Guild Wars 2

Alkuan.4962:

Thanks for the replies… perhaps I didn’t express myself properly: playing a female character and kitten horried of the language/attitude towards when they seeminly think it is a female IRL

I’m very much male. My female game ranger just happens to be named as if a real person. And I’ve had a share of dorky guys whispering to me.. the last one turned the cup.

Lessons for me is to.. kitten love them pretty women really, all of them… and to protect them from idiots like sans mentioned.

With all due respect, if the lesson you learned was to “protect” the “pretty” girls, then I think you’re still very much in need of learning and maybe need to take a break from movies/games that revolve around the ‘save the princess’ trope.

Citing this video because it may be a good place for you to start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q&list=UU7Edgk9RxP7Fm7vjQ1d-cDA

Yea…well, welcome to a day in the life of a female gamer. You just got a taste of the misogynistic culture that’s so prevalent because women are so often seen as objects, rather than people.

You probably won’t get many responses from people who don’t read…since they’re not here to read. =P

But to answer the question, I play and read.

Any chance of adding something like a jumping puzzle to the area in the future?

If not a jp, then maybe add more room with more practice NPCs? You could even add different variations of each profession, so you could practice against, for example, a condi ranger or a power ranger.

I mean, it’s awesome that the bank/TP will be added there, but it would really be nice to have something else to mess around with while queued.

I know a lot of resources got sank into making this change, but this would be nice to have somewhere down the road.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

How did they do it?

I can only speak to how the system was set up a few years ago since I haven’t touched the game in a long while, but they had a system where you could refer a friend to try WoW. If they got the game, you could link accounts and it would grant a bonus to experience gain when you both played together. In addition to this, there were also some exclusive rewards, such as mounts, that you could obtain.

GW2, of course, couldn’t do the mounts, but I could see them coming out with a set of minis (one for each person) that could interact somehow when near each other. Imagine getting a Caithe mini and your friend getting a Faolain mini, then having Faolain chase Caithe around, lol.

Yup, ANet has done an amazing job at letting you play with your friends in PvE. High levels can join low leveled friends regardless of their level and in many places, they can be upleveled to join you high level stuff as well. Kill stealing is never an issue and since gathering nodes aren’t exclusive to the area, there’s no conflict on who gets to mine that ore node.

It’s nice to see that PvP is getting a dose of this, for once.

Now…if only we could get the holiday PvP events to work this way as well…

Yea, WoW’s refer-a-friend system was one of the things I think they did well. It would be pretty awesome to see something like this brought to GW2. =)

My partner and I are both avid players of GW2. If one of us is online and the other isn’t at work, then we’re pretty much both online, playing together.

So, it was pretty disheartening when we first started playing GW2 and had so many issues just getting into PvP games together. Since release, there have been some small changes that have helped us stick together, but to this day, it’s relatively painful to just do sPvP games together.

Hotjoin is a mess for us. Even if we both end up in a game that’s not radically imbalanced, it’s not uncommon for one of us to get thrown to the opposite team due to player imbalance. Since we don’t PvP against eachother…that pretty much means we just both leave the game.

Team PvP is better, but it’s still pretty painful since we often just get paired against a team of 5 people who joined together and likely are communicating over a voice client. Meanwhile, even if we get good pug players for the other 3 spots, we simply can’t rotate as efficiently. On top of that…we really don’t want to do rated games when we’re playing by ourselves. We enjoy doing team games with 5 people together, but it’s not what we want to do all the time.

Having an unranked game that we can join together, which will match us against a team that is likely also a partial premade is beautiful. This is what we have been hoping to see ever since we stepped in beta together.

Thank you ANet for making this happen.

Agreed. Please don’t make me fight any more skritt. I loves them. =-(

Why? It’s a simple way to avoid clipping issues.

Unfortunately, it’s also a simple way to get people like me to avoid ever wearing a hat. =/

I still have a GW2 hat skin from release that I’ll probably never use.

+1 for this build. A great build that will definitely catch enemies off guard. Also a good build for new players.

Josh Davis.6015:

Thanks for the feedback, OP.

I’ve written blogs to this effect in the past, and I actually have one slated for this upcoming Friday. I’ve been pretty busy lately, but I will try to do them more often.

Thanks Josh, I appreciate it.

@ Xista: Did I really deserve that snarky, sarcastic response for this thread? Anyways, the board doesn’t really mean much to me since it just has the names of the winners. It’s more of a trophy case than a scoreboard and certainly doesn’t contain highlights or any of the other details I mentioned in my previous posts.

