stop complaining about it, it’s a learn to play issue

That aside I think their cool down is pretty low for what they offer , so what is “overpowered” is the fact they have really short cool down.

Slick shoes and Ward just waits out stability then GG. You think it’s hard to bait out cool downs on Hammer Guard or Cele Engi? LMAO.

Entangle and Fear me have EASIER counterplay such as getting condi cleansed by others. The complaint is Ward and Slick Shoes is harder to deal with for the same cool downs, why is it so hard to understand balancing?

AOE stunbreak is present. Mesmers and guards just dont use it for various reasons.

Hey, this game is based upon effect and countereffect.

If you fail to add condition cleanse to your build, you deserve to lose to conditions
If you fail to add sufficient armor rating and or protection or evasion to your build, you deserve to die to direct damage
If you fail to add sufficient amounts of stunbreaks, or kite when against classes with spammy stun attacks, then you deserve to be CCd
If you fail to acknowledge that all of the aforementioned scenarios can be, almost in their entirety, be countered by building correctly, then you deserve to lose.

AoE stunbreak won’t affect Entangle, Slick Shoes, or Ring of Warding.

The Guardian just takes AoE stability in place of AoE stunbreak, lmao. Which actually does many amazing things. Like escaping Ring and Slick Shoes, and reviving, stomping.

And Mesmer’s Stunbreak Mantra could be alright, but Portal and having better personal survivability takes precedence.

Sadly Rangers have it bad enough, so entangle is needed to carry their underpowered kit.

Hints for coping: stealthing while entangled stops entangle from pulsing on you, so you can walk out.

I support this..

People don’t understand the gravity of spending 4 points in arms, and taking Hammer/Maces. It means you are committing to a really under-dog build to begin with.

WeihGuy.9320:

Even someone with stability doesn’t pose much of a problem…… daze them.

That’s a negative on dazing people with stability.

ronpierce.2760:

Aerveor.9617:

Chaith.8256:

Here’s a strategy that’s not a cheap curb stomp sucker punch, take your enemies into the downed state without going into the downed state yourself.

This method is 100% effective at not getting “cheap curb stomped.”

If you’re in a 1v1 and someone has their 60 second cooldown left over to stomp you, you’ve probably made a large mistake, or it’s a matchup you probably should have opted out of to begin with. Every stomping method has counterplay in a teamfight situation. If the devs ever balance the game where downstate has a significant impact on the outcome out 1v1s I’ll be incredibly disappointed.

Technically speaking, invuln stomps have the least counter play in team fights, and thats actually the issue. Who cares about 1v1. They’re guaranteed stomps on anything that isn’t a thief or ele for the most part (granted you just wait for the mist form and then it is if you’re smart…) The only real counter to it is an engineer with the ability to stealth the downed enemy, mass invis or a thief to stealth them. Otherwise its pretty much an easy stomp. No other stomp secure method even comes close. People complained about stability but hell it has more counter than this. And even more-so soon when you can actually eat through stability.

Elixir S, Mist Form, Obsidian Flesh, Distortion (Shatter), the abilities already come with enough opportunity costs to work themselves out of the meta already, my man.

If you don’t want something to be stomped, hard revive it, revive utility it, or stealth it. But there’s no sense in nerfing Mist Form or Focus Elementalists. Priorities, invuln stomps are not one of them.

Here’s a strategy that’s not a cheap curb stomp sucker punch, take your enemies into the downed state without going into the downed state yourself.

Shieldbash.5304:

Shylock.4653:

Shieldbash.5304:

Warrior – Higher HP, more CC, medium low DPS can’t maintain itself no protection slow regen, poor condition removals, can be melted like butter by specific comps.

Since when does Shoutbow Warriors have poor condition removals?
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Warrior_-_Shoutbow

Horrible to play, might as well roll something else if you want to be a High Armor melee class that blows a horn and shoots arrows!

Shoutbow is extremely viable, and has amazing synergy with teamfight focused, double berserker comps. Yes, it can get melted by extremely bursty comps but with proper kiting, you can troll enough to make the enemy regret trying to melt you.

