Guild Wars 2

Players need to learn some basic counter strategies.
Too many times I see players go into losing fight to suicide or trying to be a god in 1v2 but instead die in 5sec and blowing all cool downs.

On this matter, my suggestion again is to cut the week-long match to a 24-hour match.
The current advantage from off-hour is not just PPT but the upgraded structures that get carried deeper and deeper into the match, especially after the population starts to decrease on weekdays.

Maybe we can try break it down to weekend match and weekday match first.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Spirigo.2897:

Rangers are basically “I win” elite with 2300 Range.

Only against terrible players like ^

Not really. The annoying part of ranger on a popular map like foefire is that it can easily carry bad player to kill good players with ease. You can go check some of the ESL guys stream and see how often they even get wrecked by rangers from faraway distanceYou essentially can 1 from 1500 range away. That’s the strength of power ranger.

However, ranger, similar to necro is not very capable of escaping from 2+ players’ focus fire which renders them quite hard to play against a good team. However, in pug groups, they tend to have minimal fire focus on them and survive just fine. The class actually has pretty good passive defense.

Overall, it is one of the easiest while still effective build but just can’t carry u to the highest level of play.

TBH, other zerker spec that didn’t make it into meta are actually not that bad and are playable in non-highest level play.

Medi guard is really the best zerker in terms of fight due to their high sustain
Thief combines high mobility and high burst.
Mesmer is decent in 1v1 anything, more importantly they have portal.

If you take other zerker spec, they just don’t provide something special compared to these. But power necro, ranger, engi, warrior and ele are not bad at all. They can all 1v1 and team fight decent but just lacks something special to make into meta.

Yes, moa hard counters lich.
But you should never look at balance by looking at two skills only.

Yes. Enginners are getting AOE moas.

I think players should not be allowed join back to the game they quit.
Also, give players who join the side with less point more reward to encourage them.

Instead of seeing people stacking 2 out of 8 professions, now you are seeing they stack 4 out of 8. Definitely an improvement.

One more thing, if you stick to power shatter, take mantra of resolve instead of portal. It makes the build much tankier and much capable in 1v1.

I played the clone death trait for a while before I switch to shatter. It has more firepower compared to PU condie and actually easier to be played effectively in sPvP.

Currently, Maim build can be pretty good as well. But it is definitely harder to learn compared to clone death.

Another option is PU power if you like stealth gank. But you can probably take on squishy opponent while many of the meta builds are quite tanky.

It’s very simple.
WvW population is constantly decreasing. More and more servers will be reaching the threshold where the left-over population cannot find desired action. Then they transfer to other servers.

Ultimately you will see more and more empty WvW servers. This is inevitable.

Mesmer already has decent health pool so it shouldn’t matter too much. Guardian, ele and thief may have to adjust a bit by using some more vitality.

Buell.3701:

I can definitely see Thief getting rifle. Only other weapon I see us getting is OH sword, and I doubt they would give Thief that when ele’s are already getting sword. Seems the trend is every profession is getting something different from the others.

I think the rifle spec is either going to be a “Sniper” or a “Saboteur”. Hard to imagine what they’ll do since Warriors basically already have Kill Shot. Honestly, it’s all up in the air.

Someone posted this on reddit and I thought it was cool. http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2zdfwy/thief_specialisation_conceptidea_the_saboteur/

Sniper is kinda boring and we already have killshot warrior and pewpew ranger. TBH, neither of these two specs are very interesting.

I am hoping thief to get some magic orientated specialization into it. Scepter + mantra would make a lot of sense to me.

I find stealth mechanics pretty balanced in PvP?but if you go WvW roaming it gets super strong. But WvW is never a game mode about balance anyway.

I will definitely run PU after the new specialization update in WvW. Currently I just can’t give up on IP.

ErazorZ.5209:

Brigg.6189:

Main thing is that this game is not balanced/designed for 1v1, it’s balanced for 5v5 conquest. There’s super cheesy specs in 1v1s, and builds that just can’t be killed 1v1.

