Guild Wars 2

Agree except for weapon swap ones, since there’s no cooldown on kit swapping. And I’d rather not see them put a cooldown on kit swapping to allow them either.

Disagree to agree. They wouldn’t put a cooldown on the kit, they would put a CD on the sigil. The sigil CD would be 10 seconds (weapon swap), but would have to take into account Superior Rune of the Warrior and Guardian’s Fast Hands.

I’m impressed you reached rank 20 without ever trying tournaments.

Since you can solo queue for tournaments, I never bothered with hot-join. Plus, 5v5 is way more fun.

As for the answer to your question.. I went to rank 10 on my Engineer through solo-queuing tournaments only, trying various builds but could only find success as a bunker build. (either pistol/shield or rifle)

When I tried various damage builds, I found people cued in that I wasn’t a bunker-spec’d engineer and focused on killing me — probably because Engineers die really fast when we’re not bunker built. =(

It takes me 2.5 hours of work to make the cost of this game, and I’ve played for more than 200 hours, so the answer is yes – it entertained me enough to offset the time it takes to afford the game by more than 80 times.

The very least GW2 needs to support Machinima is 1st person view.

I don’t think it needs Source Filmmaker, but supporting it or ArenaNet releasing their own, would certainly propel Machinima.

They have statistics regarding tiers, as evident by ANet’s spreadsheet postings in this forum.

They just need to create a ladder, viewable in-game and website, that shows that information more formally.

However, there is much more than just ladders to keep people playing. Rewards should be better:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/WvW-needs-to-be-more-rewarding-to-motivate-losing-servers/first#post336708

What would prevent a server that’s really good from taking the first day of WvW off and letting everything be captured and then coming back on non-peak hours and stealing everything back? In that scenario the game would be rewarding people for not actually playing the game.

I’m not sure this would ever happen. We’re talking about a few servers that are capable of such server-wide organization that they could intentionally throw a day or two. For example, Henge of Denravi.

Even so, the net rewards from recapturing everything as a losing server would be negated by the day or two of missing all WvW rewards. My suggestion for improved rewards is that they are far more worthwhile and scale for losing servers, but at the same time they need to be balanced.

When a server is losing significantly in WvW, its people stop queuing. When there is no competition, WvW is boring. It’s a loss for everyone.

How do we encourage losing servers to keep playing?

People play WvW for a number or reasons. Here’s a few;

• Fun
• Challenge
• Leveling
• Rewards (items, karma, etc.)

People will also not play for a number of reasons, but this thread is only about one:

• When losing, rewards are not worth the effort and time.

Rewards are what drive people to play and win. In real-life sports you would not have many participants if the rewards were not outstanding.

I believe WvW needs two new reward systems:

• GREATER REWARDS NVERSELY PROPORTIONAL TO THE WINNING SERVER’S SCORE.
  
  Scaled rewards for losing servers would motivate players to queue and play.
  
  Given these scores:
  
  Server A = 120000
  Server B = 90000
  Server C = 45000
  
  Server A, the winning server, will have no change in rewards. Their rewards will be normal.
  
  Server B and Server C will have greater rewards, scaled by how far they are from Server A’s score.
  
  What are the greater rewards? They could be anything or everything. Increased karma from WvW events (e.g. capturing or defending a tower). Loot bags could have more badges and items. Loot bags could have a higher drop frequency. Siege engines could cost less supplies to make.
  
  The scaled rewards would require much testing and tweaking to ensure balance and not encourage exploiting, such as losing a tower intentionally to recapture it for min/max karma gain. Diminishing returns on a timer would easily solve most cases.

• MATCH COMPLETION REWARDS
  
  Like most real-life sports, teams are rewarded upon match end. Currently there is no reward when a match finishes on Friday. There should be scaling rewards for every server based on placement and tier.
  
  However controversial, I believe match completion rewards should only be given to those who actually participated in WvW for that match. You would expect the same from real-life sports. This goes a long way to prevent people from transferring to a server that wins all the time simply to reap the Friday rewards. Participation could be an easily-obtained metric, such as participating at least 1 hour of WvW during the match, or merely completing the WvW daily at least once during the match. Alternatively, the match completion rewards could be scaled per player based on their participation.
  
  The match completion rewards could be a massive lump of karma, experience, skill points, badges, or even gold. They could be a chest with scaled rewards like how they are for sPvP tournaments.
  
