Guild Wars 2

Some people will definitely disagree with me on this, but here goes: we need more time to prepare before matches. Since we currently don’t have build templates, if you want to change your build, you have to take almost the entire minute to do so. You can’t comprehensively evaluate your team and the other team, you don’t have time to really discuss strategy with your team (especially pre-match afkers or slow thinkers), and good forbid you want to change toons and then actually do either of the above.

We already have the “ready” button, so a longer pre-match waiting period wouldn’t necessarily mean that you wait the entire time, I think extending it to 1:45 or 2:00 wouldn’t be unreasonable. Right now there’s not enough time to discuss team strategy, you can only hope that only one person had a strategy and everyone rise well willingly follow it without question, because there’s no time to discuss its merits or lack thereof. I find this problematic in ranked since I actually care about how my team plays.

redcore.3940:

So what is your problem? The problem is not the class(es) but the people who always whine about everything bcz their ego is bigger than this planet!
Get life and think about yourself for a second idiot!

Hey thanks for asking, I appreciate the question. I’ve basically already answered this multiple times over, but the general answer is that condi thief does what other builds and professions do, but worse. This thread is not about the Thief class, as you said, but about Thief condi builds, as the thread’s title indicates. Here’s my more comprehensive answer, please let me know if you have any more questions (after you’ve actually read through the thread):

Huskyboy.1053:

Thanks, this gave me a laugh. Good stuff. So firstly, can you find me a top-rated player who wastes their time playing condi thief? I can think of two top thieves, Sindrener and Magic Toker. Feel free to delve through their Twitch streams to find them playing that in a tournament. But let’s not just talk ESL 5-man level play, Sindrener plays D/P everyday in ranked and unranked. Why? Because it’s the best build at what it does, juking, stealthing, and spiking.

Sure, this Gingerbread man build sounds great, who doesn’t want a build that can 1v3? The answer is, people who want a build that directly helps its teammates. Sure, in low-level play there might actually be 3 players stupid enough to keep hacking away at a thief they can’t kill. But even a player that’s been pvping for 2-3 months will know better than to keep attacking something they can’t kill for a long time. A magi ele can also 1v3 for a while, but they additionally have plenty of healing power and cleansing that can actually help in a node fight. Not really sure a thief will ever be bringing that kind of utility to the table.

Condi thieves do have an important place in ranked pvp: the losing team. When played well, sure, it can be effective. But there are other builds for thief that are superior for juking, stealth, and spike damage. And there are other builds on other professions that provide better condi damage, even condi engi is preferable since it has a stronger condi burst. There’s really no evidence that condi thief is great in any way or that it’s somehow it’s a better pick than a magi ele, or a condi engi/rev/warrior/mesmer. Even burn guard is probably better after its recent buffs. You can keep telling yourself that it has a “important place in Ranked PvP” but really, how many thieves in the top 250 right now got there maining condi thief? I’ll leave you to do the math.

Also, for the record, most of the useful things you mention thieves doing aren’t really specific to condi thief. So I’m not sure why you put those in when really things like ganking low HP enemies or breaking down doors (which don’t take condi damage) are better accomplished by a power-based thief build.

reikken.4961:

evade frames? but what if my condi thief is p/d?

Gotta evade harder m8

Rolisteel.1375:

People don’t like to lose so they will tell you their kitten. Especially the weakest player of your team do this sometimes. I like especially when there are no teamplay/support and multiple foes on me all the time as i play a necro then some random guy start the blame war call me terrible that i could kill in 1v1 with 1 hand in seconds.

They just need someone to blame for their own weakness. Block them all

No no no. Here’s what you do: add then to your friend’s list, and give them a nickname of “meanieface” or something like that so you remember them. Keep in mind that this person is pretty much always angry and easily triggered. Then, when you see then in HotM or a match, just go up to them and act REALLY peppy and SOOO happy to see them!!1! They’re the greatest after all, so much fun to be around. Always gets an amusing reaction in my experience.

anduriell.6280:

Elementalist is just a class that can outperform any rol given at any point during combat just swapping attunement as other classes swap weapons.

That not fair or even balanced as the ele can became a full dps dealer and 10 seconds later a full bunker.

My idea could be for the Elementalist could be locked into one attunnement while in combat so they can’t face rol,the keyboard and still be carried by the class mechanics. In exchange it could get the weapon swap with one attunement associated to each weapon set.

Discuss.

Here’s my discussion: they have a nice little distinctive icon that tells you what attunement they’re in. Don’t spike them with physical damage while they’re in earth, dont try to interrupt earth overload, don’t spike them with condi damage in water (unless you’re going to interrupt their water overload, which I highly recommend). Eles die to well-timed spikes, just like DH. They are not squishy all the time like they seem, only at the proper moment

Faux Play.6104:

Pretty sure I played him on my F2P account. He got bent out of shape because he was dying to a core power ranger on his druid and chased me the whole match. I think his team scored 200 pts. lolz I think dueling in WvW is more his speed. I’ll give him a +1 on the taunting though.

Lol it’s more entertaining when he’s bad tbh. I also like that he calls everyone kid, like Lt. Surge from Pokemon.

sophiewhite.3149:

wheres episode 2?

I second this. I had a match with you a little while ago when you were playing thief, quality entertainment.

My feedback:

1. I’d use Sage amulet instead of Carrion. Staff is a power weapon only, so the extra power works out better. You’ll get more benefit off of staff 4 and staff AA from the healing power.
2. Hammer is a bad idea, with only 900 power and no crits, you’ll be doing bad damage. Staff is overall a more defensive weapon that offers similar damage.
3. Get rid of Jalis in sPvP. He’s good for PvE and great for WvW, but terrible for sPvP. So it depends on your game mode. Glint is a viable option for condi builds.

