Guild Wars 2

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/july-23-content-release-notes/

Sol.4310:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

You pretty much evade all marks. Besides that the spirit ranger has enogh dmg to get a necro down. He can activate 2x the abilites of the spirits (1x on his + 1x on diying), if he still fails to get the nec down he can rezz himself up. Don’t forget the pet, which deals constant damage.

Also you have the advantage of lack of knowledge. The least players know how to perfectly play against rangers (this is not always accurate for top-players).

The key is knowledge, knowing how to beat a class and there build. Build’s help but its having the right tactics that win fights.

Last night I was watching a day or so old stream and I learnt something from it. This stream I won’t name the player, but this is how it goes.

He was getting steamrolled and he kept blaming it on the spirit ranger. But every single time he died wasn’t due to the spirit ranger it was due to him rushing into 3-4 people without proper placement getting nuked down by burst from classes like Thief’s/Warriors/Mesmers. But no matters what this player would blame his death on the spirit ranger, even when there wasn’t one spirit alive he still blamed it on spirit ranger.

This goes to show players come to forums and read the QQ about a build and automatically blame it on a build being OP when it clearly it was there own fault and not some spirit ranger beating him down. Also his lack of knowledge for “self proclaimed top tier player” was shocking.

There are many self named “top tier players”, which have absolutely no clue about class-mechanics and general skills. But hey, you don’t really need it to succeed.

To summarize this: GW2 was created as a PvE-Game in mind. PvP was just an additional feature to get the majority of GW1 players in it and sell it as AAA-Title with E-Sports for the future. And now they try to adapt a PvE game into a PvP, which hardly work.

PPL still don’t get, that the problem of balance doesn’t rely so much on classes, but rather the whole concept of skillz and traits. AoE, which has been discussed heavily, is just one aspect of it.

So what ppl do, including me, is come into the forum and ask for nerfs/buffs. What we should keep in mind is that not the class needs a fix. The system overall needs one. And for sure it needs it really fast. Otherwise I don’t see this game ever being considered as an E-Sport.

I appreciate your engagement for this game to succeed, I really do. Also your argumentation and over explanation is pretty objective and reasonable.
However, this would really bring a big gap between PvP and PvE. Especially for condition classes (they’re allrdy in a bad state there). I think this is something that scares A-Net to actually renew their whole concept, as it is now. Wheter it’s good or not is another question.

All in all E-sport at the moment is just not possible and I hope A-Net will realize if they stay on the same train, it will never be. Therefore some points are a MUST to get into the right direction. However these are huge changes, so this won’t likely happen this or next year.

The overall problem of PvP is that GW2 intentionally was created as a PvE-Game. Then they added some sort of PvP to sell it under purposes of E-Sports in mind and as an AAA-PVP title game. See the problem?

There is a difference between valuable and op, keep that in mind.

Well, finally a good idea. However as alrldy mentioned this should also go for dungeons.

What am I reading in this forum. . . is this game really in need of 30 more races?
I think the open world will also be very funny seeing skritt-players killing skritts for events or quests. Logic . . . you heard about it?

Lodovicus.1562:

Firebird Gomer.9563:

Wow so no one cares about the broken forum search function that allows for the same threads over and over and over and over and over again.

Im sad now

I care about this, in fact I have made a similar post about this issue recently.

The irony is of course I cannot provide a link to my thread as the search function turns up nothing.

Haha! That really hit the nail

Demonts.4593:

the thing about thief is that most thieves don’t run perma stealth because stealth doesnt help team at all. so if a thief is playing burst, he doesnt even have much stealth. as for s/d thiefs, i understand ur frustration but they are really not that great in 1v1 and dont have any serious AOE damage or condition damage. so its not as strong as you think. If you watch jumper play its misleading because he is so good. if thiefs want survivability they give up A LOT.

S/D is the best known specc for 1v1’s, due to constant damage while evading. D/P thieves have one opener and after that they have to retreat, if target is not down. It’s much more riskier. Also it is plain simple to get out of a combat as a S/D thief.

That’s why focusing a S/D thief in a teamfight is one of the worst things you can do.

You pretty much evade all marks. Besides that the spirit ranger has enogh dmg to get a necro down. He can activate 2x the abilites of the spirits (1x on his + 1x on diying), if he still fails to get the nec down he can rezz himself up. Don’t forget the pet, which deals constant damage.

Also you have the advantage of lack of knowledge. The least players know how to perfectly play against rangers (this is not always accurate for top-players).

Made my day!

