Guild Wars 2

Dirame.8521:

And for you to tell me that the status quo of the engie does not back up what I’m saying, is to forget your own thread that you created about improvements that need to be made for the Engie trait lines. Especially the explosives and Firearms. We all know that the engie is very stale right now and this sort of trait design isn’t helping matters.

No, it means that you saying the Holosmith will have one build and a boring theorycraft is not backed up.. you keep drawing similarities to Scrapper’s mono-build problem when there are multiple enticing Holosmith builds, roles, and playstyles. Yes obviously I haven’t forgotten about the Scrapper mono-build.

The Holosmith is lit, while you’re correct in that all Holosmiths will have no choice but to use the heat mechanic, I’ll just repeat myself and say: so what? You just keep repeating that it’s a problem so my responses are kinda pidgeonholed into the same.

I’m extremely pleased with the spec so far, it’s going to be a good theorycraft and finally a viable DPS role for the first time in 2 years. Boo hoo for your problems

insanemaniac.2456:

do you think the new shield utility + 1 untraited S would suffice if the build can be otherwise bursty?

It’s possible, but that depends on how deadly the PvP environment is. It looks very deadly so far

Holosmith has huge damage potential (maybe highest of all classes) but Engi and Ele and Ranger have historically all needed to stack purely defensive utilities just to be PvP playable, and hope they are also the best at something..

So to be honest, I don’t know.

Maybe every Holosmith in PvP wanting to fight the best will need to do Inventions/Alchemy/Holosmith with defensive Utilities like Elixir S, Spectrum Shield, and X damage utility. Maybe still using a Marauder amulet though!

insanemaniac.2456:

Chaith.8256:

insanemaniac.2456:

i think shaped charge at 10% might be better than aim assisted rocket for a bruiser build. you can rely on vuln, or at least 1 stack of it. but it wasnt better at 7%, which is where it was the last time anyone thought about using explosives in pvp.

i dont see glass cannon being useful at all. you might as well take grenadier even without taking nades.

same for thermobaric. entirely useless and bad. take shrapnel instead, because you have some explosions. and random cripple is annoying. annoy your opponents instead of annoying yourself when thermobaric does nothing when you try to skillfully make use of it.

Hah yeah agreed on Explosive traits, that specialization’s traits are horribly balanced in PvP.

Evasive Powder Keg, Steel Packed Powder’s vuln, Explosive Powder’s 10% and Shaped Charge’s 10%, factor in the vulnerability for your allies attacks – Explosives is pretty legit .. roughly 25-40% more threatening Engi pressure depending on the PvP fight size. For a Grenade & Crystal Configuration: Storm Holosmith it will be assuredly one of the first builds I test.. if you can Grenade while in Photon Forge after the lockout, it’ll be possible to stall your heat generation while remaining in Photon Forge

its really too bad engi simply cannot have enough defensive stuff in todays environment without dedicating a minimum of 2 specs.

im not sure which direction i would rather have them go:

1. bake more strong defense into 1 core spec and take it out of the 3rd typical core spec, replacing with damage that doesnt compete with other playstyles. while centralizing (in that pvp/wvw builds literally wont do anything without it as opposed to now where they might just flop over anyways), if properly balanced it could open up several different playstyles that accentuate certain utilities while also leaving room to take an elite to further diversify.
2. put enough defensive traits across all specs so engi isnt tied to any one spec in particular in any game mode.

but of course, they choose the 3rd option: leave the old because spaghetti code and just make new things not often enough.

holosmith looks like you could potentially give up alchemy, fwiw. alchemy is there for condi removal primarily, protection/safety secondarily, and might tertiarily. holosmith has just the 1 utility for protection, but it has multiple dashes including useful superspeed, and a bunch of no icd condi removal when you drop photon, and perfectly good might. its not a really boon heavy spec like alchemy but with all the corruption/stripping thatll fly around that doesnt seem to be a bad thing to me.

i dunno its hard for me to think of this in terms of pvp when it screams pve kit dancer so loudly.

Alchemy from a PvP case is protection Injection, double Elixir S (Toss Elixir S).

That’s just my personal taste in PvP, and it does win games.

Shaogin.2679:

Judging by the skill descriptions on the Wiki it would make sense that you can still use kits while in photon forge after the lock out time.

Don’t think you can completely stall heat generation though because I think it said photon forge generates 2% heat per second or something like that?

Yeah not halt it but you can stall it pretty good and then exit or overheat when it’s the optimal time to clear conditions or asplode someone

insanemaniac.2456:

i think shaped charge at 10% might be better than aim assisted rocket for a bruiser build. you can rely on vuln, or at least 1 stack of it. but it wasnt better at 7%, which is where it was the last time anyone thought about using explosives in pvp.

i dont see glass cannon being useful at all. you might as well take grenadier even without taking nades.

same for thermobaric. entirely useless and bad. take shrapnel instead, because you have some explosions. and random cripple is annoying. annoy your opponents instead of annoying yourself when thermobaric does nothing when you try to skillfully make use of it.

Hah yeah agreed on Explosive traits, that specialization’s traits are horribly balanced in PvP.

