Guild Wars 2

I feel like there has been a lot of hatred towards SPVP and leagues lately and I truly believe that it is misplaced. Take a step back and look at spvp and leagues objectively: the gamemode has improved. Here’s why I think so:

Queue times and population

I only have started SPVP only 4 days ago and it seems to be extremely more active and dynamic than it has ever been. My opinion might be biased by the fact that I’m division 2 (nearly 3), thus I’m in what I think is the most populated division so my queue actually pops within 2-3 minutes, but the amount of new names I’ve seen is massive. I almost never get matched against the same guys.
Back in the days my queue took 5+ minutes to pop and I knew half of the players in the match because well, I played with them all day long. The queue times have definately improved, for the average player.
Queues are definately something that still needs to be worked on, since even a 3m queue is actually rather long, especially if we think that a match usually lasts for 10m + 2m of map selection and warmup. Spending around 25% of your playtime sitting in queues is not fun. But we can’t obectively say that queues have not improved (again, in average, I am aware of diamond/legendary queue times issues).
The population on the other hand seems to be improved. I can’t be sure of that because of course I don’t have the metrics, but a lot of players in my guild who previously didn’t even touch SPVP if not for dailies have now started to play it consistently. Why? Because of prestige.

Leagues and pips

Leagues are good. The system is good. The theory behind the implementation is crystalline clear and absolutely flawless. The goal is to try to keep people at 50% win ratio and at the same time to give players a feel of accomplishment and success.
The divisions are a good implementation of that theory, since each divsion has a particular ruleset: you can’t lose pips if you are on division 1, for example. That means: if you are new to the gamemode, don’t worry! Just keep on playing and you will achieve better results.
The “win 1 , lose 1” system is actually perfect for division 1 since it maximizes everyone’s satisfaction: if I lose, I lose nothing, if I win, I get something, so why not playing? This is a good way to get new people to try SPVP and not to get completely disheartened because they’ve lost 3 matches in a row. In fact not only that happens rarely but it also doesn’t affect your pips score.
Division 2 and Division 3 are also rather good. Tiers in between division are used as checkpoints to make sure that an extremely negative streak doesn’t affect the work of days and weeks. The fundamental idea is: “keep on playing, sooner or later you will reach that tier/division”. This is where the competitive spvp idea is being formed: you really have to struggle to win, if you want to progress. Being carried is an option, but not as feasible as it would have been in Division 1.
From Divion 4 things start to get more serious. You can lose tiers now. It basically is a “welcome to real spvp, where if you want to progress you have to tryhard”. Which is also rather good, as it should be that the higher the division, the higher the effort that needs to be put into achieving results.
Speaking on a micro-level, leagues have introduced “pips”. Pips are a healthy and balanced way to understand how much effort you should put into a game, how much time you have to spend to get to a certain treshold (tiers) and how much progress you have made, match by match. Pips are good because they give players a feeling of progress and achievement, which is what we have been asking for a lot of time. The gold reward is not that bad and it is a nice addendum: I actually get gold for playing well.

Balance and mmr

As I wrote above, I consider leagues as being an extremely healthy addition to SPVP. So why all the hate? The first culprit in my opinion is balance, closely followed by mmr. Balance is not good at the moment because 2 out of 18 possible options (nine core specializations + nine elite specializations) are currently dominating the scene. And yes, you guessed it right: it’s chrono bunker and herald. I believe that all new elite specializations could have a spot in the meta. Right now tempest, scrapper, dragonhunter and reaper are pretty strong in capable hands and are solid choices in mid level spvp. The very problem is that 2 specializations (daredevil and berserker) are almost unplayed, and the 9 core specializations are in a pityful state. Why are they not played? Because there are other options, chronomancers and revenants, which, althought offering different playstyles and not really directly competing with some other elite specialization, are much more valuable in a team.
Basically, what I’m saying is that it is not true that a viper herald fully outshines a condi reaper: they both are solid options but herald is better because it is much more valuable in a team setup than a reaper.
Another important point is that I could pick a chronomancer bunker for the first time and still be able to mechanically perform good. The player ability is now completely shifted from “being able to play your class effectively and having good map awareness” to “having good map awareness” alone.
Last but not least: mmr. A solo player should never be faced against a 4-5 man premade let alone losing pips. I have faced a premade only twice since I started leagues, and I remember losing 500 to 300 (it was a good match) and still gaining 2 pips. That was good. I lost against a premade, but I myself cannot suffice the coordination that they have because it is phisically impossible. The game aknowledged that and gave me pips for having tried my best. I didn’t mind losing because I knew it wasn’t really my fault.
However, a solo player constantly facing premades is not fun. This is very true for high division players who are often forced to play against premades. These premades “abusing” the mmr tanking to get shorter queue times (I can’t really blame them tbh) get matched against solo players from lower divisions. I have no idea of how to fix this, but making diamond/legendary division “team queue” only might be an option. Meaning that a legendary player wanting to queue for spvp with his diamond team can literally only face another premade, maybe from a lower division, but a premade still.

