Guild Wars 2

Crimson Shi.5047:

This is a first, while I feel for eles being thrust into the support role, the only time I would consider asking an ele to change is if we have too many.

He’s playing scepter ele. So probably burst which is definitely a few steps below the meta spec.

Gratz Drew. Had some good matches with and against you today.

Malediktus.9250:

snip

I believe the pip range increases after five minutes and then has a cap it reaches at around 10 minutes. But that might be me misremembering.

I do want ANET to put in voice comms into the queues. A system similar to Dota where you can bring up the scoreboard and mute if you want would be wonders I believe. Its not like you have to speak anyways.

If they can’t do that, the other option would be to implement a chat wheel (again like Dota), where you can put on certain phrases so you can quickly say them. Phrases like “Going home/far/mid”, “enemies home/far/mid”, or whatever would be awesome, even better if you could choose which phrases your wheel has.

Celeras.4980:

The reality of Ruby is that you probably belong in Ruby. Anybody who disagrees can feel free to post their PvP API key for analysis.

Exactly. Any good player who really wants to climb out of ruby can just go onto a meta build and seek 1v2s all game and carry their team if they have to imo. Of course there are other ways to make a big difference in your team winning as well, but that is a pretty easy one. You’re not going to win every match, but good players will advance.

I said it in another thread, but the fact there are no players who participate on any semi-competitive (AG/PugQuest) or competitive (ESL) teams who are complaining they got stuck tells you a lot about the situation.

Raek.8504:

snip

So that’s one example of what could happen. Yet people complain about 20+ game loss streaks or long periods of losses at least. That simply won’t happen to good players I’m sorry.

I’m not saying there are no good players who got unlucky. But I’m willing to bet the majority of people who are having issues in ruby are there for a reason. You don’t see any players on esl teams or even random ag teams complaining about being stuck and that’s telling.

What I don’t get is if all these players are stuck in Ruby hell or whatever they call it and have only lost due to bad teammates why aren’t they being matched on the same teams? Eventually all you “good” Ruby players who are stuck will get out due to being on the same team as the other “good” Ruby players.

Hell even two good players on the same team should be able to carry against average opponents (aka the majority of players in Ruby).

I understand match making can be frustrating, but at a certain point the common denominator in every game is you. If you’re constantly losing probably the best place to start evaluation is with yourself.

Celeras.4980:

snip.

Going to have to agree with what this guy has to say. If you’re a good player you certainly are able to rise above and power through the issues the system throws at you.

I didn’t play season 1 at all (means I was given the base average mmr in Amber) and I was able to easily soloq on warrior to diamond, where I swapped to engineer and now am 1 tier from legend all by only soloq. This is while averaging 3 matches played per day so it’s not like I just grind games to get here.

Now that was a bit of a brag, but it does illustrate that you can certainly go through the league without mooching mmr or grouping up even if you’re playing the “worst” class for the majority of it.

For me it comes down to seriously evaluating your play. I’ve played since launch but I know that after and during the games I have to look at what I can do to maximize the chance of winning. And sometimes I make mistakes and am the cause for the team loss. No matter if your teammates are total idiots you can always take something out of the match imo and that’s how you improve.

Now is the system perfect? No. I’d much rather have a system that generated a symbol based on mmr and then matched teams (yours and opponents) based on mmr and displayed the average for each team after the game. And then have the rewards based on winning during the league season and have it independent of pips.

Through T3 Ruby now on my quest for soloq warrior legend.

Went 5-0 today making it 48W-7L this season. Wasn’t too bad with match making today with closest match being 500-325 (largely due to me having ping issues).

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

snip.

This is true though we’re specifically talking about the spvp version which does not allow for mixing gear to hit ideal stat targets.

Also for wvw sigil of draining would be superior to leeching imo.

Harmadda.5971:

Ah, cool.

I’ve been trying it out today and I love it so far.

I took Wander’s instead of Viper’s but everything else was the same with Krait and Torment. Having great results. I love the synergy with the ‘stun breakers heal and Rage skills burn’ traits.

I might try Viper’s for the power boost to see how it works with the reduced armor.
It’s good people are working on a viable Condi-Warr for sPVP.

I need to try it out in WvW but it looks very promising.

I took viper cause I find that the power damage allows for a much greater amount of pressure you can apply. Especially when having to cleave downs. Since the stunbreak heal gives you a large amount of toughness (2X the amount wanderer amulet gives you I believe) you end up not gaining a ton since the additional precision is not terribly useful and while toughness does help the true weakness of the build is conditions which toughness doesn’t help with.

