Guild Wars 2

I don’t understand what you’re saying, I’m saying Thief SBow allows them to escape and evade whatever they choose at will. You seem to have an issue with a 2sec root with a 9.5-12sec recharge. If you have a problem with skills which allow the other player to avoid too much then Thief SBow and Feline Grace should be at the top of your list – but instead at the start you say they are fine O_o

Amir.1570:

My apologies but take the time to compare the damage of Thief short bow 3 or larcenous strike to Mesmer shatter + blurred frenzy. Hell even dodge > F1 on Mesmer is even dumber than short bow 3 or larcenous strike, granted that you know how to count dodges. Don’t get me started on how Mesmers have perma vigor AND cleave better than Thieves because when a Thief is cluster bombing, he isn’t evading and is punishable

I’m not going to explain on why Thief actually takes more skill AND is more reasonable evade frame-wise than Mesmers in this thread. My point on my first post is that mechanics that classes such as Mesmers, Warriors, Old Cantrips Ele apparently “have to abuse” promote time-out matches.

Again, stay on topic. If you really want to discuss this further then PM me. This topic is about how anti-fun “time-out” BS makes this game not so fun.

But thats the point, no other weapon in game gives as much on demand time out as Thief SBow… If you aren’t willing to accept that you need to go back and think again.

Amir.1570:

Silferas.3841:

You have lost me when you stated that S/D and shortbow are “fair” (which is simply not true, that spec will either be broken or useless, there is no in-between. It needs to be completely removed from the game), yet complained about mesmer evades and mesmers in general.

I mean seriously? Complaining about mesmers at this point in time? You must be seriously bad if you feel mesmers are too strong in tPvP right now lol.

But as to the rest of the topic: yes, power based builds are too punishing at the moment. They need to either be more rewarding (leading to power creep and one shot builds) or condition specs need to be more punishing (killing the purpose of condition specs).

The difference between Thief and Mesmer is that when a Mesmer is bursting people down, Mesmers have invulnerability or berserker stance, balanced stance, and endure pain. DO NOT even get me started on how Mesmer also cleaves and deal AoE damage while they spam invulnerability frames. In reality, the people who are saying Mesmer takes more skill than Thief is just delusional. When a Thief is spamming evades at least he isn’t doing the damage out-put that a mesmer has when the Thief is spamming evades.

But please stay on topic and leave it at this. I will not respond anymore to people who are saying “Mesmer takes skill” because in reality, they don’t. If you’re up to argue then go ahead and PM me.

Erm… I assume you’re talking about Blurred Frenzy (which is not an invuln its an evade – retal, procs from nightmare etc go through it)? Or are you talking about Distortion? Hitting a Blurred and damage is pretty difficult as it roots you to the floor, you may say “Ah! but sword comes with an immob” try using that immob… If you’re talking about Distortion it has a 45sec CD and require us to sacrifice our resource to use it.

You then claim that thief SBow isn’t a problem… Its the worst offender in the game at evade frames on weapon skills. You have just lost credibility completely. Rethink your argument with thief skills included and maybe someone will listen to you.

I salvaged r60 CM armour and got a Phoenix token i assume it goes for the other tiers too.

Aaaargh Ron… You make a valid comparison pointing out how ridiculously strong LBow’s immob and bleed forever skill 5 is and you follow it by asking for another skill just like it to be made… We need less fast casting ranged immobs…

Increase LBow 5’s casting time and decrease Bleed duration, don’t buff other things so they are are kittened as it…

Zenith.7301:

The thing is, while you’re channeling a mantra, you’re not attacking. It’s also why mantra of pain is useless (besides its terrible damage) outside being a restorative mantra heal fodder.

Even at 1.5 sec channel it would mean 1.5 sec of not doing something else, and the ability needs to balance itself on that account.