TL;DR
SPVP is better than ever. Leagues are good. Balance and match making are not.

No thanks, that’d be p2w, and what we have right now is already pretty much close to p2w.

Enjoy the 50/50 ratio

I get 2 thieves in my team
we losing
1 thief disconnects
we win 4v5

Thieves confirmed worse than 4v5.

Glass Hand.7306:

There is a thread on reddit discussing this issue that has a developer response to the effect that they are removing requirements for failed events in these collection progressions.

Take heart, ANET agrees with you.

I did a quick research, couldn’t find it. Can you link?

Guhracie.3419:

Hmm. This is a super time gate, ANET. If nobody can get this item, this should stretch out the time before you need to add anything even more. I think I see why you’re refusing to fix this design flaw, now.

Some people got the item by waking up at 4am.. One of my friends woke up at 4m and one level 20 player killed the veteran so he did it for nothing.

5 hours I’m trying to do this. All to no avail. If we could get a word on a possible fix I would stop ruining my life this way..

Kraggy.4169:

With such a condescending attitude to “level 20 babies” I’m glad you failed to make them fail, long may you fail!

Condescending attitude? I am recognizing they are NOT the problem because they are ONLY doing what they are SUPPOSED to do. Do you even read?

Is this what you had in mind with “legendary journey”?

My chat, a couple of minute before.

I mean, really? No matter what, there is always one or two new guys who are killing the veterans.
And why shouldn’t they? What do they know about the game? They’re level 20. They probably never heard about “purposefully failing events” and they probably don’t even know how to write in chat – let alone READ it – cause, you know, they’re level 20. They are like babies.

The problem arise when people WANT to let the event fail. This is a BIG issue right now. The trashtalk is insane, the toxicity is even higher than Ash vs TA GvG stream twitch chat. Everybody is insulting everyone. Me included. I can’t help it but being toxic when there are 10 people asking to a couple of newbes to stop attacking and they completely ingore us.

What are we supposed to do? There are newbes trying to complete the event (what it is INTEDED to happen, btw) even at 4am. Anet, can you offer us a solution?

lil devils x.6071:

The way it is spread out is why it takes the other teams forever to get there, not easily reachable from all spawns..

Correct me if I’m wrong, but with free waypoints @ keeps even north spawn has an easy time getting to the south side of the map. East and West spawns are like 1m away or something, I guess?

lil devils x.6071:

Frenk.5917:

People like the new maps.

People do not like the mechanics in the new maps.

Please, get it right.

No, People do not like the new maps OR the new mechanics in the new maps. They want smaller, flatter maps that promote more PVP and less wasting time trying to " get to a fight" small maps that push combat closer together = more action during the time you play and less time wasted getting to it.

That is why guilds roam in the southside of the map, where there is plenty of what you described: flat and open space, easily reachable from all spawns. 90% the fights I had with my guild happened on the south part of the map.

That is why nobody plays the map but during prime time.

Buy Some Apples.6390:

Frenk.5917:

People like the new maps.

People do not like the mechanics in the new maps.

Please, get it right.

You mean PvE?

Exactly. The non-human interaction, to be more accurate.

People like the new maps.