Evasive Powder Keg, Steel Packed Powder’s vuln, Explosive Powder’s 10% and Shaped Charge’s 10%, factor in the vulnerability for your allies attacks – Explosives is pretty legit .. roughly 25-40% more threatening Engi pressure depending on the PvP fight size. For a Grenade & Crystal Configuration: Storm Holosmith it will be assuredly one of the first builds I test.. if you can Grenade while in Photon Forge after the lockout, it’ll be possible to stall your heat generation while remaining in Photon Forge

Have fun! (Holosmith will poop on Deadeye)

Dirame.8521:

Chaith.8256:

In PvP a good build will often need a strong defensive foundation like Alchemy, if that makes every build the same despite what utilities, weapons, and the various ways to rely on Photon Forge, then really your beef should be with Alchemy, Soul Reaping, Fast hands, Water, Trickery, every PoF PvP build will still use these specializations in PvP

I think you understand my point but this comment sounds like you don’t. Simply put, the new Specialization isn’t changing the way I see Grenades or use grenades, it isn’t changing the way I use my Pistol or my Rifle. And it only focuses on wielding the Holo-Forge. On the other hand, consider the Reaper again, or even the engie itself, Static Discharge completely changes the way I see the toolbelt skills, Bitter Chill, completely changes the way I look at the Necro’s skills but is there anything like static discharge and Bitter Chill on the Holosmith? Nope.

No I get it, just feeling like you’re looking for something very arbitrary for how you particularly enjoy theory crafting. In my view I don’t feel every specialization needs to trait to get twice the benefit from a certain condition or utility type for it to be well designed. Your claiming of mono-builds and same playstyles are not backed up by what we know.

That’s all, just recognize not every Elite spec will have or will need one trait that makes X so powerful you have to revisit every sigil/skill to cram more of X in your build like Bitter Chill. Despite lacking that the Holosmith can have build diversity and provide 3 distinct ways to deal with the heat mechanic.

In PvP a good build will often need a strong defensive foundation like Alchemy, if that makes every build the same despite what utilities, weapons, and the various ways to rely on Photon Forge, then really your beef should be with Alchemy, Soul Reaping, Fast hands, Water, Trickery, every PoF PvP build will still use these specializations in PvP

AoE Photon Forge skills that release the light of a small sun those need to be particle nerfed. The single target abilities are reasonable. The laser disk utility is over the top too, fortunately I don’t see that utility being dominant in PvP

3-4 AoE skills pls Nerf particles

Yeah for a Bruiser condition removal is probably still better than the 15% damage reduction. Adept #2 over #1 in PvP, and yes for explosion build I meant Master #1 over #3.

Also we disagreed on explosives being useful, you prefer glass cannon and thermobaric detonation but I think those are terribad and prefer to take grenades, grenadier, and shrapnel which in my opinion of the only PvP viable way to play explosives. Making a build out of Crystal configuration: storm and explosives, that’s not an old build. Making a build based on sword and photon forge, how’s that an old build with Holosmith slapped on…. Oh must be elixir gun?

Again you’re just very particular in that you expect Holo traits to bring some underpowered utilities to the top in a brand new combination or you’re unhappy. Prepare to be disappointed I say, the xPac ships in under 2mth and you won’t like it

Way too early to declare that it’s going the way of Scrapper (1 build)

I see many ways to potentially play Holosmith in PvP for example

No mention about the synergy between Crystal Configuration: Storm, Prime Light Beam, Corona Burst, and Explosives traits?

I think Holosmith totally fits into a P/P hybrid damage build as well. P/P, Firearms/Alchemy/Holosmith. Flamethrower, Elixir S, Spectrum Shield. Holosmith: 2-3-1 for heat venting dodge roll burns or Holosmith 3-3-3 for an overheat style build.

Bruiser might stacking build with Sword/Shield, Inventions/Alchemy/Holosmith. Elixir Gun, Spectrum Shield, Hard Light Arena. Focus on doing high Sword damage after leaving Photon Forge with high heat. Holosmith 2-2-2.

DPSSS Holosmith with Sword/Shield, Explosives/Alchemy/Holosmith. Grenades, Elixir S, Spectrum Shield. Wreck face with ranged explosion Photon Forge autos and Grenades. Use Sword/Shield to leap away and quickness heal instead of offense. Holosmith 2-3-3.

Since you’re not excited to play these builds, I think you are just too narrow in what you can view as fun.. personally your suggestions are too focused on condition spamming for my liking

We don’t even know if using a kit will eject you from Photon Forge, there are playstyles totally hinging on that, wait and see.

Elixir H isn’t used because it’s more interrupt-able and has less sustain than Healing Turret. With explosives your healing turret is a knockback too.

Elixir S and Self-Regulating defenses over Elixir U and Inversion Enzyme/Backpack Regenerator. This gives you the necessary breathing room to stomp, run to allies, and stealth to survive pressure, learn to like it or be destroyed when you run DPS engi

In your carrion amulet build absolutely take Incendiary Ammunition, in PvP it just way outpaces the alternatives. Personally, I find Grenades, Elixir Gun, and Flamethrower to be too YOLO offensive to work, when I use core Engi I feel it’s necessary to pick between grenade builds and Flamethrower burn builds. Elixir S and Tool Kit is the secret to living long enough to wear people down with Incendiary Ammunition.

I do think that Photon Forge is very like Reaper Shroud, the similarities are crazy.

• Longer than standard 130 melee range autos
• Gap closer #2
• Stability (when traited) #3
• Multi-hitting condition spike #4
• Point blank AoE CC #5

It’s very obviously based on Reaper Shroud

It’s what you get when it’s attached to a 15s or 30s stunbreak utility that reduces damage and conditions taken by 50% for 3s

They wanted to have a strong utility so they attached a limp toolbelt, that’s balance

This is not even a question, by design it’s impossible to have two active Elite specs as the overlap in class mechanic changes makes it not work.

