Guild Wars 2

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

I only complain about it in PvE

So in PvE…

1. You shouldn’t be going down anyway
2. Teleporting away or using mist form kittenes off your teammates trying to revive you anyway
3. Downed skill 2 is still a great target drop
4. Downed skill 3 is fantastic dps for getting back up

Our downed state is still fantastic in PvE.

If you use it properly, it doesn’t matter how far it teleports you. It stealths you, and that blocks the stomp. Use it as they are stomping, don’t just mash 2 constantly. It’s arguably even better than the thief skill for blocking stomps, because the thief can be followed with a teleport. The only possible way to block the mesmer from avoiding a stomp is reveal.

This, as with every single complaint thread that comes up about it, is a learn to play issue. Use it properly, and it’s incredibly powerful.

Ohoni.6057:

3. I wouldn’t say that raids are dead, only 10% of the playerbase manages to be successful at them

That would be pretty dead.

Not by standards established in other very successful mmos. 10% of the playerbase regularly completing raids would almost definitely put it above PvP, that’s for sure.

If you really need a quick stealth skip for something, you could just have your mesmer respec for PU and mass invis. That’s a real quick 15 seconds stealth with a 10 target limit. Easy peasy.

Xyonon.3987:

Fay.2357:

However, if I ended up with a mesmer in my party in a 50+ fractal using scepter, I’d kick them. It’s not worth the hassle of towing along a dead weight.

Wow… really? I wouldn’t have expeted that from you. You just made me question your hard earned respect from me. :/

In that case, you simply kicked a Chrono who might have had more knowledge about his profession than you, even tough in your case I’d rather say, he knew “one thing” more than you. xP

You also shouldn’t underestimate condi Chrono in high lv fractals. Due to the high armor values, I never go power in T4 ever again.

Trouble is you’re completely neglecting the issue of aoe vs single target. The scepter offers a slim margin of damage over sword in scenarios that favor its use. However, the moment more than 1 target is involved, the scepter is instantly garbage. If the mesmer in question swapped on a scepter purely for boss encounters, that would be fine. However, a large part of most fractals is clearing rather tanky trash. If you’ve got a mesmer sitting around with scepter, they’re just wasting time.

Condie chrono runs into the exact same issues as scepter itself. Are you on a boss fight? Great, you’ll eventually do okish damage once you’ve got your duelists running. However, for every single encounter that isn’t a boss fight, you’re nothing but garbage dead weight on the team.

You’re also neglecting the rather heavy need for boon strip at many fractal levels due to the boon stealing. Scepter has none of that, while sword provides a continual strong output of boon strip that can keep your party alive when your guardian accidentally uses a skill.

Eponet.4829:

apharma.3741:

Eponet.4829:

Fay.2357:

Catastro.8410:

Fay.2357:

What sort of PvE are you talking about? Open world? Dungeons/fractals? Raids?

In open world, sure, go for it. It’ll be miserable because the autoattack is purely single target, but it’ll work I guess.

In dungeons/fractals/raids, it can be potentially optimal to swap to scepter while casting wells, use skill 3, then swap back to sword. Other than that, no.

Basically everything other than Raids, as I don’t intend on doing that for a while.
I mostly got past the single target problem with the Scepter while leveling by just grouping mobs with Focus 4 and just using Scepter 3 on them, it’s takes more effort than it should, but I really do like this weapon. I just wish Anet would give the auto some love.

They’ve already buffed the auto pretty substantially. It’s not a bad autoattack anymore, you’re just trying to put the proverbial square peg into the proverbial round hole. The scepter is not a weapon designed to be able to do a lot of aoe, that’s just how it is.

In any case, knock yourself out using it in open world PvE and dungeons. Low level fractals wouldn’t be an issue either. However, if I ended up with a mesmer in my party in a 50+ fractal using scepter, I’d kick them. It’s not worth the hassle of towing along a dead weight.

You’d try to kick a mesmer in your party no matter what weapons they were using anyway though.

In all fairness he would most likely have been a mesmer in the first place and no group needs 2 mesmers for dungeons and fractals. It’s debatable if 2 mesmers are worth it in raids, most say not…so yeah considering Pyro has had 3+ years of experience playing mesmer and written guides on it I can believe he’d kick a sceptre mesmer and would be better than most mesmers that joined too.

I was actually referring more to the fact that mesmer is just generally underpowered these days, and has been for ages. Chronomancer replaced them in pretty much every aspect of the game.

Ah yes, that makes sense. Your comment was easily interpreted as being a commentary on my sometimes abrasive nature, as opposed to pointing at mesmer vs chrono. I still use mesmer for talking about things in general, just with the subtext that chrono is sorta understood as being used. It goes without saying that any vanilla mesmer would definitely warrant a kick.

Eponet.4829:

That said, when you say Pyro, do you mean Fay? The context leads me to assume so, but it is slightly confusing.

Long story, but yes that’s referring to me.

NikeEU.7690:

reikken.4961:

Fay.2357:

all damage multipliers in GW2 are multiplicative.