The way i look at Pain is I’m saving the damage I would doing now to add to a spike later. I do think mantras could do with a rework, fun for 1v1 or just focusing on sustain or spike but still falls down when there are multiple things going on. They have poor battle flow and take up the mesmer’s most valuable skil bar slots.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

From experience when i played soloQ/spvp..22-30 minute for a match in soloQ. In that same time I could have played 3x hotjoin. This is good news for people who play in America/Europe. However if I am not mistaken, 15-17% of box sales where in NA/EU..the other circa 80% don’t play in those times zones. It is the wait times at offpeak times that makes tpvp/soloQ unattractive to south pacific players. In short, the rich get richer..the poor get poorer kinda thing. Nice to see the increase to those who play at peak times…acid in the mouth to those who don’t.

Hey I often hear this stat “80% of people who have bought the game are off peak”, EU to American time zones takes up roughly 12hrs thats half the globe 5 of that is ocean, so the people live in 7hrs worth of space. That means in the other 12hrs of space you have the 80% (some ocean time there too unless there are a lot of gamers in Alaska and Siberia). Now my question is how can such a large % of the games population be living in this area of time on the globe and it still be “off peak”. I’m not trying to be cheeky I’m genuinely interested in how this 80% of people =/= large player base.

If you have any theories I’d love to hear them, I’m thinking atm large number of sales being made purely for PvE or farming. Possibly more diverse languages in these other time zones, English being spoken very well through most of the European gaming community (and i guess America gives it a try too), maybe this puts people off PvP. I’m genuinely curious and not sure. But the fact of the matter is you are saying its “off peak” therefore not very many people play PvP, which means less will be tailored to a smaller player base.

Fascinating situation, needs more research. 80% purchases and yet limited players – whats your theory?

RaynStargaze.6510:

Djangooouuuuuu

wtf do i do in soloq when i bunker far node 1v1 all game after capping it myself and them my team still loses because they are entirely unable to get even 1 other node even though 1 guy of the enemy team is constantly zerging me for no reason on far

I swear people with a barely 50% winrate shouldnt be in top 100 – godkitten minion master necro- kitten you if u read this

other than that good beginners guide – cheers

Lets say the teams are balanced. Consisting of 1 Awesome person, 3 Mediocre, 1 Awful.

Their home point has 1 Awesome/mediocre from your team (I don’t know how well you rate yourself but prolly in one of those 2 categories) and the awful person from theirs.
The other 2 points have all 4 of their best players and the worst or second worst lineup from your team.

Now lets assume it isnt balanced, you’ve had bad luck and ended up with the worse team this round. Be that through skill levels or classes.

This is the nature of Hotjoin oh i mean Soloq. Just see it for what it is, better rewarded hotjoin ^^ Also it will hopefully improve over time as the system figures stuff out. But don’t get too upset it will always be a luck dependent thing, if you want security in who is going to be on your team do Teamq.

On topic it was a nice guide.

Krayiss.4926:

Pretty sure they are covering their ears and not letting in any light

Aaaargh my ears can’t see!

I actually really like your Shatter Heal for mesmer idea.

Don’t forget it has a damage component, which means it can crit so can burn.

Signet of Instagib ^^

This gives an advantage to things which dont dodge much… I dont want the hambow warrior knowing his Earth Shaker will hit. If you’re pay attention and get a feel for the enemy then you should be baiting dodges and bursting giving people this information just makes it combat by numbers.
Without this information the combat is richer cause people will need to communicate their pressure on targets and you need to figure out if you’ve seen them dodge extra on weapon swap.
With this information all the ridiculous damage can be fired off without any fear of wasting it, this is information to help bring worse players up artificially. It shouldnt be done.

What would maybe be nice introducing energy destruction skills to the game (not just weakness but maybe something that took a chunk out of the endurance bar – much like energy burn)

Prismatic Mesmers are both easy to play and incredibly strong, hopefully your 1v1 tourny will have them banned.

Good idea, teams with 3 warriors, rangers or mesmers are just silly in solo queue.

Halting Strike is OP but im not sure i would kill SD thieves without it. I would be VERY worried about the Vuln change you suggested Sensotix, mesmers stack ~20 vuln very easily and 40%+ damage is mad. It would need a serious rebalance of power before that was considered. Diamond Skin has warnings all over it, considering how eles are pretty decent at bouncing their health up and cleansing condis – i like eles, watching a good one play is a treat but i also remember what they were like early on in the game.