The build is pretty flexible though so whatever works for you the best is the best build. I’m mainly playing it cause I find it a lot of fun not because it’s totally the esports meta stuff.

Harmadda.5971:

Excellent video!

I see the build for WvW/SPVP but what about the SPVP runes and traits?
The build link is set for WvW gear.

Thanks for watching!

Differences between the builds are I use viper amulet, krait runes (zerker is another good choice), same sigils but I replace geomancy on mace to torment.

Through T1 of ruby now on my soloq only warrior mission, kinda been slacking with my playtime so haven’t played a ton of games.

Best match of the night: http://www.twitch.tv/thecozert/v/53076846

WWWWWWWW.6742:

Flurry needs to apply small amounts of immobile PER HIT instead of all in the first hit.

All in the first hit does allow for you to stow weapon and set up a burst though.

fost.9167:

Nice video and build. I tried it but had to switch defense to discipline… couldnt live without the runspeed although i probably killed a lot of survivability for it :p

Thanks for watching! Yeah I mean it feels a bit slow sometimes especially if you get crippled. Though I think I’d rather swap to traveler runes over losing the defense of the defense tree. The endure pain proc and the heal/toughness on stunbreak are so nice to have.

Hello again! I’ve put together another video of my recent solo roaming in WvW (and one SPvP clip from ranked).

Here is the Video

Hope you enjoy and all feedback is welcome.

Build is in the description (and no I have not gotten my sigil of draining yet, too lazy to grind that mastery atm).

SpiritSpeakerOfHoelbrak.3980:

snip

Thanks for the reply. I agree the burning on rage skill is excellent, I actually have a clip for a new video where I kill an annoying thief simply by using the stunbreak a few times when he jumps me.

I might try out your build, though my playtime is currently very limited due to rl stuff so I typically just stick with what I already have on. I will definitely be getting that draining sigil though, synergy is too good.

killahmayne.9518:

have you tried the superior sigil of draining on mace, it’s actually really strong with this build. You deal 1000 dmg on interrupt plus gain 1000 life.

Can’t say I have. I basically copied my spvp build over. That sigil should work better than either the geomancy or the paralyzation

SpiritSpeakerOfHoelbrak.3980:

Snip

Thanks for watching man! Hopefully you enjoyed it.

What’s interesting to me about berserker condition builds is the number that are able to be viable and tweaks that can be made to cater to how you like to play. My build is clearly very all in and doesn’t contain a lot of defenses. But yours has additional mechanisms for defense while still being effective (I assume).

I’m curious about the trait choice in the first zerker trait slot. You went with the rage skills cause burning, but based on your grandmaster choice of the might/stab, I would have expected the reduced recharge on zerk/burst skills as being a superior option and I’m just curious if you’d tried it.

http://www.twitch.tv/hibify

For all the lazy people.

Hello again. Back with another warrior video, this time with some clips from today solo roaming in wvw. Any feedback on the video is welcome. And before you mention it I know the opponents are not great players, and I will try and get better opponents for future clips.

Video

The build is in the description.

Laraley.7695:

Well obviously MMR based divisions would be the best along with soloq, but I don’t think they’ll ever do this since they do not want to make MMR public.

Which is silly imo. If you’re being matched up fairly based on mmr and lets say for example you can see the calculated average mmr for each team during (or after) the match at the top of the scorescreen (another reference to Dota2 which has it during the picking hero aspect) it shouldn’t be a big deal.

In order to protect their precious MMR from being public, anet has subjected people to 30 loss streaks (and win streaks) which isn’t fair for either side. Sure people love to win, but when you’re winning every match 500-30 it gets repetitive. I was diving into 1v3s yesterday knowing that even doing horrible rotations and picking bad fights that it wouldn’t matter cause my team was just superior. Thats not worth not having mmr based divisions/having mmr public.

Dirtyrascal.1023:

snip.

Exactly. I think ANET made the mistake of implementing the leagues as they did with the pip system. A better system imo would have been assigning a value to each player based on mmr (or just the calculated mmr itself works), then adding or subtracting mmr from the player based on win probability (lower chance of win means less lost from losing and more gained from winning, aka how mmr works). And then instead of pips, had each division based on mmr ranges where you got rewards for moving up throughout the “season.” That way the rewards would have based on actual improvement in your own play, since you would be more consistently matched in equal skilled matchups.