No, I’ve tested it. They are additive. Damage modifiers of the same type are added together first. For example, +damage and +critical damage (found on some thief traits) are multiplied, but +damage and +damage are added.

This is incorrect.

Yeah, they’re all multiplicative. This became drastically harder to test with the removal of steady weapons (anet plz), but damage testing I did back then ended up with funky numbers until I realized that they were doing everything multiplicatively, even within traits. For example, the mesmer trait compounding power (3% damage per illusion) is even multiplicative with itself, having true values of 1.03 * 1.03 * 1.03 instead of just 1.03, 1.06, and 1.09 per illusion.

Really it’s an issue due to GW2 being imprecise with notation. Path of Exile does this really well. Any damage modifier that says ‘increased’ is additive with all other ‘increased’ modifiers, while any modifier that says ‘more’ is multiplicative.

TheLilith.2849:

Calculating all possible % mods:
10% Pyromancer’s Training
10% Burning Rage
20% Bolt to the Heart (under 50% hp)
20% Tempest Defense (vs stunned)
10% Harmonious Conduit (after overload)
10% Scholar rune
10% Food (Seaweed salad)
5% Sigil of Force
15% Grace of the land
10% Sigil of Impact
In best case scenario you would have (without sigil of impact):
1.1*1.1*1.2*1.2*1.1*1.1*1.1*1.05*1.15 = 2.8 dmg mod
with sigil of impact (2.8*1.1) 3.08 dmg mod – so in that manner sigil of impact would increase your base damage by 28% rather than 10% due to multiplicative nature of dmg mods.
Of course you won’t always have 5 stacks of GotL and HC lasts only 4s but as you can see it increases overall dmg way better at burn phase than sigil of air.
But it shines only at classes with lots of % dmg mods

This is a pretty disingenuous way to do the math, and ignores other things as well. Yeah, the sigil provides, in this case, a flat 28% boost of base damage to the final total. However, this is meaningless for comparisons because it varies with the base damage.

The sigil is exactly a 1.1 damage multiplier. It doesn’t matter how many other modifiers you have, it’ll always boost the final result by 1.1. If your damage before the sigil is higher, you’ll get a higher flat boost. If your damage is lower, you’ll get a lower flat boost.

The only thing that matters for comparison is the actual flat damage before the sigil is applied. The number of damage multipliers doesn’t matter if the actual damage is lower for some reason. There’s no need to tally up all those multipliers at all. You can account for the effect of all multipliers by simply asking ‘what is my damage output without the sigil’. Calculate that. Multiply by 1.1, and you get your damage output with the sigil. Subtract the 2 and you get the flat boost.

TexZero.7910:

reikken.4961:

TexZero.7910:

Not really. Ele’s in a weird spot were that sigil gets the added bonus of tempest defense, so the synergy is too good to pass up.

This is…wrong. The fact that ele already has a similar bonus just makes it less effective, proportionally. As in 1.2 -> 1.3 is an 8.3% increase, while 1.0 -> 1.1 is a 10% increase.

I’m not going to argue the math of this, its really not worth it for classes other than Ele.

Just look at the common raid builds and ask yourself which sigil you’re going to replace on any of them and stop and think if the 10% damage gain is greater than that of others…. 9 outta 10 times it’s not worth it.

Strictly speaking it’s precisely the same amount of worth it for every single class, because it boosts your damage by precisely 10%.

Eles get the greatest gross damage boost from it, due to their actual damage being highest, so it’s most important that your eles take the sigil.

gin.7158:

reikken.4961:

gin.7158:

is it worth to use sigil of impact on classes other than ele?

edit:
is it dps increase? sorry for the confusion.

Yes. If you do power damage. Almost all of the damage to keep constuct is in that burn phase. Much more than half. So it’s better than sigil of force for that fight.

TexZero.7910:

Not really. Ele’s in a weird spot were that sigil gets the added bonus of tempest defense, so the synergy is too good to pass up.

This is…wrong. The fact that ele already has a similar bonus just makes it less effective, proportionally. As in 1.2 -> 1.3 is an 8.3% increase, while 1.0 -> 1.1 is a 10% increase.

wait what? so sigil of air + impact? or force + impact?

This is incorrect information. reikken is calculating it as if the damage multipliers were additive, but all damage multipliers in GW2 are multiplicative.

This means that you’d calculate the actual damage by doing Base * 1.2 * 1.1 for each of the component parts.

FLIMP.8172:

mirror blade no longer bounces? can’t seem to find any patch notes

When the traits were overhauled, illusionary elasticity was made baseline for mesmer. Afterwards, people started complaining about mesmers being viable, so they nerfed mirror blade to not get the IE effect.

Catastro.8410:

Fay.2357:

What sort of PvE are you talking about? Open world? Dungeons/fractals? Raids?

In open world, sure, go for it. It’ll be miserable because the autoattack is purely single target, but it’ll work I guess.

In dungeons/fractals/raids, it can be potentially optimal to swap to scepter while casting wells, use skill 3, then swap back to sword. Other than that, no.