  I believe match completion rewards are extremely vital for the long-term success of WvW. Currently there isn’t a great sense of accomplishment come Friday resets.

I think better would to have the pop-up for readying be smack in the middle of the screen, sort of like how the pop-up is for when it prompts you to join the game or wait.

I think a lot of people simply forgot to click the ready button in the lower left. I know I have many times. On average I don’t think the wait times are due to people actually needing those 5 minutes.

Cute, but never going to happen. Tug-o-war between underdogs. Eye-for-an-eye. It happens on all servers. All it takes is a small zerg to attack one side and get the snowball going.

1. CD: Let’s attack Ogre after what Dragon did to Umber!
2. Dragon: CD is attacking Ogre, let’s repel!
3. CD: Dragon pushed us out. Okay, let’s focus on JQ!
4. Dragon: Let’s attack Umber after what they did to Ogre!
5. CD: Dragon is attacking Umber, let’s repel!
6. Dragon: CD pushed us out. Okay, let’s focus on JQ!
7. Repeat for an entire week.

This is feedback for ArenaNet on my experiences with GW2.

I’m replacing gaming for a few months with other hobbies. GW2 is an innovative game, and my time spent has been overwhelmingly fun, but the flaws have become annoying enough that I can’t enjoy the game anymore. These flaws have only surfaced as I’ve become incredibly familiar with my profession and just about every way it can be viably built for tPvP and WvW, and as others have geared up and learned their profession.

• Level: 80
• Profession: Engineer
• Time Played: Since launch. I hit 80 after 2 weeks.
• Content: sPvP and WvW

TOURNAMENT sPVP

Likes

• Can be very fun. I love the 5v5 format when it’s PuG vs PuG.

Dislikes

• PuG vs. Team sucks. It’s enough to turn me off from tPvP. It’s never fun unless you’re against a really bad team. There’s no fair challenge against a group of players coordinating by VOIP. I don’t want to hot-join 8v8. I want to tPvP 5v5 w/rewards, but I don’t have the time nor interest to form a team and use VOIP. I really think the solo-queuing tPvP is a brilliant model for tPvP. Take it one step further for absolute success by only matching PuG against PuG.

WvW

Likes

• Enormous and epic battles.
• Building and using siege engines is fun.
• Persistent 24-hour matches.

Dislikes

• Intolerable lag.

• Damage/health bonuses and orb buffs. Get rid of them or completely rework them. They only serve to further demoralize the losing sides. Or is their intention to make it impossible for the losers to have a fair game? At the very least make them only apply to PvE.

• Invisible enemies. (“Culling”)

• Population unfairness coupled with long games. I hope this will solve itself by the time I return, but I have my doubts. How is this fun: I log into a map where our only claim is our spawn. We have hardly any players because most our server has been demoralized and abandoned WvW. Soon as I leave our spawn area I’m zerged by 10-20 enemy players who must be really bored. I logout myself.

• Staleness. Even if winning or losing, WvW for me has become plain. I believe WvW needs something more. This may not be the entire solution, but I believe it needs to be more goal-oriented at a personal level. How about a scoreboard/ladder in-game that shows WvW player statistics for your match? Such as kills, revives, supply contributions, successful sieges, etc. A ladder to make an individual strive for something and, generally speaking, feel like they are contributing and aren’t just another nameless green dot to the zerg on the mini-map.

PROFESSION IMBALANCES

Engineer

• I love the Engineer, but I feel they are either the most balanced profession in the game or the outright weakest profession in the game.

• Incredible survivability or mediocre damage. Choose one The trade offs are huge when it comes to Engineer. Most professions can lean one way or the other and maintain survivability and damage. Not engineer. Unless you’re doing tPvP, you’re viably pigeon-holed into point-defense unless you are being carried by your team and they find it cute watching you “deal damage”.

Thieves and Rangers

• Ah thieves and rangers. Where do I begin? As point-defense it takes most professions a long time to kill me. Oh, but not these two. Even with 3k armor and 27k HP they’ll burn me in seconds as I pitifully use everything I have to delay the inevitable. Keep in mind I’m referring to high-rated or highly-geared theives and rangers in tPvP or WvW.

• Incredible survivability and damage. You get both! No trade-off decision making here!

Guardians and Warriors

• My only complaints are for maces. The knockdowns, knockbacks and stuns. Seriously ArenaNet. Seriously. Just. Seriously.