People do not like the mechanics in the new maps.

Please, get it right.

Nedus.6952:

The Anet dev:

I lost it, ggwp 10/10

I don’t dislike the new borders. I think they have a good potential, just not as they are now though. My biggest disappointment is how PvE is affecting WvW. A couple of things I have in mind are the following:

• Air keep, those knockbacks need to be removed, and I also mean the ones from the jumping pads. Make them give 10s of swiftness to allies who get hit by their blow. That way the nasty skyhammer feeling is removed and yet they are still kind of useful. Nobody rages, everyone is happy.
• Earth keep, remove the cripple from the giant floating cubes and make them increase cripple duration on enemies hit by 33%. This way there still NEEDS to be a player interaction (i.e. cripple has to be applied by someone else before the cube hits), and it doesn’t annoy the hell out of an entire raid just passing by.
• Lords in general need to be nerfed. I can understand them having tons of HP, it’s to discourage karmatrains, but the damage needs to be lowered. When there’s a fight in the lordroom the lord is basically a killing machine. If I have to die, I’d rather die because of enemy players, not because of an NPC.
• Partially disable autoupgrade. First of all, slow down the autoupgrade speed. Secondly, limit it. Make the autoupgrade work only up until a certain treshold. For example, make the autoupgrade for a tower work until the tower reaches tier 2, then it stops and players need to get the t3 upgrade manually by protecting dolyaks just like in the old days. This way the satisfaction for having upgraded a tower to T3 is restored, and at the same time the absence of paper gates/walls disincentivize karmatrains.
• Remove or fix the event in the bordelands. The event makes all the players in the map lag, and guilds/zergs from differentservers literally cooperate to get the event done as soon as possible.
• This one would be extremely hard to implement, but make the barricades scale downwards with the number of players (meaning that their effective HP shouldn’t be inreased more than they are now, only lowered). Rroaming in the new borderlands is mostly dead because players from one of the three servers can’t go in the southside part of the map and viceversa. The walls simply require too much time to get destroyed by a single player.. as it is now, barricades only punish roamers and very small groups.

The human interaction is too underestimated. It’s like they built the borderlands knowing people wouldn’t play on them.

Koviko.3248:

This has to be a glitch, right?

No. They also did something similiar to orbital strike (engi mortar f5), just to switch back 1 month later because the skill wasn’t even visible anymore.

Xillllix.3485:

They buffed retal, again without thinking about the squishiest class.

A single meteor shower can drain half your health.

did they stealth buff reta again for real?

Post-patch fireball looks like shooting with a nerf gun. Seriously, I understand that the visual clutter must be reduced but this? I mean, really? That’s like shooting confetti.

• Medical Dispersion Field still appears to have an ICD (it shouldn’t have one anymore)
• Medical Dispersion Field doesn’t trigger on all heals (regeneration provided by HT’s F1 for example).
• Gyros still don’t follow the owner properly, an issue that should have been fixed on HoT release, according to Irenio.
• Tooltip on Rapid Regeneration trait is not computing healing power.
• Hammer #4 animation doesn’t match the block duration. The block is still active for 1 second after the animation finishes.

They removed hobosacks just to give us another fashion constraint..

They didn’t want maps to be ghost towns after the first rush through the expansion and yet I can’t find a single populated Tangled Depths map..

I’m 12/14. I need the Nuhoch Stealth Mastery and the Machined Hammer. I thought I was very close to get it, and then I discovered that Machined Hammer Handle is totally RNG.
I’ve opened 50+ Noxious pods and didn’t get anything out of them, a part from 20ish Crystalline Ores.

This is horrible.. it was such a nice collection: get this done, kill that guy, glide there, explore this, get this mastery. And then the RNG appears and ruins everything. And it’s not like it’s an “easy” RNG, like the Mystic Forge, available 24/7. No, of course not. And that’s not even the worst part.

The machine piece you could get from the pods you could find in the map you could have completed may not even be the machined piece you NEED.

I tried the 64-bit client yesterday, and it was smooth until I went to WvW. Once in WvW I started stuttering and lagging and freezing for 0.5-1s every ten-ish seconds. I had to switch back to 32-bit to have that fixed.