Basically everything other than Raids, as I don’t intend on doing that for a while.
I mostly got past the single target problem with the Scepter while leveling by just grouping mobs with Focus 4 and just using Scepter 3 on them, it’s takes more effort than it should, but I really do like this weapon. I just wish Anet would give the auto some love.

They’ve already buffed the auto pretty substantially. It’s not a bad autoattack anymore, you’re just trying to put the proverbial square peg into the proverbial round hole. The scepter is not a weapon designed to be able to do a lot of aoe, that’s just how it is.

In any case, knock yourself out using it in open world PvE and dungeons. Low level fractals wouldn’t be an issue either. However, if I ended up with a mesmer in my party in a 50+ fractal using scepter, I’d kick them. It’s not worth the hassle of towing along a dead weight.

Azukas.1426:

If you are running with an organized group in WvW you basically run what the group leader says and keep your mouth shut.

You are there to win,as a team not selfish desires. When you solo roam you can run w/e you want.

Ultimately this is more or less accurate unfortunately. It’s also why organized WvW groups generally regard people that want to play mesmer for them in the same rarity as unicorns.

What sort of PvE are you talking about? Open world? Dungeons/fractals? Raids?

In open world, sure, go for it. It’ll be miserable because the autoattack is purely single target, but it’ll work I guess.

In dungeons/fractals/raids, it can be potentially optimal to swap to scepter while casting wells, use skill 3, then swap back to sword. Other than that, no.

Malediktus.9250:

RNG makes loot meaningful and interesting. I find token systems and guranteed rewards very boring.

Yeah, easy to say when you get good RNG. For the rest of us without insane amounts of luck, RNG just sucks. I’d be willing to bet that if you’d spent 3 weeks without getting it, you’d be singing a different tune.

Eddie Royale.9605:

Why do so many of you run up to groups of mobs and use your skill 5 when you don’t need to? The greatsword is a long ranged weapon for you guys with plenty of other skills capable of tagging multiple enemies.

And yes, I know it’s not just mesmers, I’ve had this problem of using knockback skills needlessly with guardians and longbow rangers as well, warriors used to do it a lot but I haven’t personally seen anyone running stomp lately. In all, from my own personal experience, mesmers seem to do it the most, and I legitimately want to know your reasons why.

Sincerely, a guy who is tired of having multiple enemies unnecessarily pushed out of his AOEs.

Dear everyone else:

We hate them too.

Sincerely, mesmers that know what they’re doing.

Duckduckboom already touched on most of the points here, but I’ll address a few of the more ridiculous ones again.

Xaylin.1860:

Fay.2357:

It would be precisely the same amount more powerful as every other skill we have is. Not sure what point you’re trying to make, that’s the reason everyone takes chrono these days…

Great argument for introducing more stuff which facilitates this issue…

So your argument is that we should never introduce anything to mesmer ever because chrono exists and can double it? Do you realize how absurd that sounds? You’re saying that no buff or new mechanic should ever be given to mesmer because it would be ‘more stuff which facilitates this issue’.

k.

Xaylin.1860:

Fay.2357:

Roughly zero? When’s the last time you chased somebody in circles autoattacking them in PvP? Ah that’s right, nobody does that because that gets you killed.

And since when has GW2 only been about PvP?

And in this installment of ridiculous arguments, I encounter something that appears to be implying that adding a small amount of conditional damage to a weak autoattack that is already weaker on that same condition on the weakest dps class in PvE would somehow break the game.

k.

Xaylin.1860:

Fay.2357:

Uhm. You’re going to have to rethink that one a bit. Do you really think that 1500 damage (absolute maximum) is some sort of unfun and unfair mechanic? Thief mug does more than that AND it heals the thief.

Without context 1.5k isn’t too impressive. Keyword is unblockable. Rather than making AT even more gimmicky it should just get its cooldown reduced so it can finally be put to use.

Ok, lets add unblockable and see how it sounds!

Unblockable 1.5k damage on a kitten cooldown.

Nope, still sounds pretty unimpressive. Even if this change to IB became a thing, I would never equip that garbage utility without massive changes to it. If I want a bit of extra unblockable damage, I’ll chuck mirror blade at them. If I want a bit more actually usable damage, I’d take the mantra.

Xaylin.1860:

Fay.2357:

This is totally false. You’re completely ignoring the context of the trait. It would be a choice between a damage boost from removing boons (great against tanks with a lot of boons, awful against glass matchups without many boons), a damage boost plus utility of skill shutdown (great against slower classes that can be interrupted, not great with stability or fast attacks), and a raw damage boost against locked down targets (fantastic against lower hp classes for assassination, not so great vs bunkers). It would be an extremely interesting choice that would very much change how you approached fights on that build.

Got to disagree with you here. On paper they might cater different playstyles. But I highly doubt this would work out in practice. Because one of them – IB with a reasonable amount of damage on boon removal – would likely be the best for the majority of scenarios regardless of your playstyle.

Did I not literally just explain exactly how each of those traits would be better in particular circumstances? Let me try again:

Power block is the best and only good choice in interrupt builds. Obviously, if you’re not going for an interrupt build then you don’t use power block.

