Guild Wars 2

I think the idea of needing diversity and “playing how you want” in PvP are both pipe dreams that people don’t want to let go. If your class has a build that is competitive, you have the option to be competitive with that build on your favored class. Odds are, this build plays to the class’s specific strengths and fulfills a particular role.

Is that not great for people? Everyone can look at a build and say “no, I want to play differently”. But you’re in a competitive game. You can’t go into DOTA 2 and combine any skill/item build on any hero and expect to be competitive. Yes, this is an MMO, so people are more attached to their character and style. But you technically can do pretty well with all kinds of different builds. You just might not win tournaments.

It’s strong being able to have Chilled do damage. But is it OP? Where is the line between strong and OP? If a Necro focuses all of their sigils, runes, triats, and strategy around Chill uptime, they’re rewarded with a steady ~650 damage per second, along with affecting the cooldowns of other classes. That sounds like attrition to me, and attrition is something that I don’t really think has been in the game yet.

Saying “it adds damage to a condition that slows movement and cooldown” tells everyone what it is. That doesn’t help in a conversation trying to determine if it is too strong.

I really like the idea of players organizing fun in the game, regardless of what form it takes. Maybe having a large group romp around the map will help people get a better feel instead of roaming and getting lost solo. And if nothing else, it’s an organized time for a bunch of people to know a bunch of other people are going to be romping around too.

I hope it turns into something!

Photinous.4628:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Photinous.4628:

Surprised reapers are not most people’s #1, deathly chill is the most broken trait in the game. Everything else seems pretty balanced to me. Can’t comment on berserker though since I never see them or play them.

Do you have anything substantial to show that it’s so broken? Or am I just going to see another strange damage breakdown from sPvP that doesn’t look right at all?

The damage is fine to me, it’s the fact that necros have a stupid amount of passive chill available to them, alongside the fact that sigil of ice being an “on hit” sigil is what makes deathly chill broken. There is no amount of condi clear that can currently avoid being permanently chilled by a reaper. Because of this, there is a constant 800-1000 damage per tick plus a permanent 66% skill cooldown increase when fighting a necro. However, no reaper will agree that it’s broken because people love staying OP so this argument is futile and we can agree to disagree.

Whenever someone actually shows a log as a basis for damage comparison, it’s always 550 – 650 damage per tick, on average, even over 40 or so seconds. The 800 – 1000 is only a potential tick if everything is swinging your way (max vuln/might).

Also, what do people consider “passive chill”? Do you mean chill that comes with something else, like Chill on Fear and Chill on Blind?

I don’t even play a Condi Reaper. I just finally know a thing or two about the class being brought up as OP, so I’m challenging the idea.

Is it broken because it’s impossible for anything to 1v1 it? Is it broken because a Condi Reaper will swing a team fight too easily? It’s just kind of surprising to me that it’s finally a more attrition-based mechanic that is getting flak, instead of burst mechanics. It isn’t like the Necro can apply 5 stacks of Chill and do 3k damage per tick super easily. It’s just very steady soft CC, with very steady damage, that benefits the Reaper in the long run.

I’m just curious what about it is officially OP, and what is just frustrating.

I think the game mode sounds interesting, but you’re forgetting the part where all of the teams that cause the players to yell at each other for being terrible, and everyone complains about the MMR of the random matching with new players against another team that has a bunch of experience players, or randomly matching up poor class comps. The complaining about RNG involved would be endless.

Defeating an enemy team as the last man standing might happen a time or two over the course of a long period of time. I’m not sure where you’re getting “many times”.

Fighting games support smashing buttons as well, and often when it’s a new player vs. a new player, the person smashing buttons will beat the person who is trying to play. That doesn’t mean fighting games aren’t skill-based, it just means you have to practice.

You make a whole lot of “undeniable” assertions, without actually supporting them. I don’t believe you know what you’re talking about, almost exclusively because you included Heartseeker Thief spam in your original post. You have switched to typical Revenant/DH complaining, and the age old “particles and effect clutter”. Now it’s just another generic post that has already been created.

Photinous.4628:

Surprised reapers are not most people’s #1, deathly chill is the most broken trait in the game. Everything else seems pretty balanced to me. Can’t comment on berserker though since I never see them or play them.

The trait that cannot stack the damage above what it currently is to burst you, and I believe can only tick once at a time, so multiple Reapers with the trait only affect uptime, instead of taking 2x the damage from a single tick.

Do you have anything substantial to show that it’s so broken? Or am I just going to see another strange damage breakdown from sPvP that doesn’t look right at all?

Also, how many people commenting on Berserker have played it, and how many are only putting it at the bottom because other people say that’s where it is, and doing otherwise would just result in being shot down? I’ve been meaning to go try it out myself.

Vydahr.4285:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Yeah, don’t ever let someone else dictate your fun-having. If you want to be in a top competitive scene then you can listen to advice, but if you’re just playing the game to enjoy yourself as a hobby? Play what you want. ANet has yet to create content a Necromancer can’t complete, so all you need to do (as others have mentioned) is find fun people to run with.

I will say that, pertaining to the OP, I have yet to have someone harp on me for being a Necro. I’ll also say that I hope it happens, because I enjoy breaking those arguments down.

As to your last point…. If you get kicked from a group immediately when they find out your class, it’s hard to break down an argument :p But that’s when you just go in and do the fractal/dungeon solo just to spite them (and fulfill your masochistic necro tendencies, of course)

Haha yes, that’s also true. I was imagining map chat saying “We don’t take kindly to your type ’round here”, or someone angrily whispering, in which case I’d start firing all guns.

Yeah, don’t ever let someone else dictate your fun-having. If you want to be in a top competitive scene then you can listen to advice, but if you’re just playing the game to enjoy yourself as a hobby? Play what you want. ANet has yet to create content a Necromancer can’t complete, so all you need to do (as others have mentioned) is find fun people to run with.

I will say that, pertaining to the OP, I have yet to have someone harp on me for being a Necro. I’ll also say that I hope it happens, because I enjoy breaking those arguments down.

That log suggests Chilled averaged 653 damage per tick. That’s right about par for a condi-based Necro. I’m actually a bit confused how you had 48 ticks of Burning throughout the fight if you just fought a single Reaper Necro, but it suggests the fight lasted, at least, 48 seconds (if you were constantly burning the entire fight, though the avg burning damage is about 349, so you only had 1 – 2 stacks throughout on avg). Also, you only averaged 1 – 2 stacks of Bleeding for the entire fight as well, since the avg damage for bleed ticks was about 173.