I was NOT involved in big fights. I was just running around with my guild, struggling to find enemies. Only 20 players on the screen, no FX effects at all.

Hello. I need clarifications on how does this trait work. Currently, it says it doesn’t have any ICD and yet it procs erratically. Also, it says that it heals 20% of the heal and when it actually works (on the first pulse of HT, for example – but no on the second!) it still heals for only 12% of the heal.

I mean, I’d say it’s bugged, but maybe I’m not understing how it works. Maybe the tooltip is wrong and it’s supposed to heal 12% of healing received and to only proc on certain heals and not on others.

Please report it in game and also tell your friends to do the same

So, a WvW player has to play WvW to get his elite specialization unlocked but can’t play WvW because he doesn’t have his elite specialization unlocked.

“Hello, yes, we’re looking for 20 years old young people with 30 years of experience to hire”

Sometimes (it doesn’t happen everytime) if I place an AoE way beyond it’s range limit it still shows me the green AoE indicator instead of the red one. I don’t know what triggers this. Is this a known bug?

Link to proof: CLICK
As you can see Shadow Refuge is completely out of range but it still shows the green AoE indicator. When I release the mouse (I’m using “Fast with range indicator” setting) it says, of course, out of range.

kitten = 45 seconds

Dawdler.8521:

Fridays are when people get home after a week of working, get drunk and have fun during the GW2 reset.

this

This friday’s reset is gonna be the last reset I’ll ever do in GW2 for me. I’m sad

DragoTheWise.7256:

Frenk.5917:

Medical Dispersion Field seems to still have an ICD of 5s.

I investigated this, and there isn’t a ICD anymore; however, what activates MDF and what doesn’t isn’t really clear. I thought that whatever healing you do on yourself activates it… but it seems only half of the skills end up actually working.

For one, the regeneration boon doesn’t proc it even if the combat log mentions that “You heal yourself for X using [Regeneration]” I made sure I was the only one using regeneration.

Actually, when I used Healing Turret’s F1 I got in the combat log “you healed X for 7 using medical dispersion field” (yes, 7, I still remember it) and it was ticking multiple times every second, due to the fact I was in a zerg. I tested it during the beta though, so maybe that was a different build.
But still, The first chunk of heal of Healing Turret heals for about 500 (again, I checked this in the combat log and I saw “you healed X for 500 using medical dispersion field”) but the second one doesn’t proc it. I assumed it was a CD bug, but it may also be just bugged for certain skills. I know for a fact that it works with regen. I wish I had the screen of it, somewhere

EDIT: I’m testing it right now and no, it doesn’t work with HT F1. Still, I vividly remember it proccing for 7 hp/s on several people.

choovanski.5462:

Chaith should be on the dev team tbh

This. Or, at least, they should start listening to top players. But this has nothing to do with the fact that we had a lot less less time than other classes had to provide feedback and on top of that, we don’t even get to know what has changed from beta, thus even more lowering the value of our feedback.

I’m probably being childish but, to me, the only reward that matters is something that tells that me > everyone else

Yeah I know, I have some issues.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Canceling a cast is basically using an exploit for self benefit. If you do not care for a skills function, don’t use it. I see no reason to change stow weapon or swap weapon to support skipping the designed effect.

Its not exploit: you can do it by pressing “esc”, but thats clunky since it can cause the menu to pop up. Moreover, canceling casts is not only because you dont want to use that ability but it also helps you to bait dodges (cast magnet, press esc, giggle at your enemy dodging the air).

Terrahero.9358:

When you say that Stow should cancel cast just as Drop you are asking to remove a handy function.

Ehrm why? He’s just asking to add a functionality to “stow weapon” which is it to be able to also cancel casts while using a kit.

Chaith.8256:

Frenk.5917:

Also, #2 hit 3 targets only on a 180 radius, which means you hit only on 90 range in front of you, while all melees skills have 130 range.

The radius is measured from the middle of an area to the edge of that area.. You’re thinking the Hammer #2 is 180 in diameter, AKA 90 distance in all directions around the Engineer, but a Radius means it’s 180 range in all directions around the Engineer.