Mental anguish is the best choice for an assassination build. It provides a large and reliable damage amp that doesn’t have conditionals outside your control on it. If you want the best burst, you take mental anguish.

The new IB would be the best choice for a tankier build that goes for a sustained or attrition fight. It’s not as powerful as the other two for raw lockdown or damage burst, but it provides by far the best total damage over the course of a longer fight with a constant output of boon stripping. Against a low-boon class it’s useless, but this sort of build is designed to take apart tankier builds on point, not assassinate.

Regarding PvE, all 3 grandmasters would still be garbage. Nothing you say regarding how these traits perform in PvE is relevant to the discussion.

Xaylin.1860:

This would be true if those skills were balanced to begin with. But they are not – especially since the boon removal component isn’t the only aspect of those skills.

Are you referring to the condition removal aspect of those skills? It functions in the exact same way as the boon removal aspect, so I fail to see why you’re treating it as some sort of big unknown modifier.

Xaylin.1860:

Ontop of that you neglect to acknowledge that removing a huge amount of boons vs. steadily removing boons has different implications for gameplay and builds than burst vs. sustained damage.

Actually…they have pretty much identical implications. Steadily removing boons facilitates a more sustained fight that aims to keep an opponent in one spot while weakening them. Removing 3 boons at once (huge? …no) facilitates a more rapid attack that needs to instantly clear some defensive boons to facilitate burst.

As you can see, these two mechanics actually work in the exact same way. Steady removal facilitates sustained damage. Rapid removal facilitates burst. With the proposed trait, steady removal would become sustained damage, while rapid removal would become burst. This is absolutely perfect and totally in line with how these skills work.

Xaylin.1860:

If it was 500 (or whatever number) damage per boon removed… think about…

• … how much damage would be added to a full power shatter rotation

I did think about it. I said that 4 boons removed would deal about 2000 damage against a similarly glassy target, and about 1200 against a tank. A standard power shatter combo of mirror blade, mind stab, and a 4 clone mind wrack will remove 5 boons, dealing 1500 damage vs a tank or 2500 vs glass. The combo itself would deal around 6-8k vs a tank without that, meaning the trait would add about 18% damage to the combo. This is very reasonable considering how hard power block hits and the damage amp that mental anguishprovides.

Xaylin.1860:

• … how much more powerful it would be with Chronomancy. Just pressing (5)1234.

It would be precisely the same amount more powerful as every other skill we have is. Not sure what point you’re trying to make, that’s the reason everyone takes chrono these days…

Xaylin.1860:

• … how much DPS would be added to the Sword AA

Roughly zero? When’s the last time you chased somebody in circles autoattacking them in PvP? Ah that’s right, nobody does that because that gets you killed.

Xaylin.1860:

• … wether unavoidable burst damage on AT is fun or serves the purpose of the skill

Uhm. You’re going to have to rethink that one a bit. Do you really think that 1500 damage (absolute maximum) is some sort of unfun and unfair mechanic? Thief mug does more than that AND it heals the thief.

Xaylin.1860:

I’m just not a fan of the idea. I’d rather see our ability to remove boons to be enhanced in someway.

We already discussed why this is a bad idea. Boosting the quantity of boons we’re able to remove simply reinforces the already too binary nature of boons/conditions in this game. There is so much boon spam/condition spam/boon removal spam/condition removal spam that if you’re not spamming with the best of them, you’re completely irrelevant. Power creeping even more by boosting our boon removal capabilities simply makes that even worse and is an awful idea.

Xaylin.1860:

It would just be another trait which would either be mandatory for damage or completely useless depending on the amount of damage it granted. It would’nt add depth to the gameplay nor uniquness to Mesmers.

This is totally false. You’re completely ignoring the context of the trait. It would be a choice between a damage boost from removing boons (great against tanks with a lot of boons, awful against glass matchups without many boons), a damage boost plus utility of skill shutdown (great against slower classes that can be interrupted, not great with stability or fast attacks), and a raw damage boost against locked down targets (fantastic against lower hp classes for assassination, not so great vs bunkers). It would be an extremely interesting choice that would very much change how you approached fights on that build.

Dadnir.5038:

To the title : Yes

xiao.2614:

no pve casual random ppl allows to post here
allowed only discussions about title

Î
This kind of comment should earn a flag.
PvP balance always impact PvE.
PvE balance… there is nothing like that in Anet dictionnary.

On mesmer, whatever the gamemodes, GS is part of the almost all power build. Any drop of power, nerf of all kind directly impact all those gamemodes. And, it may be something that you don’t know but in PvE, enemies have vastly more health point than in PvP so a drop of damage due to a loss of rebound on mirror blade hurt a tons more than in PvP.

So I agree that the comment from the op was ignorant and unnecessary, but you’re absolutely wrong about greatsword. In any type of PvE that isn’t pure open world zerging, using GS means you’re making a big mistake. Almost any other set of weapons will perform better if set up properly. Additionally, claiming that more hp on mobs means that the mirror blade nerf hurts more belies a basic misunderstanding as to how that skill is used and why it was nerfed in the first place.