Of course this is all kitten cause of how anet combined soloq and teamq which would have to be separated (or the mmr calculation changed to make it “fair”) during seasons.

Cynz.9437:

You do understand that if that suggestion was implemented divisions would never balance out?

Yeah I should have clarified prior to posting that. Yes the current league system would not work and clearly that is a negative from an Anet standpoint.

But instead of the division system that is separate from mmr you have currently, merge the two together and have divisions based on mmr instead. Assuming anet has enough players in every mmr range to achieve decent matchups it should work out (assuming they could develop an acceptable mmr calibration system). Make the achievement of mmr the overall goal instead of divisions.

Anyways we are diverging from what the topic is about and it’s my fault for bringing up alternatives to the current system instead of discussing how it currently is.

Cynz.9437:

snip

If someone has a high enough mmr to balance out for being matched up against the entirety of the abjured it wouldn’t be fun for his team, but it would be considered fair yes.

Balancing the mmr on each team seems to be a superior way to match players. It does get skewed with how Anet does not separate solo and team queue though.

I can use the example of dota 2 in how it uses an mmr average to match the teams who play against each other in rmm (ranked match making). As long as anet sets an acceptable mmr range that slowly expands (until a max range so it doesn’t expand forever) as the queue time increases it should be acceptable.

Now the issue with mmr has always been the extreme cases. High or low extremes will always cause imbalances in the matchmaking. However if your mmr is so high supposedly according to the game you should be able to carry your team to a victory in 50% of the games.

Dirtyrascal.1023:

snip

Thanks for the reply.

So since I got placed with better players or got lucky the first few matches my mmr has increased giving me better players on my team.

And since the league just started and everyone is low division I’ve been playing against majority of teams who are well below the mmr of my team simply because the pip ratings are close to the same?

And I’ll keep doing well until I hit the ceiling of my mmr skill level?

Honestly this feels very backwards from Anet. I understand desiring to make the good players rise to the top, however it seems to me they reversed how the teams should be formed. Have pips dictate the teammates and team mmr dictate the opponents. (Similar average mmr teams playing each other).

Fluffball.8307:

Helly.2597:

Anyone care to explain if I’m missing something?

You’re not missing anything. It pairs you (your team) with people of your own MMR and season 1 is totally irrelevant.

OK see this makes a lot more sense to me than the season 1 argument. Thanks.

I’m a little bit confused about how people are saying you’re matched with your teammates (and it might be nice if it was clarified).

People keep claiming that season 1 and your placement has an impact on who you’re matched with on your team allowing for better players to filter to the top more or less. And that it’s this system that causes for the loss streaks, since people who didn’t play season 1 or didn’t go far are punished by being with worse teammates. (Paraphrasing based on my understanding)

This differs greatly from my own experience so far. Granted I have a small sample of 13 games in season 2. I did not play season 1 at all. This should mean I either get an average player skill or a terrible player skill (depending on if anet assumed I was an average player or a terrible player) but I should not get an advantaged team, correct?

Despite this, having only solo queued on warrior I have a flawless win percentage currently with the majority being games that are total stomps. And this makes me wonder if either I’m missing something in my own understanding of the matchmaking (likely) or if the matchmaking isn’t working as most people seem to agree (less likely but possible).

Anyone care to explain if I’m missing something?

killahmayne.9518:

imo the build would be better if you used the wanderer ammy

There are a number of amulet options. Wanderer is the good but the power you get with viper puts it ahead imo. You don’t need more precision and this way you can still pressure outside of conditions. The thing you gain is more toughness but you already have good +1000 toughness uptime from the trait.

The other option is mercenary with Lyssa runes for ~13% crit but additional survivability. I would probably prefer mercenary over wanderer TBH but it’s all preference.

lighter.2708:

this build is cerntainly fun seeing people explode..but..it’s just as one trick as gunflame..

I’m curious the definition of one trick. Are there obvious flaws with a build that has minimal condition cleanse (unless you use Lyssa runes) especially when the build is condition itself, yes of course.

However even if you fail to hit any of your burst skills you still can kill people quickly which I think separates it from gun flame, though that’s my personal opinion.

Anyways it’s a fun build to play and can blow up any meta build currently if you play the matchups right.

Video

Posting a video of a recent unranked SPvP match where I was playing a viper condition warrior build, enjoy.