What I’ve learned from Hotjoin: If you end up on a losing team, just leave and join another game. =/

Philkafou.7481:

Either fix your terrible connectivity in spvp (2-3 seconds of skill lag, rubberbanding on blinks etc) or you will lose the remainder of the pvp fanbase. With love, a loyal follower of the series over 9 years who is tired of wasting his time trying to play in your lagfest. Yeah i know i sound negative as it gets but it is way too frustrating to play competitively with 500 ms while every other internet based activity runs smooth as a whistle.

Check your connection. Works fine for me. =P

@ Caed: I’ll check it out. Most of what I’ve seen so far, however, has been games in their entirety and while I appreciate their availability, I don’t often have time to watch many full games.

@ style: I think you worded what I was trying to say better than I did. =)

@ Blu: I haven’t came across Mistpedia before. I’ll definitely bookmark that and keep tabs on it and thanks for keeping this updated!

Yea, I know where to find a summary of “meta” builds, but that’s not the Sam as knowing what was run in a tournament and what team comp it was used with..

Really though, I just wish I could at least find a highlight reel from the big games. I mean, if this supposed to be a move towards ESports, it would be nice to get some decent sports-like coverage.

In this thread: Feedback on the publicity of tournaments and my perspective on how it’s hard to follow them.

So, I love PvP. I work a full time job and don’t always get a ton of time to log in game, but every morning before I get ready for work, I jump in a few solo Q games. I enjoy learning more by reading up on the forums and searching for the best builds/strategies out there.

However, I’ve found it really hard to really follow any of the tournaments that ANet has been advertising. I don’t have the time to log into twitch and watch the entire thing and I don’t really see any summaries of what has happened or who has won anywhere. I can follow who some of the major players are from the various conversations on the forums between people that do have the time to watch this stuff, but finding out what builds are popular, who the major teams are, what strategies the players used to win all take a lot of digging through random forum QQ to find.

Maybe I’m missing out on some fan website that’s sprung up lately, but ever since IntoTheMists.com’s forums died, it’s hard to even find what builds the major players run (although props to Dante for putting up a good build list back in April). Is there anything else like this out there? Are there any good YouTube channels to follow that give summaries on the tournaments?

And for any devs reading this, is there any chance that we could get some sort of write-up on these tournaments outside of advertisements for people to join? I mean, even if you could have a pop-up in game saying that such-and-such won a tournament, similar to how Hall of Heroes is broadcasted in GW1, that would be great.

I actually gave venoms a bit of a run the other day in a condition build I used for the new Silverwastes map since so many enemies have high armor. Condis do seem to melt the mobs in this area, but I’m still not sold on venoms…

My 2 copper: Biggest short coming of games like WoW is that they don’t have Gaile Gray. So glad to have ya back with us Gaile!

Yea, this chapter of LS really made me want to go back and play GW1 again. I’m slowly making my way through on a new char with my spouse, so we’re looking forward to playing through the events that led to this.

Also, please, please don’t shut down GW1 for a looooooooooong time. I know it probably doesn’t get much traffic anymore, but it’s still a great game and a lot of us are still making our way through it.

I really expected some mindless blaming of how OP thieves are when I read that you play a S/F ele…but I must apologize. You had a pretty level-headed and well thought out opinion on balance issues.

Sparda.9750:

hey, ty again.. i m wathing them and i m watching coloxus.. his playstyle is kinda amazing, i m enjoing a lot with his videos.. i m playing d/p right now, but i have a lot of problems with some builds, like engi with bomb and turr or guardians.. but i can meneage almost all others 1v1.. never enjoied so much.. more practise!!

Avoid 1vs1 against good engis and any DPS guard build whenever possible. Part of being a good thief in PvP is knowing which fights to pick and when it’s better to seek a different objective.

Arikyali.5804:

switch your dagger offhand for a pistol, and you’ll do fine. I’ve found s/d to just be too single target focused to properly cut down the camp veterans. AOE blinds, interrupts, and melee cleave makes it much easier.

This. Also, swapping in Dagger Storm as your elite can help, particularly if you have any trouble LOSing the scouts, but it’s not entirely necessary.

nope.

Ameno.6813:

You know what, I just tried this gimmicky build out in PvP for myself and I see what he was doing now. He used haste + pistol whip, and then used steal while the pistol whip was running. Ignore this stupid post lol.

Yup, same thing works with Inf Signet and Shadowstep.

“Skin Raffle”

A name that sounds creepy enough to fit in with this holiday…

Maugetarr.6823:

Dahkeus.8243:

Urejt.5648:

I use elite venom on s/d pvp thief.