Does any of that seem strange to you, beyond the new fact that Chilled does damage? At the end of the day, Chilled damage from a Reaper helped kill you over the course of 50 seconds, and without that damage, you would have taken roughly (looks like poison damage is below bleeds, which strikes me as odd unless the Reaper missed a bunch of RS #4s) 30,416 damage over 50 seconds, or only 608 average damage per second. That’s assuming you were burning for an entire fight.

The more people post screenshots, the more it looks like Chilled is the only thing helping Condi Reaper be anything at all. And the more I think the damage breakdown is broken.

Unfortunately, OP, it sort of seems like you should quit. You might as well have complained about Frenzy+Bull’s Charge+100B. I haven’t seen Heartseeker spam in months and months, and even then, I might have only seen it once, and that Thief died very soon after. Condi Reaper is actually pretty strong right now I think, but you said Condi Necro. I couldn’t help but think you meant the old Dhuumfire mechanic, which hasn’t been a mechanic for some odd years.

If you are going to write off classes as “random button mashing” instead of attempt to better understand them, evaluate them unemotionally, and identify how to best approach each one, then you’re better off playing another game.

Also, do PvP ranks matter? I don’t remember PvP ranks mattering.

Sviel.7493:

I don’t really like the way people talk about PvE players in here like they’re some mass of backwards cavemen. Especially given how laughably inept some of my WvW guildmates have been in PvE farming guild hall stuff. They do different things, but they’re not inferior players.

PvEers often have a different skillset and are driven by different desires in-game than a PvPer. They two groups need to be distinguished and considered for their separate needs if ANet wants to incorporate both into a more open-world type situation, instead of having it just be a PvP situation.

There has always been contention between the two groups, so it isn’t surprising to see that arise. However, that contention is silly, like most “I don’t like you because of your label” shenanigans, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it.

A competitive environment is inherently not very profitable, as one side is most likely going to lose and not gain profit. The threat of loss is going to be a very difficult concept to overcome when trying to add rewards to WvW.

meow one twenty.4376:

Cogbyrn.7283:

The argument before regarding high stacks of might and vuln was that people are trying to balance the Necromancer damage around automatically having high stacks of might and vuln. Does that happen for other classes? Perhaps it’s a sensitivity, because it seems Necromancer is constantly balanced around these crazy ideal scenarios where something could be insane. Without the might and vuln, I argue that the damage isn’t too bad. I don’t think 560 damage/second is too bad.

Also, I have a hard time thinking that fight only lasted 20 seconds. If you were clearing condis, how could Bleeding have 100% uptime? And how could Chill? The Necro you were fighting must have been the most hyper-aware player to anticipate your cleanses to re-apply chill/bleed almost instantly, and you didn’t dodge a single application of chill.

You say they potentially weren’t built around high condi damage. What amulet has 900 condi damage instead of 1200, and no power baked in? You took what appears to be 0 direct damage from the Necromancer, which I find odd because everything that applies conditions does some form of damage. If they were a hybrid focusing on both condi and power, wouldn’t you have something else in that log? And why did a Thief only land 3 hits on you in a 20 second fight?

Further, if the Necro didn’t have chill, you would have played the fight such that the Necro did 5000 damage to you in 20 seconds. Does that not strike you as odd and extremely tame? If your cleansing is as on-point as you say, should that make Condi Necro as impotent as it apparently does? Or should they have a mechanism to maintain some level of pressure, while well-timed cleanses just remove the peaks and reset them to buy more time in a fight.

It’s possible that the trait needs a damage reduction, or rescaling of some sort. But this log smells incredibly funny, like something else is going on. It is raising more questions than it is answering.

Also, I’m going to do a rough sketch to map some Chill durations out. Note that you had -53% chill duration outside of shroud, and with Grenth runes and the Reaper line, a Necro can get +50% chill duration. So in effect, you’re negating their benefit.

Here are the sources of chill, their durations, and their cooldowns:

Sigil of Hydromancy – 2 seconds – 9 second cd
Runes of Grenth on being hit – 3 seconds – 30 second cooldown
Runes of Grenth on heal – 3 seconds – 10 second cooldown
Chilling Nova (crit on chilled target, chills adjacent targets) – ~2.5 seconds – 10 second cd
Staff #3 – 4 seconds – 16 second cooldown
Staff #5 (with Shivers of Dread) – ~3.5 seconds – 32 second cooldown
Focus #5 – 5 seconds – 20 second cooldown
Blinds like RS #2, Dagger #4 (if traited) – 2 seconds – 5 second ICD
Greatsword #5 – ~4.75 seconds – 30 second cooldown
RS #3 (with Shivers of Dread) – ~3.5 seconds – 20 second cooldown
RS #5 – ~1.5 seconds – 30 second cooldown

I might have missed some sources (whirling in the ice field adding little stacks of duration, for example), and I know cooldowns can be reduced via traits. However, if you just go down the line and assume you are getting hit by all of those (which you can’t, because there are 3 weapon sets involved), you’re looking at about 34.75 seconds of chill on you. That’s also ignoring the 5 “stack” limit on durations that might effect total, especially if one of the Necro’s allies applies Chill.

Greatsword and Focus would be maybe taken in hybrid builds, but then you’d have a source of direct damage on you I’d imagine, so those must not be involved in your log. That would ~9.75 potential seconds of chill, bringing the above estimate down to 25.75 seconds of chill, assuming you are hit by 1 instance of each (though it’s possible for some to hit multiple times).

That’s a lot of chill duration, but that’s also a build devoting runes, sigils, and traits to maximizing chill uptime. If the Necro’s chill duration is unopposed by runes/traits, it goes up another 50%. The entire build focuses around chill up-time, and the net result of their effort in damage? 560 damage per second.

Yes, chill provides other useful effects, but based on your log, the amount of damage a condi necro can output in bleeds/poisons over 20 seconds isn’t even really enough to threaten you to lose any life you can’t heal back up in that time almost without even trying to do anything.

I just don’t see how it’s doing too much damage. And I don’t see how your log is accurate.

EDIT – The fact that you took 0 torment and burning damage supports your hybrid note, and might mean they went with Greatsword. But why are there no other instances of Necro direct damage? That doesn’t tickle you as odd?

Multiple Reapers. It wasn’t just one. A couple Chillblains, Marks of Blood, Reaper Marks, maybe even Terrify. There you have the Bleeding, Poison, Chilling with almost no direct damage and constant Chill/Bleeding even through Condi cleanse.

So multiple Reapers, in 20 seconds, did 3000 bleed damage, ~2200 poison damage, and a combined 10,000 chilled damage. And judging by the avg damage, Chill doesn’t tick for both reapers. So really, if they both spec for Chill damage, all they’re doing is securing 560 damage/tick on average at a higher up-time. Their chills don’t even stack.