If you really want to subject yourself to that, there’s numerous custom arena dueling servers.

The thing is, the game isnt even balanced for 5v5 (everyone is forced to play meta or play from a disadvantage). Since most engages happen in a 1-1-1 points scenario + roamers, your doomed to fight 1v1 at some point. So your 5v5 balance argument doesnt cut it.

And also…

The 5 versus 5 approach doesnt work in the current system since it rarely happens in actuall competetive games. And if it happens they either, rush, get a lead and spread out to take the remaining objectives after whiping an opponents team. Or they lose a lead versus an opponents team and are at a disadvantage. And will need to spread out to retake the objectives.

So in a sense they are making the game contradictory to its ‘core’ map-principles. If it was a 5v5 balance.

Also i noted that the custom arena 1v1 thing doesnt allow for smooth matchmaking, your forced to spam the ‘join’ button to get in a 1v1 in the duel arena’s since there is literally no options for actuall ‘queuing’ in a game. We need a QoL improvement in that sense for that.

Yes. There will be 1v1 situation in 5v5 game. But it is up to your rotation strategy to create favorable 1v1. You can also do something in an unfavorable 1v1, trying to get the most out of it. There is so much dynamic element in a 5v5. Dueling can be fun at times but will never become a competitive game mode.

Valkyrie.1794:

In my time in PvP I’ve seen plenty of people leave a still-contested point to essentially chase the rabbits. That’s my cue to at least stand there until it’s ours so that we get points for the team. When a team spends too much time fighting off-point, or with the whole team distracted by a few enemy players running bunker builds, it’s a recipe for disaster. I think the key is to “actively” hold your points. When I’m in I’ll join the large fight that often happens at mid, but I make sure to keep an eye on home so that we don’t end up with an “oops, only have one point lol at least we killed these 2 people” situation.

Sometimes it might be a good idea to kill the enemy player before the capture.

Some players are also emphasizing on point capture way too much. Many times it is better for some one to stay off point and survive. I would say, 90% of situations, it is better to give up a point than to die.

I am all for removing this buff. This buff is basically obtained by doing some boring PvE, while still way too powerful to ignore. It’s simply a waste of time in terms of gameplay.

I have to agree with you on mimic and power block.
I know thieves’ skill don’t have cds. However, their skills actually share a universal cd that is tied to initiative regeneration. It is more than reasonable to ask power block to do sth on that part.
It can completely stop initiative regen for 1-2 seconds for just slow it down by certain percent over a longer period of time.

The scoreboard actually is a bigger problem than some of you think.

There are plenty who actually cares about their score and tend to play a way to earn more points even though it is detrimental to their team. So this is definitely something that needs to be removed

The OPness of power ranger in pug groups is due to the inability of players focusing fire on them.

Most of the power rangers are bad players who just start using up all their utilities in rough situations.

staff is actually much better if you want to take down a medi guard. The Staff auto and clones can give more dps pressure and kiting potential.

With s/t you really have to be spot on with zero tolerance of mistake to win the matchup. If things go south, you should really think about a way to disengage rather than trying to turn things around.

Sadrien.3470:

Now thieves are jerked w/o stealth so mesmers can rule pvp!, except we need stealth too

GS/Staff with decoy as the only stealth skill. I think we are okay,haha.

Ranger for me is by far the easiest profession in the game. But it seems to have players develop some bad habits in both PvE and PvP in terms of gameplay. It prevents some players to get better at higher level gameplay.

Found it. It is merged with harmonious mantra and functions as a stacking 4% ferocity bonus as you activates mantra.

I remember it got changed to something that is mechanically different.

Daywolf.2630:

laokoko.7403:

how is the population during peek time?

I’m from sos. and eventhough server is empty most of the time. At peak time there is still queue. So make sense Anet dont’ want more people to move to SoS.

SoS is one of the servers wvw players transferred to, usually T2 ranked. How do I know this? Been on FA since launch
Thanks for all the fish

But recently, many old hardcore WvW players on SoS are going afk. Not too long ago we queue all four maps at prime. Now we barely queue one.