All feedback is welcome on the video (sorry Germany for the blocked song, I will do better for future videos).

Pvt Frosty.6973:

snip

I’ll make sure to double check the music on future videos, just easy to forget.

Justine.6351:

Nah instead we get clips where two wetnoodle pewpew rangers go ham for 4min of a 17min vid.

Unfortunate that you had such a bad experience with the video. Considering fighting another druid who isn’t terrible shouldn’t be won within the first 20s of the fight, especially when your opponent has stability from the elite.

The difference between my build and a full on zerker build is you lose 35 power (from cele backpiece), 14% crit chance, and 0.8% crit dmg. In the meantime you gain 3000 raw hp, which is an 18% increase in hp over the zerker build.

Now you can make the argument that the crit chance drop is horrible and is dramatically increasing the TTK. However, looking at the perma fury uptime, along with a multitude (5) different sources for guaranteed crit from remorseless, one might not expect as huge of a drop afterall. The remorseless effect becomes even greater in small scale fight where allies can give fury as well.

Call it wet noodle, call it not zerker, do whatever you want. At the end of the day its effective. Burst damage is nice, but if I wanted burst I wouldn’t be running druid and staff. I’ll take ability to cc by daze and immob and sustain over some one time burst anyday especially in wvw roaming.

Justine.6351:

Well I noticed you are killing people in duels with attrition rather than actually dealing burst. I found it strange since even zerker LB has more teeth than what you were showing. So I looked at your build page after and its got a lot of valk stacked into it. Marauder has vita without toughness and it is not called zerker, its called marauder (well obviously) so maybe you should consider renaming to Power. Just my lil perspective anyhow.

Part of that has to do with how I don’t think just putting in clips where I burst down people 1v1 in 10s makes for good videos.

But you’re right that it isn’t technically a zerker build.

Justine.6351:

Zerker build or Power build?

Considering I don’t use any pieces that have additional armor (besides the backpiece which is cele) I’d say its zerker. But nuanced approach would be valk/zerker mix build, but thats more because above a certain point the increased crit chance from zerker isn’t economical.

If you’re talking about wvw/pvp I can help a bit, for pve I’m not a huge help sadly.

I have a few videos of my zerker druid in wvw roaming and duels along with the build on my channel, which is linked in this thread.

aB EXT.1287:

Some cool fights man! Been using a very similar build myself lately; those glyphs can hit pretty kitten hard if you bust out the might. Some pretty rad offensive plays in those fights.

The only real criticism I can give you that is within your control (it would be good to see you fight some better opponents – they don’t really seem to know how to fight you) is that you waste your dodges a fair bit. It can be very tempting to dodge because you feel more agile (we all fall for this at some point), but it rarely benefits you more than a crucial dodge would.

Keep it up and look forward to seeing more from you in the future!

Thanks for the feedback. The dodges is something I’m always trying to work on. With the changes from HoT, I’m still in the process of learning the correct abilities to dodge and when the best time to dodge is. Watching the footage myself and even during fights sometimes I can feel myself dodging without need sometimes so your observation mirrors my own.

The opponents are what they are. As always its easy to notice the mistakes that opponents (and yourself) make when watching footage, especially when the mistakes are punished. I do try and include the best fights I can in the videos, but could always used more skillful opponents.

Crapgame.6519:

Thanks. Will give it a go. Druid is much different and so far most solo fights in open field have ended with me doing a /release. Some may be stats being different since a few celestial ascended for accessories. That and the overall armor seems low. Thiefs seems to just wreck me.

If you find yourself dropping a bit too quickly, feel free to tune the gear as you see fit. Honestly if I was truly trying to min max it, you could easily drop crit chance to 35-40% and not lose really anything too much. So if you’re feel like you’re being pressured, feel free to put in some more valk or some soldier into the build.

A lot of thieves do a spike and then have a small downtime before they can respike. Especially when it comes to the new DD spec for thief. The best advice is probably get extremely use to the thief’s evade frames on weapons. Each one has a small window that you can interrupt and take no damage and should proc ancient seeds (keeping in mind the ICD). If they do get a stun onto you, don’t forget that even when stunned, you can swap weapons and get the 2s daze onto them. Use every opportunity you have to gain some small distance between you and them, whether thats a knockdown or an immob. Once their steal is down, most thief build don’t have a second instant gap closer nowadays and this gives you a huge advantage as long as you’re able to create some space.