From an individual player’s perspective, warrior seems OP because mace/shield is designed to shut down an individual. However, it’s a poor set for teamplay. A warrior is good for either bunkering a point or shutting down a key enemy (necro or ele) in node fights. It has little to no aoe and its condi damage is not so great unless you let them land Skull Grinder repeatedly, and that also is single-target. They can be kited quite easily by mesmer, thief, or rev, and even an ele running Harmonious Conduit can outsustain them.

On the other hand, DH performs well in both a bunkering capacity and node fights due to longbow, teleports, and traps. They have a ton of range and area denial, the latter because of traps and longbow 5. I’m kind of on the fence about whether it really needs nerfs to its effectiveness, but I would love to see its skill flor raised. At the point where a dev says it has a low skill floor, there’s an issue.

emkelly.2371:

I Got to legendary on condi thief….the first season playing it. because i had team mates who know how to utilize it.

And to be clear, I’m not a pro player. guess what? 99.99% of players are not. so far your ramblings only prove two things.

1. You are an elitist pig who probably blames everyone else for your losses

2. You think that this game is something other than a game…which is just sad man, like really.

Also, for the record, most of the useful things you mention thieves doing aren’t really specific to condi thief. So I’m not sure why you put those in when really things like ganking low HP enemies or breaking down doors (which don’t take condi damage) are better accomplished by a power-based thief build.

Dude, Sinister, or even Vipers amulet does just fine at taking down doors. especially when we’re talking about early in the match.

Also, PSA to those of you who are condi thieves in ranked spvp. you guys do you. have fun, and if you are not very good at the game, just practice and enjoy yourself. its a game not life.

Yeah maybe I am an elitist pig, idk, but that’s different from being wrong. Kinda lame that you enter this conversation with a personal attack rather than sticking to the facts, like explaining to me why condi thief is an intelligent choice over another class, and why it’s generally a useful choice like D/P is. One thing to play it in a very specific situation like against stacked DH, another to get to Legendary while maining it. Maybe you consider it fun to play an unoptimized build in ranked but the rest of us don’t think it’s very fun to “utilize” your build, and by that I mean carry you. Losing isn’t fun, and condi thieves are very unoptimized for the current meta, which is a far cry from Seazon 1. Note how I mentioned top 250 now, not top 250 from 11 months ago. You can play it yeah, but the rest of your team ain’t having fun working around its weaknesses.

I understand that you may enjoy it, but you’re basically trolling your team by choosing to play it. Again, I understand that you enjoy it, just as the guy who sits in HotM saying “GW2 is WoW for poor people” undoubtedly also enjoys sitting around trolling people dumb enough to take his bait. At least I can turn off map chat if I don’t want to read what he says, but I can’t trade out a condi thief on my team.

At first I was also annoyed by this guy but now I actually find him hilarious, I’m gonna watch his videos during lunch tomorrow

emkelly.2371:

Huskyboy.1053:

Uninstall. Seriously. There is no place on a team for a condi thief, yet there are players who show up (always solo Q because nobody wants to play with them) and play it like it’s a sensible thing to do. Other builds have better condi pressure and/or can spike targets faster. It is far inferior to D/P in teamplay and it takes way too long to 1v1 somebody. And in fact many builds (any ele, meta scrapper, Meditrapper and symbolic DH, condi necro, condi mesmer, any warrior, condi rev, probably others) directly counter condi thief and cannot be beaten by it. It is inferior, and you will not progress past silver unless your teammates carry you.

You sir, are a silly fish.

Condi Thieves, of which there are many have every right and a very important place in Ranked PvP. Just because you don’t understand how to utilize your team’s thief, means jack-all to us.

• When a thief gets more objective neutralizer points than you get objective captures, they are not the problem, YOU are.

• When a thief ganks the enemy’s main support on his way through mid and you loose 4v3. he his not the problem YOU Are.

• every time a thief puts a target up on an enemy and you ignore it, YOU are the problem

• every time a Gingerbread Man thief contests a point 3v1 for 30 seconds and you can’t cap even one point. YOU are the problem

• every time a thief decaps two points before either can be recaptured by either team. YOU are the problem because they just gave you the time you needed to cap two points!

• every time a thief fake rushes a lord, and three of the enemy time leave points to stop him, and you can’t at least DECAP a point, YOU are the problem

• every time a thief takes the time to break down the door early in the match, and when you finally rush lord you for some reason take down the OTHER door intead of going through the open one…YOU are the problem….and stupid

• every time the thief kills the same two players three times before they can get to a point, and you can’;t seem to cap a point. you are the problem

• If a thief is not performing their role well, fails to decap points, fails to take beasts, or fail’s to gank a low enemy, or a Gingerbread man thief fails to contest mid for 30 seconds while his team gets their to save it, THEY are the problem. But it has nothing to do with the build. (except gingerbread man, we are the only thieves that can contest mid solo)

Thanks, this gave me a laugh. Good stuff. So firstly, can you find me a top-rated player who wastes their time playing condi thief? I can think of two top thieves, Sindrener and Magic Toker. Feel free to delve through their Twitch streams to find them playing that in a tournament. But let’s not just talk ESL 5-man level play, Sindrener plays D/P everyday in ranked and unranked. Why? Because it’s the best build at what it does, juking, stealthing, and spiking.