I actually find the current balance and build diversity pretty decent.
Of course I will look forward to the new specialization system which can bring up a bit more variety.

The GS skills look better suited for PvE.
But the new shroud knight skills are monstrous.

Medi guard counters shatter mesmer quite hard in a straight up fight. The easily take out your clones while maintaining aegis and applying blind.

Against scepter, you can strafe left and right to avoid. Try to avoid the immob be prepared for the teleport burst. Against GS whirling you can actually interrupt quite easily with your F3 and get a chance to burst.

Overall, you need to kite quite hard and use terrain to your advantage. Stay in range and wait for your chance to burst.

It’s indeed a hard fight on point and don’t feel bad if you have to retreat.

They don’t really have a hard counter. But both necro and mesmer have potential to land a kill. Even thief can do it. However, if you find that you can’t outplay the ele and kill him soon enough, better retreat or have someone help you.

Mem no Fushia.7604:

Exciton.8942:

roamzero.9486:

I think it will be more likely that Ele gets an F5 the same way Chronomancer gets one, and maybe stances as Tempest utilities.

An F5 feels really awkward on Ele.
It can’t be a new attunement, or they have to design new skills for every weapon.
If it is something like an elite skill that mesmer gets, it doesn’t look right by putting it on the same bar with the attunement F1-4.
Also, remember chronomancer gets essentially a new elite skill because they only get 2 new weapon skill. While for ele, if it is a mainhand weapon, that means 12 new weapon skills.

What is with this counting? what if mesmer get 2 skills and we would get 12? mechanics of those professions are different, so counting amount of skills for sake of equality isn’t in this case what equal mean. We are mages of elements so if we get new weapon it would be rather against it if we would get only 1set of skills (even mixed). I have no problem with 5th attument and bunch of skills for each weapon: core weapons = 15 + new weapon = 10-15 = 25-30 new skills for new attument and new weapon. If we get new f mechanic like aspects we get with 3 aspects: sun, lightining, wind it is 45 new weapons skills that replace core + 6-9 new weapon skills for new weapon = 51-54 new weapons skills that replaced core. I think we also don’t get full set of utilities just healing and elite and I’m ok also with that.

Lol wat? I am not the dev, don’t start bashing at me. I am just guessing what devs are thinking. The chance is that there won’t be a new attunement.

roamzero.9486:

I think it will be more likely that Ele gets an F5 the same way Chronomancer gets one, and maybe stances as Tempest utilities.

An F5 feels really awkward on Ele.
It can’t be a new attunement, or they have to design new skills for every weapon.
If it is something like an elite skill that mesmer gets, it doesn’t look right by putting it on the same bar with the attunement F1-4.
Also, remember chronomancer gets essentially a new elite skill because they only get 2 new weapon skill. While for ele, if it is a mainhand weapon, that means 12 new weapon skills.

UKADAM.3910:

Its steal :/ I rarely use steal, the skills it take are awful besides fear and that one that stealth you cant remember the name for it.
I hope there change it with the new spec

Wat? Many of the stolen skills are amazing. The skill itself is also great when traited. No wonder every PvP thief traits the skill.

We do get more support options in large scale combat with wells and alacrity now. Shield 5 also looks pretty strong in zerg fights.

Our dps is kinda below average because of inconsistent phantasms. But our utility is special and can help a party a lot in many situations. It does take a bit more learning to make an effective dungeon mesmer.

As suggested, read through those PvE mesmer guide and get an idea of what we can and should do to help the team.

Their attacks are very telegraphed(mirror blade, izerker, shatter effect on their body). With some practice, u should be able to dodge all these. Remember u need to dodge into clones that are being shattered. Too many players dodge away.

They have stealths, which means they can stealth burst on you. These are the toughest to avoid. However, the stealth duration is known and u can somewhat guess their attack timing. Just pay close attention when they go stealth. Also, they usually save decoy for rough situations.