I’d be so totally down with a fixed stat budget to allocate, with a reasonable maximum allocation per stat of course, forcing the player to spread over at least 4 stats.

For too much of the time this game has been live, some professions have been unable to properly itemize in PvP whereas some professions have an amulet that just so happens to fit their meta build properly. It’s just a bit ghetto-rigged in general.

Lopez.7369:

Yeah. Those classes are hard to deal with as a necromancer. Thief in particular is probably the counter to the class in group fights. That doesn’t justify running into their melee range and making it so they don’t even have to use their gap closers to get on you. The whole point of necromancer is to pre-kite and stay at range, and only get into melee range as a last or preemptive option to get support from the group. If a necromancer doesn’t even bait the gap closers, of course he’s never going to get away, and he’ll spend most of the matches downed or get his entire team helplessly AOEed as they cluster around him to support.

Necromancer also has a couple counters to that combo you’re describing. But one thing to not do against it is run into melee range.

I looked through your post history and I found it disappointing to see so many unjustified shots taken at Nos. I think he’s indisputably the best Necro, actually. My reasoning is that it’s because he lands Dark Path with impunity, every team feels his pressure, and he gets away with this by having the best grip on defensive cooldowns.

Idolizing the Necro players who position extremely defensively, that’s your call, but Phanta and I have repeatedly said to ourselves: “I can’t feel that Necro’s pressure at all, I’m just going about my business.”. It’s just a matter of playing to the Necro’s strengths, and avoiding the enemy’s strategy to counter Necro teams by attacking in 4v4’s with plentiful condition removal.

Just trust us, a Necro landing Dark Path and ~600 range Dooms in a smaller or outnumbering fight is worlds apart in usefulness from a Necro who pewpews from the ledge vs. 4 or 5 enemies.

Both traits are so forgotten and ignorable I think I’ve never tested it.

Gaaroth.2567:

I agree with everything but I also understand they policy: I think they are scared of spreading the community in multiple queues and possibly make the PvP feel even more empty.

For starters i really believe “practice” has to go as option, only ranked and unranked, based on our brand new and shiny point system.

Unranked can follow the RNG system, maybe having 1 conquest, 1 tdm, 1 stronghold in map option.

Ranked should be divided by game mode.

Total number of queues: 4 (today is 3)

I believe this would work.

Really great ideas.

I think default Hotjoins add value to the game, you will miss it if it were to go. Fast daily completion, build testing, all nice perks.

My proposal:

[Play Now]

• As you were.

[Unranked Queue]

• Includes Conquest, Courtyard, and Stronghold.

[Ranked Conquest] & [Ranked Stronghold]

• Avoid Skyhammer, Courtyard, Spirit Watch, and be able to select Stronghold or Conquest explicitly, based on what builds and comps you are testing, play the game seriously and precisely how you want to.

• Why I did not include a Solo Queue:

There is a need to have players separated by team size, IE: a solo queue. However, this can be achieved by matchmaking as long as the queue is populated, so as long as the queues aren’t split up too much, matchmaking can work, and the need for a Solo Queue decreases further.

Splitting the game into Solo/Team Queues also remove the ability to duo/triple/quad queue which is a massive feature.

Everyone thinks celestial and berserker are mutually exclusive. Everybody is running Celestial point holders, and Berserker DPS are always viable when coordinated properly. The exception is Celestial Engineer which is the only profession that competes with Berserkers for their roamer spots.

Besides that one build, Celestial and Berserker can (currently are?) both meta.

It’s realistic to say that a Clerics meta, or Soldiers meta (Bunker meta) is being forced out by Celestials.

There are really two minigames that come up in tPvP:

Point Holders: Celestial meta or Bunker meta?

Roamers: Berserker meta or Condi meta, or Cele Engi meta? (Lol). It’s usually a healthy balance mix for Roamers.