Good suggestions and well structured. Seriously opposed to the Vuln change you mentioned though without a MASSIVE nerf on EVERYTHING. I feel these caps are justified

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

“Warriors are incredibly tanky for the damage they do, "
only if they spec it to be tanky, yes?

“the issue is they apply the Unsuspecting Foe and Merciless Hammer buffs on the stunning skill, "
i think the 10 dec patch will balance this?
i do not use these 2 traits for my warrior though.

“Warriors need a good hard look and dancing along saying “everything is fine” is just being silly.”
nah, warriors are balanced. just the other professions are weak.

Seriously? You choose to not run the meta build which has all the problems and yet argue against there being problems.. And as you’ve stated warriors are stronger than the other professions good to see you’re arguing for my point now ^^

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

sublime goes doggy.4826:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

“-Warriors, has a signet that gives massive healing despite having such high defense, no need to think about using it… it uses itself.”
working nicely as intended. it was too weak previously, but it is fine now.
note, if someone cannot deal enough damage to a healing signet warrior, then they do not deserve to defeat the warrior.

Worst troll ever.. Rofl saying that if you cant ouplay passive, you dont deserve to beat this class.. I mean theres some class has bunker who dont even cleave enough to out damaged that passive.. I am sorry if i am rude, but it is pathetic to think that way…

no offense taken no worries.

look at it this way, if one is a bunker spec profession, versus a warrior who is spec defensively.

do you really expect the bunker spec profession to defeat the defensive warrior on his / her own?

guild wars 2 is a team game.
bring some friends and beat down the warrior.

Warriors are incredibly tanky for the damage they do, the issue is they apply the Unsuspecting Foe and Merciless Hammer buffs on the stunning skill, most usable firefields in the game with plenty access to blast finishers. These artificial increases in the attack power of the warrior allow it to be tanky and the use heal sig to absorb soooo much incoming damage. Its the most efficient heal, never over healing, never being interupted, never not healing you when you need it and stacks with regen and ranger spirit. Warriors need a good hard look and dancing along saying “everything is fine” is just being silly.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Zenith.7301:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

it was 10 seconds before they changed it to 5 seconds right?

i remember it was 10 seconds all boons and not 5 seconds.

Used to be, yes.

so perhaps, could we say, that,

it was a bit overpowered in the past, with all boons at 10 seconds,
but now it is somewhat balanced, with all boons at 5 seconds.

yes?

it was a bit evil in the past, killing 10 babies a day,
but now its somewhat ok, just killing 5.

yes?

Lyssa runes are completely over powered, however I’m not sure as a mesmer i would survive vs certain condi spam builds without it – Nullfield is just too slow against things like Signet of Spite. On the other hand I’m sure I would be able to deal with thieves a lot easier if they didnt have Stability burried under a bucket of boons. Its kinda symbolic of the meta – ridiculously over powered stuff trying to clash and beat other ridiculously over powered stuff.

I would like the meta to get to a point where we don’t have any of this kitten running around. Until that point though I feel it would seriously cripple mesmers if it was taken from us. Increasing its internal CD to 90secs would okitteneep me happy and reduce its effectiveness on thieves and warriors (from which I’m sure most of the hate for these runes stem).

But anyone saying these runes aren’t OP is wrong or lying, they are, just I’m not sure their evil can be removed before we tone down other hateful things. I realise this 90sec CD is entirely self preferential but we need it more than them xD

ronpierce.2760:

Hurr, cause I only play MM. What point are you trying to make? A, it says from the sides or back, thus it sounds like a 90 degree angle, but regardless. That doesn’t make his AI any more of the problem. So yes, he was poorly aligned, got taken out by a bow, and AI didn’t kill him, which is what this whole thread is about. Go make a new thread if you want to complain shortbow is too powerful now.

The point im making is that you have an interest in arguing for AI and have shown you’ll make stuff up to knock ppl’s points, basicly you shouldn’t be trusted when it comes to discussing AI.

ronpierce.2760:

Well I said the BUFF (not the AI) may be a bit too strong because of how well it scales with Condition damage. But that isn’t an AI issue. the buff is just too good. And it’s being nerfed. The bleeding just shows how many arrows he took to the back of the head.