YourFriendMarvin.4127:

apharma.3741:

YourFriendMarvin.4127:

Being dishonored for purely Account Sharing isn’t right. Some people such as myself got hit again at a random time, and it’s really unjust unless the accounts being shared are being manipulated in a wrong way. The issues with leaderboard boosting/Monthly Automated Tournaments are an example, but just sharing accounts and no manipulation of any sort involved shouldn’t get you extreme dishonor buffs. Account sharing has been happening in all game modes of Guild Wars 2, and it’s been really one sided to how they are executing unfair dishonors. Especially when I know there are a ton of people who have account shared, but I myself get hit due to being a big name in Season 5 incidents. Investigations need to be more stronger, and not just based on IP’s. Sure it’s ToS violations, but I feel as long as nothing bad is happening like just doing dailies for a friend while they’re on vacation or casual stuff shouldn’t be punished severely. Before you decide to give out more dishonors, really look into things.

Bolded where you took a wrong turn and fell off the cliff of knowledge into the perilous abyss of nonsense.

In this specific incident there was 100% nothing innocent like doing someone’s dailies while on holiday and many of the other events where big dishonour punishments were given out were likewise not just doing dailies. I was born on a Saturday but I wasn’t born yesterday!

Then again you’re assuming things when you don’t know fully the basis of incident. All i’m saying is that there was no boosting similarities to what happened in the AT monthly/manipulating matches to my incident. To say that I fell into nonsense is wrong, all i’m stating is severe dishonor handed out for things involving non boosting for money/manipulation isn’t right. Sure it wasn’t specific 100% related to dailies or w/e, but the point is that I played casually and normally. Anet is just looking back at s5 history, and not investigating enough like I said. It doensn’t matter when you’re born

I think we’re all just confused why you bring up doing dailies or menial stuff with account sharing, nobody is saying that it should be punishable

Khenzy.9348:

Also, just for the sake of pointing this out, not all casual or new players are necessarily noobs, let’s try to show them as much respect as we can, shall we?

Wouldn’t be 2016 if on principle you didn’t feel the need to defend the honor of say… new players being referred to as a word as disgusting as ‘noob’.

I’m ashamed, I’ll show myself the door

Khenzy.9348:

The sPvP player-base is diminishing enough already, let’s discuss this with at least some impartial and constructive perspective.

My perspective isn’t non-constructive. I also don’t agree with your perspective that the outcry should always be catered to because clearly the game is always at fault if enough people are raging.

And there’s two big reasons why: Scrapper and Druid.

Scrapper and Druid over-perform in low tier PvP with minimal effort, and it’s the perfect answer to DH spam. The tools for equality and balance on all skill levels are all there, it’s not fixable by ArenaNet when players roll Thief, Mesmer, and Necro vs 3 Dragonhunters and throw their bodies back and forth over Tests of Faith. Little can be done about that.

I don’t object to reducing the strength of DH with minimal effort, ie: foolproofing things like Test of Faith as long as it’s not going to throw a wrench in the balance when interacting as intended – players on both sides know their buttons. I’d be interested in critiquing ideas like that.

Even better, I’ll just contribute a freaking amazing idea.

N00b proof Dragonhunter stacking, but not affect mid tier and above as much, change Test of Faith to where: A player can not be affected by Test of Faith’s threshold-crossing-punishment more than once every second.

This would make it so players being pulled, pushed, or idly walking through multiple Tests of Faith from 1-3 Dragonhunters wouldn’t just instantly die.

Lucred.1802:

(inb4 “just cleave/CC the gyro!” it has 21k health and more armor than a bunker guard as well as 3 stacks of stability that refreshes every 5 seconds)

Scrappers actually be like, you mean Gyros have 8k health and 1 stability for 3s from the Grandmaster trait.

Good remedy would have been to not make taking Function Gyro the Scrapper’s entire Elite mechanic itself, if it were a utility or not compulsory in any way, I think balance would be a lot easier to attain.

Even so, the cooldown of Function Gyro would be the only thing that would make sense to adjust if ArenaNet determined Scrapper was too good compared to other Elite Specs

MarkoNS.3261:

if you think guard is a “balanced” class you are just delusional.

You’re being emotional about it, if you really broke down what it brings to the table, you’ll find it’s not overtuned.

Dragonhunter with the Longbow build has reasonable teamfighting and small scale capabilities, tends to be advantaged in any sized fights in the presence of enemy Mesmers, Thieves, Warriors, and Necros

Tends to do much worse in any sized fights in the presence of Retribution Revs, Scrappers, Druids, and Eles.

The symbol build is just an overly selfish version of Druid/Scrapper that trades in a few clutch abilities in favor of highly avoidable symbol spam – only tactical use being for slowly pushing someone off & full capping a point in a 1v1

Dragonhunter is not even close to game breaking if players, on average, know when to back off, or press their defensive buttons at the right times. The players who are convinced Dragonhunter is OP are not being deceptive, just not at all realizing how to disrupt the Dragonhunter’s one-trick-pony burst combo.

It goes a bit like this:

• Cast True Shot
• Judge’s Intervention right before firing the True Shot
• Test of Faith Immediately
• Deflecting Shot knockback through Test of Faith
• Spear of Justice while they’re knocked back by Deflecting Shot
• Spear of Justice again to pull through Test of Faith

So here’s what you do: Activate stability/invuln at any time, or dodge out of Test of Faith before he positions his Deflecting Shot on you.