I feel that bringing true support/bunkers are under-tuned and currently only serve to counter enemy teams stacking berserkers, while generally being utterly under tuned against any balanced comp or otherwise.

arron.7348:

buffed isn’t necessarily the right word here, and no, everything isn’t fine

in regards to rangers: shouts, spirits, traps, pets, 80% of its traits, and quite a few of its weapon skills are outright bad and need reworked or replaced.

i’m not experienced enough with mesmers or necromancers to comment on what needs changed, but it’s quite evident they need something to give them the edge they currently lack at higher levels of play(even if i personally believe necromancers to be one of the most frustrating 1v1s in the game, it’s clear after watching nos yesterday that something is missing).

Necro is a great class. They just need to be played a certain way, and if the enemy doesn’t allow that, then like every profession, it can get nullified.

Mesmer and Necro just come with a long list of requirements, when met, they’re a force to be reckoned with – the most lethal of killers. Consistency is all that’s lacking, buffing would be extremely complicated.

Buff/Change non-longbow Ranger weapons. Some lacking depth/plays, often ignorable, sporadic, and generic. A little more reward and risk would be better, to avoid that feeling of flinging the same instant projectile with 4 different tool tips.

Congratulations to oRnG. Especially on the next level Frae/Tage pain train synergy, and the R O M dream escapes and banners.

Hopefully see you next time for the tiebreaker

Elitist.8701:

Shoutbow is just as broken as cele engi and cele ele…

That is to say, not broken. None of them are overpowered.

BTW if you really wanna nerf shoutbow you better be prepared for Warrior to become trash tier again. Argue all you want but Hambow isn’t that strong anymore and there is no viable zerker warrior build, or any other warrior build period.

For not being overpowered there certainly are not many alternatives to running 2 Cele pointholders. All other Bunkers are a far cry from Ele and War to a slightly lesser extent. What else can you use to hold points, 1vX and do as many other useful thing? Bunker Guard? Turret Engi? Spirit Ranger? Lol kk. Ele/War are currently miles ahead of alternative point holders in overall value & flexibility especially.

Ostricheggs.3742:

no kitten you do backpack.

For the record any mention of that is under NDA.

Not like I’m in it though

Wow Ostricheggs, first rule about beta testing is you do NOT talk about beta testing.

I’m going to report you and they’ll for sure take away your lucrative beta tester allowance, and health plan.

Equips tinfoil hat

Shiyo.3578:

1v1/2v2 are 90% of the fights in my spvp games. No idea about pro games.

Don’t know how the subject became whether you’re 1v1 or 2v2, but rather the percentage of the time when the target already has poison which can only detract from sigil of Doom’s usefulness. It’s comp dependant mainly! Generally it’s only duelists who take Doom, Eng/Ele/War, but we always have a Thief/Engi/Necro gank the 1v1s literally as soon as possible, and poison will be brought when that happens. Clearly Doom makes sense for Eng/Ele/War duel focused builds but not for much else. Far from an apex predator, as the saying goes.

Zietlogik.6208:

interesting that you would put words in my mouth….when was this a thing? your assumptions are an issue. “Ever” was a poor word to use there, speaking in absolutes is nonsensical. Removing “Ever” would fit what my actual skepticism is, since it all revolves around time.

2 years + 186 days later here we are.

Zietlogik.6208:

So you literally said you doubt they will actually learn anything by queuing with players. This is completely an absolute, you didn’t exactly put a time constraint on them learning things.

No words were placed in your mouth.

BlackBeard.2873:

Chaith.8256:

Sigils are powerful, build altering options. This is true, but there are no great arguments at this time as to why a single target, avoidable, 6 second duration poison attack after swapping weapons, is objectively better than the the other top swap sigils, or crit sigils.

“Doom Sigil is OP because Celestial Builds can outsustain better.”

I think your wording here has made it evident the problem does not lie within the Doom Sigil but in Celestial Builds. Please tell me about how good Doom Sigil is whenever your profession doesn’t have poison, when anyone who can use Air/Fire is doing so, even if they have no poison.

1. Sigil of Doom isn’t exactly avoidable in most uses. Perhaps against a warrior where you can pay attention to the weapon-swap, but against something like an ele or engie that can swap attunements/kits mid-attack, thus instantly applying, its not really avoidable.