…K?

/15characters

xiao.2614:

Fay.2357:

xiao.2614:

Levetty.1279:

pve casual random ppl would want the bounce back though

i heard pve guys are not using gs

no offence

Gs is basically THE weapon of PvE casuals…

so u think i would change build only cuz i need to pve for kitteng elite spec? sure why not dual swords + offhand focus gogo so much fun

nice try

I have absolutely no idea what on earth you’re talking about.

xiao.2614:

Levetty.1279:

pve casual random ppl would want the bounce back though

i heard pve guys are not using gs

no offence

Gs is basically THE weapon of PvE casuals…

Dawdler.8521:

Erron.5327:

Is the general consensus among mesmers that playing condi mesmer in WvW havok groups is something to be ashamed of?

That depends on whether you have any shame or not.

What I can say is if I see 16 confusion stacks and 12 torment stacks on me at the same time then I dont think ermagerd, that chrono is so awesome at applying condis, I wish I had these amazing fighting skillz. No, its usually a little more to the point.

kitten you chrono.

kitten you.

See, here’s the difference between you and me. When you see 16 confusion and 12 torment on you at the same time, you get mad at the player who put them there.

When I see 16 confusion and 12 torment on me at the same time, I consider the mistakes I made to end up in that position. Then, I do my best to fix them. In this way, I improve. By doing this multiple times, you eventually reach a level of skill where you avoid that 16 confusion and 12 torment, and then you beat the other person.

Whining about the other person gets you nowhere. They’ll keep winning, you’ll keep ending up face down in the dirt. For a refreshing change, try learning from your mistakes and getting better.

Erron.5327:

Is the general consensus among mesmers that playing condi mesmer in WvW havok groups is something to be ashamed of?

No, it’s not. The general consensus is that condie mesmer is a strong build in small scale, but it rapidly loses effectiveness as fights get larger. Many people will tend to avoid playing it due to the tendency of WvW fights to scale up pretty quickly as more people join in, because it’s not nice to be running a build that ends up being fairly useless just due to how an encounter with the enemy happens to evolve.

Ghotistyx.6942:

I don’t follow your rules.
Scepter is amazing in fractals

1. No it’s not.
2. How is that comment evenly remotely on topic here?

Biggest reason is that no target limit would melt the servers.

Secondary reason is that removing the target limit wouldn’t exactly have the effect you’re anticipating. While you’re right that it would allow a small number of people to do damage to a large group, this would simply encourage retal stacking for zergs. If an ele dropped lava font and immediately ate 50 hits of retal per tick…you’d have a very dead ele. The sheer size of groups would make attacking them completely suicidal.

I love the sound of this rework. To address a few concerns:

@Xaylin: Your comments about the trait being difficult to balance between null field and AT make zero sense if you actually think about the skills. In fact, contrary to your statement, the way those skills work inherently lend themselves to being balanced naturally.

Null field is an aoe pulsing field, removing only 1 boon at a time. This means it will do low damage to any individual target, but this damage is aoe and will increase if they stay in the field. This is balanced and mirrors how the field works with boon removal.

Arcane thievery is a single target 3 boon/condie transfer. It’s also garbage that nobody in their right mind uses, but let’s ignore that for a moment. This means you’ll have a single target burst of damage when activating this skill with the proposed trait. It has a long cooldown, no aoe, and can be dodged. This again mirrors the other functionality, and is balanced.

In the same way, this also works with shatters. Shatters are a burst mechanic, and this would simply add another aspect of boon hate to the burst. It wouldn’t affect our matchups against boon-weak classes like thieves, but it would absolutely make good steps in cutting scrapper/warrior/tempest down to size by leveraging their own boons against them.

@Xyonon: As op said, making the trait an amp vs no boons would be garbage in PvP and WvW, since there’s always some boons floating about despite the hardest attempts to strip. It would be nice in PvE…until you remember that our phantasms still wouldn’t benefit from it, so there’s not really much point in going for the PvE angle without a full mechanic rework for phantasms.

A full shatter removes 4 boons. In a full zerk setup, I feel that a reasonable amount damage for this 4 boon removal is about 2000 damage on a similarly zerk target, which would end up as closer to 1200 on a tanky target, so 300-500 damage per boon.

Vagrant.7206:

Fay.2357:

Sooloo.1364:

I have to wonder what you guys that haven’t experienced this get out of constantly trying to explain to everyone how bad these players are. Do you feel compelled to justify your own win streaks.

Just to be clear, are you making the argument that you have a 20% winrate and it’s not your fault? I just want to make sure I know what you’re trying to say.

You’re also making a huge assumption with your math that people with poor winrates can play 100’s of games. I’ve maybe played 130 this season and I’m in legendary right now. And now I’m stuck because the progression gives me 3 wins… then 4 losses, rinse and repeat.

…are you seriously complaining about progression while being in legendary?

Yes, this isn’t a problem with the system. There’s just no competition. It’s like putting a pro sports player against a bunch of kindergarten kids. Doesn’t matter how many kids you try and match them against, the pro player will win every single time.