Someone needs to go check the angle required for rangers to hit bleeding is, it only has a nonbleed angle of 60degrees at the front. Thats why when you’re facing a ranger and either of you strafe you still get bleed stacks. You need to not counter grievences with put downs like “arrows to the back of the head” when you dont know what you’re talking about.. But then you probably dont notice cause your minions are eating all the condis up on automatic.

i think its most likely the jumping and immob bug, it keeps you in a state of falling where you cant use skills

The issue I have with condis is that certain classes can clear them without any effort others must use several globals and long cd skills and positioning to deal with them. This locks out classes when condis are strong – just take stock of a few months ago. I’d like some work done on condi application and their strength with little investment in the stat. Condis with 0 in condi damage should be as useless as power damage with 0 in power imo – which it just isnt.

If engis were as easy to make very useful as people are claiming wouldnt they be played to the same numbers as warriors? They just aren’t, stats or personal observation is enough to convice you of that. Maybe slight issues with the way they force trades of homepoints (cause the engi who stays to defend his point will end up getting knocked and it decapped all while the other side is uncontested) but thats more a personal thing. I do sometimes see an engi and go “wow that was OP! O_o” but it happens rarely enough for me to understand that was well played from the engi and every class can do something ridiculous from time to time. The classes you should be worried about are the ones you see doing something ridiculously op every time you see them. psst you know who you are!

Oh i don’t care about the putrid explosion i was just stating why minion builds are trashy and people who play them should be ashamed ^^

No you seem to be forgetting that while you are just watching the enemy char, they need to watch where your 4 helpers are because 1 KDs 1 immobs and the other 2 explode. So while the person playing against the AI needs to watch their positioning the necro or phantasm mesmer gets a bunch of meat shields blocking projectiles and giving them a great area of control over what space the enemy can use. Just by summoning them. Its entirely reliant on AI it gives you your area control and defense and if they get behind your opponent they can be kittened very quickly and easily. Hence kite like you’re in pve to win – which is a bit kitten for pvp. And btw “don’t complain about something kittenty it could be worse if it wasnt there” is a terrible argument.

what it comes down to is never let the mm necro or his minions get anywhere near you. this is why its horrible to play against because you are forced to basicly kite them to death like in pve. unless you have some massive fast acting aoe like dps guard with spin/smite condi/tele you’re in for a long running away fight. but the putrid explosion isnt really the issue tbh, its just an ugly form of play which relies on AI. anyone who says it doesn’t rely on AI is lying to you.

i get upset when lyssa stab or steal stab is burried under buckets of boons, i’ve many times mirror shattered and then diversion’d stab still sitting pretty i tend to either die or fail to stop a thief/warrior stomp at this point after unloading a massive amount of removal. priorities i think do need a look, especially when all the boons or condis are granted at the same time (lyssa and sig of spite mixed with procs are the main offenders imo).

Erm i mean actual pvp as in tourny pvp not wvw xD

Why are ppl saying Shatter isn’t meta mesmer build in pvp? It is..

I’d be happy to reduce phant damage to increase our other damage attacks (remember our damage is balanced around the assumption phants are hitting too). But what i’d REALLY like is to give phants a 2nd action after being cast to allow you to destroy them or switch places with them with added effects just to make it a nice interaction because they are fire and forget spells which arent fun for anyone (yes making a perma reflect field around bosses is powerful but wouldnt it be nice to add some skill to it?)

They do i think, im sure i’ve had a fireblast centered on my iWarden before. I’m not too sure though cause i tend to use stacking sigils and battle in pve (battle and sig of insp is nice to help out more might stacking)
If you want to test go grab a sigil in hotm and just cast a phant. Take a picture and post it here so there is a source for future folk ^^

If you make the lord harder to kill you may as well remove it. Its only purpose atm is a comeback mechanic and thats usually very tight and fails most of the time anyway.