It’s a long combo to land a kill on somebody, honestly, Condi Engi burst, Thief Bursts, Invo Rev bursts, Mesmer Moa&Burst, these are much more lethal and more difficult to disrupt than the Dragonhunter’s. Dragonhunter will obliterate the sizable amount of players who haven’t mastered the ‘in and out’ active positioning PvP playstyle in GW2, and won’t instantly die like these same individuals, because the Guardian just presses cooldowns back to back instead of relying on positioning.

Shadow.1345:

At this point I really don’t think it is possible to make people happy with matchmaking. Pros are mad they have to carry bads after telling bads to to carry their team in order to stop losing 20 games in a row. Don’t give them bads on their teams and they rush up to Legendary they complain about queue times being too long and nothing to do. Bads get farmed, then get tired of playing and pvp population drops and pros complain that ANet is doing nothing to keep the PvP population strong. And let’s face it anything a bad complains about is just met with “git gud” and “l2p” ie. their complaints are invalid in the eyes of pros because they don’t care if bads are enjoying the game because their enjoyment doesn’t matter even though they represent a majority of the population.

Interesting perspective, in your eyes it seems you think pros are doing most of the complaining and babyrage, outside a few notables, it’s not a very big or vocal population. It’s the below average solo queuer who has been getting wrecked and being justified in speaking against it for the last two seasons, this is the reason we’re back to this matchmaking.

Also the entirety of this thread being filled with complaints, keep in mind that after pip ranges are settled, the game will have a smaller spread of player skill levels to create these high skill gap matches.

It should be better for every skill level when you’re pushing your upper division limit.

Leeching abilities, common on Revenant, these penetrate effects like endure pain. Bug or feature, it’s not random.

Also, @spectral walk complaint, unrelenting assault is unrelenting, and if people save teleports like phase traversal and judges intervention, it’s hardly the fault of spectral walk, hey.

Personally, I think resistance is too binary (0=stripped, instantly dead, 1=completely unimpeded, worry about nothing)

I think it’d be a very positive change for resistance to only affect damage taken by conditions, but all impairing effects won’t be ignored. It’d at least be more in line with damage ignoring skills such as Signet of Stone and Endure Pain.

Bleeding, Poison damage, Burning, Confusion, Torment, Fear damage, all countered by resistance.

Cripple, Poison heal debuff, Weakness, Chill, Vulnerability, Fear, Blindness, these effects all taking effect despite the presence of Resistance.

Resistance mitigating 100% of incoming damage, this could easily be nerfed too, but I feel the general availability of the boon would have to be buffed, should the effectiveness get nerfed.

Overall, I’m sure GW2 players in WvW and PvP alike are frustrated by how game changing a single boon is when it’s either on high base uptime, affected by high boon duration, or shared between zergs.

Personally I’d be happiest if Resistance became balanced around being the counterpart to protection (nerfed) and in turn, deserving core utilities & trait lines were entrusted as new sources of resistance, to promote build diversity.

Edit: things like healing signet active, and Mallyx legends would have to be compensated, but that’s relatively small potatoes.

Stealing bosses is a great mechanic that requires capitalizing on someone’s mistake, map awareness, not to mention very rewarding to pull off, where you essentially gamble your time.

Any other mechanic would just dumb it down to the point where the first person to blindly rush the NPC is heavily favoured, they’d hardly have to think about getting stopped/killed or stolen as long as they put a bunch of conditions up. It’s really fine as is.

Don’t really consider Mesmer and Necro to be tanky by any stretch in their Carrion amulet meta builds.

I think Adrenal health should be tweaked slightly, right now, hitting a burst skill refreshes the other stacks.

It’s similar to the concept of getting a single might stack, and that refreshing however many old might stacks to the same new duration.

Basically, you can miss multiple burst skills and not receive less healing from Adrenal Health as long as you keep refreshing the old stacks at the last second.

Edit:. Change Adrenal health so each burst skill adds one stack, and each stack has its own separately tracked duration

Everything seems impossibly OP if you’re not packing the knowledge and tools to take them apart. Every game ever has those who quit along the process to mastering the current meta. Thief and Engi have strong potential and are not in a in a bad spot.

Betting ten gold that your staff thief 1v1 perception is reality, and Guardian’s anti thief kit are what makes them OP. Rock, paper, scissors is inevitable, you can try picking your battles, but if that’s not your cup of tea, mail your stuff to Chaith.8256

Light Of The Abyss.5927:

PvP is great atm guys. What is your problem? All classes are viable (don’t give me the ele sucks bull), Every class was played in the Qualifiers. There is a new map that is fun, they are working on making skyhammer and spiritwatch competitive. They are meeting a lot of QoL issues like queueing outside of the mists…. PvP hasn’t been this good in a long time. If your problem is “balance” then L2P against the classes that are hurting you. Not everything is devs fault. The point of PvP is to grow in skill, not to complain and be handed an OP build.

Delpfine Out

Sums up my thoughts pretty well.

Gw2 PvP players be like: “ArenaNet doesn’t support PvP at all, it sux.”. Pointing out the things as you did, usually just countered with further complaints. In the big picture, ArenaNet got a lot right for PvP last patch. Good new map and good map changes, balanced matchmaking, queuing outside Mists, balance improvements.

Trigr.6481:

In the past year, the games viewership has spiked over 1500 viewers only 3 times…….