CONCLUSION

My #1 complaint with GW2 is the lack of trade offs for some professions. Rangers and thieves, and mesmers to a degree, I feel lack enough trade offs for their damage and survivability. I don’t mind glasscannons if they are actually, you know, glasscannons. Right now thieves and rangers are more like woodcannons. Inversely, even their utmost survivability builds still deal excellent damage.

See you ArenaNet in a few months!

A level 80 in full exotics also has a huge advantage against a level 2 scaled to 80.

If you’re looking for balance, WvW isn’t. Try sPvP.

GW1 had arenas too. If anything GW2 arenas should be in image of GW1, which had some interesting arena modes.

So then… we should cap as much as possible (until we have a solid PPT lead), fully upgrade it, and then go play a different game while the map wins itself?

If you’re implying that the elite upgrades would be able to hold their own, and even dominate, overnight zergs — you’re wrong. They would be balanced, of course. They would simply deter progress but eventually could be overtaken.

I think a semi-solution to overnight population imbalances is allowing stronger fortifications to towers and keeps.

I propose Elite Upgrades: the final tier of upgrades.

Elite Upgrades are seriously strong and can help protect your keep/tower after the majority of your population has logged off.

Some examples:

• Incredibly strong and epic NPCs: giants, dragons, monsters, etc. Killing these should be like killing world bosses in PvE. They should do a lot of damage and have a wide variety of crowd-controlling abilities.

• Super reinforced walls and doors. These will take forever to break.

• Automated turrets and guard towers. Think Tower Defense games. Build a bunch of automated weapons that can help defend you from invaders. The turrets could fire massive artillery, lightning or flame attacks on enemies and capable of snaring or other crowd-controls.

• Way stronger lords. Who ever dies from a lord in all those zergs? Let’s make them stronger.

I haven’t test Static Discharge much, but aren’t the bolts it generates thrown out in random directions? What’s the range on them? Can you stand fairly far back and still hit enemies, or do you have to be right on top of them?

Anyone actually test the Vigor/Speedy Kits changes to make sure nothing has really changed regarding using Speedy Kits to keep Vigor nearly 100% uptime?

This build has been nerfed heavily

Huh?

I’ve got over 210k Karma saved up from WvW, so it’s at least quite rewarding in Karma. More than anything I wish the badges dropped more and in greater quantity. I have yet accumulated enough badges to buy a single piece of gear (although this is partly because I forget to loot those forsaken bags)

I don’t see the problem with it. I really wish it were in the tournament rotation, the current 3 get boring, and it would throw in an element of surprise as to what maps you could get in tournament.

Underwater combat adds another dimension to this game (read: skill), and currently it’s missing from tournaments.

Perhaps if they were to add it to tournaments they could do away with the sharks. I actually really dislike when the sharks intervene in my fight, be it allies or foes.

I’ve tested all the classes and all of them seem fun on paper (skill calc), but once i’m in game it just is not what I was hoping for.

I felt the same way in beta. Played every profession in The Mists and sPvP, didn’t feel right.

When the game launched I decided maybe the problem was “skill shock”, that is sPvP just throws too many skills at you for a total beginner. Therefore I leveled an engineer to 80 through PvE and learned the fundamentals, and then adapted to sPvP easily.

As long as ArenaNet follows through with its E-Sport plans, this game will do fine. WoW isn’t an E-Sport except for its seasonal tournaments. Anyone seeking an actual balanced MMORPG E-Sport only has GW2. (once they fix the profession bugs and imbalances as they said they would)

Of course WoW’s arena will receive more publicity on Twitch because most players just want to stomp noobs by having better gear.

Precisely 1,290,394 people are still playing.
Source: Hat

Supply Crate: Great as is.
Mortar: Perhaps tweak it so it’s more useful in PvE. It can be good in WvW, but it’s more for other people to use not yourself.
Elixir X: Horrible — replace this with an elite kit please! (Yes, Elixir X underwater can do lots of damage, but that’s a very niche case and you’re still probably end up doing just as great damage using grenades underwater + Supply Kit)

If you’re maximizing damage, you have three trait lines: Explosives (Power and Condition Duration), Firearms (Crit Chance and Condition Damage), and Tools (Crit Damage and Toolbelt recharge).