Yea, basilisk is the one exception to the venom rule. =P

Or devourer venom and slot daggerstorm so you can laugh while you watch rangers pew pew themselves to death.

Or do the same thing without devourer venom and get the exact same result.

Longbow ranger is definitely up there. They can do very strong burst from a long distance using an ability on a very short cooldown.

CookieNoodle.6503:

Would you also like to see more chubby/fat body types ingame? We cannot all be big and muscular

Yes. Particularly female!

I get why people want thin character models, but I’d like to be able to roll a female character with a more stout body type.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Arikyali.5804:

Oh, that is so awesome! Thank you for sharing this!

Yes, thanks a bunch!

Any idea what the full story is on this?

I, like others, don’t get anything when I talk to this NPC…

Urejt.5648:

I use elite venom on s/d pvp thief.

Yea, basilisk is the one exception to the venom rule. =P

Gaile Gray.6029:

Errant Venture.9371:

Add an option buy gems in 100 gem increments instead of making 400 gems the smallest denomination possible. Problem solved.

THERE! Thank you, Errant Venture — that’s a solid suggestion with a reasonable tone. Thank you.

He beat me to it, but yea, that’s the suggestion I’d like to see done. A simple dropdown could allow users to pick their denomination without taking up too much UI real estate. =)

And, for what it’s worth, I do appreciate the simpler design of the gold-gem screen, even though I like small gem conversions of less than 400. It really comes in handy when you’re just short a small amount of gems for a particular item and don’t want to throw down a whole $10.

Yea, organized groups can cause problems, but preventing you from being able to participate with friends/guild mates/loved ones is worse. This is the #1 reason I seldom touch these types of events. This is especially frustrating since I love to play GW2 with my spouse.

Rangers are in a great spot for everything but WvW…and let’s be honest. WvW is kind of a joke.

Rangers already have the best ranged single target dps/burst.

They bring some of the best utility to dungeons (spotter, frost spirit, lots of vuln stacking)

In sPvP, we have a strong power and condition build that gives us flexibility to be strong in multiple team comps. In our power build, we can melt enemies while a teammate bunks a point. In the other, we can lay down countless roots/snares while condition bombing and being able to hold side points.

So, it looks like ANet is trying to buff venoms again. This time, they’re just putting a flat cooldown reduction on all venoms. Considering that they’ve been trying to make venoms viable for so long, I think they just don’t understand why people still don’t use them…

So let’s make a list.

Use this thread to explain why you don’t use venoms.

I’ll start us off:

Venoms require too much talent investment to be strong
– To really make the best of venoms, you need a full investment in both Deadly Arts and Shadow Arts, leaving you with 2 points to put in anything else.

Venoms take up too much of your utility skill slots
– If you actually invest in traiting for venoms, then you either fill up your heal, utilities, and elite with venoms or you take other skills and waste your huge talent investment. This leads to the next point:

There is no condition removal, mobility, blinds, or stun break with venoms
– This is huge for thieves. We’re notoriously squishy, even when running stats that have toughness/vit. The only reason thieves can survive in PvP is because we have ample blinds and escapes. A venom build sacrifices all of this.

And decreasing the cooldown on venoms will not address a single one of these shortcomings.

Still no stun break…still no condi cleanse.

5 seconds isn’t enough to get me to go venoms. =P

Epidemix Revenge.4862:

I am not one of those “Rangers longbow too stronk plx nrf pls” folks but let me tell you; I just had a game against 3 longbow rangers on temple map and it was the least fun I have had in GW2 in a long time. It was non stop PBS RF Barrage and Entangles from all ranges all over the map. If I wasn’t getting knocked on my kitten and rapid fired I was getting entangled and rapid fired and barraged at the same time.

I know I know L2P, L2Dodge, L2Block, L2Invuln etc etc. And I want to stress that again I am not claiming that LB zerker rangers are OP. I am saying that multiple rangers with their 1500 range short cooldown burst/CC make some games a nightmare.

If new game modes are introduced I think that some parts of this build may need a shave though.

Doesn’t sound as bad as when I’ve gone in games against multiple engies. They still have more CC than rangers with most builds.

Interesting…I hope this gains some ground. The more diverse builds in the meta, the better!

Any chance we could ever get a chat message in game similar to the Hall of Heroes from GW1? It’d be cool to hear about big tournament wins in game like that.

GW2 still has the best base mechanics of pretty much any MMO out there. Right now, it’s a bit lacking on current content for veteran players, but that will likely be changing (devs are looking into Guild Halls/GvG and they recently put up a posting to hire someone to develop “raid” content).