I don’t understand the issue. The “constant bleeding” averaged 150 damage per tick. That’s peanuts. And this is two reapers?

Again. Does this combat log not look funny to you? Nothing about it adds up, and I feel it’s being used as part of the argument to say “look, this needs to be changed”.

It took two reapers and a Thief who did 9000 damage in 3 hits to bring you down in 20 seconds. And are you saying Chill damage needs to be nerfed? If anything, that demonstrated how you can’t really “cheese” the chill damage, because only one instance can be ticking at any given time.

But again. Am I going crazy? Does this damage log look weird to anyone else?

EDIT – And I prefer whiskey too. High-fives!

psizone.8437:

krzysiek.9061:

EDIT: Isn’t like you can take a border in night too? I don’t see a difference.

To flip a border overnight you need to use siege (outside the terrible event at mid) and put the effort in to take keeps and towers, in which the opposing side can defend against it.

As I said in a comment a moment ago, without gates and walls a small defending force has no way to hold back a larger enemy force, even with siege.

Wait, I don’t think he’s saying that they remove the gates/walls from a Keep at a certain time. They just make it so siege is able to take down gates/walls for a particular period of time during the day. Players have to bring siege, players can still defend walls, and players ultimately have to take the tower/keep. No NPC armies would be involved.

At least that’s how I understood it. It still may not work, and may not be received well, that’s very true. But hey, if you make a peak capture last for a certain duration into the night, it reduces the effect of nightcapping, doesn’kitten And that’s something people have been clamoring about for a while. They would just need to balance the “siegeable” times so that players in other timezones can do something valuable (though a small population manage camps/yaks could be designed to be valuable while the keep is invulnerable, as well. Those off-hours folks just wouldn’t be able tot ake large objectives with a tiny group).

The argument before regarding high stacks of might and vuln was that people are trying to balance the Necromancer damage around automatically having high stacks of might and vuln. Does that happen for other classes? Perhaps it’s a sensitivity, because it seems Necromancer is constantly balanced around these crazy ideal scenarios where something could be insane. Without the might and vuln, I argue that the damage isn’t too bad. I don’t think 560 damage/second is too bad.

Also, I have a hard time thinking that fight only lasted 20 seconds. If you were clearing condis, how could Bleeding have 100% uptime? And how could Chill? The Necro you were fighting must have been the most hyper-aware player to anticipate your cleanses to re-apply chill/bleed almost instantly, and you didn’t dodge a single application of chill.

You say they potentially weren’t built around high condi damage. What amulet has 900 condi damage instead of 1200, and no power baked in? You took what appears to be 0 direct damage from the Necromancer, which I find odd because everything that applies conditions does some form of damage. If they were a hybrid focusing on both condi and power, wouldn’t you have something else in that log? And why did a Thief only land 3 hits on you in a 20 second fight?

Further, if the Necro didn’t have chill, you would have played the fight such that the Necro did 5000 damage to you in 20 seconds. Does that not strike you as odd and extremely tame? If your cleansing is as on-point as you say, should that make Condi Necro as impotent as it apparently does? Or should they have a mechanism to maintain some level of pressure, while well-timed cleanses just remove the peaks and reset them to buy more time in a fight.

It’s possible that the trait needs a damage reduction, or rescaling of some sort. But this log smells incredibly funny, like something else is going on. It is raising more questions than it is answering.

Also, I’m going to do a rough sketch to map some Chill durations out. Note that you had -53% chill duration outside of shroud, and with Grenth runes and the Reaper line, a Necro can get +50% chill duration. So in effect, you’re negating their benefit.

Here are the sources of chill, their durations, and their cooldowns:

Sigil of Hydromancy – 2 seconds – 9 second cd
Runes of Grenth on being hit – 3 seconds – 30 second cooldown
Runes of Grenth on heal – 3 seconds – 10 second cooldown
Chilling Nova (crit on chilled target, chills adjacent targets) – ~2.5 seconds – 10 second cd
Staff #3 – 4 seconds – 16 second cooldown
Staff #5 (with Shivers of Dread) – ~3.5 seconds – 32 second cooldown
Focus #5 – 5 seconds – 20 second cooldown
Blinds like RS #2, Dagger #4 (if traited) – 2 seconds – 5 second ICD
Greatsword #5 – ~4.75 seconds – 30 second cooldown
RS #3 (with Shivers of Dread) – ~3.5 seconds – 20 second cooldown
RS #5 – ~1.5 seconds – 30 second cooldown

I might have missed some sources (whirling in the ice field adding little stacks of duration, for example), and I know cooldowns can be reduced via traits. However, if you just go down the line and assume you are getting hit by all of those (which you can’t, because there are 3 weapon sets involved), you’re looking at about 34.75 seconds of chill on you. That’s also ignoring the 5 “stack” limit on durations that might effect total, especially if one of the Necro’s allies applies Chill.

Greatsword and Focus would be maybe taken in hybrid builds, but then you’d have a source of direct damage on you I’d imagine, so those must not be involved in your log. That would ~9.75 potential seconds of chill, bringing the above estimate down to 25.75 seconds of chill, assuming you are hit by 1 instance of each (though it’s possible for some to hit multiple times).

That’s a lot of chill duration, but that’s also a build devoting runes, sigils, and traits to maximizing chill uptime. If the Necro’s chill duration is unopposed by runes/traits, it goes up another 50%. The entire build focuses around chill up-time, and the net result of their effort in damage? 560 damage per second.

Yes, chill provides other useful effects, but based on your log, the amount of damage a condi necro can output in bleeds/poisons over 20 seconds isn’t even really enough to threaten you to lose any life you can’t heal back up in that time almost without even trying to do anything.

I just don’t see how it’s doing too much damage. And I don’t see how your log is accurate.

EDIT – The fact that you took 0 torment and burning damage supports your hybrid note, and might mean they went with Greatsword. But why are there no other instances of Necro direct damage? That doesn’t tickle you as odd?

Radian.2478:

This is almost the exact same thing as the skysplitter event which is already in all of the desert borderlands map.

But according to many, the Skysplitter event is PvE. If you simply enable an objective to be captured, that’s PvP isn’kitten

psizone.8437:

Cogbyrn.7283:

I bet the motivation is to make capping more meaningful. When people know when something is going to happen, you are more likely to get defenders and attackers, resulting in PvP. Also, if you guarantee ownership of an objective for X hours, that’s big for PPT, too, instead of just trading.

I wouldn’t rule it out.

The problem is that many of the servers run at different time zones so they could set this to happen at 9am but 2/3 of the servers could be mostly offline during that time.