Toolbelt recharge and crit damage is probably not going to net you as much pure damage increase as the other trait lines. Therefore, generally speaking, maxing points in Explosives and Firearms and then the last 10 in Tools will probably give you highest Engineer damage. (30/30/0/0/10)

Also quickness + insta-stomp = lame. Being down is suppose to add another dimension to the game where you can attempt to recover or allow your allies a chance to rally you.

Having someone pop quickness and stomp you in 500 milliseconds is dumb and there is no counter to that once they’ve started.

Knyx.5926:

Gilgamesh.2561:

In my opinion quickness should be reworked so that it instead speeds up recharging of skills, say by 25% or 30% for X seconds. Drop any adverse effects, they’re annoying.

For example, Elixir U would simply read: All skills recharge 25% faster for 5 seconds.

However, this would need to apply to skills currently on CD as well.

No thanks, this would pork the thief as it does not have cooldowns on it’s weapon abilities.

It would still apply to utility and healing skills. You may be nerfed in the long run, but some say the burst potential of the thief needs it anyway.

In my opinion quickness should be reworked so that it instead speeds up recharging of skills, say by 30-50% for X seconds. Drop any adverse effects, they’re annoying.

For example, Elixir U would simply read: All skills recharge 30% faster for 5 seconds.

However, this would need to apply to skills currently on CD as well.

MrThebigcheese.2014:

Thieves 45%
Mesmers 30%
Everything else but engineer 20%
Engineer 5%

There you go. (yes I pulled these numbers from a dark place)

Fixed. (tPvP)

I guess you didn’t read what I said. You absolutey can use 1 or 2 kits and still be successful. Many people do.

No, weapon kits are not meant to stand on their own, as far as damage goes, with weapons. (Actually I lied, grenades and bombs usually do with the right gear). This may however change if kits ever scale with weapon stats.

It really isn’t that hard to remember what you bound a weapon kit to. It’s all muscle memory and repetition. Just level through PvE, it’s a good way to learn. If you’re immediately jumping into The Mists and sPvP and trying to learn, you’re going to fail.

Yes, Engineer like Elementalist has a very high-skill ceiling when you consider using multiple kits.

However, you don’t have to use 4 kits. You could use 2 kits, say Med Kit and Flamethrower, and then some gadgets or elixirs. You can still be successful.

If you do want to use multiple kits, get a G13 or a MMO mouse and practice-practice-practice. I use 4 kits and can reflexively swap them with ease at this point. Leveling to 80 through PvE also helped condition me to use 4 kits.

You can see footage of crazy 4-kits tPvP here from my previous streams:
http://www.twitch.tv/lokhd/videos (sorry audio is bugged/not-working)

I run a similar WvW build. It’s glass-cannon, meaning the engineer can die very easily. I’m guessing he cherry picked his fights for this video, you wouldn’t win that often.

Yes, the damage is as good as it looks — although take note he has Orb buffs and probably other WvW buffs. When our server had 3 orbs I was routinely hitting for 13k Jump Shots and 13k Grenade Barrages.

In any case, WvW is pointless to complain about. Most of the time you’ll die due to being outnumbered in a fight.

In tournament sPvP this spec would melt.

I can’t speak for PvE, but for PvP you shouldn’t use a build that focuses on any single kit. I use Elixir Gun as one of my 4 kits in tournament sPvP (the others Flamethrower, Med Kit and Tool Kit), and no doubt it’s amazing but my build is not specific for it.

One thing I’ll say is Kit Refinement makes Elixir Gun amazing. Having double Super Elixir is sweet.

I use this for solo-queue tournament sPvP. It’s basically god-mode unkillable engineer, and I still have 3100+ power (although my crit sucks) and can easily solo offensive-specs:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fcAQFAUl0pyaX3SyF17IyoCfWoH4ngJhieofVmjB

(I haven’t come to a conclusion on runes/sigils yet, but I focus on vitality → toughness → power)

Nah, this is the ultimate glass cannon engineer but it’s more tuned WvW and PvE:

http://tinyurl.com/d2ecgft

Key points:

• Very easy Fury uptime between Elixir B, Drop Stimulant and Toss Elixir B
• In full level 80 exotics (Berserker’s everything) you’ll have >50% crit and >3400 power. (unbuffed)
• Bloodlust sigil is simply the best for WvW (+250 power once you build it up a bit — just kill monsters).
• Scholar rune — however I’m not sold on this still, but I’ve been too lazy to replace it.
• Elixir U – great for grenade or rifle burst.
• Speedy Kits – the only major trait that isn’t enhancing damage, but it’s a must for WvW to have 100% swiftness and get around quickly.