It takes some practice. But all the classes u listed can beat shatter mesmer. Some even have a good advantage over them.

Best advice is to find someone who mains mesmer to practice with.

They were advertising challenging group content. Hopefully these will be good enough.
I just feel if such content is not instanced, it will hard to make it truly challenging.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

New precursors are not tradable.

‘Completing this collection unlocks a recipe to do just that, resulting in another nontradable exotic weapon with the existing precursor skin’.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-legendary-journey/

Thus, in answer to your query: No, they will not be another Gold-sink.

I think OP is talking about trading for items needed for the collection achievement not the precursor itself.

All the 70+ maps are good for T6mats farming. Fractals are also decent in giving out mats.

I am fine with the current wait time.
You sometimes need to adjust your build or even change profession depending on maps and compositions. You can use the time to discuss overall strategy.
If there is nothing to do, I will usually just go into the battlefield and practice jumping those kiting spots.

Well of Precognition and gravity well should be quite good in WvW raids
Well of calamity is pretty decent as well.
Well of action, well of eternity and well of recall are not so clear to me how useful they gonna be.

Invictorum.7643:

Okay, question. How do I not get brutally melted by any thief?

Against dp thief, you can outplay them if they are not very skillful(quite likely). Against sd thief, you might just back off and consider your survival first.

Open world, just build what ever you like.
For dungeons, as people suggested, the damage and utility from sword/focus is unparalleled and almost essential to be an effective mesmer.

PvE:
I am not too familiar with this. But I think both provide great party support and dish out nice dps. The support from warrior is more passive while the ones from guardian is more active. So it might require a bit more awareness to play the guardian

PvP:
Meta for warrior is shout bow. Super strong survivability and party support, decent 1v1 potential when holding a point. Pretty much the go-to option for the team support.
You also have ham bow as a second option which provides a lot of control and damage while still very tacky..
For guardian, the meta is meditation. It is the pinnacle zerker build that beats pretty much all other zerker specs. Super strong burst damage and good control if you pick hammer. The down side is that it does not have too much sustain. You need to be careful with your engagement. You won’t be able to beat some of the better sustain class 1v1.

The other build is the altruism bunker. It provides boons for allies while bunker down the point yourself. But you may as well just play shout bow warrior if you like support role.

WvW:
In a zerg environment, warrior provides control, condition cleanse and most importantly banner to rezz the allies. Guardian is the backbone of every organized zerg, providing important boons and have both melee and range dps.

Warrior is also great for solo roaming, GS provides one of the best mobility in the game. Medi guardian can also roam but to a lesser degree. You probably want a reliable party to roam effectively.

Grimreaper.5370:

Lukin.4061:

But this game is actually increasing rng, why would they try to decrease it? : O And please dont tell me that it is a bad design – you can say it about 90% of things in gw2 pvp.

Heavy rng in a game trying to be skill based (esports) is a terrible design…

People are exaggerating things. 99% of fights are not determined by the fire/air proc. Even in mirror zerker, it is the one with more skills who will come out on top. Other matchups, it still largely depends on who dodged better, managed cooldown better , mind gamed better and positioned better.

Most people just complain because they lose fights and try to attribute it to other factors.

Patchi.9061:

Exciton.8942:

Patchi.9061:

+1 to this post.

If i might add to it, other auto attack procs (such as IP on engineer) should not proc on auto attacks either. It promotes passive play on engi making it extremley powerful in 1vs1s and Teamfights by constantly applyin poison and burn on auto attacks.

As for the people claiming that it would destroy certain specs of the build.. (s/d thief/power rangers) you are already getting a damage boost and should consider trait swaps if you really want to invest in damage. There is little trade-off for investing all trait lines to survivability when you have air/fire proc and procs such as IP on auto attacks. Logic dictates, if you want damage you trait for damage, damage should be subtracted otherwise. (the fact the s/d acro offers the same sustained damage as critstrike s/d in 1 minute justifies my arguement.)