Sure, this Gingerbread man build sounds great, who doesn’t want a build that can 1v3? The answer is, people who want a build that directly helps its teammates. Sure, in low-level play there might actually be 3 players stupid enough to keep hacking away at a thief they can’t kill. But even a player that’s been pvping for 2-3 months will know better than to keep attacking something they can’t kill for a long time. A magi ele can also 1v3 for a while, but they additionally have plenty of healing power and cleansing that can actually help in a node fight. Not really sure a thief will ever be bringing that kind of utility to the table.

Condi thieves do have an important place in ranked pvp: the losing team. When played well, sure, it can be effective. But there are other builds for thief that are superior for juking, stealth, and spike damage. And there are other builds on other professions that provide better condi damage, even condi engi is preferable since it has a stronger condi burst. There’s really no evidence that condi thief is great in any way or that it’s somehow it’s a better pick than a magi ele, or a condi engi/rev/warrior/mesmer. Even burn guard is probably better after its recent buffs. You can keep telling yourself that it has a “important place in Ranked PvP” but really, how many thieves in the top 250 right now got there maining condi thief? I’ll leave you to do the math.

Also, for the record, most of the useful things you mention thieves doing aren’t really specific to condi thief. So I’m not sure why you put those in when really things like ganking low HP enemies or breaking down doors (which don’t take condi damage) are better accomplished by a power-based thief build.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Huskyboy.1053:

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Huskyboy.1053:

saerni.2584:

To be actually clear:

A condi thief running Rending Shade will destroy warriors who over rely on resistance.

Oh my god is this even a serious argument? Yes, if the condi thief is running D/D Viper then yes they might actually make use of backstab, in which case Rending Shade would actually be useful. But this assumes that they’re running Shadow Arts, which means they have to either drop Acrobatics or Trickery. Likely? I think not, unless they’re an idiot, in which case let’s go back to my main point: condi thief is not viable and neither are those who play it.

You know there is more than just D/D Condi right? The P/D makes better use of Shadowarts.

Fair point. Another build that you wouldn’t take into ranked, but yes it does exist and is used.

You would take it depending on enemy comp, if I ever see 2+ DH on enemy team I sure as hell swap to P/P because DH are fodder to that Build, wouldn’t use it normally or against other Comps. The same could be said about P/D vs a Warrior heavy team and so on.

No, I wouldn’t do that. Rather than change to a highly specialized build like P/P which is inferior to D/P, I would change toons. You say a DH heavy team? I’ll get my duo partner to play necro, ele or engi, and I’ll play the complement to that. You’re holding back your team by switching to a build that has one use case. Thief’s job is not and never will be to kill a specific person on the other team, it’s to be the most mobile and the most sneaky, and use those advantages for decaps and backcaps, and of course to burst people down in node fights when necessary. Seriously, why spend your time learning how to play P/P or P/D when you could just learn better counters to those classes? Like for example I could learn how to play power rev to counter condi warr, since technically it counter condi warr, but why would I learn power rev for that purpose? Instead I could play an ele bunker or scrapper, which gives me far more utility to the team and a greater margin for error. I can’t kill the warrior alone on an ele bunker, but that role is sure as hell more useful to the team than P/D. I’m talking about conquest here, not dueling.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Huskyboy.1053:

saerni.2584:

To be actually clear:

A condi thief running Rending Shade will destroy warriors who over rely on resistance.

Oh my god is this even a serious argument? Yes, if the condi thief is running D/D Viper then yes they might actually make use of backstab, in which case Rending Shade would actually be useful. But this assumes that they’re running Shadow Arts, which means they have to either drop Acrobatics or Trickery. Likely? I think not, unless they’re an idiot, in which case let’s go back to my main point: condi thief is not viable and neither are those who play it.

You know there is more than just D/D Condi right? The P/D makes better use of Shadowarts.

Fair point. Another build that you wouldn’t take into ranked, but yes it does exist and is used.

saerni.2584:

To be actually clear:

A condi thief running Rending Shade will destroy warriors who over rely on resistance.

Oh my god is this even a serious argument? Yes, if the condi thief is running D/D Viper then yes they might actually make use of backstab, in which case Rending Shade would actually be useful. But this assumes that they’re running Shadow Arts, which means they have to either drop Acrobatics or Trickery. Likely? I think not, unless they’re an idiot, in which case let’s go back to my main point: condi thief is not viable and neither are those who play it.

saerni.2584:

Try playing against a good condi thief.

Yeah I did lol. Ever heard of resistance? I waited for him to finish hopping around, CCed, and killed. They’re all offense, but there’s no variety in their offense, making them highly predictable.

Just to be clear, I’m not hating on the build. I’m hating on the people who play it in ranked matches.

You must be in bronze if you find people telling you not to play thief. It’s a great high-impact class… when you’re playing D/P. Even some staff thieves are useful thanks to the cleave. But not condi thief.

Uninstall. Seriously. There is no place on a team for a condi thief, yet there are players who show up (always solo Q because nobody wants to play with them) and play it like it’s a sensible thing to do. Other builds have better condi pressure and/or can spike targets faster. It is far inferior to D/P in teamplay and it takes way too long to 1v1 somebody. And in fact many builds (any ele, meta scrapper, Meditrapper and symbolic DH, condi necro, condi mesmer, any warrior, condi rev, probably others) directly counter condi thief and cannot be beaten by it. It is inferior, and you will not progress past silver unless your teammates carry you.

Haleydawn.3764:

It’s not just about w/l in placement games, what you contribute to each match matters too in where you get put after those 10 matches.

I’ve seen people saying that, do you have a source?