It’s easy to get ‘grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side’ perspective, but really GW2 is a really polished MMO that’s in a good, stable state compared to other MMOs that are either losing big chunks of the community right after launch, are overwhelmed by gold spammers/hackers, or just don’t have the quality of gameplay overall that this game has.

Best of wishes Chap! Thank you for putting in so much work on my favorite game. =)

Idk, I’ve seen a noticeable decline in rangers lately. I still see engineers more than any other class by a large margin in solo Q.

They GS fills a couple key roles pretty well in PvP:

Escape/Travel
Swoop is great for travel, but it’s also good for disengaging from a fight. I suggest keybidinding the ability to drop a target since this allows you to drop target -> swoop out of a fight very quickly. Just make sure that you’re not pointed at any terrain that stops your movement.

Survival/Defense Mode
This is possibly what the GS does best. Counterattack is an excellent block, particularly against ranged attacks. When being attacked by melee and ranged attacks, run to kite the melee and keep up the block for the ranged attacks. Then, when the block is about to expire, move back and allow a melee attack to hit you (if someone’s still trying to melee you) so that you get the knockdown effect.

When fighting a thief, pop this when you know a stealth attack is coming.

Swapping to GS and immediately going into counterattack is a great way to ensure that you block a key attack and land the knockdown since many enemies will just stop attacking when they see you start to block.

Swoop is also an evade, so it can be used as an additional evade when you can’t or don’t want to disengage from a fight, but need to avoid attacks.

Don’t forget that you get an evade on your third attack of your autoattack. Because of this, you can pop quickening zephyr and spam autoattacks when focused.

Finally, you can always stun your target if you’re really in a pinch. The stun is generally better used for preventing a stomp/rez or for lining up some burst. Speaking of…

Burst
The GS isn’t the best burst weapon, but it can work well with the longbow for some strong combo. You can pull this off by moving into your target while using Rapid Fire, then immediately going into Hunter’s Shot to stealth. This allows you to then hilt bash your target without giving them a chance to notice it and dodge. From the hilt bash, you then can maul while your pet’s next attack hits harder. Just try to make sure that this will down your target if you go for it since you will be stuck with your GS out if your target survives, which can significantly reduce your DPS in PvP.

If you run with something like a Raven, the hilt bash can also be a big boost to the burst of the F2 attack.

chronometria.3708:

Changing the colour of particle effects is not in any way hard. Not to mention a price tag of 500 gems for the colour change of those masks, its not right at all.

Maybe, but the cost of these items isn’t supposed to just cover the cost of creating them. The profit keeps the servers running and keeps the devs who produce new content paid.

The item may be cheap to produce, but keeping a game running and updated with new content is expensive. It’s a lot like getting a T-shirt when you donate to become a member at NPR.

KingMango.9785:

Watching my screensaver flashing to music is more appealing then watching gw2. Sometimes I really don’t know what of both I’m looking at.
Why should anybody watch it?
Even if all of these good suggestions would be in the game. What reason would somebody have to watch it?
For me this is the big point. Popularity needs some factores. First, it has to be enjoyable to look at.

Yea, I agree, and I attribute this largely to the conquest mode. The maps are small and even though there is strategy, the fights often just look like a series of dog piles. Everyone just crams on a tiny point and blows up their AoE and cleaves.

This is the #1 reason I don’t really watch much PvP.

Spread out the action and put in more side objectives. I really think that GvGs and HoH were great to watch because of how well they accomplished this and I hope GW2 will eventually pull this off as well.

Personally, I agree with Sizer, even though I’m not a high end tourny player.

GW2 is definitely the most balanced MMO I’ve played.

However, while I agree that it’s often the community that holds back GW2 PvP, I would also say that the lack of game modes is partly responsible. If ANet can find a way to make a game type with a larger party size work, it would appeal to a larger range of PvPers. If they ever decide to bring back GvG (which sounds likely now) or something like HotM, I think it will be a great boon to the PvP community overall.

No, nothing has changed. You’re trying to evaluate a trend based on 10 games, which is ridiculous.

Yup, the Jaguar gets a higher crit chance while stealthed and stays stealthed for all of his attacks. Because of this, the Jaguar is the highest DPS pet for Rangers.

No…please no. 8v8 were terrible zerg-fests.

Drysdale.3826:

I’m a LB & A/A Ranger for zerg WvW.

I have Fire and Air in my longbow and Bloodlust in my main axe, but what should I put in my off-hand axe?

(I often manually swap longhorn for speed or just before a fight for Might/Fury, so I can’t do a stacking sigil in my o/h axe.)

Personally, I prefer to jump on a coyote for speed and save my longhorn for power.