2. High sustain builds on classes like ele and warrior play the attrition game via might-stacking to win. Regardless of cele amulet, soldier (warr), or valks (ele), doom sigil synergizes with that strategy to such a powerful degree and pushes their high-healing over-the-top in a fight by applying so much -healing pressure to opponents. These classes are balanced around not having access to lots of poison.

3. Experience. Fight as a d/d cele ele without doom sigil and you do WAY less pressure than with. I have even watched streams of either OE or you (can’t recall which) from a few months back when people were figuring out the meta, and stating that your pressure is WAY higher (as an engie) when you have doom sigil, even though you had access to a good amount of poison with nades. You can still test this. Play a cele ele or warrior without doom and your TTK goes WAY up, even against non-cele builds. In fact, some fights that would be unfavorable are now in your favor as a cele ele thanks to doom sigil.

Also, fire/air is stupid too, for different reasons, but that should also be fixed as well. However, I will say that builds that use fire/air still have burst potential without these sigils. Cele builds (esp. warr/ele) have NO access to poison in any way without this sigil.

A couple patches ago, killing Phanta with Battle/Doom on my Engi was often impossible without a godly amount of RNG, with Intelligence over Doom, it was possible.

Doom is certainly more fire and forget than Intelligence though, I’ll say that much.

Also, when I dueled Toker’s Acro-SD Thief with Leeching/Doom, I hit maybe like one in 4 due to his ability to dodge most auto-attacks. So I typically went like 30 seconds at a time where Leeching/Doom were literally doing absolutely nothing. Mesmers are similar, Doom/Leeching are totally unreliable with clones eating it/dodging of auto attacks/invulns.

Also everyone in this thread talks about Doom in a 1v1 setting where it most shines. What about other fights where poison upkeep is literally a joke to achieve? Stacking Doom Sigils doesn’t translate into more pressure. This is why things like Battle/Intelligence/Air/Fire shine harder, because Conquest isn’t a long string of 1v1s.

Mrbig.8019:

Chaith.8256:

Shiyo.3578:

Explain how classes that shouldn’t have access to poison(a HUGE 33% healing debuff) having essentially FREE access to 6 seconds of poison every 9 seconds isn’t overpowered.

Also, if it’s not the most overpowered sigil, what is?

Professions that aren’t supposed to have high critical chance suddenly have many crits with Intelligence Sigil

Professions that aren’t supposed to have vigor or more than baseline dodges suddenly have that with Intelligence Sigil

I mean, saying it in a hype way is useful to making a point, but really:

• Avoidable 6s poison attack on swap
• Unpreventable damage procs on Crit
• Unpreventable 50 Endurance refill on swap
• Unpreventable 2 Stacks of Might for 20s on swap
• Avoidable 975 damage & healing leech on swap
• Next 3 attacks guaranteed to crit, expends charges when attacks avoided.

I would say these are the best sigils…. why does there have to be one that’s the most overpowered, as you earlier claimed?

Objectively, the un-preventable ones such as Air/Fire and Energy are the most overpowered ones, but who cares, despite the game making sigils way too important to a build, the top 10 or so sigils are certainly well balanced with each other.

Doom sigil is the most OP right now cuz it allows cele builds to outsustain even better.

Aside engi ( which still has 2 condi clears every 15 secs) all cele proffs are the best at handling conditions.

It’s the same moot point of the the old " u can counter heal signet with poison lelelelel" without factoring that war has one of the best condi removal in game, even without zerk stance/shouts.

Moreover it allows to cover your burn ticks better, especially for the ele which wouldn’ have that free condi in their kitten nal ( u get dem 600 per tick burns covered by chill, 1-2 BLEED STACKS and other joke condies).

1 doom sigil proc on a mes will basically deal him 2 k free damage if he heals with it ( aside generosity on staff/sword but it’s basically the same if he has weap swap on cd) while on ele u just attune to water and gg.

Pls.

Sigils are powerful, build altering options. This is true, but there are no great arguments at this time as to why a single target, avoidable, 6 second duration poison attack after swapping weapons, is objectively better than the the other top swap sigils, or crit sigils.

“Doom Sigil is OP because Celestial Builds can outsustain better.”