Just my 2 cents, would love to read your opinion on this.

Edit: If i might add, power necros and power rangers are completley dependant on random procs which is just bad design. Damage should really be worked to be attained, nothing is more frustrating to die to someone just pressing 1 button in a smart position.. it might be bad in 1v1 scenarios but it is still extremley powerful in a competitive scenario when coordinated stealth bursts and chain of immobs exist.

Critical chance itself is already RNG dependent. So should we remove all these together and embrace a condie meta where everyone just blindly spam condie?

Does condie ranger take much more skill than power ranger to play? Not really.

RNG attack can be frustrating. But this is little concern regarding skillful play and balance. The truth, on the contrary, many power spec that rely on fire/air are not that strong to start with. Why nerfing them? As far as I can see, some of those spec take actually more skills to play.

Just read the OP and it would answer your question. Air/Fire on auto attacks is just bad design and as you mentioned, they are frustrating. The one-shot capabilities of 2-3 zerks is just too much because of air and fire procs. A small solution is to remove them from auto attacks, even tho I just generally believe they are unhealthy to the PvP scene as it’s completely RNG.

Do the math: 2k proc per zerker around every 5 seconds. Thats 28k damage just from procs on auto per minute. If those numbers are not enough to justify it then I don’t know what would. AND the fact they apply ON CRIT makes it a far bigger burst of damage (5k backstab … +2k air and 1.4k fire…that is like doing 2 backstabs.)

The only thing I know is that if I just auto attack warrior on my memser, they can basically face tank everything and laugh on the point. How is that too much damage?

Most zerker class are squishy as hell and way harder to play than the condie bunker. The problematic ones are the bunkers rather than the zerkers.

Patchi.9061:

+1 to this post.

If i might add to it, other auto attack procs (such as IP on engineer) should not proc on auto attacks either. It promotes passive play on engi making it extremley powerful in 1vs1s and Teamfights by constantly applyin poison and burn on auto attacks.

As for the people claiming that it would destroy certain specs of the build.. (s/d thief/power rangers) you are already getting a damage boost and should consider trait swaps if you really want to invest in damage. There is little trade-off for investing all trait lines to survivability when you have air/fire proc and procs such as IP on auto attacks. Logic dictates, if you want damage you trait for damage, damage should be subtracted otherwise. (the fact the s/d acro offers the same sustained damage as critstrike s/d in 1 minute justifies my arguement.)

Just my 2 cents, would love to read your opinion on this.

Edit: If i might add, power necros and power rangers are completley dependant on random procs which is just bad design. Damage should really be worked to be attained, nothing is more frustrating to die to someone just pressing 1 button in a smart position.. it might be bad in 1v1 scenarios but it is still extremley powerful in a competitive scenario when coordinated stealth bursts and chain of immobs exist.

Critical chance itself is already RNG dependent. So should we remove all these together and embrace a condie meta where everyone just blindly spam condie?

Does condie ranger take much more skill than power ranger to play? Not really.

RNG attack can be frustrating. But this is little concern regarding skillful play and balance. The truth, on the contrary, many power spec that rely on fire/air are not that strong to start with. Why nerfing them? As far as I can see, some of those spec take actually more skills to play.

jcbroe.4329:

I actually mentioned the same concept of crit sigils not being able to proc on autoattack and had a bunch of people instantly jump down my throat and say “blah blah break the sigils blah blah RNG carries me blah blah please don’t nerf my crutch.”

So yes, totally in support. Any time we can remove RNG and make the game more reaction based and skillful, we should.

Removing its proc on auto attack will only nerf some professions into oblivion while it still remains a RNG proc.

Then only way is to completely change the way the sigils function.

One way I can think of: Critical hits store fire/air charges. Once it reaches a certain charge number. The next attack will release the powerful fire/air effect. There will be a buff icon or effect on the particular attack.

The current balance is okay. Nerfs to air/fire will completely destroy the balance. Every one will play celestial or condie tank.

It’s simple.
Better rewards for harder dungeons.