Sooloo.1364:

I have to wonder what you guys that haven’t experienced this get out of constantly trying to explain to everyone how bad these players are. Do you feel compelled to justify your own win streaks.

Just to be clear, are you making the argument that you have a 20% winrate and it’s not your fault? I just want to make sure I know what you’re trying to say.

Lets do some math!

In emerald or sapphire, gaining a tier locks in your progress permanently. This puts a hard upper limit on the amount of pips you need to gain in a row in order to progress through that division. In emerald this number is 4, while in sapphire it is 5. However, both 4 and 5 are accomplished by the same pattern of games: LLLWWW.

3 losses followed by 3 wins. This gives 5 pips, and guarantees progression. So to get an absolute worst case scenario estimate of how difficult it is for someone to progress, we simply need to look at the chances of getting 3 wins in a row.

Math

Lets start with an average player: a 50% winrate. For this person, the chance of winning or losing any given match is .5, and the chance of winning (or losing) 3 matches in a row is .5^3, or .125. This means that a person with a 50% winrate will experience a 3 match winstreak 12.5% of the time in any randomly sampled 3 consecutive matches. In 100 matches played, this will happen slightly more than 10 times. This means that a person with a 50% winrate should have absolutely no issues climbing out of sapphire.

Now lets go a bit lower. A person with a 30% winrate only has a 2.7% chance of winning 3 in a row. This means that in 100 matches, this person only pass on average about 2-3 tiers. However, this is still definitely progression. This person makes progress, and will eventually hit ruby in about 300 matches.

Lets go even lower. A person with a 20% winrate has only a .8% chance of winning 3 in a row. This means that in 100 matches, this person has a significant chance of not actually progressing a tier at all. Eventually they will, but it will take far longer. In 500 matches, this person would have only progressed 4 tiers on average, making their journey to ruby rather arduous.

Explanation

So what do all these numbers mean? Well, these numbers show that in order for someone to truly get locked into a division below ruby, they would need to have a winrate around or below 20%. Anything significantly higher than that and that person will make slow but consistent progress.

This means that anyone arguing for the existence of an MMR hell below ruby is arguing that a 20% winrate is the fault of the system and not the fact that they’re simply astonishingly bad at PvP. That’s going to be a tough sell. If anyone truly feels that their 20% winrate is actually Anet’s matchmaking being garbage and not their own lack of skill, I ask you to make a video and show us just how bad all your teammates are, so that we can verify where the problem lies.

SolarDragon.7063:

The fact you have a 41% winrate yet are in diamond is IMO a sign of the system working badly…

It’s the system working as intended. The current PvP league system is carefully designed to ensure progression even in significantly less than average cases. This is intentional, it’s not a mistake. It ruins the possibility of making the leagues into a skill-based ladder, but it’s not just a blunder that it works this way.

Quarktastic.1027:

Xyonon.3987:

Phantasms also get a damage boost when you’ve equipped an ascended (main hand) weapon.

When are rangers going to get this?

?

Idk why everyone’s got sand in their pants about this. Clearly you all would have been much more accepting if instead of making a text post, they’d posted a beautifully edited and tastefully funny video documenting their experience.

OP got to legend on a full glass mesmer. They got to legend with a massive winrate. This is indicative both of the fact that OP clearly knows how to use shatter mesmer, and that they obviously weren’t facing Abjured. Any questions?

Silv.9207:

There was, time ago, a solo queue sPvP section but everyone hated it why everyone was with “with the worst pug ever” and no one was happy why play with casuals is always a roulette that make you win or lose at random, with only few personal skills and a large amount of luck. Who had the best pugs or the best casual combination won the match easy.

Anyway remove the Team composition from a Team based PvP is like remove all the commanders and battle signals from WWW and prevent any guild raid group to play. why they make WWW unbalanced making rush all the time. The entire game section will lose it’s sense!

Is more good to ask for the opposit thing: make pugs and little teams to join Unranked but make only premades able to join Ranked, adjusting the reward and all.
That will force people to play with a sense, making teams to win, studying a strategy, playing classes with specific personal builds, organize entire sPvP guilds to find players to do ranked in a structured playstyle.

I vote for make Ranked sPvPa 5vs5 Premade only.
(basicly that’s the sense of a Team Based Structured Player Versus Player, isn’t it?)

That’s some impressive revisionist history. When they removed solo queue, every third thread on this forum for a year was “bring back solo queue”.

Rincewind.1207:

I have made more than enough valid points NOT point !!!!! But make phokus.8934 you are also unable to understand basic things , saying my point of view is garbage ! Of course I read the criticism but you have never pointed out a point ! just saying MY idea is not good !!! Shortbrained you are , sorry !

And you know what , let an admin pvp from Anet say I am wrong …. We know they read what we write and THEY have the statistics and all data required to prove me wrong … until you or I have statistical facts then you cant say my idea is garbage … I have at least 20 friends that quited pvp due to soloq!

No PvP admin is going to respond to this. Their answer will be clear enough in the total disregarding of this crazy suggestion.