Since its somewhat hard to talk in general about matchups or fights (at least it is to me). Feel free to send me a mail or whisper me in game about specific instances that you’re curious about, I’m always happy to answer.

Back again with another video of zerker druid. I’m still using the double range set staff/lb for the build.

I am currently testing out exchanging glyph of tides for glyph of alignment for additional (instant) condi cleanse in CAF along with weakness and poison access. I just changed today, so still getting used to using it and knowing to use it in CAF.

Build

The video is again a mix of duels and roaming gameplay, duels are at the beginning and then roaming fights later on (around halfway through). I tried to include a few more classes for the duels, though I did include some duels against the thief again.

Video

As usual please give me any constructive criticism about the gameplay/video you want and feel free to ask any questions about the build or decisions in the video. And if you enjoy the video please do subscribe/like it, it is very much appreciated.

Crapgame.6519:

Toying with the build out in WvW. How are you handling movement? I’m used to my condi/trap build so never had a issue. This took a bit getting used to.

Sigil of agility – ouch. That is about 100 gold right there…

When it comes to solo fights, try and keep distance while also trying to keep your pet between yourself and the target. Allows for the pet to keep chipping away and allows for you to damage. Know the ICD on AS and use that proc to kite or spike as you need. LB 3 stealth is wonderful for repositioning, especially if you use it right before a swap to staff and #3 away. You can also notice I try and stealth myself quite often with smokescale f2 and staff 3. Even if you don’t stealth for long, it allows for you to reposition and overcome the lack of melee weapon.

As for the sigil of agility, I’m actually using the minor sigil, it gives the same amount of quickness so I’m not too concerned about the swiftness amount.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Staff-LB-Zerker-Druid-video-II/first#post5747768

In that thread I have the lb/staff build that I have been using for wvw solo/small group roaming.

It is interesting to wonder why pets do this. I assume they use the same code as npcs and I believe npcs don’t move either when using their moves that have a cast.

Honestly at this point I’m so used to the pet not moving that I’m not sure how much itd change. Usually when I use an f2 on wolf for example I use my positioning to lure the opponent into the range of the ability. Maybe we shouldn’t have to do that but I personally think it adds a bit to the class to control the pet correctly and have it hit it’s abilities.

The ability to have that small amount of micro with pets has always been a part of what draws me to the class. And hitting those f2 abilities consistently is usually a mark of a good ranger (or consistently bad opponents depending).

Bast Bow.2958:

snip

Actually besides that condition glyph, the other glyphs also do damage. In a power build I have gotten glyph hits over 4000. The tooltips show over 1000 base damage for me with no might. So while druid isn’t all about the damage, it does give some PbAoE which is something most rangers lacked prior.

Crapgame.6519:

Snip

Haha glad you enjoyed it! I appreciate the feedback.

Photinous.4628:

Thanks, that makes sense but I also tried it without MoC and it still seems unchanged.

Hmm how are you measuring it? Idk if you have the capabilities but taking a quick video then using that to measure is probably going to be the best way. If you don’t I might have time tonight to take a look myself.

If you have moment of clarity on you have maxed out the increased daze duration with 100%

nakedziggy.3187:

Hey Helly, how do you feel about the Hoelbrak runes instead of pack runes? Any reason you prefer the latter?

I really love pack runes. It allows for perma incombat swiftness for mobility and gives an extra proc for remorseless. Plus it gives the boons in an aoe so if you’re in a group they’re even better.

Hoelbrek don’t synergize extremely well with the build cause it doesn’t stack a lot of might. Plus you have condi cleanse on every skill 6-10 that cleanses two conditions so the condition duration negation isn’t as needed.

If you wanted to try out hoelbrek or strength (I would lean towards strength but either would work). Swap out the sigil of absorption on staff for the one that gives might on interrupt. That should allow for some better might stacking. But even so I would prefer pack over either of those options.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Staff-LB-Zerker-Druid-video-II/first#post5743420

There is some discussion and video regarding my lb/staff build there.

I designed it mainly for roaming but if you change Remorseless to LtW in MM and then maybe consider using GotL instead of ancient seeds it should work well. At least for random zerg fights.

If you don’t use traps.

FrouFrou.4958:

I’m so jelly, there has been zero roaming action in our matchups during the past few weeks :<

Idk if I’ve just gotten lucky the past few days or not, but EBG in my matchup has been actually decent at times to roam in. Still the usual zergs, but every now and then there is a decent fight.