I think your wording here has made it evident the problem does not lie within the Doom Sigil but in Celestial Builds. Please tell me about how good Doom Sigil is whenever your profession doesn’t have poison, when anyone who can use Air/Fire is doing so, even if they have no poison.

Tao.5096:

Intelligence Sigil doesn’t grant vigor, neither have anything to do with Endurance.

Ya, correctly reads energy now.

mistsim.2748:

thanks Chaith for agreeing with the majority of the player base and explaining why cele comps are OP. a celestial ele should not be able to keep a point decapped for the entire game, playing against other professionals, WHILE getting kills and leaving combat at will and healing back to full in 2-3 seconds.

I also feel well played thieves (d/p or s/d) don’t really have any counters (zerker medi guard to an extent, but theyre easily focused and killed), while hardcountering a lot of other specs. this is very poor game design, and Abjured has basically shown us how there is a single best comp for conquest (maybe with small variations, but revolving around 2 cele d/d eles).

hoping to see a pvp revival when the xpac hits, cant really take gw2’s pvp seriously in any way in its current form. it’s sad that this is the best it’s ever been.

I think you’re being too pessimistic

Taking two Eles as your pointholders just plain depends on who you have doing it. You don’t need 2 Eles to beat the Abjured.

Do you think Tarcis or R O M would politely quit the game out of being inadequate, when being compared to an Ele’s usefulness? I think not. It’s who plays better that day.

With that in mind, one can easily put together an elite comp, running Ele/War/Engi/Thief/X, with that X being: Condi Necro, Medi Guard, Shatter Mesmer, an exceptional Ranger, I do believe that covers all 8 professions.

It’s not perfect, clearly certain professions are more vital backbones of the comp, but until you are the best at a profession but it’s simply too underpowered to compete, how do you justify current balance as responsible for PvP not being taken seriously, or needing a reboot? Perhaps you meant that in another way.

Zietlogik.6208:

Chaith.8256:

Zietlogik.6208:

Ostricheggs.3742:

it’s good to see a dev play with good players no matter how you cut it.

Why is it good exactly? I doubt they are actually learning anything by doing this.

I’ve played with Hugh for probably 40 hours in the last two weeks, I can say with confidence that he has improved.

I’m not talking about how they improve as players, I am talking about what they can learn that will help them to improve the game.

Well it’s funny you say that

Often times we experienced the frustration of people booting us from queue simply by sending party join requests, even if they went unaccepted. A short amount of time later, Hugh very excitedly told us that dialogue happened with Evan Lesh and that would no longer happen. :P

So pretty much the literal definition of what you’re sceptical of ever happening. Learning from firsthand experience, which got translated into a small but instant hotfix. Obviously bigger fixes/improvements will take time.

Shiyo.3578:

Explain how classes that shouldn’t have access to poison(a HUGE 33% healing debuff) having essentially FREE access to 6 seconds of poison every 9 seconds isn’t overpowered.

Also, if it’s not the most overpowered sigil, what is?

Professions that aren’t supposed to have high critical chance suddenly have many crits with Intelligence Sigil

Professions that aren’t supposed to have vigor or more than baseline dodges suddenly have that with Energy Sigil

I mean, saying it in a hype way is useful to making a point, but really:

• Avoidable 6s poison attack on swap
• Unpreventable damage procs on Crit
• Unpreventable 50 Endurance refill on swap
• Unpreventable 2 Stacks of Might for 20s on swap
• Avoidable 975 damage & healing leech on swap
• Next 3 attacks guaranteed to crit, expends charges when attacks avoided.

I would say these are the best sigils…. why does there have to be one that’s the most overpowered, as you earlier claimed?

Objectively, the un-preventable ones such as Air/Fire and Energy are the most overpowered ones, but who cares, despite the game making sigils way too important to a build, the top 10 or so sigils are certainly well balanced with each other.

Shiyo.3578:

Doom sigil is the most overpowered sigil in the game right now, especially on an ele that should NOT have any access to poison, and having access to poison for that long of a duration/uptime is insane. Doom sigil should be discussed more in this thread.

Doom’s dodgeable/invuln/blindable, I think it’s not the most overpowered sigil in the game.