Rincewind.1207:

First of all who said the pvp community in GW2 should be big ? Shaogin.2679 has fully understood the problems and thoughts I ve posted here . The only one actually !!!

Are you actually saying you’d rather have a tiny PvP community? Enjoy your 10+ minute queues I guess…?

Exciton.8942:

Fay.2357:

SloRules.3560:

Good luck persuading any guild mesmer to reveal their builds, many have tried, many have failed. It might sound harsh, but it’s reality of the situation.

I’ve never understood this. It’s not like there are super special secret combinations of traits that work for things that I (or others) have never thought of. I guarantee you that no mesmer in this game is running a build that I haven’t at least thought of the concept for.

I think it is more due to their entire group synergy rather than a single class build.

There’s still no secret sauce of combinations in GW2. The mechanics aren’t actually that complicated, and there’s a very limited number of general ways that classes can interact with each other. People always make out these WvW guild group compositions as these intricate contraptions that are so perfectly finely tuned and balanced that they couldn’t even let anyone know so it can’t be replicated.

In reality, they’re using the same builds as everyone else. They’ve got a frontline, a backline, and a pet mesmer with signet of inspiration on autocast. The reason that some guilds are successful is entirely their coordination and leader, the way they actually execute their strategies and the skill of their members.

BrotherBelial.3094:

OP you have not thought this through have you. Removing the wings would drop the number of people playing PvP. Forcing teams will also drop the numbers of players, not everyone has the time to commit to a team. This then would have a knock on effect on the queue times.

Your ideas would make the PvP experience worse. For everyone.

Yeah, making the changes in the OP would basically cause 50%-75% of the currently active PvP population to just quit and go play overwatch or something.

Shaogin.2679:

It is a team game. A 5-man team game. Solo queue does nothing more than Team queue to show “true” player skill. So far all I’ve seen is that it shows who is lucky enough to get the better team members.

These forums are littered with complaint threads on how bad all their teammates are and how Anet is working against them.

Forming a team, even a temporary team, allows for a better evaluation of player skill than solo queue. It takes the random factor of your teammates out of the equation. It introduces a greater capacity for communication and teamwork.

But of course, everyone that just wants to farm PvE rewards and is too lazy or anti-social to form a team will always be against this.

I doubt Anet will ever open their eyes and limit ranked to 5-man teams only. I can, however, guarantee you that Anet will never limit ranked to solo queue only.

I mean seriously, what a ridiculous request. Limiting a team game to only solo queue…..crazy PvE players.

I almost wish Anet would limit ranked to 5-man teams just so that people like you could see incredibly wrong you are.

However, I don’t actually wish that sort of killing blow to be dealt to the PvP in this game, it’s dead enough already.

Ithilwen.1529:

Since I am playing on my alt, I’m not getting the PMs. I’m hoping Ithilwen’s mmr will heal or reset if I leave her inactive long enough.

I’ll see what I can do about contacting those players in-game and will gratefully accept there help.

Fraid that’s not how mmr works. Your variance will go up over time, but your mmr will stay the same.

Lord Hammer Hand.4815:

Fay.2357:

A 50% winrate will guarantee progress to legendary with enough playing. Higher winrates will simply make it faster.

51% is what u want, but yeah it will be grindy and slow.

Actually, 43% is the point at which you will eventually make progress. Due to the way win and loss streaks work, a 43% winrate will eventually guarantee progress, even through ruby/diamond.

Jace al Thor.6745:

apharma.3741:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Jace al Thor.6745:

Now Ross you know that walking up behind someone in stealth and landing 6-8k backstabs is underpowered for how hard it is

From what I’ve read coming out of the Thief forum for the last 3 years, yes, yes it is the single most hardest thing to do EVER.

I’m afraid you’re all hilariously, laughably wrong, backstab usually only does 3k max nowadays.

Never mind the fact that is on a clerics stat auramancer with protection….

While I know that was an overstatement I do think you missed the point. Never mind the fact that I have land 4-6k backstabs recently but it was on zerker amulet and not mad’s.
You can’t sit there and tell me that having bas venom up, stealth, steal and back stab is harder than getting 3 illusions up for a MW, or try for a double MW using CS and knowing that if you screw up you blew CS, your waiting 10 seconds for MW now not to the fact if you’ve screwed up you’re having blow distortion etc to escape the rampant AoE in game now.

http://i.imgur.com/axJmn.gif

SloRules.3560:

Good luck persuading any guild mesmer to reveal their builds, many have tried, many have failed. It might sound harsh, but it’s reality of the situation.

I’ve never understood this. It’s not like there are super special secret combinations of traits that work for things that I (or others) have never thought of. I guarantee you that no mesmer in this game is running a build that I haven’t at least thought of the concept for.

Carighan.6758:

What GW2 traitlines lack is a clear theme to them. An identifying characteristic, telling you that by picking this line your XYZ power will increase but A, B or D won’t.

Yeah, GW2 traits are an absolute mess. They need a total rework in terms of theme and just general continuity. The elite traitlines are slightly better, but still suffer from drastic issues.