I’d like to see a argument against numerical data, I’ll wait.

While the current average viewership sounds right, with 24hr averages of 300 and daytime spikes up around 1000, I’d believe the 30 day max was 1600.

However that figure you listed where in the last 365 days, more than 1500 people watched GW2 concurrently only 3 times, clearly that website you’re using isn’t functioning. Making an argument against that numerical data shouldn’t be necessary.

But anyways,

From September 20th, 2015, to June 20th, 2016, every minute streamed on Guild Wars 2 channel itself averaged higher than 1500, average.

http://www.twinge.tv/guildwars2/growth/#/485

That’s just the GW2 channel, without any other twitch streamers. So don’t believe gw2 has only seen 1500+ viewers three times this year, that’s so far from reality, you should edit your post, like, now.

I’d guesstimate it spiked past 1500 in the last 365 days probably 150 of those days, during pro league broadcasts, multiple days a week for primetime streamers, Guild Wars 2 channel broadcasts.

But, even if we just took into account only 3 of the pre-HoT reveals and World Tournaments, it says that figure you have is not very good.

GW2 twitch has fallen a lot in the last couple months, but in the last year, it was pretty kitten hot, especially around ESL events and HoT hype.

Trigr.6481:

Just because a class is now in the current meta, doesn’t mean that it reflects upon good balance. It will continue to be as long as one class gets pushed into the meta, another one drops off. Not to mention the argument of there will not be true change to SPvP until it gets it’s own balance. All the other efforts are just to make sure that the pvp keeps its head above water.

Something that reflects upon poor balance, when professions are so bad that not a soul plays them in PvP, and they get verbal abuse just for queuing as that profession. Like Warrior and Thief in Season 2 of Ranked queue.

Also, tweaking game modes separately from July 26th – how have you not commented on this, it’s been your impossible wet dream for years:

Lava Font: Increased the cooldown of this skill from 6 seconds to 8 seconds in all game modes except PvP.
Defense Field: The cooldown of this skill has been increased 25 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP only.
Final Salvo: The stability granted by this trait has been reduced from 5 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only.
Protective Ward: Increased the cooldown from 15 seconds to 18 seconds in PvP only.
Precision Strike: The cooldown of this skill has increased from 5 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP only.
Equilibrium: Reduced the damage of this trait by 20% in PvP only.
Head Butt: Increased the cooldown of this skill from 20 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP only.
Adrenal Health: The amount of healing generated per stack has been reduced by 10% in PvP only.

They also said that these separations between game modes for these balance changes came from a new trick that Evan Lesh came up with recently to reduce the workload behind it, so I’d assume that means in the future that tweaks that wouldn’t be appreciated in each of the game modes can be selectively omitted when needed.

Trigr.6481:

When it comes to viewership, well have to agree to disagree. I know its hard to imagine but I actually want this game to succeed. That being said I have high standards of how I believe they should run things, and give good input in attempt to make that happen, and will let it be known when something is clearly out of place. Tough love.

Countless

Agree to disagree on what exactly? I’m just saying it’s good that the last GW2 tournament had increased viewership compared to it’s predecessor, and the next tournament I predict will be even better. That’s good you want the game to succeed though.

Ithilwen.1529:

The OP was about day-to-day pvp I think.

Rarnark.5623:

Talking mostly about the competitive scene.

PierPiero.9142:

In my opinion the real problem , for common people is the lack of build diversity. Probably a pro player see the thing with a different perspective from a casual player.
For me having so many traits , so many weapons and see every class with quite the same weaponset, traits and utility is really sad. For example ,I play engineer since 2012. I have HOT. I play a build with FT and pistols with no HOT ( something really similar to your stream) , not becouse i don’t have hot, not becouse i think it is stronger that scrapper but for a more important reason for a casual player : i have not fun with scrapper and hammer. The balance and ESL scene will be important for you but , in general , if the playerbase will have no fun … the game will die becouse Anet makes money with casual players . PVE is quite repetitive, wvw is quite unbalanced , SPVP for me remain the only thing that i do quite every day .

There are a ton of builds to use in casual PvP.

I run condition Engineer very often on stream, it’s strong, you can blow up nearly any Revenant or Druid with the right usage of your abilities, some matchups that are actually a lot harder/ no win condition when using Hammer Scrapper.

This is an example of a build that I use all the time in casual play. In casual play I notice players playing: Fresh Air Ele, Burn Guardians, Mally Revs, Power Warriors, all sorts of Thief builds, dps druids, multiple dragonhunter builds with different weapons, ranging from symbol bruisers to bunker.

These are all pretty serious builds, there is a ton of builds that aren’t tournament ready which you can destroy people with. They do exist, and there’s nothing stopping you from using them and winning. There’s no lack of build diversity in the casual game. On the competitive side of things it’s a bit less flexible.

Supreme.3164:

We want to play a viable bruiser that require just as much effort ( we don’t mind some more effort respect to warrior and condi chronomancer which require none) as the rest.

We don’t care how many eles are used from esl teams, we don’t care what’s meta or not….we want to play what’s fun to play and we want to play it now, got it?

Yes sir, Mr. Tantrum sir, I’ll page the ArenaNet staff and have them serve up the easy mode damage dealer Ele this instant.

Supreme.3164:

Chaith.8256:

Elxdark.9702:

PvP is already dead, Anet wanted this game for casuals and there you have, a bunch of passives, automatic stun breaker traits and condi cheese which only leads to boredom.