It wouldn’t particularly matter which time you made it, whichever server is most active during that time for whatever reason will have a distinct advantage in the matchup.

Besides, people don’t seem to like the PvE event at mid that does this in a similar fashion right now, but at least you can defend your keeps and towers by beating the other servers in the event.

Timing would definitely be a potential issue. Scheduled sieges aren’t perfect (see: Age of Conan, and people choosing middle of the night hours for their vulnerability period), but it seems like people need something to rally around, and I don’t think this idea should just be discarded without examining it.

As far as a server having an advantage because they are more active at a particular time, that’s kind of how it already is anyway. If one server has way more off-peak coverage than another, it has an enormous advantage, because they’ll tick during off-peak and potentially be fully fortified during peak.

Phaeton.9582:

People defending DH traps need a shave in real life..

To be fair, it’s Movember, which means I’m not shaving as a shoutout to prostate cancer awareness.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Also, it says bleeding did 20 hits for 3000 damage. That’s 150 damage, on average, per tick. How does it add condition hits for condis that stack?

Combat slog shows the total ticks of a condition as a “hit,” not individual stacks.

So, regardless of how many stacks of bleeding there were, that breakdown shows 20 seconds of bleeding.

Thanks, I thought that might be the case. And in that case, that feels like a very low amount of damage, if it’s averaging fewer than or roughly 2 stacks.

Jayne.9251:

Aye, I’m all for community training, that’s how you build a solid community. I guess I’d like to see that as the carrot, before the rewards plan is tried, since you’ll likely get more people who feel part of a team, rather than isolated part of the ktrain.

Cogbryn, I think you have to have a certain mentality to like defense. I work with fellow teammates on map to thwart the blob, and the reward is holding off the blob with a handful because we spent the entire day sussing out chokes, etc. Personally my reward is the trust of our GVG guilds, who will respond to a call out for defense, because they know they’ll get massive fights. That’s gratifying for both sides.

I actually don’t personally like defense. I like offense. Players are always going to be attacking objectives, but players don’t seem to ever want to defend objectives for whatever reason. Look at all of the complaints about ktraining, no fights, swapping objectives, clearing objectives on maps with no players.

I’m just trying to think of ways to encourage people to fight each other, because based on feedback I’ve seen and experiences I’ve had, players often would rather do whatever will get them a reward that is easiest.

If you can make a call-out to a GvG guild who will respond to a zerg and create a fight, that seems to be a very unique situation that many others don’t have, whether it’s population/timing/whatever reason.

If you want my opinion, I don’t get why people don’t want to fight. I don’t get why they wouldn’t want to go at a zerg they see or know of on a map and start something. I don’t get the “let’s just trade/let them have it” mentality. I’m just trying to think of ways to get that mentality into the fight game.

meow one twenty.4376:

How often is Chilled the main source of damage on a Chillmancer? Everytime. Typically by a significant margin. The screenshot was a short fight with multiple Reapers and the DD, and I use Relentless Pursuit and Hoelbrak. The problem is Chilled isn’t functioning as an attrition like it did before the buff, the damage was manageable and only really hurt when the person was close to losing. That was much more befitting.

Yes, Might makes things do more damage, thank you for pointing that out. I especially like Corrupting Might and Stability, but has less of an impact on the overall damage Chill will put out because of its continuous nature on the Reaper.

Meta? There isn’t even a real meta yet, it’s all a bunch of people complaining about DHs.

Revert Chill damage back to the way it was. Overall damage was around the same with a bigger snowball effect and it regains the attrition it was designed with.

That death breakdown strikes me as odd. First, as mentioned, Chill averaged 564 damage per tick. So over the course of 20 seconds, it did 10k damage. That’s attrition to me. It isn’t overly strong, but it’s consistent, and it adds up over time. You aren’t going to go burst someone down with your chill before they get any assistance. It’s a slow burn designed to make them feel the pressure.

Also, it says bleeding did 20 hits for 3000 damage. That’s 150 damage, on average, per tick. How does it add condition hits for condis that stack? I slapped a Carrion amulet on just now and put 2 stacks of bleeding on a golem, and it was ticking for 188. That means on average, this player you were fighting maintained fewer than 2 stacks of bleeding, and never applied torment or burning.

Also, the Thief hit you 3 times in what is at minimum, a 19 second fight.

It just sort of strikes me as odd, is all. And for a condition you can’t stack, 560 damage/sec doesn’t seem too bad to me.

Atharian.7092:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Atharian.7092:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Atharian.7092:

A lot of classes actually do feel over the top right now, Revenant in particular stands out. Not to mention, a lot of games out there are solo versus premade, and those make for some pretty lame games. But hey, lets bury our heads in the sand and pretend the game is fine. I’m sure the expansion is completely balanced and that nothing is wrong.

There’s a difference between burying your head in the sand, and acknowledging that maybe we need some time for players and teams to develop before crying “op” on every build that we struggle even a little bit against.

We could do that, but I have a better idea. How about we acknowledge that a lot of this stuff is new, and through the act of being new, is somewhat poorly balanced… Not many games can release a new class, etc, and claim its perfectly balanced on day 1.

By virtue of being new, you can say that it is more likely that balance could be more drastically skewed than usual, sure. But also because it’s new, we shouldn’t be leaping to conclusions about what is actually poorly balanced, because it’s new. Until you take the time to collect an appropriate amount of data, you shouldn’t be making a decision. A few frustrating matches one night isn’t an appropriate amount of data.

So really, all of the “this is OP”, “that is OP” callouts on this forum should read “this seems strong”, or “help with that”, in order to better understand what each new spec/build/class brings to the table before going back and trying again.

What can I say? I operate on a more straightforward theory.

I look into the distance, and I see some smoke… The act of seeing smoke, while it could be a number of things, leads me to the natural assumption that its probably a fire.

This forum is filled with such smoke. You can label it however you want, but at the end of the day, no class is going to be perfectly balanced at every level of play.

That’s actually a really good analogy, though I’m interpreting it a bit differently than you. Smoke does hint that there’s a problem/fire, but it tells you nothing of the nature/start of the fire. When you get to the source, you might find a person sitting there, arms crossed, near a reservoir of water, as a fire rages nearby. That person could have put the fire out, but they didn’t want to try.

If you want to make a good balancing decision, you don’t just do whatever forums tell you and try to “put out all the fires”. You have to better understand the fires. And players need to do a better job of not lighting silly fires because they can’t be bothered to try.

Play a Soldier Power Necro and build around fighting if you want to fight. Condi is a different style. Don’t try to force a square peg into a round hole.

