Guild Wars 2

‘As mentioned in the OP, there will be a few balance changes coming next week as well, but runes/sigils/amulets are one of the things the PvP team can change on our own without impacting the rest of the game. To be clear: the PvP team, just like fractals/raids/wvw/etc, does not handle profession balance – there is a separate team for that.’

Pretty sure deleting amulets and the builds that rely on them has a significant effect on profession balance.

As stated in the title, alacrity received a needed nerf from 66% to 33% reduced recharge on skills. However, this is now inconsistent with Chill, which still increases recharge on skills by 66%. To make matters worse, Chill also reduces movement speed by 66%. Then we have the Reaper, who can not only endlessly spam it, but can take a GM trait allowing it to inflict significant sustained condi damage in addition to all its other effects!

People have been asking for a nerf to Reaper chill, well seems to me that giving it the same treatment as alacrity would be the obvious choice, rather than nerfing the condi damage or screwing up the trait line.

Sometimes you have to be harsh to make people listen. ANET have been persistently ignoring community requests/suggestions regarding the direction of game development in pvp and wvw for several years now. Their hubris is truly staggering and worthy of a Greek tragedy. Their nemesis in the form of multiple new mmo releases is also rapidly approaching. What a shame.

First I thought it was a shared bag slot, and I was hyped about storing ascended trinkets there so I could swap them between chars. Then I realised it was a line of 5 slots, massive let down but I thought 5 shared items was still worth the gem price. Then I realised from this thread that you only get 1 item slot per purchase. Lol……..

And all permanent bank contracts have now inevitably been flipped by TP barons and are out of reach of 99% of players. Great…….

ANET you would do everyone a favor including yourselves if you just put the permanent bank contact on the TP for 1000 gems or whatever, it would make buying this single shared slot worth it. As it stands I won’t be touching this one and I’ve spent ALOT of cash on gems (look at my account history if you don’t believe me).

Win 1 pip Win 1 pip Loose 2 pips Win 1 pip Win 1 pip Loose 2 pips Win 1 pip Win 1 pip Loose 2 pips Win 1 pip Win 1 pip Loose 2 pips Win 1 pip Win 1 pip Loose 2 pips Win 1 pip Win 1 pip Loose 2 pips Win 1 pip Win 1 pip Loose 2 pips Win 1 pip Win 1 pip Loose 2 pips Win 1 pip Win 1 pip Loose 2 pips Win 1 pip Win 1 pip Loose 2 pips Win 1 pip Win 1 pip Loose 2 pips Win 1 pip Win 1 pip Loose 2 pips………………….one more try
Win 1 pip Win 2 pip Win1 PIP OMG YES……..LOOSE 3 PIP

All is vain

If you are getting flamed by enemy you are probably doing your job. Something about getting wrecked by a thief in this current meta really gets people frothing at the mouth.

Best bit is when you bypass their down state with the elite, then you get accused of hacking

Zero Day.2594:

Out of fairness and resource cost of developing maps.

Though, the fairness falls a bit short since they don’t really care about WvW, so not sure how fairness could be an argument.

Why is this fair? PVE got 4 massive new maps with the expansion + 2 maps in living story + the 20 something maps in base game. Don’t see why 3 unique BL too much to ask, should have been in game on release IMOP. But then again, we have seen what happens when ANET tried to make a new BL map so maybe we should just keep quiet.

bigmonto.4215:

DrMatt.9408:

Got into Ruby, played some games, took a break over holidays, now come back and noticed the quality of players is 10x worse, feels like I’m in amber again, morons making noob mistakes playing terribly despite running meta builds. It’s just horrible as solo-quer. Anyone find this? Might just wait on patch now.

Well, it works both ways. Your teammate might be bad, but so are your enemies. If you think you are that good, you could have exploit their weakness. Or were you actually carried by those whose who are truly skilled and now in diamond or legendary?

Based on the pvp leaderboards, only 10% of those who joined the ranked matches made it to ruby now. Yes that percentage is increasing. But 10% is not a high number by any stretch. These players are at least decent, and should certainly be able hold their own.

You can’t carry when people on your team don’t know how to rotate/die instantly at mid

I don’t mind the pip system but when you are constantly matched with trash it’s just impossible to progress. You play your heart out and feel like crying when you see one or two baddies ruin it for everyone. That one ranger who always dies at far, that one thief who always dies at mid, off point fights, bunker v bunker duels, double/triple cap, 4vnpc at start, lord rush fail at 100 points seriously wtf

Got into Ruby, played some games, took a break over holidays, now come back and noticed the quality of players is 10x worse, feels like I’m in amber again, morons making noob mistakes playing terribly despite running meta builds. It’s just horrible as solo-quer. Anyone find this? Might just wait on patch now.