@Chaith you’re a pro and veteran player I can’t believe you are actually approving Anet patches… seriously dude the game is full of passives and there’s not skill involved at all, not even at high lvl play because that’s more team coordination than skill.

Yes this meta is somehow more faster than the last ones but it isn’t even close to what balance means lol, stop trying to defend something which isn’t defensible.

I don’t give a crap about disagreeing with the majority of players that blindly trash every patch, just cause’ ArenaNet didn’t get absolutely everything right. Just cause ‘the game’s full of passives’, doesn’t mean the game didn’t come back from the brink of the worst balance ever in fall 2015. Patches since then must’ve been so bad just as you say, huh.

So to you, the game has no skill involved at all, who cares that there’s now incomprehensible power differences due to mechanical skill on Guardians, Revs, Mesmers, Warriors, and Necros, and Thieves all now running high risk, high reward amulets if they didn’t before?

You may not consider team coordination and using support properly as skill, and all professions being represented equally, and healthy pace of action in PvP not being balance related. You’re entitled to your opinion but I don’t think what you’re saying is even close to being common sense.

People on the forums be like, lol anet sux, but never acknowledge good things that happen.

Yah..I’d like to see you playing a magi or marauder elementalist then come back and say to us again how anet did good things

Scrimmed against it and with it, pro EU teams especially seem to really like them still. Can’t wait to see your face when you realize they’re still a viable competitive pick. Menders amulet deserves a mention over Marauder, tho’, but it seems to be okay in casual.

Trigr.6481:

Which goes back to my first post, the game is in a unhealthy state and the viewership reflects it. You have a pvp team that can’t “even if they wanted to” balance for pvp, the only thing they have control over is amulets and sigils, which act more like a desperation band aid attempt at fixing things than actual balance. You have a “competitive” scene that’s current being dictated by a team who’s primary concern is to balance for the entire game, leaving spvp in the minority. And you think things are improving when it comes to spvp? It’s time to wake up.

Countless

The game’s competitive PvP currently being in an unhealthy state is not a simply stated fact. I’ll paint you a little timeline up to today, from last August, up until tournament level play today.

Before the expansion in August, at the competitive event that peaked at 11k concurrent viewers, we had really great class representation. Every profession but Ranger in competitive, fast paced combat, quite mechanically skill dependent.

After the expansion we saw incredibly un-winnable fights on both sides. Triple Revenant, Two Mesmers, with an optional support was it. Mechanical skill couldn’t overcome use of the god comp. Boring fights, to a point where when a single kill occured (someone must’ve DC’d or something), it could decide the entire game via attrition. A huge chunk of fans quit following, some never to return. Dislikes wracking up on the pro league youtube VODs as casters struggled to make something of the snooze fest happening. The problems were largely fixed right before the season 1 Finals, but the damage had been done, and with a combination of minor technical issues and and outraged viewers during the season play, the finals peaked at 3.5k viewers or something that was the worst of any world level GW2 event.

Season two, professional representation further improved, Warrior, and Thief became usable in competitive, balance between supports became closer than before, and the season two world tournament finals had a peak of 6k concurrent viewers, and the best production value yet thanks to the burbank ESL studios.

The next upcoming world event in September in Burbank is going to have Dragonhunter added with the rest as a viable pick, faster paced and more mechanical skill dependent than the last two seasons. Bigger prize pool, more teams, and will have more viewers than the Season 2 finals, I’m willing to bet. It’s going to be in the same high quality studio.

I think I’ve made my point about how the competitive PvP scene is not in an unhealthy place, or even a downward trend. The twitch viewership is anything but stagnant, more volatile than anything, really.

If you think I’m wrong, that’s fine, but things are looking good to me.

Elxdark.9702:

PvP is already dead, Anet wanted this game for casuals and there you have, a bunch of passives, automatic stun breaker traits and condi cheese which only leads to boredom.

@Chaith you’re a pro and veteran player I can’t believe you are actually approving Anet patches… seriously dude the game is full of passives and there’s not skill involved at all, not even at high lvl play because that’s more team coordination than skill.

Yes this meta is somehow more faster than the last ones but it isn’t even close to what balance means lol, stop trying to defend something which isn’t defensible.

I don’t give a crap about disagreeing with the majority of players that blindly trash every patch, just cause’ ArenaNet didn’t get absolutely everything right. Just cause ‘the game’s full of passives’, doesn’t mean the game didn’t come back from the brink of the worst balance ever in fall 2015. Patches since then must’ve been so bad just as you say, huh.

So to you, the game has no skill involved at all, who cares that there’s now incomprehensible power differences due to mechanical skill on Guardians, Revs, Mesmers, Warriors, and Necros, and Thieves all now running high risk, high reward amulets if they didn’t before?

You may not consider team coordination and using support properly as skill, and all professions being represented equally, and healthy pace of action in PvP not being balance related. You’re entitled to your opinion but I don’t think what you’re saying is even close to being common sense.

People on the forums be like, lol anet sux, but never acknowledge good things that happen.

morrolan.9608:

Chaith.8256:

ArenaNet has been making good game balance decisions for every update in the last year and a half, except for the expansion that initially destroyed the enjoyment and watch-ability of PvP until the patch before the Season1 Finals. If ESL had banned Heart of Thorns builds & Revenant immediately for all events, I think we’d have seen viewership slowly climb from the peak viewership we had in August 2015.