/15 cars

samo.1054:

Warrior does not need fixing. Other classes need fixing. They need a lot of cheese removed.

Finally!
The main problem is the strenght of ranged AoE-dmg, which makes the risk-reward-ratio of being a melee nearly unbearable. This means the warrior can have endless condition-cleanse, but this won’t negate the fact, that he has to walk through all the AoE to get into 130 range. Besides that nearly every class has escape mechanics or CC’s, which makes it really difficult to stay in range.

Buffing the warrior won’t solve the issue / flaw of the design of other classes.

As he played for MATH he must be a troll.

swiftpaw.6397:

Engis have aoe that just destroys them from, what I have seen. Also noticing alot of these KD/KB spammers now.

Well, if we consider Teldo is the best engineer, than I can tell you engineers have problems with a spirit rangers.

Pyriall.5027:

QtHman.6502:

Lordrosicky.5813:

QtHman.6502:

RockSteady Once you start playing the game at high lvl spvp you will understand what he’s talking about.

What are you, the god of gw2? Get over yourself. His opinion is as valid as yours.

I’m not the God of Gw2 but there is alot of players who think they know what they’re talking about when they have no idea what is really going on unless you’re playing the game at top lvl of spvp you have no clue of what’s happening. Watching a game and thinking you know some stuff it’s not the same as playing it i’ve experience those things first hand.

And this is why the forums are a joke most of the time you got those players who doesn’t understand the game or they think they do talking all kinds of things. They should just make a forum for the top 2% of players that spvp in Gw2…..

“I’m not talking about Hotjoins”

What I don’t understand is, when you make comments like this that follow a previous comment you’ve made which was-

“In the current meta all you have is a bunch of “faceroll” builds that anyone can play you don’t even need to be good at them to be able to compete in high tier spvp.”

If they are faceroll builds and you don’t need to be good at them, then how can you say there is a high tier of pvp? Not to mention that TPVP is nothing but glorified hotjoins atm.

Anwer to this is above, so mabye you get it by now.

Israel.7056:

jportell.2197:

Run on a point. Place cursor one point spam AOE conditions. People die. Profit. No knowledge of finishers/fields required. No coordination with team other than more AOE condi nuking on the same point. Things like HGH and condition spam necro are pretty mindless atm.

And?

What is it, you don’t understand? Class-skill in this game remains a minor point. Mainly because AoE, spammable skills, no dedicated dodging (due to permanent access to it / bad animations of many skillz), no dedicated support / just passive abilities (shouts, AoE-heals), no Energy-management which favors skill-spam even more without thinking, bad-designed skills as evade-attacks or instant casts etc.

Too many things make the skill-floor of a class very flat. To be successfull is not about being the pro at his own class, but rather have tactical knowledge, awareness of yours and your enemies position and general rotation-movement. Basically this allows you to compensate your lack of class-skill and being able to compete at a high-level.

Even necros or engis have no chance against a spirit ranger on the same level of skill. And who the kitten has time to kill each spirit first before even engage on the node? In tournament-play there is no time for such things. Mabye if you do a duell with a friend you have that minute. However a necro still do more DPS overall, so little chance that a ranger gets focused. The only thing to worry about it the rezz-spirit . . . that’s it.

Exedore.6320:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

The AoE-Stability is what is making the guardian superior to other bunker-speccs. An ele can also provide condition-cleanse, even more heal and shares-boons. However, these 6 seconds of stability are so important, many ppl don’t realize it. It’s 6 seconds during your whole team is not affected by CC. Where we have pulls, fears, knocks etc. this AoE-Stability is a big aspect, why you actually can win a teamfight.

I figured as much. But the other part of the question was whether guardians need to be brought down or other professions brought up to match the capabilities of bunker guardians.

I doubt guardians need some nerf, as they have “bad mobility” and not the best bunker-abilities. Many ppl forget their main-role is to “support” the team. After that they’re dedicated bunkers. We mostly use Save yourselfs or centuary or other skillz when we see our team needs conditon cleanse or a rezz. They’re also not godmode in 1v1’s.

Lordrosicky.5813:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Making all AoE have a delay, like Dragon’s Tooth and Lava Font, would greatly improve GW2’s pvp without having much of an impact in pve at all. (Yes, more changes would be needed, but that’s not my point).

Making dodges less spammable, by toning down vigor and sigil of energy, would greatly improve GW2’s pvp (and interact nicely with the aoe change above) AND be a good step in the right direction to improve the horrible pve zerk-and-dodge meta.