MadVisions.4529:

Most of the topics i read here are about the bad matchmaking system, lack of players, unfair matches etc… so i gonna share my thoughts about this.

If you want to have balanced matches you need a system that sorts the queuing players into teams not only taking premde team sizes, but also player personal skills into consideration. Our current system seems to lack on both of these but imo the bigger problem is how the ranking system works.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/swIgFV4.jpg[/img]

Take a look at the leaderboard. 6 ppl in the top 15(even #1) got <=50% win rate. how is that even posible ?!?! (not meaning to offend these ppl thy surely are grate players)
all i see the leader syster rewards the time invested instead of player skill. Devs could copy the ranking system of chess like many other games did and guess what it works wonderfully for them.
This is how you get balanced matches: you drop in players with the same skill level which is determined by theyr rank points.

+Lot of my mates did quit the game just becouse of the bad ranking system. They didnt even argue about ‘bad matchmaking’ or ‘lack of gamemodes’ or ‘lack of tournaments’ the lack of competitive skill measurement was simply enough.

So in my opinion the implementation of a proper rankend system would not only fix most of the current problems by itself, but it would atract a LOT of people to the pvp scene.

I can perhaps see why your PvP friends would be upset over the ranking system, it is accessible to anyone of all skill levels, you just have to solo queue in ranked a lot. Unfortunately, for those that won’t/can’t, it could be very un-engaging.

It’s pretty much the High Warlord/Grand Marshal quest that some MMO PvPers have known in the past, lol. Except there were unique skins for all tiers, not just the top 1%.

Whether that’s ‘good’ or not, that’s up to the playerbase. Speaking for myself, and what I’m sure is a reasonable slice of the population, the current ranking system is completely un-engaging and is totally ignorable, because solo queuing all day is simply out of the question.

Question: Ranked queue marathon all day, every day?

() Yes – You will find the system rewarding.
() No – You will not find the system rewarding.

Acrisor.8097:

Thank you. All you did is just confirm my words. You gave proof that you throw a lot of crowd-control and might stacking with purpose to damage your enemy in the end. It is same meat, different gravy.

Engi/Ele throws CC and has the purpose to damage the enemy in the end? You don’t say, well, glad I ended up proving your thesis.

My post was more because you gave the impression that the meta Celestial using builds aren’t overpowered, but rather ‘mediocre’, when they’re often quite competent at 2 roles at least, like control/damage, or support/damage, as well as a minor in the control/support area which is not prominent.

Acrisor.8097:

basically doing nothing but trolling and surviving long enough to stack might.

^Except not. The meta Ele/Engi builds especially have way more ability than merely trolling and surviving, that’s a factor into why they are overtuned and your perception is way off.

Acrisor.8097:

Celestial is not overpowered. It slowly gets overpowered by the easy mechanics and crowd-controls providing it time to stack might for bursting down the target.

In essence, a celestial should die easy, but when that celestial disables the oponent with lots of CC, antigame (such as invulnerability), and bunking abilities; then that celestial gets more and more time to stack might and become a big problem.

Celestial is just stats for a mediocre build (not enough damage, not enough bunking, not enough support). What makes the difference is the chance to obtain time with CC and antigame for stacking might.

ArenaNet nerfed might, but that was not the solution. That decision canceled a bit of effect or results, but it did not eliminate the cause. In my opinion there is just too much CC with easy mechanics ingame, allowing people to just “troll” on a point, waiting for might to stack.

Eliminating CC is hard, because players like it, and more CC will be added on expansion. So, I do not know what the solution could be. Eliminating Celestial from PvP could be a possible solution, but again, it is just a mediocre build, basically doing nothing but trolling and surviving long enough to stack might.

I disagree with your idea of what Celestial is or should be, that’s not exactly clear. Let me start with saying that my opinion over time has changed and I do think the amulet itself should be shaved down to 400 stats in its respective category, down from 438.

You see ‘Celestials’ as D/D Ele or Shoutbow War, but your descriptions of what those professions are actually doing in a match, ie, rolling around, surviving, stacking might, loafing around in mediocrity, that’s just not how it works.