I don’t see how you can say this after making this post in the engi forum:

Chaith.8256:

Scrapper is a res-bot in PvP. It depends on this role extremely strongly, because there are no viable damage options – The Scrapper can’t even properly play aggressively to assist teammates a lot of the time, as that would require expending defensive cooldowns and eating cleave, making it so you fail at your one job – revive teammate.

The result is just passively watching fights happen around you, dropping some AoE, cleansing conditions on teammates – getting to go ham when your teammates down somebody is nice. Scrapper going ham vs. enemies not in the downed state though, that’s not pretty.

After playing a lot of Druid, I just can’t take for granted the ability to do high single target damage from safe distance, with extremely high damage to survivability ratio, and still fill a healer/reviver role.

It makes me sad to see Scrapper damage shaved, as if that was remotely a problem.

The dream here, guys: change Scrapper so it has multiple builds that have aggressive styles, able to catch and hunt enemies either with hammer or pistol & rifles – it’s not a healer – and still maintain a modest damage to survivability ratio.

Cause the big picture is fine. Professions are rather equally represented, I may have gripes with micro balance tweaks but I can agree with the direction.

That post you quoted from Engi forums is like my fantasy direction for what would make Engineer more fun to me.

Trigr.6481:

If I recall correctly “correct me if I’m wrong” I remember you posting in a thread a while back about the time arguing with someone else making a claim in a thread talking about gw2 getting 10k concurrent viewers when in reality it was when sodapoppin just so happened to stream for a hour. So seeing these statements of you stretching the truth doesn’t surprise me.

Countless

WTS finals, Cologne 2015 had 11k concurrent viewers in the Guild Wars 2 channel, and peak daytime we’ll have streamers like Peachy, BogOtter, Helseth going all at the same time

Season 2 finals, the last competitive event peaked at 6k concurrent viewers, average 5k, in the Guild Wars 2 channel.

Saiyan.1704:

Apparently twitch views determines whether or not a game is dead.

Yeah that was my original comment, how lots is going on off stream on the competitive side. But “twitch numbers speak for themselves :-D”

Trigr.6481:

Chaith.8256:

Trigr.6481:

But It doesn’t change the fact that the scene is currently a unbalanced, not fun to watch mess. And the viewership reflects it.

Countless

We’re talking about competitive still, yeah? Why are you so confidently talking about something you have not seen this patch yet, please save your QQ for the twitch chat this weekend

Yes we’re still talking about competitive. Forming an opinion based off consistent numbers is QQ? You smell like denial.

Countless

Depends on how you interpret it, some people like you consider it a failure if a game that gets like 1k views on twitch on the regular gets like 5k views for competitive after getting rekt by the expansion

BlackBeard.2873:

Adding tournaments and events will not ever solve the problem. You can’t force a scene to develop – it is something that DOES develop when the game is really fun to play and watch.

GW2 has grown less and less fun to play, and even harder to watch over time. There was a time when combat was much more clear than previously, and was based more on reaction to your opponents animations. This was why people asked for standard models, because dodging important animations from an asura was nearly impossible. With the power-creep of HoT, not only has the combat in general gotten less fun it grows more spammy and skill-rotation based, but classes have become much less diverse thanks to superiority of elite specs. Pre-HoT, the biggest problem with combat was the variety of powerful, passive procs leading to unavoidable bursts and skills that gave both offense AND defense simultaneously. HoT took these passives and dual-skills and cranked them up to 11, both making combat much less fun but also destroying builds that couldn’t utilize their elite spec’s forms of passives.

Many balance patches later we’re in a very different state of the game to play and watch than when the expansion was released.

I’ve heard all the same complaints about spammy skill-rotations for years, and compared to almost all MMOs, Guild Wars 2 is infinitely more punishing for skill spammers & random dodgers vs. intelligently weaving spikes in between evade frames. Most MMO PvP is pure damage rotation of skills.

Recognizing attacks and dodging them is very alive and important in the current game, fighting Revenant & Warrior, for example, two of the most common damage dealers in the game are very animation based. If we didn’t have standard models, darn right we’d be throwing a fit.

Here are some reasons why the competitive game isn’t ‘dying’ or ‘un-fun’ but people are still insanely hurt about, yes, you will be even more hurt now that I’ve brought attention to this:

Cross-profession balance.. all 9 professions are being used in pro teams so far after patch release, yes, Elementalist too. Having coordinated healing, and taking turns on point are essential to playing support, and when teamwork is present, you can be extremely effective. Will it be possible to play pure supports with casual PuGs, and less of a 1vX bunker? That comes with its own sets of difficulties and I would frown upon it.

Losing build options that players had gotten used to having which had sent the game in an unintended direction. It’s not going to come back, please move on. I’ve felt salty at this before, but then I used other things instead of spending my time being alienated.

Passives, omg. As long as the pace of the game is in a good spot, viewers can’t tell or don’t care if the low health endure pain was the active or the passive one, and players know that it’s coming. It’s all about pacing, pacing is the real factor in whether something is fun to watch. Are kills happening, is the map being flipped, are upsets happening, or is it just a really slow descending 100-4 score for one team that you already know as soon as the first decap happens? Passives are demonized but the real devil is that some things in the past just living forever. As long as the meta is not slow and stalled, there will be skill required to outplay and frag players in a faster meta – this results in a map that’s moving instead of being stagnant. More fun to play and watch.