Rashy.4165:

Huskyboy.1053:

Or they could just give a standard amount of points for wins and losses, instead of deducting more points for losses than they give for wins.

This is only really possible in theory, and not practice. How much you gain or lose depends on your MMR relative to the opposing team’s MMR. There are other factors as well that changes from match to match, such as rating deviation (which is the uncertainty in a player’s skill rating). Pretty much any game that has a skill rating based on ELO or Glicko or whatever will work that way.

As for low rating gains at higher MMR, depending on how many games are played by then, the system is more sure about a player’s rating, so the changes are minimal, to avoid significantly overshooting a player’s skill rating.

That’s the short explanation. The long explanation involves analogies to control theory and vibrations.

I think you’re talking about something different. I’m saying that they could give/take 10 points, or 20 points, or whatever, upon a win/loss. It’s possible in fact, not just theory. Just do it. It’s simple, much less complicated than the dynamic system they currently have.

Or they could just give a standard amount of points for wins and losses, instead of deducting more points for losses than they give for wins. There’s two conflicting ideas going on with the current MMR system: it’s supposed to be fair and allow people who are better than their current division to rise, but it’s also supposed to eventually help place people in matches where they’re evenly matched in relation to their teammates and opponents. This is based in the idea that people’s skill and level of performance are static, rather than taking into account changing skill levels throughout the season. The problem is that the system changes the amount of points given (reduces them) when it believes you’re climbing higher than you should be. Basically it’s an artificial barrier created to reduce upward mobility.

I don’t really see anything significant about a win streak, probably means the matches have been stacked slightly in the player’s favor for a few matches. But I do see an issue with giving fewer points the higher you rise, or with giving a tiny amount (like +8) for a win over an inferior team. Just don’t match us up with inferior teams. Or if that’s unavoidable, give people a standard number of points for the win so they get out of scrub division and don’t keep ending up fighting inferior opponents. It’s a stupid self-fulfilling prophecy: you get matched up against people worse than your team, you win and get potatoes for points, then you win again and get a few, then lose once and have the points from the last 3 wins erased. It keeps people down for a bad reason.

If people get up higher than they belong, they’ll end up losing more than they win, and overall lose points, thus pushing them down to a lower division. No need to deduct more points for losses than are given for wins. For example, if I get 20 points for a win and lose 20 points for a loss, if i have 1 win and 2 losses then overall I lost 20 points. So therefore I move down. It’s simple, there’s no logical reason to penalize losses more than wins are rewarded.

Crowley.8761:

Gwaihir.1745:

They aren’t incorporating any personal performance metrics. It’s all your rating vs your opposing teams rating that determines it. Don’t spread misinformation.

Nothing I said is even remotely related to that.

I think Gwaihir is referring to what Ross said.

Zietlogik.6208:

Huskyboy.1053:

Zietlogik.6208:

Nightshade.2570:

Um the non Duo queue team won….

Not the point though, matchmaking took 2 duo queues and matched against all solos is the point….i know we won

… no that’s exactly the point. They put you up against a duo that is, on average, worse than your team. Or at least their team’s average is worse. You seem to think that the MMR system is actually putting people of equal skill level against one another XD I’ll take a kitten duo over 2 competent soloQers anyday

TWO Duos, not just 2 players, 2 sets of 2 players (4 players total queued with another, in case of counting problems), which can unlevel the playing field, even if one of the groups is not so great the other can flip the cards.

I suppose this is true in the sense that anything is possible. However, just to make sure, are you under the impression that MMR will only be applied to one of the duos? Because I’ve gotten the impression that people are placed on/against teams based on their MMR, if it’s 2 duos and a solo versus 5 solos, while yeah that shouldn’t happen, you can bet those duos are terrible.

Zietlogik.6208:

Nightshade.2570:

Um the non Duo queue team won….

Not the point though, matchmaking took 2 duo queues and matched against all solos is the point….i know we won

… no that’s exactly the point. They put you up against a duo that is, on average, worse than your team. Or at least their team’s average is worse. You seem to think that the MMR system is actually putting people of equal skill level against one another XD I’ll take a kitten duo over 2 competent soloQers anyday

Not even close. I didn’t have a job for 3 months this summer and during that time I had a 5-man. Like kdaddy’s group we got beaten by people who were better and making more sensible decisions, after a while I ditched it and solo queued up to diamond in S3. I kept duoing with people I thought were good but pretty much gave up on finding a quality 5-man, and I definitely had the time. And as everyone including kdaddy said, anybody can find a duo partner quickly and easily, saying otherwise is counterfactual. Just be a nice person and invite people.

kdaddy.5431:

You guys are writing thing such as social and fun. These are the same cases for more then 1 person. Why not 3 people? Why not 4 people or 5? ohhh because it was unfair for you who didnt want to pick up 1-2-3 people to team up with.

You guys are writing crap like its a MMO and its meant to be social then why did we get rid of team ques?

Your second comment huskyboy was “I don’t agree that it’s unfair, because anyone can do it”. This goes for team que too.

Your guys comments why why these forums are so 50/50. Your duo comments are the same as people fighting for team ques. Literally everything you are saying is why people want team que something we just got rid of.

Also yes duo queing is a advantage. Saying otherwise is asinine.

If you want it to be a social game for fun, then it should have full 5 man team ques.

If you want it to be a competitive league/system then it needs to be only solo que not duo ques.

The title of this thread is " Is duo Q healthy for the game?" the answer is no. Because people not duo queing do not like seeing duo que teams and people who want to play with there friends cant. Saying that they can play in unranked is simply catering to the few of you who want everything perfect for your situation which is you want it competitive and you only are comfortable talking to 1-2 people who also PvP.