Dawdler.8521:

Firelysm.4967:

Dawdler.8521:

Firelysm.4967:

• REDUCE NEW MAPS FOR 40%, AND REMOVE UNDERGROUND LEVEL. I would only keep the crentral area, all the rivers and side paths removed, gone, deleted please, ty.

Lol you know you could have just summed that up and saved alot of words:

*Delete the map

You cant scale down the map as every single object of the map would be out of place, out of scale and no longer fit together with the terrain. You cant just remove entire parts of it and pretend like that’s going to make it any better (in this case, it would remove bay).

TL;DR
The map cant be fixed without making it a new map.

If they use bad programming practice yes, but if they use advanced stuff they can easily adjust terrain by width and height, and objects will stay in shape while collision will stay on spot.

What “advanced” stuff would they use? AFAIK GW2 is using pretty much the same system as every other game – a terrain heightmap with a ton of objects at XYZ coordinates. All objects would be scaled at their transform points even if you account for scaled positioning on the flat plane. Meaning the walls will disconnect and the hills will fly.

Plus, all the objects and areas that are proper scale now – even if the map is big – would be too small in scale in turn. Shrine and camp cap points would become cramped, canyons too small, doorways you have to crawl through, stairs you have to go up sideways to not fall down, etc.

But yeah. Sure. Magic will fix it.

Don’t you know that everyone on a forum is a programming genius, and they know all of the good stuff you can do with code and stuff? I bet everyone would even code everything right the first time, no bugs!

As far as scaling, even if you just think of a simple example of a tunnel/choke. If you scale it a certain degree, a player will no longer be able to pass through, because it won’t be wide enough, and the map is effectively broken. It really isn’t that simple.

I bet the motivation is to make capping more meaningful. When people know when something is going to happen, you are more likely to get defenders and attackers, resulting in PvP. Also, if you guarantee ownership of an objective for X hours, that’s big for PPT, too, instead of just trading.

When things can happen any time 5 minutes after a keep/tower is taken, why defend because who cares?

It’s actually a very valid suggestion, imo. I do think there’d have to be some system where between siege openings, you could starve the keep by killing yaks/taking camps so it was weaker when it was next available. Defenders could escort yaks/ensure camps deliver so their objective is stronger.

I wouldn’t rule it out.

Jayne.9251:

Naw. Those who mindlessly ktrain will continue to mindlessly ktrain without learning the mechanics. There’s an awful lot of lazy players out there who only care about the digital loot tables — which is so bizarre to me, lol, it’s just pixels on a screen. It doesn’t matter how long the rewards are there. We saw it in replicated season two and three for example — same deal, get the quest track rewards, disappear.

And if it did happen it will be a trade off of either become a loot bag or not get a reward. And guess what happens if they’re constantly loot bags and no rewards? They’ll get better? Nope. They’ll head back to pve-land.

You do make a very good point, and that’s my biggest concern. Reward-based players will try to take the path of least resistance, and making a path of least resistance that gets the PvP and PvE players working together in WvW in such a way that fights are encouraged and not discouraged is, as far as I can tell, next to impossible. There will always be the risk of not getting rewards in a competitive environment, so I don’t see how it could ever really live up to PvE.

In that scenario, we’re left with PvPers, though many of them also talk about rewards. Taking objectives is always going to be rewarded. So really, how do we get people to really, really want to go defend an objective, instead of just let it get taken so they can take it back in 5 minutes? That seems like the key to me, making defense something players want to rally behind.

Hammerguard.9834:

How is this PvP going to live when Leagues come out and there’s still no solo queue? I’ve played a few matches against 5 man abjured premade the other day. It was the most disgusting thing I ever seen. I have a feeling that’s literally all PvP is going to turn into when Leagues come out. Who the hell would sit through that?

I would love to play against a team like Abjured, even if I’m solo queuing. The opportunity to get fight experience in against players who have consistently performed tournament-well would be great for learning and practice.

Why does losing hit people so hard in the feels? Because it might mean we aren’t as good as we think we are, and we can’t take that kind of realization?

I agree with the sentiment that you have to be careful when rewarding players in a PvP-style environment, because people will do anything to guarantee their rewards. One of the only ways I can see it working is if the rewards for two servers are distributed for competing reasons, such as one world being more rewarded for taking an objective, while another world is more rewarded for defending it. There’s no real trading in that scenario, unless the attackers trigger the defense reward to equate to a successful attack, then the defenders let the attackers in. However, if people stoop to that degree to avoid any sort of competition to strictly gain reward, then there’s probably no hope for any rewards in WvW ever.

As far as rewards for placement to incentivize competition, I think the “we can’t win against X world, so I might as well not even play” mentality will hit hard and encourage worlds to drop hard out of a tier/match-up so they can be 1st in a lower tier for more rewards.

I know I’m quite cynical when it comes to this, but I really think the players themselves are their own worst enemy in trying to make WvW work.

Atharian.7092:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Atharian.7092:

A lot of classes actually do feel over the top right now, Revenant in particular stands out. Not to mention, a lot of games out there are solo versus premade, and those make for some pretty lame games. But hey, lets bury our heads in the sand and pretend the game is fine. I’m sure the expansion is completely balanced and that nothing is wrong.

There’s a difference between burying your head in the sand, and acknowledging that maybe we need some time for players and teams to develop before crying “op” on every build that we struggle even a little bit against.

We could do that, but I have a better idea. How about we acknowledge that a lot of this stuff is new, and through the act of being new, is somewhat poorly balanced… Not many games can release a new class, etc, and claim its perfectly balanced on day 1.

By virtue of being new, you can say that it is more likely that balance could be more drastically skewed than usual, sure. But also because it’s new, we shouldn’t be leaping to conclusions about what is actually poorly balanced, because it’s new. Until you take the time to collect an appropriate amount of data, you shouldn’t be making a decision. A few frustrating matches one night isn’t an appropriate amount of data.

So really, all of the “this is OP”, “that is OP” callouts on this forum should read “this seems strong”, or “help with that”, in order to better understand what each new spec/build/class brings to the table before going back and trying again.

meow one twenty.4376:

Tim.6450:

meow one twenty.4376:

I think it presents a problem when in a 20 second fight, Chill is the largest contributor to death in just damage (at a rate of 900 damage/second), that doesn’t even include how much of an impact it would have in a longer fight with the cooldown increase and movement impairment… you know, the previous primary reason for applying Chill.

Well, it’s a grandmaster on a condition with lots of counters, so it has to be strong. Another thing that has to be calculated is that the 900 damage a second is not all deathly chill only. Some of it is might, some of it is vulenrability and some of it is target the weak and maybe some other condition boosters (like sigil of bursting). So yeah if you invest that amount in it you should get some return. On its own in a rabid with nightmare runes it does only 615 damage/second.