ArenaNet has been making good game balance decisions for every update in the last year and a half, except for the expansion that initially destroyed the enjoyment and watch-ability of PvP until the patch before the Season1 Finals. If ESL had banned Heart of Thorns builds & Revenant immediately for all events, I think we’d have seen viewership slowly climb from the peak viewership we had in August 2015.

@OP,

If I could offer my opinion as to why the competitive scene, while not losing popularity since 2016 started, isn’t exploding: It’s because there’s not enough streaming momentum, stream-able events are a bit too spread out for new viewers to include it as part of their routine to watch and be more than someone who stumbled into a GW2 tournament once.

Taking a more macro look than just since the pro league season ended, the reason viewership is down from 2015 is simply the HoT launch set us back a year of community building in one update, by creating the entirely too slow pace Season1 that made a good chunk of viewers become very unhappy with watching Season1 pro league.

TLDR, lots of gripes about the game, but not as many actually affecting how many follow the competitive scene.

Trigr.6481:

But It doesn’t change the fact that the scene is currently a unbalanced, not fun to watch mess. And the viewership reflects it.

Countless

We’re talking about competitive still, yeah? Why are you so confidently talking about something you have not seen this patch yet, please save your QQ for the twitch chat this weekend

Phase traversal, Ancestral Grace, they’re a bit over the top in how often they can be used in creating or closing gaps.

They are not at all similar to the cooldown rates of other fast movement skills.

NiBlack.3149:

Honestly when I saw changes last patch then something struck me.
Engineer bruiser build got nerfed, while condi dps got minimally buffed, yet still no buffs for overall team utility…
I think Engineer next specialisation will be support focused. Otherwise why work on whole “lets keep base engi dmg competitive”. We know that Anet working on next expansion so they work on another spec. I would imagine such spec, as “Drug Dealer” (buffs, debuffs – still there is lack in GW2 for class specific debuffs, heal).
As for other stuff… net to go to work so will read leater ;-p

That’s an idea for sure. I think I’ll implode if the next Engineer elite spec isn’t offensive or offensive utility focused. Seeing as Scrapper is defensive utility/area denial focused

Scrapper is a res-bot in PvP. It depends on this role extremely strongly, because there are no viable damage options – The Scrapper can’t even properly play aggressively to assist teammates a lot of the time, as that would require expending defensive cooldowns and eating cleave, making it so you fail at your one job – revive teammate.

The result is just passively watching fights happen around you, dropping some AoE, cleansing conditions on teammates – getting to go ham when your teammates down somebody is nice. Scrapper going ham vs. enemies not in the downed state though, that’s not pretty.

After playing a lot of Druid, I just can’t take for granted the ability to do high single target damage from safe distance, with extremely high damage to survivability ratio, and still fill a healer/reviver role.

It makes me sad to see Scrapper damage shaved, as if that was remotely a problem.

The dream here, guys: change Scrapper so it has multiple builds that have aggressive styles, able to catch and hunt enemies either with hammer or pistol & rifles – it’s not a healer – and still maintain a modest damage to survivability ratio.

Rarnark.5623:

Chaith.8256:

Enjoying Capricorn, fast queue pops, queuing outside mists, and faster pace killing in casual play. Compared to last patch, the casual game is 200% more fun even without a ranked season.

If you wanna be negative, yeah, MMOs are dying from the minute they’ve launched but the timing on this post is weird

Talking mostly about the competitive scene. I’ve spent an awful lot of time on twitch lately and the there seems to be a serious lack viewers and quality content creators compared to even a few months ago. Not to mention the scene in general is the same ~30 people it’s been for months.

Usually there’s been a weekly cup but currently the twitch competitive scene is hibernating until the world qualifiers on 6th-7th, and then there’s nothing planned that I know of until the Worlds at mid September.

It’s definitely just a lack of streamable events currently, which is a completely different thing from the game losing steam.

Lots and lots of pro scrims happening every night, it’s all happening off of twitch though

Enjoying Capricorn, fast queue pops, queuing outside mists, and faster pace killing in casual play. Compared to last patch, the casual game is 200% more fun even without a ranked season.

If you wanna be negative, yeah, MMOs are dying from the minute they’ve launched but the timing on this post is weird

Samug.6512:

I’m thinking, maybe it’s a case of the elixir bottle being a projectile and being somehow blocked/absorbed/reflected?

Yep, /thread

geekilo.8512:

Chaith.8256:

Apparently most patch note readers assume that Moa, Canine, and Piggy buffs have affected Rangers pet damage in PvP, srs m8s? Ranger is pretty much the same except Beastly Warden & Protective Ward shaves.

The Beastly Warden & Protective Wards NERF IS NOTHING. It doesn’t change a thing, they still far better than other traits.

So basically exactly what I said

It’s the same

Apparently most patch note readers assume that Moa, Canine, and Piggy buffs have affected Rangers pet damage in PvP, srs m8s? Ranger is pretty much the same except Beastly Warden & Protective Ward shaves.

Malediktus.9250:

Season 4 will be horrible with the current max burst meta. Season 1 > Season 2 > Season 3 > Season 4

You’re one of those people who has very little perspective on how good you have it now

Season 1 was the darkest period in GW2 history, in competitive there were just 2 optimal professions, and there were averaging 15 minutes of smashing people before a downed state managed to somehow fully die instead of being insta-revived.

Fivedawgs.4267:

Scrapper are so weak atm that I am beating everyone of them Drop Top Coupe, Java and even chaith ( whose engi, I have yet to face). They are a lot more balanced.

Look, Scrapper wasn’t nerfed that much, kappa.