Lastly huskyboy " I generally like them, jump on voice chat and occasionally talk about interesting and fun things other than builds. Perhaps you don’t, but many of us do"

^^ that makes no sense. I literally pointed out and a picture of myself and my guild team winning game with unique builds that you will never see in a solo/duo que season.

Please try to actually debate it and make a point and not ramble about things you like.

This line alone shows my point “I guess there are a few points where we won’t be able to agree. I agree that in a situation (match) where someone has superior resources (duo partner) it seems unfair. But if you’ve had the same ability to gain those resources, and chosen not to, I think the situation (balance of the match) ceases to be unfair”

Anyone can find 2-3 players to play with which is what you and spartacus said earlier .

Last time – Solo que only or team que

Not at all; many people only play 2-3 games per night. That’s nowhere near enough time to gather a 5-man, and no tryhard 5-man will want them since they’re not a consistent player. 5-man is not a realistic option for a large portion of the sPvP player base, because irl they don’t have the time. But like I said, finding a single other person to play with you only requires you to message 1-2 people after each match if you think they’re good, that’s all. Do that consistently and soon you’ll almost always have a partner. Anybody who has the time to play a match has time to find a single other person, but not everybody has time to organize large groups around each person’s irl schedule. A required 5-man system is hostile to anybody who’s not a student living off their parents’ money. Real-life obligations and relationships preclude the possibility of investing the time in building a guild and always having 4 other quality players.

If there were a ranked solo queue and a ranked 5-man queue then I’d be fine with that. I don’t really get why it has to be one or the other as you say. But as long as we only have one ranked queue, solo/duo is ideal because it preserves part of the social aspect while minimizing premades’ advantage. It’s not like you’re constantly facing 2 duos and a solo versus your team of 5 solos, and even if you were, the matchmaking system is supposed to compensate by making sure the duo members are on average worse than you. If they are in fact not, that’s a flaw in the matchmaking algorithm. kdaddy you post a lot so that means you play quite a bit. Surely there are many duos in GW2 who are significantly worse than you, theoretically that’s who the algorithm should be matching you against.

kdaddy.5431:

.This whole talk is about fairness. If you are saying that team ques are unfair then duo ques are too. Currently your trying to grab 1 other great player so you guys can run threw people. There is no design set up. Like in a previous comment you talked about one playing ranger with a rev or a ele with a DH etc etc.

…

You say its a social game but currently played it is not. We had people ask to join our guild simply because we would let them play any class and we said we can come up with you for your play style. Even though we failed alot we came up with some fun stuff. Your not getting that from DUO que.

I guess there are a few points where we won’t be able to agree. I agree that in a situation (match) where someone has superior resources (duo partner) it seems unfair. But if you’ve had the same ability to gain those resources, and chosen not to, I think the situation (balance of the match) ceases to be unfair. You’ve compared your experience of picking up randoms and saying “hey do whatever weird thing you want” against my and many others’ experience of watching in matches for the good players, inviting them, discussing our builds and strategies, then playing. That’s not the same layer of strategy as in a larger group, but I still find it engaging and worthwhile. We might not be doing wacky team plays but we’re certainly experimenting and collaborating.

Finding a good duo partner will take a few games for a few nights, but anybody who’s posting on here would be playing games (and therefore would have the opportunity to find good players). So it isn’t a case of superior resources, therefore I don’t see it as unfair. Playing solo is choosing a disadvantage, not being forced into it.

As to your statement about it not being social, I think we must be working from a different definition of social. The people I’m duoing with, I’ve been playing with most of them since S4. We’re not necessarily BFFs but I generally like them, jump on voice chat and occasionally talk about interesting and fun things other than builds. Perhaps you don’t, but many of us do. In having a team game and rewarding people for communicating and/or using voice chat, the usage of communication and voice chat will necessarily increase. Making the game solo queue isn’t an evil idea, but it will destroy the social experience that you appear not to be pursuing, because people will no longer have a reason to use voice chat or even pursue these sorts of mutually-interested relationships. But many of us do and would hate to see it go, the ability to interact with people in a fun environment is a large part of what people like about MMOs and MOBAs, it’s built-in to the game genre.

kdaddy.5431:

Spartacus.3192:

kdaddy.5431:

Spartacus.3192:

i think Duo is fine. It really isn’t that hard at all to find ONE other person to duo with.

You could say the same thing about 2-3 people. How hard is it to find 2 friends to play with?

Also yes it is unfair, we werent even in voice chat.

Its exponentially harder to get 3 or 4 or 5 in a team. That’s the whole point of pvp guilds and then getting 4 other people who want to team with you. Its much much much easier to find one person who is willing to team up with you.

For example i actually don’t play that much (usually weekends only) and as such i cant commit to a full 5 man team. But when i login i solo q or if i have a few friends online in my list i can usually whisper one to see if they want to duo a couple matches. Get them done and logoff.

Waaaaaay easier than 4 or 5 man or even 3 (well 3 is not too hard )

This is my screen shot from previous season with my guild team mates.

We did it for guild rewards like the trophys for the guild toilets cough sorry i mean halls.

The best part of a team game is coming up with team builds. We dont have that anymore. Having a 2 man comp doesnt allow for a unique team comp.

We as a 3 man team/4 man team were able to destroy certain teams not ready for the crazy trick we had. Yet other teams figured us out quick and we would get crushed.