I use this in WVW where surviability is rather moot (since most deaths are when you end up getting zerged). The damage is insane.

I don’t recommend this in tournament sPvP, you’ll be killed instantly. Glass cannon engineers shine in WvW however.

Part of me thinks it’s crazy damage, and then I remember I can pop Elixir U and grenade spam on a group of people and deal about 20k damage to each in 5-8 seconds. (assuming full berserker’s, fully buffed, power build)

Either Vengeance or they somehow killed something they may have tagged while or before engaging you. I’ve had that happen actually.

Agreed.

I would like it so that as soon as you die:

1. For 5 seconds you can see everything, thus allowing you a brief moment to figure out what killed you.

2. Then fade the 3D view slowly to black over 5 seconds, allowing you to still see the UI and be rezzed but unable to gain any advantage by what you can see after death.

3. Fade out local sound to mute in proximity of your character too.

This is psuedo-realistic dying too, in that your vision and hearing is slowly fading after mortally wounded.

I should not be punished for not hiding in my keep, never venturing outside, and logging as soon as the door breaks. That’s the only way to ensure you never die.

That’s not true at all. It may seem by my wording that I survive by hiding in my keep, but I survive by knowing when to retreat and fall back. I follow the army but play it safe. I’m not going to rush into a zerg of red, but if I think our numbers are on par with their numbers, I will make my move. You may think retreating is cowardice, but see it this way: if our army is pressing their army outward from our tower, and then their army all the sudden is reinforced by double or triple the units, it’s wiser for us to fall back than get wiped and have little defense at our tower as their army zergs it.

Once in awhile having a guardian or warrior barrel through the enemy chokepoint to push them back is a good idea, but it’s an even better idea when the rest of your army is aware of your tactic so they can push with you, otherwise you’re just on a kamikaze mission.

As for the guardians who lack range — range doesn’t really have anything to do with it. I can just as well melee on my warrior, but I will back out and retreat if outnumbered vastly. Generally speaking, so soon as 2 or 3 of their guys target and make a beeline for me, I go into defensive mode and back up a bit with the rest of the team.

They should cost karma, coin or badges in my opinion. People would be far more willingly to chip in. Additionally, make siege plans purchasable with karma.

You run around every night and see maybe a couple of people you know and that’s it. Everyone is just doing their own thing and the maps make it so nobody has to talk to each other.

I disagree. It does depend on how much you play though. I often see the same people, and people recognize me. People talk a lot too in chats, it’s never quiet. Of course this depends on server.

Once ArenaNet stops server transfers I think we’ll see the communities really stabilize.

I’m also unsure how anyone can expect community from servers that aren’t even 1 month live. Really? DAOC nor any other game had community in that short time. There is also a pretty huge competitive WvW community, you can gauge it by reading the WvW forums and Guru WvW forums. Lots of rivalry between servers.

I think the size of the maps are fine, but as another posted mentioned, ArenaNet could make use of the vast empty land around the outside and push bases apart from one another.

It is kind of disappointing that battles rarely happen between locations. Rarely do two traveling armies encounter each other in the middle of an open area where there are no strategic points in the wide vicinity to defend or take.

The spawn areas could be much smaller too. Seems silly that they cover so much land when they’re not takeable.

GW2 separates PvP and PvE, as it should be. Most MMORPGs are actually two-genres: a PvP game and a PvE game. Many players only like the PvE, many players only like the PvP, and many players like both. ArenaNet has successfuly catered to them all by creating sPvP, PvE and WvW.

WoW never really had thriving World PvP. The best natural World PvP it had was in Classic WoW with battles between Southshore and Tarren Mill. Since then, it’s had orchestrated PvP via Halaa in TBC, Wintergrasp in WotLK, and something else akin to Wintergrasp in Catacylsm (never played Cataclysm). These are pocket areas where world PvP is encouraged.

WvW is 100x larger than all these WoW world PvP pockets combined.

Of course WoW had random small world PvP, usually in the form of ganking. I think most would rather have huge amazing WvW battles than pathetic ganking.

They’re there to encourage you to not make dumb moves and die.

Another good thing to encourage you to not die is the Bloodlust rune. After building 25 stacks you will hate yoruself for being dumb and getting yourself killed.

I play WvW every night for hours, make tons of kills, and I think I die like two or three times a night.