First, as proven by many Grandmasters, a Granmaster doesn’t have to be strong. I think it should be, but it shouldn’t be a soft CC, cooldown increase, and strongest damage dealer all wrapped up in one.

Second, every condition and skill that does damage factors in Might, Vuln, and gear. What kind of a point are you trying to make?

Out of curiosity, how often is Chill the most damage with a Chillmancer? What % of the overall damage is it? It sort of seems like it being the “strongest damage dealer” is being taken as an objective fact, but it was sort of just anecdotally thrown into the mix. One of the main benefits that it has is that once Chill is on, it’s ticking nicely, as opposed to Burn and Bleed which need to build a few stacks to start rolling. However, I’d argue with all of the cleansing that can and does happen, a condi class like Chillmancer having access to a pressuring condition that can be applied while they build back up is one of the few ways to keep condi viable, outside of condi burst builds. Especially since building those stacks back up as a Necromancer can take some time.

Also, if the Chillmancer has his/her might stripped, odds are that chill is going to start ticking for much less. Like with any build, if you let the class get high stacks of might, the fight is going to become hard.

The idea that chill shouldn’t do damage also feels sort of arbitrary to me. It seems like a nice bridge for a condi spec to feel viable against cleansing, while also not allowing the Necro to spam up all of their Chill at once to stack 3600 damage/tick or anything crazy. It’s just steady, attrition-based play.

If they were to nerf the damage, what do you think would be an appropriate amount to nerf it by? The amount of damage it does against other players is going to depend a lot on cleanse timings and build. It just seems to me like there’s so much counter for chill in the game, if t’s that big of an issue that it’s destroying the meta, why not build against it? Is it bad if the meta has to be concerned about a chill-based condi spec?

ozzy.8059:

people just shove a target on my head spam cc’s making stability redundant and then its gg.. nothing has changed from base necro against competent people

What’s your team doing while you are up against what seems to be 2 – 3 people?

Also, this hasn’t been my experience at all, but I guess I never get to play against competent players. I wonder where they all are. Always playing against someone else, who happens to be executing their class/build flawlessly but still can’t secure victory, I guess.

Jayne.9251:

Grim West.3194:

Can’t have a war if there is nobody to fight.

There’s enough of a core wvw playerbase that it doesn’t need to be incentivized.

Nobody who loves this game mode cares much about the loot or they’d have quit years ago.

Big shiny rewards draw players focused on the loot train, with very little desire to learn map mechanics, team cooperation or community support. So they blob and never improve, because why would they if the loot keeps rolling in.

That, in itself, leads to the deterioration of the game mode.

Do you think there are enough core WvW players who do it for fun to sustain the game over the new few years? I’m not so sure. I’d personally rather see ANet direct the meaningful rewards along the same goal path as the WvW community. More PvE/reward focused players want their rewards, and WvW players often want their fights. Why can’t they dangle a carrot that leads you to get rewards as a direct result from fighting?

My only concern with trying to make that work is that it’s still up to the players to at least try to get the rewards. Quitting out of discouragement can happen so lightning quick that I’m not sure how you’d even accomplish that goal. However, after players participate in a game mode for 3 years running, how do you keep it fresh enough for them to want to continue? It would be easier if more people played the game for fun, but the desire for rewards seems too ingrained.

Atharian.7092:

A lot of classes actually do feel over the top right now, Revenant in particular stands out. Not to mention, a lot of games out there are solo versus premade, and those make for some pretty lame games. But hey, lets bury our heads in the sand and pretend the game is fine. I’m sure the expansion is completely balanced and that nothing is wrong.

There’s a difference between burying your head in the sand, and acknowledging that maybe we need some time for players and teams to develop before crying “op” on every build that we struggle even a little bit against.

Another post eaten, another sad had.

In short, something to think about: while in Shroud, a Reaper’s access to chill diminishes to #2 (if traited, only occurs at the end of the spin), #3 (.5 second cast time and big Grenth animation above the Necro’s head, also requires Necro to cancel their pulsing stab), and #5 (long wind up, can be blinded/dodged pretty easily). If you cleanse when the Necro goes into Shroud, odds are you can mitigate a lot of potential chill.

Then when the Necro is out of Shroud, they are very much susceptible to CC again. It’s almost like a boss that alternates phases that you have to manage, and each phase has its weakness. You just have to familiarize yourself with the phases, and the weaknesses start to show up.

I’m not quite sure yet if chill access or damage needs to be changed yet. I mean the chill damage change just went out 3-4 days ago? It’s just showing up on the radar and catching people off guard at the moment. I’ll be curious to see if people and teams both don’t just adapt without too much issue.

Breakbar mechanics on legendaries increasing the amount of damage they take and incapacitating them is definitely a hoot. I just recently discovered the effect on the Legendary Wyvern today, actually, and was soaking up those hot numbers.

GS #1’s third auto hit is perhaps the most unreliable method Reapers have to apply chill. Go try it in PvP, and let me know how she rides.

@glaphen: Apparently, it is 33% damage out of the most damaging condition in a fight against a Chill-specced Necromancer, according to meow. So that seems pretty good to me, if the argument is that it is doing that much damage.

Also, another question: shouldn’t a meta have some build that destabilizes the norm in order to make people think/adapt? If everyone is comfortable with their builds that basically accommodate the rest of the meta, isn’t there a need for something that can come in and cause some consternation? This is more balance a la MOBA, like DOTA 2, where the meta often includes picks that are strong, then other picks that are designed within the meta to create problems for the strong picks.

In that sense, if people start stacking chill/chillmancers, then the answer to that in the meta is teamfighting condi clears, personal condi clears, and perhaps traiting against it. Then how effective would it be? They would probably have to shift off of stacking, and it would simply be an option to help apply pressure at a certain weakness in another team comp.

It’s possible that the damage on Deahtly Chill needs to be fixed, sure. Otherwise, I’m curious how much you feel you should be able to be chilled in a fight, barring all of the potential ways to remove/dodge it.

glaphen.5230:

Cogbyrn.7283:

If a class chooses not to take it, then they are choosing to be susceptible to a chill-based build. It means that their build has kitten in it, and a chill-based Reaper is able to exploit that hole to pressure the class.

Are you saying they should remove mechanics that exploit holes in builds for various classes, because those builds should feel nice and safe against everything?

I don’t really know what you’re saying. “Only 33%”? That’s like saying Prot is “only 30% damage reduction”, so it isn’t really that good of a boon.