We now have a league where we want it fair as possible and you guys are arguing from a social perspective and the fairness of 5 mans when you didnt need 5 mans to be effective.

I like a lot of things about playing on a team, the builds are just a part of it. I like the social aspect, voice chat is more fun than text chat. And of course the game mode which benefits organized teams is more fun when you’ve got an organized team.

Duos do prevent more complex team builds and tactics, but it means you have a reliable partner and you can mix support and DPS instead of getting a wacky and imbalanced team. Also thank you for sharing those pictures, I now know of your strong affinity for turtles.

FrownyClown.8402:

Rev should have some of its dps back (still waiting on mallyx condi meta for boonstrip)

Don’t hold your breath, everyone past and present apparently thinks condi rev is unviable. Dont know why people want to believe that so hard, I guess it’s just groupthink.

kdaddy.5431:

Huskyboy.1053:

I don’t agree that it’s unfair, because anyone can do it. I’ve added and paired with 3 new friends since Monday because I just complimented their play and then invited then to play with me. Hell, I’ll duo with you if you want, I’m Gold 1 right now.

If its not unfair because anyone can do it, cant the same thing be said about 5 man premades?

Also from a fair competitive aspect it is unfair just like 5 man premades were.

Also it cheats out alot of players who are solo queing for Leader Board perspective. You cant have 2-3 players make the top 10 when they duo que with players sitting 12,13,14,15 who only solo que lose out on titles because they didnt run with there other OP friend who they could of done everything with from 2 player team comp and rotations.

5 man ques or solo ques.

No, certainly not everyone can find/make a 5-man. Do you know how hard that is? Finding 4 other quality players, all playing at the same time, is very very difficult unless you already have plenty of name recognition like Helseth. Takes more time searching for people than you’ll spend playing.

But to find one person is easy. Play a match, keep your eyes open, and then message the 1-2 good people after the match. Most people are friendly to me, I feel certain they’ll be the same towards you. Making a 5-man, especially a consistent 5-man, requires hours of maintenance every day. Finding a good duo partner for a few games is simple, you just have to reach out to people.

As for people who want to get the top spot on the leaderboard but also handicap themselves by playing solo: what did they expect? That’s a bad decision. I’m not making a moral argument here, just noting that when you’re given the opportunity to gain an easy competitive advantage and you throw it away, should you be rewarded by having teamplay taken away from everyone who enjoys it? Even Sindrener, who is currently #1 or #2 in EU, is duoing, and he did that during the offseason because he wanted to, not because he had to. Teamplay is and has always been a huge part of the game, including ranked. You haven’t said anything in relation to what I said about build diversity in a pure solo queue and I wonder if that’s because you haven’t really thought through how strategy goes down the toilet without teamplay.

I don’t agree that it’s unfair, because anyone can do it. I’ve added and paired with 3 new friends since Monday because I just complimented their play and then invited then to play with me. Hell, I’ll duo with you if you want, I’m Gold 1 right now.

Yeah I’m gonna have to agree with Spartacus on this, pure solo will pigeonhole smart players into even more glassy or bunkery builds, because you have to either hold a point or kill as a solo player. No more support professions because you can’t trust your teammates. It would result in even more power DH, more thieves, zerker warriors, and then the most boring of bunker druids, engis, and eles. No space for rev and necro, mesmer would be underutilized because pugs can’t use portal correctly and it’s otherwise outclassed in its role by thief.

Duo is the best balance because it allows you to team with only one friend, you no longer need to be in a guild or be highly social (like me) and make a ton of friends. In this season I have way too many people trying to queue with me because I worked really hard to build up a larger network, now I don’t have to. But I can still have build flexibility, I don’t have to play D/P thief every match.

Idk if what I’m about to say is a good fix, but maybe requiring everyone to duo and either:

1. make the game 6v6 or
2. keep it 5v5 and split one duo (meaning 2 duos on each side and then splitting the 5th duo between the two teams) would work to make things more fair.

Anyways yeah duos give you a competitive advantage but it’s not like 5-man vs pugs. And the build flexibility and better strategies between duos makes the game more exciting imo rather than less.

These two skills, Searing Fissure and Echoing Eruption, do not seem to be affected by quickness.

Evan Lesh.3295:

It’s almost like DH has a low skill floor or something.

Lel L2P nub

Malediktus.3740:

Honest John.4673:

Malediktus.3740:

Evan Lesh.3295:

I like the idea of giving a bonus pip or 2 to the losing team if scores are super close. Just have to be careful about organized farming.

The pips are worthless though. It only takes 2-3 days of playing and you max out all the exclusive season rewards. Repeating the last chest only gives some gold and transmutation charges I can get faster in other ways. It is legendary division of season 1-4 all over again, just at an accellerated speed.
It seems like there is no reason to play this season for longer than 3 days if you have no hopes of reaching the top 250 for exclusive titles

When I saw the rewards I thought I could play the season the whole two months because it was said the last chest is repeatable. But it has all worthwhile contents removed after doing it once. But if you hit a wall like this there is no reason to continue. This is not how you keep a season active for the whole two months.

I think we all know the reason each of us play. And judging from your post, I know the reason you play as well.

See you around.

(0.4636)

Tell me. If I only have a low chance to reach top 250 why should I keep playing this after
I maxed out season exclusive rewards? Unranked games will be more entertaining and relaxing, ranked is stressful.

Then go play unranked if it’s that much better. We’re not your therapists, we’re here to discuss the game, not listen to you complain about every aspect of the game you find disagreeable.