Celestial Ele and Warrior only have their potential unlocked when the player has really mastered playing aggressively as a cohesive unit with the DPS roamers. Shoutbow Warrior can be a big player in winning fights with properly timed Pin Downs, and D/D Ele Updrafts, Earthquakes, Immobilizes, these just ends lives when combo’d with an Engineer or Necro. Someone playing like you describe has no damage game, no CC game.

For example, Phantaram and I can lock select Warriors/Engineers with weak stunbreaks who get caught without them for up to 12 seconds. And that’s not even the maximum, it’s just Earthquake into Updraft, into Overcharged Shot, into Slick Shoes, none of those abilities with a cooldown over 45 seconds.

Once you start tapping into the wreck-your-face mentality, I don’t know how anyone can call Celestials benign might stackers who troll around the point.

Zietlogik.6208:

Ostricheggs.3742:

it’s good to see a dev play with good players no matter how you cut it.

Why is it good exactly? I doubt they are actually learning anything by doing this.

I’ve played with Hugh for probably 40 hours in the last two weeks, I can say with confidence that he has improved.

leviathan.2148:

Master Exploder

xDudisx.5914:

If you are considering blast frost field for +1 aura let’s also consider that d/d can leap on fire field and get 3 auras. d/d still has more

Anyway it is not like everyone is trying to get a frost aura instead of blasting a fire/water field.

Don’t argue with him, clearly he wants to make that point really really bad. How Staff vs. D/D ever became the topic, that’s a mystery tho.

Rickster.8752:

The best downed cleave in the game is a celestial engineer. So a tanky spec = most downed cleave in the game.

In the Good Fights era I ran Berserker Grenade Engi, if you think the cleave is filthy now, you should have seen it then, lol.

Supreme.3164:

I repeat the question : Why is that there are no nerf requests for staff?

-They say that d/d with those traits support too much….but staff ele can support as much with those traits, if no more

-They say d/d can have easy access to protection therefore elemental shielding must be nerfed…I can have 2 auras on staff too; Frozen ground + blast finisher = frozen aura and it’s aoe Frozen aura( for allies too ) and then there is magnetic wave

-I can heal the team more that d/d ele ever will, can support better and can CC more

What I can’t do very well on staff is 1VS1 and that’s the reason, the real reason behind nerf requests. It’s got nothing to do with the support capabilities of an ele

Let me teach you something, on a MMO forum people don’t go to complain about the support capabilities of a profession, they will only complain about the 1VS1 capabilities of a profession.

Nerf requests are normally selfish in nature. If you’d improve the 1vs1 potential of a staff ele..tomorrow you’d see somebody complain how staff ele is OP and breaks the game with its support potential, nobody cares about support in reality, all they want is to win that 1vs1

Why are there no requests for staff nerfs? Because while strong in it’s own right, staff is just an inferior fit to complementing current PvP team comps, with the top profession picks. Staff Ele is a much better fit for 4v4+ teamfights.

I could go on about micro details of why Staff is PvP-inferior to dagger at the moment, like: the burning uptime of it is very low, the damage is ridiculously telegraphed to the point of uselessness in small scale fights, it synergizes poorly with Signet of Renewal.

But the big picture is that reliable pressure & sustain will always trump the Staff Ele’s niche toolbox, when unsuitable 3-point strats and off-node skirmish strats are being employed very often.

Staff Ele will shine when comps focus on 2 point strats, and are comprised of support-friendly allies. That is not now, so, that’s why Staff Ele is not a player right now and everyone isn’t screaming nerfbat. Not because it’s underpowered but just because it doesn’t fit in.

rotten.9753:

The first two of those changes are what brought ele from the bottom tier to the top. If you reverse them and nerf eles more, they will be even worse than before.

Burning Speed evade frames and Frozen Burst blast didn’t affect much..

The introduction of Celestial Stats, and the nerf revert to Cleansing Water, that pretty much launched Ele from garbo tier to SS Tier. It had sweet little to do with Burning Speed or Frozen Burst changes.

Divinity Runes are ridiculously underpowered.