A 50% winrate will guarantee progress to legendary with enough playing. Higher winrates will simply make it faster.

So that build will work up to maaaaybe 10v10, but it probably won’t work well in a 10v10. Anything larger than that and it’ll be totally worthless.

Ultimately, mesmer is really bad at group fights. We show up to provide portal and veil…and that’s about it. It doesn’t really matter whether or not you go condie or power, because you’ll do absolutely nothing either way. The only reason to play mesmer in a group fight is if you get your rocks off on throwing down well timed veils.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Izithel.6853:

Oldirtbeard.9834:

I thought most people were asking for an easier version, so that you elitists can continue to use your special bathrooms and water fountains, we’ll settle for some thing stripped down and low class as far as the rewards.

We’re talking video games here, not racial segregation.

I’m talking class segregation, the comparison is sound; when ever MMOs start focusing on Raids then they start making these showcase dungeons which creates a sharp division in the community between those that raid and get content, and those that don’t or now can’t because they joined the game of musical chairs too late in the game.

For example back during the first Raid it was acceptable to have Exotic Armor and Ascended Accessories/ Weapon to start; now even if you join a guild Raid Teams are set, they want experience, full ascended, link APs.

Yeah nobody wants to raid with us second class citizens so we get the rusty water fountain, and the busted up bathroom to make all of you look and feel better.

People keep saying this, but there’s multiple threads on this very forum where people are offering teaching runs and suggesting guilds that accept inexperienced players. The fact of the matter is that there are plenty of opportunities for everyone to raid if you actually want to put the effort into it, but it’s easier to make up things on an internet forum than it is to go and do something for real.

Acnologia.6934:

Fay.2357:

Acnologia.6934:

we are 2 man. i can’t play 6 hours in a row and only for one boss. true life calls

I have killed all bosses in the first two wings. I have never raided for more than 2 hours at a time, never more than 4 hours total per week.

You could do it if you wanted to, but you find it easier to make false complaints on the forums about it instead.

2 hour per boss or per try? casual group or guild group? ts or not ts?
if you killed all the bosses changing group in every fight i bow before you. if you have a group of friends for it lucky you i’ve not time to schedule it with mine
p.s the 6 hours thing is for joke. the true problem is find a good party to play a raid for us casuals. groups of friends will be everytime better then casual groups. this is normal. when you play with casuals people sometime leave the party so you have to find more…. and that’s time wasted…. everytime you have to explain the boss…. and after another fail another guy leave….. and over and over again and again…… and here it is my 6 hours ^^

We created a raid group when raids were released. We started with a core group of interested people, then have recruited some more as time went on and our composition changed.

What we did is not difficult. It simply required dedication and effort. Sometimes advertising on the forums/elsewhere to find some new people, then talking with them and picking the ones we liked best. We set 2 times a week to raid and raided for 2 hours at each time, never more and never less to stay consistent. Eventually, after a lot of failing, a lot of improving, and a lot of learning, we cleared all 6 bosses.

It would be foolish for us to claim that we are “casual”, but what we did is far from hardcore. Anyone can do this, and anyone could still do it. It just requires time and effort and actually putting yourself out there to make or join a group, and it requires personal dedication to showing up to raid times and doing your best for a couple hours at a time.

Gardavil.1762:

Anet created this situation by how they designed their game, the server features in particular. A Dev Team is always responsible for their design, just like any other Designer/Engineer is responsible for their work. Anet is absolutely responsible as much as the Player hopping their Guilds are. Anet because it’s their design, Players because they are “creatively utilizing” Anet’s design.

However, Anet is making extra profit with how their design is encouraging Guild hopping, so I seriously doubt that in this capitalistic world Anet would redesign their game to fix the negative parts of the current situation. Anet cannot “buck the system” any more than any of the rest of us can.

And after reading some of the responses so far it’s clear to me at least some Players like the design as it is, so they would oppose a change.

I wish you luck with this situation JavaChips, but I don’t see any light at the end of this tunnel. I’m glad I no longer WvWvW. I know if I was still participating and had played to get better as you have then I too would be upset at the current situation.

Are you kidding? Server linking is designed to eliminate server hopping as much as possible by removing the motivation. Guilds server hop to get better fights or more even matches. Server linking aims to make matches more even and make sure that all the fights are better.

So contrary to what you erroneously claim, Anet is actually doing their best to make guilds no longer feel the need to server hop. Despite that, you still get entitled people complaining about how they deserve special treatment even though the situation they’re in is nobody’s fault but their own.

You keep saying that everyone is misunderstanding you. We’re not, we all understand perfectly fine, it’s you who is misunderstanding us.

Here’s the deal: you are choosing to stay with a server hopping guild. They left you behind because you temporarily quit the game, and now you have to pay extra every 2 months to keep up with them, and you don’t think that’s fair.

Too bad. It’s absolutely fair. Nobody is making you stay with them. Nobody is making you pay. If you don’t want to pay, then don’t stay with the guild. If staying with the guild is worth the cost of a server transfer every 2 months, then me and all the others here salute you for funding the Anet electricity bill. That’s all.