Honest John.4673:

Huskyboy.1053:

Honest John.4673:

shion.2084:

You said “its a measure of your ability to win games.” The contradiction is that it is not a measure of your ability to win games. It is a measure of whether your team won or not.

Yeah, just like with any statistic, you can make inferences. If I have several esl players on my team (say in unranked) and no one I recognize on the other, don’t you think that maybe, just maybe they’ve been on teams that have won a lot and that maybe we have a high probability to win?

Again the only constant in all those matches and all those teams was you. And if you’ve been on teams that have won a lot then the rating will reflect that and be higher. What is the problem here?

Have you ever heard the saying “If you ran into an kitten in the morning, you ran into an kitten. If you run into kittens all day, you’re the kitten”? I think that this is pretty true. After all, in every interaction with an individual, you’re 50% of the people in the interaction. Therefore, on average, you at least had the ability to influence 50% of these interactions; if in 5 interactions there was a kitten, then you were the kitten in 2.5 of these interactions. Whether you round up or down, you were a kitten 2 or 3 times out of 5.

However, in conquest, you’re only 10% of the people in the match. So realistically you only make up about 10% of the outcome. You can put in more or less effort, but your teammates are also affecting the outcome of the game by about 10%, whether they’re owning people in 1v2s or getting farmed mid repeatedly. Doesn’t matter how well they play, they still influence the outcome by 10%. Every time they lose a 1v1, that’s just as impactful as if they had won it. Same goes for you, you can only influence the outcome by about 10%. So there’s actually 2 constants in each match. You named one, that being you and your contribution to the match, 10%. The other constant is that everyone else collectively affects the outcome of the match by 90%.

If you want to believe that you can change the outcome of your matches by outplaying the enemy, go for it, I believe that too. But the fact is that you can’t change 90% of what happens in the match, literally. Only some matches will be close enough that you can nudge it in one direction or another. I’m not saying this to discourage people from trying, I always do my best even with a D/C, but this is the truth of a system that goes purely off of wins/losses.

A lot of what you’re saying makes sense on the surface. I guess I just don’t get what your point is. Do you have a problem with what MMR measures specifically, or what you think it measures or what you think it should, or how matches are made up? If you don’t have a point you can blowhard endlessly I just don’t see how any of what you say matters since you’ve taken no concrete stance on anything you just talk.

Good questions. I don’t generally get on the forum for any other purpose than to discuss how to make the game more fun or interesting. Seemed like there was an understanding gap between people who agree with my 10%/90% analogy and those who don’t, I was trying to bridge that gap.

There already a thread going on about how to measure individual contribution to a match, though nobody has gone into detail about how each individual stat would be weighted. I think ideally the first implementation of this system should weight individual contributions at about 60% total and win/loss record at 40%, and successive iterations (when improvements to the “individual contributions” valuation has improved) would weight win/loss record less and less. Win/loss is very crude but it’s still relevant I would say.

Honest John.4673:

shion.2084:

You said “its a measure of your ability to win games.” The contradiction is that it is not a measure of your ability to win games. It is a measure of whether your team won or not.

Yeah, just like with any statistic, you can make inferences. If I have several esl players on my team (say in unranked) and no one I recognize on the other, don’t you think that maybe, just maybe they’ve been on teams that have won a lot and that maybe we have a high probability to win?

Again the only constant in all those matches and all those teams was you. And if you’ve been on teams that have won a lot then the rating will reflect that and be higher. What is the problem here?

Have you ever heard the saying “If you ran into an kitten in the morning, you ran into an kitten. If you run into kittens all day, you’re the kitten”? I think that this is pretty true. After all, in every interaction with an individual, you’re 50% of the people in the interaction. Therefore, on average, you at least had the ability to influence 50% of these interactions; if in 5 interactions there was a kitten, then you were the kitten in 2.5 of these interactions. Whether you round up or down, you were a kitten 2 or 3 times out of 5.

However, in conquest, you’re only 10% of the people in the match. So realistically you only make up about 10% of the outcome. You can put in more or less effort, but your teammates are also affecting the outcome of the game by about 10%, whether they’re owning people in 1v2s or getting farmed mid repeatedly. Doesn’t matter how well they play, they still influence the outcome by 10%. Every time they lose a 1v1, that’s just as impactful as if they had won it. Same goes for you, you can only influence the outcome by about 10%. So there’s actually 2 constants in each match. You named one, that being you and your contribution to the match, 10%. The other constant is that everyone else collectively affects the outcome of the match by 90%.

If you want to believe that you can change the outcome of your matches by outplaying the enemy, go for it, I believe that too. But the fact is that you can’t change 90% of what happens in the match, literally. Only some matches will be close enough that you can nudge it in one direction or another. I’m not saying this to discourage people from trying, I always do my best even with a D/C, but this is the truth of a system that goes purely off of wins/losses.

Just to clarify my analogy: an interaction with an kitten = 1 match.

Honest John.4673:

It’s a measure of your ability to win games. Whether that’s because of your raw mechanical skill, or your ability to work well with a team, it all plays a role but the only constant is you, and your ability (or lack thereof) to win games.

Lol John I usually appreciate your answers, but this time you’re not thinking it all the way through. Let’s start from a simple premise: my team, through the quality of their play, has a 100% possibility of winning every game if each player performs at the top level. This is of course not a correct premise, but to simplify things let’s stick with it. As an individual, I represent 20% of the team. If I contribute 20% of the quality play necessary to win the game, and so does everyone else on my team, then we get a resultant 100% of the effort necessary to win.