It annoys me when we’re being sieged and players foolishly run out in front, kamikaze-like, and get themselves killed. Great, now we lost more #s to our defense and you have to respawn back at base and take 10 minutes to run back.

Comparing it to the Thief signet is silly. They sacrifice far more. A whole utility skill.

We sacrifice.. a trait slot? We do not sacrifice a kit slot. You do not take Speedy Kits for the sake of having perma-swiftness. You take it when you are a kit-based engineer who uses kits often. I’m a kit-based engineer and I don’t regard any of my kits as only being useful to proc Speedy Kits.

Unfortunately it’s not that simple, and “every time” remarks are especially untrue against great tPvP mesmers, but like said it sounds nice on paper. At best you’ll win 50:50. Mesmers are the best 1v1 profession due to their unique mechanics, but dueling means nothing so it’s not that important. The best strategy is to outlive them until support arrives.

What’s with the “this game isn’t a month old” ever-popular line?

A month old isn’t referring to the development process, it’s referring to how long people have had official access to live servers. Most games today, other than DOTA 2, are not E-Sports until a month or two after launch (technically DOTA 2 is still in beta). Most PvPers should have the intelligence and common sense to not expect full E-Sport capability of any game at its launch.

What good is an E-Sport with exploits, bugs and profession imbalances? Had the E-Sport tools been available since launch people may have put the game off as too buggy and imbalanced for E-Sports. This would have more of a detrimental effect for this game’s E-Sport viability than where we are now.

All this discussion is moot because there’s no subscription fee to GW2 and no grind to sPvP. People leave and come to other E-Sports all the time, GW2 will be no different.

It sounds good on paper, but the problem with focusing on images in a 1v1 situation is the mesmer is still doing great damage to you whilst you kill their images, and the images are rarely grouped up to make use of AE abilities.

And let’s not forget clones are easy to create for a Mesmer, and some phantasms are on relatively short CD. By the time you’ve danced around to kill all their images their CDs are back up.

The rotation then becomes:

1. Mesmer engages you
2. You begin to kill image while mesmer is damaging you
3. Images are finally killed
4. You focus mesmer
5. Mesmer resets the fight by healing and resummoning images on CD
6. You go back to killing images
7. How long do you last until death?

As an engineer I find 1v1 in tPvP against Mesmers to be incredibly difficult. It has nothing to do with identifying the mesmer. Look for the correct avatar or cues that give them away (e.g. dodging). The difficulties are:

* Attack the mesmer, get destroyed by the images
* Attack the images, get destroyed by the mesmer

Mesmer is the ultimate dueling profession. Luckily this game isn’t about 1v1, so it’s not that big of a deal. As a multi-kit point-defense engineer I can outlast a mesmer forever, but I’ll probably never kill them until support arrives. As a power build I can kill them if I get lucky, but I usually end up barely alive.

• Fix kit auto-attack
• Allow main-hand sigil to apply to kit
• Weapon-swapping sigil on main-hand should apply to any kit as well. (on a 9 or 10 second CD)
• Main-hand and off-hand weapon stats should apply to kit
• Kits should continue to not have CDs beyond the 1 second GCD

They’ll flock to MoP or League or whatever once the hype dies down, and you won’t get those players back when you decide to add content and balance the game a couple months down the line.

Hyperbole much?

This game isn’t a month old.

Also, it’s really easy to jump into this game and sPvP. A lot easier than, say, grinding for weeks in WoW just so you can have decent gear to PvP in their “E-Sport” a la arenas.

You say people won’t come back to GW2? Who are you, the ambassador of E-Sports?

People will come back when they see Twitch streams and realize how the skill-cap and balance of high-level sPvP is beyond any other E-Sport capable MMO today.

All GW2 needs is ladders. E-Sport players are all about proving themselves. Once they see GW2 ladders and the Twitch streams and realize their name isn’t on the list, they’ll flock in numbers.

Elixir R is better than Elixir S for sPvP, and ifyou want improved support in WvW. Toss Elixir R’s revive is among the best ressurection skills in the game.

In any case, ELixir R or Elixir S are the only mandatory elixirs I see for sPvP (you only need 1). I think you can get by in WvW without elixirs at all, although as a Grenadier I love Elixir U for bursting. For sPvP I would prefer three kits (med kit + flamethrower + elixir gun/tool kit) + Elixir R + rifle + Supply Crate.