Making less passive traits and more active damage-control-support trinity enhancing traits would improve class skill requirement and teamplay depth across ALL formats of the game.

GW2’s pvp can be improved without coming at the cost of pve – quite the opposite, actually. It’s all up to Anet and how they chose to design and balance their game.

Agreed.

I am concerned with things like spirits, turrets, etc , should aoe be reduced. However reduced aoe could be coupled with reduced health to these ai mechanics

Good point there. However turrets should remain the same, as they cannot… dodge.

Dirame.8521:

Exedore.6320:

saVdoom.2067:

Off the topic: Does no one find it funny that everyone has already settled that every single competitive team must have a guardian? …

It’s worth looking at why. Are guardians too good at bunker, or do other professions just need improved. What do guardians have, such as plentiful stability, that other bunkers don’t?

If it was about Stability people would just put Warriors in mid. The fact is the Guardian has quite a few supportive shouts and skills that affect the flow of a team fight. AoE protection, AoE Stability, Wards, burning every 30 seconds, Might and that tiny bit of healing.
In order to get the same effect that a Guardian would in a team fight, you’d probably need two classes.

The AoE-Stability is what is making the guardian superior to other bunker-speccs. An ele can also provide condition-cleanse, even more heal and shares-boons. However, these 6 seconds of stability are so important, many ppl don’t realize it. It’s 6 seconds during your whole team is not affected by CC. Where we have pulls, fears, knocks etc. this AoE-Stability is a big aspect, why you actually can win a teamfight.

nakoda.4213:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

nakoda.4213:

There are two levels of balance in this game type. 1v1 and group fights.

What about necro? He is a monstah in 1v1 and teamfights. Smell the ironic of balance in here?

nakoda.4213:

Every class must be equipped with the ability to handle any other class in a 1v1 situation. This is where diversity of builds comes in and we see the rock>paper>scissors game.

You speak about build-diversity? Srsly?
-Shatter-Mesmer
-Kit-Engineer
-30/30/10 necro
-Spirit ranger
-Burst ele
-Shout-Guard
-S/D thief

This build-diversity is killing me. So much builds to choose, feel like a lil child in the candy-shop. I mean, we can edit many builds like phantasm or dps-guard, but tbh: they’re not viable in the current state.

thanks, EF, for completely ignoring my caveat that whether or not anet has achieved this is outside the point.

also, re: necro: no mittens, kitten. why do you think everyone and their mom’s dog is crying that necro are OP right now? go stomp your feet in a corner somewhere else, your tantrums aren’t necessary here.

re: kit engineer: unless they are p/p hgh or 4 turrets with no kits, EVERY engineer is a kit engineer. would you like our entire profession deleted?

your list sums up WHY the current “meta” is broken. it doesn’t address any of the points I made.

but thanks for calling in to the show today.

Sorry for bothering you, but I actually refer to build-diversity from tournaments and not from Hotjoin. Mabye because of that you are a little confused. But please show me some vids of a competitive turret-engineer or an hgh that is after patch still playing.

I quoted you so addressed things of your post. Or did you not write these things down I quoted? probably you should reread your own post, before quoting mine.

nakoda.4213:

There are two levels of balance in this game type. 1v1 and group fights.

What about necro? He is a monstah in 1v1 and teamfights. Smell the ironic of balance in here?

nakoda.4213:

Every class must be equipped with the ability to handle any other class in a 1v1 situation. This is where diversity of builds comes in and we see the rock>paper>scissors game.

You speak about build-diversity? Srsly?
-Shatter-Mesmer
-Kit-Engineer
-30/30/10 necro
-Spirit ranger
-Burst ele
-Shout-Guard
-S/D thief

This build-diversity is killing me. So much builds to choose, feel like a lil child in the candy-shop. I mean, we can edit many builds like phantasm or dps-guard, but tbh: they’re not viable in the current state.

Can any spec choose utilities? Not really. . . there are locked utilities you have to bring in every game. It’s just an illusion to think you are free to pick the utilities you want to.

Jzaku.9765:

I wasn’t particularly aiming for anyone either, much less you in particular. Just frustrated at the many posts in the thread that claim so. Sorry if I offended you!

We actually meant both the same, that’s why I’m a bit confused <(^^)>

samo.1054:

Anet likes the game the way it is, they don’t see a problem in things that we are complaining about, so they won’t change it. They are not aware, that you just simply can’t make a pve game and implement a pvp component in the end.

Seems like you’re right. /sigh

Jzaku.9765:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Ele-Burst and MI-Shatters are more about prediction than anything else. But if the experience comes from Hotjoin, then it’s no wonder why ppl write such things.