Diversion ADDED 53secs (at 14 Domination) to the recharge of the skill cast through it. It was such a cool spell and so well balanced. You could pull off tricks which crippled gimmick builds with it (offensvely diverting a WoH or BSurge, defensively getting a Martyr or Lingering Curse) and could be played around with interupts or using Insipred Enchantment or Inspired Hex (monks used to carry this before Glyph of Energy was buffed) through it nullifying its effect. Its 3sec base cast time made it basicly a mesmer only spell. It really was the flavour and power of the mesmer in one spell, beautiful skill.
As for GW2 I think it would be nice to see the return of EBurn as an attack on dodge energy since Diversion probably couldnt exist in this format because of the dependence on your own skills to survive.

If the game mode didnt require you to stand on a point you’d have to deal with Prismatic Understanding mesmers and permastealth/disengage thieves like you see in wvw. The only reason these things are worthless in pvp is the cap point – without it you’d face a bucket load of kitten the likes of which you just aren’t prepared for.

Valentin.2073:

Coulter.2315:

I still think burning procs should be changed into a crit then buff situation. You crit which activates the buff which says “your next attack causes burning” this allows the other person to dodge and puts importance on landing your next attack. It will distinguish good players from players who happen to hit 1 auto attack every 10secs. It stops it being faceroll damage that is unavoidable (unless the enemy never hits you – and not everyone has feline grace <- btw why did they go for vigor over this bullkitten?)

Excited to see what comes out of the new meta, but definitely going in the right direction – reductions on damage and branching out to the sides.

you don’t get crits when you’re a spirit ranger, dude. we dont trait for crits. we trait for vitality, toughness, power and condition damage. it looks like you don’t have any idea about the spirit build. no offense meant. your suggestion is not helpful at all.

I was meaning for engi and necro burning effects. Just cause you’re feeling defensive about your ranger kitten doesn’t mean its the only thing on ppl’s mind.

I still think burning procs should be changed into a crit then buff situation. You crit which activates the buff which says “your next attack causes burning” this allows the other person to dodge and puts importance on landing your next attack. It will distinguish good players from players who happen to hit 1 auto attack every 10secs. It stops it being faceroll damage that is unavoidable (unless the enemy never hits you – and not everyone has feline grace <- btw why did they go for vigor over this bullkitten?)

Excited to see what comes out of the new meta, but definitely going in the right direction – reductions on damage and branching out to the sides.

It really was fantastic pvp, strategy, team builds and really was the best pvp experience i’ve had in any game. The knowledge you required to do well and the array of possible team setups even the gimmicks were diverse. It had a real depth of gameplay and teamplay.

BUT its gone now, golden age will be missed.

The thing is our traits (that help power damage) are geared towards either one of these 2 things. For each weapon set 1 phant and 1 clone. Our personal damage is also balanced around the belief that we are using shatter or phantasms to augment damage, so our autos are weaker etc. Builds which focus on say Mantra damage % increase again come down to buffing our phantasms or using mirror blade to do large spike damage with a shatter. Shatter and phant is the mesmer system that everything is geared towards and our other skills are weaker to stop us being too strong (except mirror blade). This is all for power damage, mesmers running around with clone destruction stuff and condi spec have a different path (which leads to hell ofc).

At least they will have to choose between Unsuspecting/Cleansing Ire/Hammer Mastery/Burst Mastery after dec10

Sensotix.4106:

Coulter.2315:

Sensotix.4106:

Josh Davis.6015:

infantrydiv.1620:

Nice tournament, we should have weekly 2v2 tournaments

I agree. Was quite a bit of fun. The last games were really intense.

I’m interested to see if anyone is willing to run something like this on a weekly basis.

I will try to (have to get used to the new options i will have tho)
But having something likes this on EU would be awesome!

Please Sensotix if you’re planning on setting this up use some rules like in Distubin’s 1v1 Arena. Just so you can manually tweak what should and should not be allowed in a 2v2 Deathmatch context.

Yes of course I would set up some restrictions since I would really want to see active play and not too many pets fighting each other..also some elites will only be allowed in 1/3 rounds etc I will think of something

Good man, have a cookie ^^

evilapprentice.6379:

Coulter.2315:

Its to encourage pve players to pvp and gives pvp players access to some cash/festival items (they sell for more than crafting dyes). I do think they should maybe give a choice between pvp rewards or pve rewards. Fiddle with it a little but the idea is sound. More players doing pvp means more focus on it because a larger % of the population plays it. I remember when zaishen keys were put into GW1 was a great boost to gvg players.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the PvE items for PvP play incentive.