It’s a greater hitbox than normal melee skills.

I feel so dumb now.

Haralin.1473:

Did you try this build and it worked for you?

It seems very squishy for a frontliner (only 18k HP)and no stability or elixir s in it, to avoid massive incomming damage or leap through the line of wardings and lightning fields.

Just by switching to self-regulating defenses and/or iron blooded his build becomes much more tanky. Moreover you have to remember you have both the block from toolkit and the block from the hammer. The block on hammer is particulary useful since you can keep damaging while blocking, thus you can still use it when your melee train pushes without giving up to all the DPS.
In addition to that, this build is probably (I can’t read minds) meant to be played witha proper melee train, where guardians are meant to provide stability.

No, this build isn’t optimal at all. As others have said, take ironblooded, self regulating defenses and perfectly weighted. They are kind of mandatory.
Also, bunker down is not good in zergs, MDF on the other hand will be a beast when it gets fixed. Healing my buddies for 5-6k each time I use healing turret? Yes please.

There’s one thing though: the DPS you’re saying this build does isn’t what I my experience showed me. My personal build is more offensive than yours, and I tested it in an organized environment (guild raid) with, of course, 25 might stacks, coordinated CC etc. etc. and yes, I can deal 6k with Hammer #2 but on light only. Also, #2 hit 3 targets only on a 180 radius, which means you hit only on 90 range in front of you, while all melees skills have 130 range.

Moreover, what your build does guardian and warrior can do better. You are not providing any source of uniqueness that would make a guild want scrappers in the melee train. I suggest you to take Slick Shoes and/or superspeed, which are the main two features only scrappers/engis can provide to the raid.

Jump when you cast it.

CLICK

This is the best scrapper build I came up with. I started by taking standard Soldier Elixir build and simply switching from soldier to cele, from elixir S to Elixir gun and from rifle to hammer. It worked well, but soldier amulet was still the best option. I’ve tested the numbers and soldier amulet offered just a little less DPS in favor of way more effective HP (thanks, gw2power!).

But I wanted to use celestial. So I just thought that I should have dropped granades, because they pidgeonholed me into explosives and I wanted to take Firearms, in order to get the best out of Incendiary powder.
I think Chaith has played a similar build during one of his twitch streams, but iirc he used to run slick shoes. I honestly prefer toolkit due to the extra block and the extra spike plus the access to confusion.

The Ace.9105:

Arantheal.7396:

The Ace.9105:

As a revenant i got constantly owned by Slick Shoes and no way to avoid it. Also i noticed that scrapper can do insane damage with it while the target is knocked down in the center of red circle circle not able to dodge cause the knockdown happens mid dodge and it even happens sometimes when you don’t even move.

The only way to avoid well placed Slick Shoes is to use stability and if you are out of stability you have to eat every burst from the engi.

Yepp, that’s what the utility is supposed to do.
If you engage a engi in close quarters without having stab or heavy cc’s ready, you deserve what’s coming for ya.

Don’t get salty over being outplayed.

So the only option is to stay in range and eat grenades as a melee class without invuln skills and passive procs?

Edit. Slick Shoes also completely kills druid in cele form.

He means that Slick Shoes are meant to lock down a player, and they are balanced around that.
If that player has no stunbreak/inv/evades/endure pains/stability ready then well.. I hardly think we can consider it to be slick shoes’ fault.

P.S.
Revenant has plenty of blocks, evades, invulnerability, stability and teleports.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

Add stealth gyro, elixir S , elixir B, wrench and you have one unkillable engi in any pvp setting.

Adaptive armor definitely needs a nerf. I main engi and I know that is just OP. Anet needs to stop this BS passive play. 20 condi reduction plus 100 toughness when hit every one second are you kidding me? Ironblooded included which if you have elixir B means another 10 dmg reduction. As many people have mentioned in many threads, the engi can easily take on 3 enemy players focusing him /her.

Some might argue this takes skill. The hell it does. Any average player that doesn’t faceroll their keyboard can pull this off. Yah maybe CC might work to knock the engi out of position only if CC was unblockable like some CCs should be.