> having to literally predict the future to dodge said instant cast bursts

I don’t see how this makes the claim that they’re undodgeable any less valid. And no, you can’t see this burst coming, it’s seriously instant cast burst damage.

I hate it when ppl missunderstand posts and come up with hate-answers back. “To predict a burst” is equal to “an instant burst”. Activate your brain. Also I was not referring to any poster or named one, so there is not need to feel personally attacked.
Thank you for your understanding and remain friendly towards each other.

KarlaGrey.5903:

So many false promises/borderline lying has been done in regards to this game’s prequel that one cannot help but take every info released by Anet with a (large) grain of salt.

I’d call that a stroke of genius.

milo.6942:

Med.6150:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Seems like Weakness now reduces heal.

People keep saying that, but it’s a silly rumor that I have been trying to do away with for over a week. When I first heard about this rumor, I didn’t want to completely discard it, so I tested several heals under weakness and never was the healing reduced at all.

The sample size of a 100 casts should be more than plenty to statistically prove weakness does not reduce healing (especially since the chance would have to be 50%).

Med is our resident bug researcher. I salute your impossible goal of catching them all.

Why you always destroy my trolls -.-
Dude…

Lordrosicky.5813:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

There will always remain certain builds, which require less skill. Look at the state-of-the-ranger . . . this class screams for skillless play.

However I agree on OP.
But even after toning down these things, you will find yourself in the same game, in which Ranged-AoE DPS is dominating. Doesn’t really matter if it comes from a mesmers GS, from marks or elementalist.
In general this game will never reach a state where the skill of a player regarding class-play is more important than his rotation and roaming. It’s just a bonus that comes along.

It will never EVER change. They have to nerf aoe. That is it. No auto attack should have aoe (like nades) and no weapon set should have all aoe (staff necro or ele). They need to make fundamental changes to the game. They wont though, recently they have buffed ranged aoe. Look at mesmer GS for example. It would be so awesome if weapons like rifle for warrior were viable. But right now if you cant bring aoe then what is the point?

We can all squabble about balance. But for the me, the core issue is bigger than that. It is a lack of balance between AOE spam and single target damage.

Yep, a significant problem since release. The funny thing about it as you said, A-Net stated they will toning down AoE and in the same breath they buffing AoE. That’s logic.
Also conquest favors AoE even more. I doubt they will start to fix this. I rather see in the future better ranged-AoE skills for classes like the thief or the guardian.

It’s unstoppable, this meta.

milo.6942:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Seems like Weakness now reduces heal.

oh my god are you serious??
hahahhahahha

I was actually serious (this one time)

Ele-Burst and MI-Shatters are more about prediction than anything else. But if the experience comes from Hotjoin, then it’s no wonder why ppl write such things.

This should help you. When I miss something I’ll take a look at this site:

http://gw2.mmorpg-life.com/interactive-maps/

I like JP’s. It’s a fresh invention and reminds me of the old Jump n’ Run games. Allthough, I have to agree some puzzles really need patience. Till now the only JP which totally frustrated me was “Not So Secret”. 90% of all JP’s are pretty easy and done in about 5-10 mins.

A-Net allrdy stated they will revamp the reward-system in general. This means Gold will find it’s way into PvP, no matter what.

Seems like Weakness now reduces heal.

The problem with many rangers is that they have no clue how to actually get the most out of the class. What I see is 90% spamming with bow around and then wonder why they get kicked out of a group. They should visit the ranger forum, because there are alot of better builds.

Erebos.6741:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Erebos.6741:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

GW2 is not the right game for you if you think that class-skill is important. It’s more about rotation and movement.

What is combat without “class-skill” as you so put it?

Watch all the necros rerolled, because A-Net failed at balancing this class and see how effective they are. The player itself has not even have to be good. Why? Because GW2 supports the idea of spamming skillz rather than using them for the right situation. Why? Because there is no energy-management behind it.

Oh I see what you mean now

Yeah I kind-of agree with you to an extent.
While I’m not sure or the core of the problem (for a number of reasons), I understand your argument to mean the risk : reward ratio of some Necro-centric abilities, in that correlating with the network of other Necromancer skills, they are perceived to be overpowered as compared to other professions.

Am I right in my assumption?

Well what I see with lots of experienced players is: they can be very skilled with their class, but when it comes to roaming and rotation they fail. Observe some so called “top-players” and you will see why roatation > class-skill. If I look at them I see a player, like everyone else using the same skill roation / same skills in certain situations. Nothing special really.
What they take advantage of is their situational awareness and the following intelligent rotation. This means they know when they have to push far, or help on close point (whatever specc they play).