But tournaments? Do we really need an incentive for PvE players to hop into tournaments? That’s what Hotjoin is for!

Like you said, a choice between the two would be optimal, and make everyone happy. But the idea of incentivizing players with no pvp experience to hop into tourney ques sounds kittening ludicrous to me.

I’d rather run the risk of having the odd bad player in my soloq team every now and then if the same incentive lured some ppl who genuinely had a good experience and took up pvp. If you have decent enough soloq rating you wont likely get paired with pve ppl anyway – i never get put on “noob” teams and my rating aint great. Even more importantly this would be yet MORE incentive for anet to refine their rating system because new pvp players wont like getting matched against ppl who destroy them. Adding more people gives more chances at a thriving pvp community and gives more data for anet, i understand your worries but its big picture stuff.

Sensotix.4106:

Josh Davis.6015:

infantrydiv.1620:

Nice tournament, we should have weekly 2v2 tournaments

I agree. Was quite a bit of fun. The last games were really intense.

I’m interested to see if anyone is willing to run something like this on a weekly basis.

I will try to (have to get used to the new options i will have tho)
But having something likes this on EU would be awesome!

Please Sensotix if you’re planning on setting this up use some rules like in Distubin’s 1v1 Arena. Just so you can manually tweak what should and should not be allowed in a 2v2 Deathmatch context.

I’m in 2 minds with this, it sounds more dynamic and interesting but doesn’t it buff bunkers or tanky characters a lot? You no longer need to stand in a vulnerable position you just need to stop a 5sec cast going off while the capturing char needs to stand still for 5secs in a dodgey spot unable to dodge. It also kinda messes up knocking ppl off point to decap it. It would put more importance on interupts i guess, but at the same time you would really not have much need to kill anyone. I think it would be really ugly setups of mass stab spam and bunkering.

Good to hear thoughts but the more i think about it the more i think it would be horrendous.

Edit: Oh and just to point out its a 33% buff to initiative gain, its going FROM 0.75 to 1, so adding 0.25 which is 1/3 of 0.75.

Its to encourage pve players to pvp and gives pvp players access to some cash/festival items (they sell for more than crafting dyes). I do think they should maybe give a choice between pvp rewards or pve rewards. Fiddle with it a little but the idea is sound. More players doing pvp means more focus on it because a larger % of the population plays it. I remember when zaishen keys were put into GW1 was a great boost to gvg players.

please please please let us have access to ascalonian armour and caudecus’s manor shoes in some other way than r50-60. just think how many ascalonian mesmers you’d make happy! (tbh even if you just send me the sets ^^ screw the other humans)

Is anyone else reading “please buff my minion necro :**(”?

I like the look of this update. Measured changes for the most part with a move to a more controlled base line with traits being extras (the right direction to head in imo).

A note on reducing necro skills – instead of making the skill less useful in itself just remove the damage component (not everything needs one), this moves it from a “lol crit all the procs instagib” to a skill you can balance the power of with more ease. If you want it to do more of something or less of something you can fiddle with it without those annoying procs jumping in and making it hard to balance.

But thanks for the post. I would just suggest moving some traits into different trees for mesmers, theres still a real awkwardness between shatter traits and phantasm traits.

Sword/Focus and Staff are probably you safest sets for large pulls solo. Staff nullifies melee enemies and focus defeats ranged. Deceptive Evasion is your friend too I recommended for leveling – its your main resource generator. Once you’re 80 and can rofl stomp anything Greatsword can be swapped in if you want a different ranged option.

Rewards will always count for something and it gets ppl into pvp and increases population, from there on there is a stronger argument for spending more time on pvp cause a higher % of the player base are involved. GW1 had the HoH chest and /rank then Amber/Jade then Zaishen Keys and Champ Title. It does help everyone to get the rewards sorted out.

Tempt them in with sweets then get them to stay by having comfy chairs (or locking the doors).