I use Relentless Pursuit and Melandru runes on my Soldier Necro build right now. In Reaper, chill basically just rolls right off, especially if I’m in Shroud. I built this way because Chilled hitting my cooldowns really puts a damper on the cadence of a fight for me, and I would rather play through other things (like having an increased Shout cooldown that I can anticipate) than worrying as much about Chilled, especially with the ability to be kited as a Reaper. Cripple and Immobilize also basically evaporate the moment they hit me.

It’s only 33% if the chill is removed by time limit and not by condition removal.

Right. You’re mitigating the risk of Chill going the distance.

And if Chill is being regularly cleared by condition removal, then it isn’t really a problem is it?

If a class chooses not to take it, then they are choosing to be susceptible to a chill-based build. It means that their build has a weakness in it, and a chill-based Reaper is able to exploit that hole to pressure the class.

Are you saying they should remove mechanics that exploit holes in builds for various classes, because those builds should feel nice and safe against everything?

I don’t really know what you’re saying. “Only 33%”? That’s like saying Prot is “only 33% damage reduction”, so it isn’t really that good of a boon.

I use Relentless Pursuit and Melandru runes on my Soldier Necro build right now. Chill basically just rolls right off, especially if I’m in Shroud. I built this way because Chilled hitting my cooldowns really puts a damper on the cadence of a fight for me, and I would rather play through other things (like having an increased Shout cooldown that I can anticipate) than worrying as much about Chilled, especially with the ability to be kited as a Reaper. Cripple and Immobilize also basically evaporate the moment they hit me.

EDIT – Fixed a silly ‘kitten’ overwrite, and I’m a big dumb and forgot Prot is actually 33%, not just 30% reduction.

EDIT 2 – My clarity was poor in one part.

Reaper is everything I want in an MMO class. Tanky, still able to put out good damage, wields a Greatsword (I’m a sucker for Greatsword aesthetic, don’t judge me), gets right up in the thick of everything, enjoyable sustain mechanics with Shroud interaction (I have always enjoyed it anyway), and some baked-in mobility with Reaper’s Shroud.

I literally couldn’t be happier. Not that everything is perfect, but this is what I was hoping to get out of the expansion from an experience perspective.

I favor Chilling Victory in PvP because of the possibility that Vulnerability gets frequently cleanses or is otherwise more difficult to maintain on a target. The GS trait doesn’t really appeal to me at all, and more LF generation + might + interaction with BB makes it really attractive to me personally.

I argued that Chill is perhaps the most counterable condition in the game, besides probably Fear. It looks like 7 classes have a trait that can reduce its duration by 33%. A few classes have abilities that remove Chilled specifically. Chilled can be removed with regular old condi removal, which is often prevalent in team fights and can be specced for as well. Additionally, there are two rune options which reduce condi duration by 20% (Hoelbrak) and 25% (Melandru).

All of that is ignoring the fact that you can dodge the Chilled application as well, as it is often fairly obvious in its animation (GS #5, Focus #5, Staff #5 when traited, RS #5, RS #2 when traited, Chilled to the Bone, Spectral Grasp). Staff #3 might be the most difficult version of Chill to dodge.

So given the plethora of ways to counter the Chilled condition, is it really OP? They might tune the damage, but I’m not sure. You can’t even stack it to burst with Chilled. It’s just another “slow demise” condition added into the Necromancer’s repertoire, which is part of the class’s design.

Morwath.9817:

You skipped Rangers -chill duration, yo.

Do they have it? I don’t see it on the Wiki, so I didn’t list it. I just mentioned the things I could find after a very quick search.

No Man.4180:

We shouldn’t just Delete Reapers… having said that though:
The point is that Reapers attacks, shroud and weapon swap cause poison and chill passively. if those were Active skills i wouldn’t mind but they are not.
Its not about skill at that point.
further more, the lack of CC affects on the class IS annoying. Maybe Anet should review CC mechanics in earnest instead of just making them superfluous towards a specific class to sell HOT.
An lastly i see A LOT of contrived points premised around primed language to elicit an emotional response instead of pursuing the conversation rationally. Name calling and trolling proves to me that the player base exploiting these effects are aware of their power and don’t want to surrender their one hit I WIN button.

Based on the OP, rational conversation was canned before anyone even said anything. Any actual conversation about Reaper balance is off-topic, because the OP is asking to delete Reapers from the game, which is exaggerated for the sake of dramatic effect.

However, if we are going to have a conversation, then we have to start by getting mechanics correct. No Man, unfortunately you have shown time and again that you don’t know hardly anything about Necromancers. When people point that out, you list of the names of fallacies as though people are missing your point. It’s difficult to find your point, though, when it’s buried under misinformation.

Not only did you try to list a trait that doesn’t exist as proof of some point (I don’t know what it is yet, that Chill is hard to fight against?), but you missed the single trait that you could actually say passively causes chill: Chill of Death.

Does Reaper apply too much Chill? I think that’s a complex question. Any condition-based strengths immediately have personal and team-based counter-play with cleanses.

Based on the Wiki, 6 abilities removed Chilled, specifically:

Warrior – Charge
Engineer – Overcharged Shot
Engineer – Rocket Boots
Thief – Withdraw
Thief – Roll for Initiative
Elementalist – Windborne Speed

6 traits, one in each of 6 classes, reduce the effect of Chilled:

Warrior – Dogged March
Engineer – Mecha Legs
Elementalist – Geomancer’s Training
Revenant – Lucid Singularity
Thief – Don’t Stop
Necromancer – Relentless Pursuit

Additionally, Elementalists can trait “Stop, Drop, and Roll”, which removes burning and chilled conditions from you and nearby allies every time you dodge.

All of those, combined with regularly being able to transfer/remove Chilled, and you have a situation where the class’s strength has all kinds of baked-in resistances and counters already. EDIT – Not to mention Hoelbrak and Melandru runes, both of which reduce the duration of all conditions.

It raises the question: how much chill is enough chill, for a spec that is designed around keeping foes chilled in order to survive? It would be nicer to have blocks, invuln, blind spam, boon spam, evasion spam, etc. to survive. Those don’t really rely on players and are often much more difficult to get around than a condition. Necros don’t get those toys though. We have to take hits, and as a melee spec, we have to be in the thick of fighting. Necros are very vulnerable the second they exit Shroud, as they no longer have a source of Stability. Unless they drop shroud and immediately heal with stability stacks from RS #3 (which would require foresight and good health management to ensure you get the most out of it), they are going to want to heal when they don’t have stab.

So, really. Is it just that you have to work to play against a Reaper that makes them irritating? I have to work against Mesmers, and Engis, and good Thieves, and Revenants, and the list goes on.