Just because they have the same philosophy as Celestial does not make them a good choice.

Exedore.6320:

Swim.6830:

I keep seeing the same kitten quoted by people “5 seconds of Aoe protection in 10 seconds cooldown” and similar. Uh NO it is NOT. No one attunes just for the boon and then attunes back right away (that’s the only case where it would be remotely close to 10s). Attunements are not kits and are a class profession. It’s like me complaining about ranger pets being too stonkk kitten kitten.

This does bring up a good point: What is a d/d ele’s protection up-time?

First, What’s a reasonable time between Earth attunement swaps? I think 15sec – 20sec is a good estimate.

If we look at at 60 second window (hopefully a battle will be decided by then), we have the following sources for self-protection:

• 6 sec from Armor of Earth
• 10 sec from Shocking Aura x2
• 5 sec from Frost Aura
• 15 sec from Elemental Attunement (Earth) x3
• +30% boon duration from 6 points in Arcane

Add it up and the d/d ele gets 46.8 seconds of Protection on himself in that 60 second window – 78% uptime. Group is only affected by Elemental Attunement, so that’s 19.5 seconds – 32.5% uptime.

You’d have a more accurate picture if you didn’t count Elemental Shielding as five seconds base when it’s three seconds

Booms.2594:

Chaith.8256:

Anyone thinking how warding effects (slick shoes, ring, line) will remove infinite stability stacks at once, I recommend the tinfoil hats be re-equipped immediately to prevent an ArenaNet conspiracy.

It rips one stack of stability per instance of attempting to cross the warding effect, this means in practice, the very moment you get caught in it, simply move away and cease using stability stacks on it. These warding effects do have a short global cooldown if you examine them closely.

However, abilities that have only one stack of stability will not always counter Slick Shoes every time, like currently how the Ranger’s ‘Shared Anguish’ trait plays out. You have to employ GTFO tactics for the warding effect to not eat a second stability stack, as the warding abilities function right now.

yeah im keeping my tinfoil hat on. you literally just proved yourself wrong that there ISNT an ICD on slickshoes.

You’re the guy who asked what Arenanet was doing to Slick Shoes so that it won’t remove 10 stacks of stability in a second right?

Look at how it works now, have you seen Slick Shoes proc a knockdown on an enemy without stability more than 3 times? It’s not proccing 10 times a second while the person is knocked down. That would look hilarious. Just no.

I’m sure you can expend 3 stacks of stability if you pop a stability and literally run in and out of the warding effect, but proccing 10 times a second simply isn’t how it works.

Anyone thinking how warding effects (slick shoes, ring, line) will remove infinite stability stacks at once, I recommend the tinfoil hats be re-equipped immediately to prevent an ArenaNet conspiracy.

It rips one stack of stability per instance of attempting to cross the warding effect, this means in practice, the very moment you get caught in it, simply move away and cease using stability stacks on it. These warding effects do have a short global cooldown if you examine them closely.

However, abilities that have only one stack of stability will not always counter Slick Shoes every time, like currently how the Ranger’s ‘Shared Anguish’ trait plays out. You have to employ GTFO tactics for the warding effect to not eat a second stability stack, as the warding abilities function right now.

‘Wrong’ is a pretty harsh word in open world PvE, you could certainly employ easier methods of getting things done, switching away from turrets and towards mobile mob-tagging abilities like nades, flamethrower, bombs, whatever tickles your fancy, that’d be ideal.

Lorgus.6148:

Chaith.8256:

I don’t know why anyone expects this, or would be upset if it wasn’t given.

It’s really not that hard to get a character slot increase..

Maybe not, but you’d expecting paying full price for an expansion featuring a brand new class to at least allow you to play that class without paying extra for the slot/deleting an existing char.

It’s a slippery slope when you start talking about all the things you could expect when you shell out cash for an expansion. For all we know, the expansion will be priced to exactly account for the resources going in to develop the new content, leaving none as compensation for gem store gratuities like character slot expansions.

However, Arenanet has proved to be pretty gracious and has typically never pushed the gem store on anyone, perhaps they will give a freebie character slot expansion to every account?