Most of the passive play in GW2 is tolerable because the buffs are temporary and only last a couple of seconds. The engi’s passive play is way above any other profession now.

I like how you listed an entire build, complete with utility skills and other core-specializations and then went all “nerf adaptive armor” instead of “nerf Ironbloded/elixir S/elixir B/stealth gyro/toolkit”.

ANort.1425:

They really weren’t thinking when they gave engi a trait for +25% stun duration when engi only has access to 2 stuns, hammer 5 and Supply Crate

This

There are occasions in which I want to just autoattack. Scrapper in WVW melee train for example has only hammer and toolkit as weapons and you cant just spam everything like in PvE. A strong autoattack enables us to be valuable and WANTED in wvw, something we have never been. As it is now, scrapper is just a standard worker warrior build without warbanner.

Haralin.1473:

Frenk.5917:

You are not using the correct wvw build because you havent thought of what role to fill.

Melee train scrapper can be a thing. I’ve tried it and with a proper melee party and raid setup it will work great. The unique feature it can provide is superspeed, which lets the melee train to hard push casters or push through chokes at full ooc speed.

Here the build click

Stability is provided by guardians and by dodges, it has two blocks with 20s CD, a ranged hammerstun which also acts as a damaging necro well, a low cd high dps skill (hammer 2), -93% duration on immob, cripple and chill, AoE superspeed on demand, heavy CC via slick shoes and bigwaters. Blast gyro is useless, but the toolbelt skill is mandatory.

But still none wants a engi in there melee group, none invites me in wvw i ended up in a mixed goup and there is no guardian with stability.

Why should i take an engi if i can have a warrior or guardian?

This is what I’ve been asking myself prior to the scrapper. What could engis do that others can’t do better? Well, after scrapper we have our utilities.

First of all, we can hard-CC pretty hard. The combo with Rocket Charge + Slick Shoes is insane and can rip stability of an entire 80 men blob alone. Having a 1200 range Hammerstun helps in that regard too.
Secondly, superspeed. It really is useful for organized raids since it lets melees push deep and thorugh chokes.
Thirdly, if MDF wasn’t bugged, we’d be a heal machine, much more than the shout war.

Aretak.3826:

Anyone defending the current state of hammer is out of their mind:

• The auto attack is extremely weak, having the bonus might and vuln is pointless when the attack is both slow AND clunky thanks to aftercast. Standard grenades are still the only way to maintain competitive DPS so yay for RSI and 0 variety.

• #2 Is fine, but also has a pretty clunky aftercast and deceptively small range. The damage is perfectly for a melee burst skill. Actually reflecting anything is very hard with the presence of the tiniest lag.

• #3 Again the clunkiness is real. The damage is fine but the delay between each leap means you can easily get interrupted/countered as it doesn’t match the evade time given.

• #4 Is probably the most solid skill, no problems here. I’d be fine if they toned back the vulnerability.

• #5 The 2nd most solid skill. Cast time feels easy to accidentally cancel. I’d be okay of they reduced the range to 900.

If they don’t completely rework Gyros then they better make up for it with a decent weapon that’s not just another utility/burst swap in.

I agree on mostly everything.

And to people saying #2 radius is fine, 180 radius centered on the engineer means you actually have a melee skill with 90 range, while every other melee skill has by default 130.
Increasing the radius from 180 to 240 wouldn’t be gamebreaking, in my opinion.

EDIT: no, 180 radius is fine, please ignore my stupidity I thought it was diameter.

Medical Dispersion Field seems to still have an ICD of 5s.

With the right traits and weapons and in the current meta, this is my ranking:

Top Tier

• Herald
• Chronomancer
  
  High Tier
• Reaper
• Scrapper
• Druid

Average Tier

• Daredevil
• Berserker

Bottom Tier

• Tempest
• Dragon Hunter

Am I the only one bothered with the Herald look? That beige/multicolored circle placed under the feet is confusing: I can’t see terrain, nor AoEs and in general is also confunding me when I fight against another herald.

Can’t we get a less impactful way to display active facets?