Need old BL back, just do it ANET plssss.
As Ins said on Reyana’s stream – alpine was fine.
The main issues with wvw had nothing to do with the maps, in fact you could argue that the maps were wvw strengths as they allowed great fights/sieges and strategic use of objectives with minimal pve interference.

Pre HOT issues were:
1. Coverage imbalance invalidating PPT during prime time due to nightcap/morning cap by certain servers.
2. Serverside lag in big fights, with 5+ sec skill delay making anything but 111111 impossible.
3. Boring, imbalanced meta with ineffective melee post stability change and OP cc + ranged damage aka pirate ship. HOT has only made this worse with Rev Hammer etc
4. Abysmal gold/item rewards compared to pve, pointless wvw rank progression for veteran players, no wvw specific legendary etc etc

None of these have been addressed by HOT, rather new issues have introduced:
5. Terrible BL maps – as described by Ins. WAS 3 YEARS OF FEEDBACK REGARDING US WANTING LESS PVE IN WVW IGNORED?
6. Broken wvw guild upgrade system, requiring massive grind in pve to unlock essential wvw specific upgrades e.g. +5. SERIOUSLY HOW COULD ANYONE HAVE THOUGHT THIS WAS GOOD FOR WVW GUILDS??

If I don’t play a cheesy bunker spec what would you advise oh master of pvp? Reroll? Wait for balance patch? Uninstall?

Please for the love of god just allow us to convert tomes knowledge to something else, maybe 1 tome + 5 shards glory for 1 experience booster or something like that? At least then I can make progress leveling masteries with my 8 lvl 80 characters! I don’t need more frickin tomes!

Not sure where rumor thieves can’t 1v1 came from, I do it all the time and usually win. Exception are good DH obviously and good tempests who are just unkillable 1v1. Marauder gear, staff 2/5 + steal-fistflurry is all you need. Combine it with dash + signet and you can survive a long time. Don’t even use stealth. Don’t reccommd Zerker as you will get 1 shot by gunflame etc

Nah I was on thief. Ruby is kittening me off its full of terrible players who don’t know how to rotate who clearly only made it to ruby as they are playing ‘meta’ builds eg condi rev mesmer tempest etc. You can tell they lack experience with noob moves like fighting off point etc. Really frustrating when they always try to blame me as thief, you just can’t carry them

Well I hit ruby tier 4 then went into a horrific streak of bad luck so am now tier 2. The losses were the result of terrible team play, people rotating badly, going yolo outnumbered. Whenever I say anything regarding tactics I usually got reply kitten thief reroll etc. I’ve taken a break as it’s just too toxic and frustrating. Might get together a premade and try that but not in a hurry pvp left a bad taste in my mouth.

Also, regarding the wvw overhaul and ‘not ready to talk about it yet’. You guys never learn do you. Are we going to get a blog post sometime next year on an overhaul that is already developed way beyond the point where fundamental changes can be made following input from players? Is it going to be another epic fail like the new map? Please have an open discussion with players regarding the overhaul BEFORE it is too late to prevent another disaster.

These changes regarding ppk, rallying etc have been discussed for years by the community with no action from anet bar a one off ppk trial that was rapidly forgotten. In fact I think most people assumed that the rallying mechanics wouldn’t be changed because hey if not in 3 years will never happen right? The fact that they are being changed now with wvw on life support is pretty funny. Does anet have a functioning wvw team now? A little late don’t you think?

Been getting win and loss streaks in ruby, seems to vary on a daily basis. When I loose it’s always down to teams with terrible rotations/melt in team fights. When we win I get comments ‘gg teef’ ‘finally good thief’. When we loose I get comments ‘kitten thief’ ‘I always loose with thief’. So ye, life of a solo quer is like a rollercoaster

Thief’s just get blamed for everything, especially by bad players.

Common scenario (had this in Upper Tier Ruby):
Team asks me to cap close then come mid. Fine, makes sense. I do exactly that, then notice my team is already at half health by time close capped. I rush mid as fast as I can, by the time I make it to mid someone is already dead and rest are very low. I burst down enemy player and target body for help stomping as I’m being focused. No one helps, downed guy gets ressed. Now more of my team in downed state and 5th enemy player arrived. Remaining teammates focusing enemy bunker mesmer despite me targeting DH who is very low and I’ve alrdy downed once. Rest of team get downed despite me downing DH again, one guy gets quickness stomped before I can stomp DH, kitten. I retreat and go close to defend, calling for help from respawn. Respawn go mid 1 by 1 and die. One guy goes far and dies. No one goes close and I end of 3v1 and die. Loose game and everyone sayskittenkitten thief was guaranteed loss lol lol.

Anyone see problem here?