You mentioned us not wanting to give up our 1-hit I WIN button. Which button is that, exactly? Because if you’re talking about Gravedigger, then here’s a hint: that doesn’t apply Chill.

In the past, I’ve always been an advocate of playing for the sake of playing. I WvW because I want to go take camps, get into fights, and get myself into situations that would make a good story. Something super exciting/thrilling doesn’t happen every day, and that has been the case since the game released for me, even on Alpine.

However, I do personally think that WvW needs to be much more rewarding. As much as I don’t understand it, incentive is the key (and sometimes the only) driver for people to do things in an MMO, and I don’t think the WvW population will stop deteriorating until more non-PvPers get involved.

One thing I’ve been wondering though, is that many people have mentioned the loot as a draw. What loot exactly is a draw in this game? Are we just talking about the ascended mats, or like the weapon/armor drops as well? I’ve played the game around 1600 hours, and every single weapon/armor drop I’ve gotten has been garbage. No precursors, I think maybe 3-4 exotics, maybe. I believe 1 exotic sold for 10 gold once. I’m inundated in terrible loot all the time. The main fortunate thing I ran into was that, recently I leveled Weaponsmithing and happened to have all of the tier crafting mats necessary to get me to 450 without having to buy anything. Otherwise, the loot in this game is almost universally awful, and I personally hate getting it. It’s like I’m playing vanilla Diablo 3, only I’m not expecting upgrades because ascended items can’t drop, so I’m flooded with things that will never be good.

What is it about the “loot” in WvW that people currently like?

No, they aren’t going to delete Reaper.

However, your irritation and lack of desire to adapt to something new has been filed in the appropriate bin marked TrashFeedback.

Thank you for contributing.

DeceiverX.8361:

Another small complaint – please, PLEASE fix the background map of the WvW maps if nothing’s going to be changed; it looks like the maps got copy-pasted in MSPaint on top of the old ones :s

Hahaha, I wasn’t sure if I was the only one who stopped and recognized this, too, or not. It would definitely be nice for polish if they fixed this up.

Thank you Fann (and others) for elaborating nicely. I actually agree with the sentiments you and others have had around automatic upgrades, and how there needs to be a player element in some way to restrict that process.

I’m going to try to generalize the points into two concepts that I think serve as the root of the problem: rallying around something, and discouragement.

The new map seems to have much less to rally around. When something automatically upgrades, people don’t rally to save it, because they feel less strongly about it. Without WPs projecting influence in a meaningful way, people don’t rally around defense of those objectives. What appears to have caused many of the fights/defenses was a reason to rally around an objective, and that’s missing in the Desert BL. It sounds like that concept is sorely needed.

Also, the new map is generally discouraging, in many ways. Something new like this is always going to be, by nature, discouraging at first. People don’t necessarily want to change if they are comfortable, so if anything, the new map should feel extra encouraging to really get people into it. However, it’s large. It’s more complex. You can walk to an objective and look around, saying “Wait, where is it?”, then spend 5 minutes (or more, if you’re me) trying to get to it. Objectives are automatically upgrading, so you might not be able to accomplish the goals you want with a small group. You’re forced to be more careful when navigating because the terrain is often precipitous, and some placed CC can kill you if you aren’t careful.

At this point it isn’t even about incentive, really, it’s about wanting to be encouraged to go to the map and do something. There needs to be some design reason to make players rally around objectives on the new maps, and there needs to be more design reasons to encourage people and uplift them somehow when they get there.

I honestly think gliding would go a long way to making the Desert BL feel a lot more fun/engaging. You’re encouraged to go up high, because you can glide down lower. Also, if you get knocked off a platform, assuming you recover from the CC you can deploy your wings and save yourself from dying, although you’ll be displaced from the fight. The simple fact that you didn’t die, though, is encouraging. I feel like it’s more “Ah, shoot” then “I hate this”.

Of course gliders don’t provide anything to rally around. My question about WPs as a concept to rally around: is there something else that can be as meaningful as a WP to rally around that doesn’t necessarily make travel time to defend instant (in that short period where it’s available every once in a while)? Isn’t there a merit to actually “sieging” an objective and keeping people at bay, instead of the game letting them skip that and be in?

Or is it more beneficial from an encouragement standpoint to allow people to get in on defense during short bursts as a specific design mechanic, to reward defenders for perseverance? Even if the WP only lets X number of people in, it would allow a rush of reinforcements that is encouraging to the defense, hopefully causing them to be more likely to defend.

Of course everyone is going to be different and be discouraged by different things. Everyone is going to have a different idea of what would get them to rally behind something. However, I sort of feel like those two ideas are underlying many of the complaints, and should be addressed in some way. I do think players should be responsible for combating some of the discouragement themselves, because it is born of inexperience (like trying to find where objectives are and how to get to them). I’ve personally done that and solo roamed Desert BL for multiple hours just to get a better feel for it, and I like it a lot more as a result without that intimidating sitting in front of me.

However, I would love to see ANet act, even in small ways.

My biggest concern with this system would be too many people trying to play per map. I’d worry about queues being insanity.

That aside, would it potentially be more fair to do a snake style color attribution? So it would be:

1. Green
2. Blue
3. Red
4. Red
5. Blue
6. Green

So instead of Green technically getting “1st” in every matchup of 3, it shifts it around. I don’t know if there is much of a disparity to warrant such a system, but it’s a thought.

I actually find the last two comments by Roac and Fannwong very interesting. Thanks for the perspective, you two!

Fannwong, you said you tried hard to make it stick, but it didn’t. What did you try? Did you simply spend time in it? Did you attempt to get to know all of its paths, shortcuts, and characteristics? I’m not like you as a player, so I’m very curious what your mentality is.

My initial reaction is to say “You spent 3 years getting acclimated to the Alpine borderlands, and it has been 2 weeks since HoT released. Is it still a bit too early to tell?”, but there has to be something I’m missing. Also, what could you do to make the new BL your home? Is there anything?

morrolan.9608:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Honestly, you provided no substance, so i challenged you to try to squeeze it out. And i personally think many criticisms that have been posted are very shallow observations at best. I also disagree with some of them.

How about you just ask for more detail then.

You ask for more informed criticism rather than just shouting insults at the devs then when you get it you criticise that as well. Yes I could go into even more detail but I think the thrust of the argument is clear and this is a user forum not detailed test feedback.

Well, yeah. Of course i criticize/challenge the feedback as well. I’ve been trying to share what i think during that criticism so it can be challenged as well. Ideas don’t grow from complacency.

And this isn’t a test feedback forum, but players are demanding ANet listen to them. If you are giving vague feedback or assuming a meaning is clear, you only have yourself to blame if any changes made aren’t in the direction you want.