This makes the difference, there is no special secret behind it. I see ppl duelling top-players and win with the exact same build easily. I experienced how bad class-wise some pro-players actually are, sometimes including myself.

Magic-Find will be replaced by other stats, so you don’t have a disadvantage after its “nerf”.

Erebos.6741:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

GW2 is not the right game for you if you think that class-skill is important. It’s more about rotation and movement.

What is combat without “class-skill” as you so put it?

Watch all the necros rerolled, because A-Net failed at balancing this class and see how effective they are. The player itself has not even have to be good. Why? Because GW2 supports the idea of spamming skillz rather than using them for the right situation. Why? Because there is no energy-management behind it.

There will always remain certain builds, which require less skill. Look at the state-of-the-ranger . . . this class screams for skillless play.

However I agree on OP.
But even after toning down these things, you will find yourself in the same game, in which Ranged-AoE DPS is dominating. Doesn’t really matter if it comes from a mesmers GS, from marks or elementalist.
In general this game will never reach a state where the skill of a player regarding class-play is more important than his rotation and roaming. It’s just a bonus that comes along.

GW2 is not the right game for you if you think that class-skill is important. It’s more about rotation and movement.

Still horribly bugged. It’s a shame that this is not fixed till yet!

Hit them with shortbow -> stealth yourself -> backstab
I don’t know why Aegis should be a problem at all, as it procs just every 30 seconds if traited and gets removed instantly by autoattacks etc.

This thread can’t get worse form this point. . .

KarlaGrey.5903:

Be glad they forgot to include the version with a space inbetween. Moreover, mind that ‘troll’ also used to be censored…must have been a first time in the world of net forums.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Shar.3402:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Isn’t it cool that more than half of top100 are inactive or smurf-accounts?
I hope if they finally are able to split the qeues this will dissappear too.

people will still continue to use smurf accounts (they don’t have to pay monthly fee after all) when duo-tri queueing with some friends or when pugging with randoms, team ladder will always be meaningless untill it becomes a real team ladder with registered teams
soloQ ladder, on the other hands, will be more balanced.

Agree. I was not clear enough due to laziness of not wanna write a wall. However, ladder-decay also has to work proper, as it is clearly not at the moment.

But but! A working ladder decay would reveal the current state of ‘competitive’ pvp in all its glory!

Hehe… that would be priceless!

milo.6942:

OP I don’t have any hope that pvp rewards will be tied to anything other than grind or rng. What should happen is some kind of real tournament system that enables the winners to receive a special kind of token that can be collected in small amounts to redeem elite rewards. That’s not going to happen. Why am I so confident? If they had the infrastructure to promote proper vertical progression they would have done so already. Brace yourself to be underwhelmed.

I doubt they will ever consider this. . . because it is actually a key-incentive for every PvP.

That’s why either, key-skillz have to have a special/obvious animation or there has to be some sort of cast-bar. Because fighting a necro for eg. doesn’t give me any clue which marks he used, when I dodged them. There is a big empty room in this game, where the skillfloor could be so much higher. Too many things are still random . . .

Shar.3402:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Isn’t it cool that more than half of top100 are inactive or smurf-accounts?
I hope if they finally are able to split the qeues this will dissappear too.

people will still continue to use smurf accounts (they don’t have to pay monthly fee after all) when duo-tri queueing with some friends or when pugging with randoms, team ladder will always be meaningless untill it becomes a real team ladder with registered teams
soloQ ladder, on the other hands, will be more balanced.

Agree. I was not clear enough due to laziness of not wanna write a wall. However, ladder-decay also has to work proper, as it is clearly not at the moment.

Alafin.3714:

Particle is only a problem if you play HJ all day long. And ofc on that Zerg victims 8vs8 servers.
Why should anybody QQ about HJ?

Tbh i can´t see the problem in rated matches. They are far away from “too much partivles and lags because of it”. And if they´re not, just scroll down the graphics.

No serious reason to complain about. GW2 has more important problems then ppl crying about lags in HJ.

Disagree here. This issue has nothing to do with HJ. It’s a big part of tournaments either. In a teamfight so many animations are happening that dedicated dodging is not possible due to an animation-cluster. Also for shoutcasters it’s really hard to say what is actually going on. Watch a match and you will see how many things the shoutcaster can’t catch due to a mess of animations. It’s also not really enjoyable for the spectator itself.