I agree, mallyx rev was annoying but at least you could kill it. The cancer killing off pvp atm is clearly the troll bunkers i.e. mesmer/ele. Now things will just get worse. Expect 3 ele comps inc

Ha glad it wasn’t just me! Things got tougher again 4th tier sapphire but I’m now only 2 games away from ruby. Games are a lot more fun although elitism/thief hate seems to be more of an issue than before.

Ignore people playing braindead cancer builds who think they have a right to tell you what to play. We teefs will have the last laugh come balance patch. Meanwhile I will continue to top score almost every game I play (yes topscore doesn’t mean best player, but sure as he’ll doesn’t mean the worst).

Anyone else found this? I’m playing thief and really struggled getting out of the last 2 tiers of emerald due to unbalanced matchmaking and general low standard of play from certain individuals. But when I got into sapphire things suddenly started getting better – I progressed 3 tiers in a single days play with multiple 5 win stretches. I feel that I could have kept on going all the way to ruby If I didn’t need to sleep :p

Why is this? My build/playstyle hasn’t changed. I play a daredevil thief build with dash for mobility.

I noticed that there were many more guardians and revs about in sapphire for 1 (both sides), with more bunkers overall, and people were just better at tactics e.g. rotations. I was therefore able to put my thief to good effect without worrying about my team wiping in 10 secs at midpoint. I had time to get into position to +1, so that we had much better control of the battlefield and often made 3 cap. I could also do stuff like snipe npc, cap spirit etc without my team wiping in the meantime.

Maybe thief just made for higher tiers :p

Seriously? How does this mesh with the ability to retain position in higher leagues, if I’m forced to play random classes I have no experience on just to make progress towards the legendary? As it stands the most sensible thing to do is farm all the achievements in the noob league where loosing doesn’t matter, before focusing on actually being competitive with your main. I thought the legendary was supposed to reward dedicated, skilled pvp players, no a kittening achievement hunting mentality. WTF anet.

PS what happened to the balance patch?

If you are running glass and having trouble with thieves, then that’s a good thing in my book, suggests a slight hint of balance in an otherwise broken meta. Of course you do have your invun skill as ranger – barkskin or is that d&d I don’t know/care. Use that and by the time it is up you should have your machinegun reloaded. Your pet might even have killed the teef if they were playing suboptimally, you never know. It’s not like we have any defense apart from dodge as daredevil.

No one would object to shiny gemstore trash as long as there are no p2w elements and the core experience is overhauled for the better

Will be for free surely…

I imagine this decision was made at least a year ago around when this ‘large wvw overhaul’ began to be worked on. I refuse to believe that a single new map took more than a fraction of available wvw resources – the pve expansion alone came with 4 new maps.

As title states, is old wvw being deliberately left to die while other game modes are worked on (pve/pvp) – so that a radically redesigned wvw can be relaunched to minimal protest in the near future?

2 years or even 1 year ago, the idea of server merges/removal of the old server system altogether would have been unthinkable, due to server loyalty and established communities. However with wvw as it is currently – on life support – the impression I get is that people would now be open to this: if it brings wvw back from the dead. Massive changes to the match up system and way PPT works could come hand in hand with this. As wvw currently works with multiple servers and unbalanced populations, there is no obvious solution to these issues – but a relaunch without the old server system may be the answer.

A relaunch would also reinvigorate wvw with new and returning players, reversing the massive combined population loss of the past 3 years, that has only been worsened by the new BL map.

Call this a conspiracy theory if you like, but it makes sense to me.

It is meta events such as this that will keep the silent majority playing, not esports tourneys or, dare I say it raids – the privilege of a new ascended elite. WVW is basically dead, so with only one none pvp game mode left anet should really be more careful.

If you only knew the reason the majority of organised meta attempts fail you might find the event a little less epic – not enough mushroom spores being stomped in Nuhoch. DPS has nothing to do with it.

Why is this such a problem for nuhoch?

1. Spores difficult to reach from the lane floor itself, being positioned on mushroom platforms above. Some in difficult to see places, that are always missed.
2. Spores guarded by obnoxious mushroom enemies including elites – that knockback people off ledges and detonate OP aoe on death, that must be dodged, which also leads to people falling off ledges.
3. Spores have a very slow spawn rate/number even if mushroom guards are killed, leading to people literally waiting around for spores to spawn while event timer runs out. This is BS – makes people feel like they have tried their best but event fails anyway. If you are angry in other lanes when nuhoch fails – ask yourself how people in nuhoch feel. Other lanes are face roll in comparison.

And this is not all of course
- the chak horde that spawns during stomp phase, distracting people from stomping because OH NOES ENEMIES LEROOOooooooooy
- the fact that destroying the boss breakbar actually makes the fight 10x harder due to OP knockdown abilities limiting dps.
- clear scaling issues when number of players is above 15/16 – could this be responsible for mushroom stomp req being so high?

And then there is the 1.5-2h wait after event fails to try again. Who thought is was a good idea?

Event needs to be tweaked end of – nuhoch fixed, event wait time reduced, chak gerant modified to make destroying break bar actually help rather than make fight harder.

Yours sincerely – long suffering Nuhoch Commander

I saw this as a nuhoch lane commander with many many runs

How about no. Raids are elitist enough let’s not bring that into the open world. I don’t care if you want more rewards that casuals will never get, and I’m willing to bet most of the people on this forum will agree with me. Chak – specifically nuhoch lane – needs nerfing. Increase mushroom spore spawn rate, replace elite mushrooms guarding spores with veterans. This will be enough to make the event success rate shoot up to something closer to DS.

I like the map, the design has nothing to do with the main sore point – which is the meta always failing

Main issue is nuloch spores – too infrequent and guarded by obnoxious mushrooms that knock people to their death, last run I led on phase 3, people were literally waiting around for spores to spawn while timer ran out, having stomped as many as they could see. There also seems to be scaling issues for the chak hordes that spawn – this is a massive issue for nuhoch as a huge number of chak spawn requiring many people to kill them, distracting them from spores, which already require as many people as possible and are located above the floor on ledges, unlike other lanes where chak and lane mechanics are at same level – all together it’s just too much and the reason nuhoch regularly fails.

And the wait time is far too long – if you fail a run, people are keen to try again until they find out that they have to wait almost 2 hours – it is very tiring for commanders to retrain people everytime because people inevitably leave, especially for nuhoch which requires knowledge of spawns and discipline. The megaserver doesn’t help when mixed language speakers get thrown in randomly together, so some people don’t even know what the kitten I’m saying when I’m trying to explain event.

Event is actually very interesting but needs tweaking especially nuhoch – more spores at 2nd and 3rd phase allowing consistent stomping (some at ground level), lower scaling on chak horde. Chak Gerant health is absolutely fine – doesn’t need nerfed, people should bring decent builds and use food.

Running your staff build Caed with one modification – executioner instead of impro. I also use palmstrike as 3rd utlity. Its blowing my mind, seriously palmstrike + staff 5 + dodge is ridiculous damage and I have great survivability

I’m only mentioning this because many people in game seem to have forgotten they have them. If you’ve played the game 3 years you should have lots of these from your 3rd birthday gift, they are probably gathering dust in your bank. However, in hot they are amazing for getting to hard to reach places, even if you don’t have the required masteries! If I get to a hero challenge with a champion that I can’t solo, in some ridiculously high up spot, I call in map chat reminding about the Consumable and people usually join my party and teleport to me. We kill the champ, get the hp, everyone’s happy Also a great way to meet people to explore further! If you ask in map chat I’m sure there will be people at difficult hero points that would be happy for you to party them and teleport, at least in my experience this has been the case.

Also, don’t forget revive orbs – a massive inconvenience saver that I thought I’d never use!

How much to unlock the new weapon? I just want to wield shield on my rev will worry about rest later

finding executioner lets me jump into the melee, burst someone down and get the kitten out. improvisation more useful for 1v1. so ye, difficult choice

Agree – ice shard in theory is good as chilling eles screws their rotations, but in reality they have so much cleanse and your condi output is otherwise low so it has little effect. throw gunk is complete garbage

I know I mean at mid point team fights, feel executioner gives me the edge to get people down

Guys I can’t choose :P Improvisation is really handy but I’m finding it hard to take down bunkers without executioner. I am running trickery with steal traits/CS/DA

I know, thought after we made it clear we didnt want pve crap in wvw they would get the idea. Doesn’t matter anyway, once two zergs of golems engage each other the game will freeze and people will start dcing/crashing. The novelty will wear off very quickly

will take a week off I think. what a stupid idea, seriously is wvw a joke to anet? would explain a lot

gonna be unplayable on T1 because of lag, 100 omegas on screen, did anyone think thos through?

I suppose 5 second skill lag is better than 10 right?

Considering the unplayable lag t1 servers experience atm in large scale battles, I’m failing to see the point of an exclusive stress test. We already know there is a problem, theres been a problem for 3 kittening years.

nice, glad to see someone else using arms! ive got a similar build (see my sig) with axe/shield/hammer for roaming but running pvt gear except weapons. Using the signet trait, which gives me enough precision and guaranteed crits when combined with burst precision, unsuspecting foe, sig int etc. Scored a 14k eviscerate on a zerker thief after surviving his burst which I don’t think he was expecting lol

haha nice, I think if we dropped banner we would be going a step too far lol. Rampage all the way for roaming though