I can, of course, contribute more; if I consistently win or at least stall 1v2s, decap far repeatedly then come back to help at mid, then i could possibly contribute up to 30% of the total effort necessary to win. I can never contribute more than that; no matter how good I am at fighting, I can never be in 2 places at once. If one of my teammates contributes 9%, I contribute 30%, and the other the contribute 20% each, we get 99%. That’s a loss.

So in reality, my win/loss ratio is an accurate measure of my teams’ ability to get a collective 100% effort necessary to win. That’s it. It is in no way a measure of my personal ability. You can carry 3 perfectly average teammates and one bad, but no more. And the bad must make at least half the contribution that the average players do in order to win, more often than not they do 9% or less.

Yeah I think you’re right about most of these, like I said win/loss should continue to be a factor as a buffer against variables that matter that aren’t being taken into account/aren’t being weighted properly.

I mean that applies to most non-condi builds, you should still be able to 1v1 them if they’re worse than you.

Tips for fighting condi thief: like all thieves they have terribad condi clear. Start in glint, pressure with either axe 4 at the end of one of their evades, or sword 2, switch to Mallyx, wait until they run out of dodges (covering with resistance for the time being) then hit them with banish enchantment followed by either sword 3 or mace 3. While they’re up close, Mallyx elite gives lots of pressure by itself. They really can’t keep up one you’ve hit them twice.

Really? I have trouble with condi mesmers, but I can beat condi warr (even dueled and won against a legendary who I know is good), condi thief should be a guaranteed win, and I haven’t tested against burn guard much. Ranger beats me no matter what they play, always outranging me. Tempest is good for a strong condi clear but mallyx offers more sustained resistance if you’re running a +boon duration build. Resistance is preferable imo since it instantly invalidates all conditions, shouts only remove one condi at a time and have CD. Try using sword/axe mace/shield in conquest and see what happens.

insanemaniac.2456:

comebacks are a thing. if i could downvote you i would.

Just report him for afk if he does it in one of your matches. If you’re in silver or above you probably won’t see him though XD

Oldyoung.6109:

Measuring individual skill would theoretically be the best but accurately measuring contribution is nearly impossible; for instance the player who decaps far then holds off 3 people in the middle of nowhere while their team 3caps ends up with a very low score but contributed to 40+ point difference for their team.

Also player will invariably find the most efficient way to farm points and sacrifice trying to win in favor of gaining points be that going full tank and only reviving or camping a single point or what have you.

That’s not to say someone shouldn’t try to add individual skill to MMR but it’s not something that can be considered lightly and from a development perspective something that difficult, while guaranteeing universal acclaim would require time and resources that don’t exist.

People trying to farm points shouldn’t be a big concern so long as win/loss ratio continues to be a strong identifying factor in MMR. If they work their way up, they’ll fall back down once they get beyond their skill level.

And I’m not really sure about the resources part. Anet remains a profitable company, feel free to provide evidence that they can’t do it if you have it. We’re doing a lot of the heavy lifting for them in this thread and on this forum in general.

This list is mostly DPS role-oriented. A bunker, while extremely useful, would have a low kill-death ratio unless the enemy team was constantly streaming in 1 by 1 and getting killed by the bunker. In fact it’s possible they might have more deaths than kills due to being zerged a few times. To compensate for that I think time spent in/near an owned node without the presence of other team members (shouldn’t reward double/triple-bunkering) should be counted as positive behavior. Generally assaulting enemy-held nodes shouldn’t be rewarded unless successful, there’s plenty of idiots who get farmed mid who should be punished for their failure, not rewarded.

More stats like healing to allies/condis cleaned would be needed for support classes. Stats like kills, deaths, rezzes and such should be weighted according to the amulet chosen, since that’s the single strongest universal indicator of what role the character is primarily playing.

I’d really suggest duo queueing, if you have a decent partner you’ll do a lot better. I’ll be on later and we can duel so I can see where you’re at, though I’m not an amazing player myself. If I were you I’d play a high mobility profession (mesmer or thief ideally, shiro/glint rev also acceptable) and fly around capping or defending when possible. Other option is bunkering, DH obviously a good choice for that, if you do well then you’ll maintain at least one node all fight. At your level both teams are going to be terrible at rotations, so if you excel at that then I guarantee a higher than 50% win rate. How much higher than 50% I can’t say, but in Bronze you will make a much larger difference through your rotations than through fighting skill. That changes at higher levels.

I haven’t looked into the raw amounts by which your MMR increases/decreases, but it sounds like you’re seeing positive increases, just gotta keep it up. Also keep in mind why you play pvp; is it to reach some arbitrary MMR level? Is it to win each individual match? To get better? Focusing on that will make the journey more fun in spite of losses.

People say that it’s best to try to carry with a DPS role, but if Anet is right about teams in post-placement matches being pretty equal in skill, then playing a support role might make more sense. You can’t carry teamfights on your build and a non-Dash thief isn’t any better than a mesmer for decaps. You’re playing in trash tier btw so if you just focus on capping you’ll win more than 50% of the time. People at your MMR level don’t even understand how to rotate.

Bardly.2571:

That’s why I wanted to put it here…I know people who kicked out and placed higher right off aren’t seeing it but those of us in the bottom would maybe like to hear something that gives us hope. Cuz it really does seem like this will just get worse as the system filters more people down.

Bardly lol I already explained why it’s the exact opposite. If you’re too good for Bronze, as more bad people filter in and good people filter out, it will get easier for you to faceroll and get out faster. The system doesn’t hate you, there will always be bad people on the other team too.

Fade to Black.7042:

Staff 5 wasn’t a bad nerf for me but precision strike nerf sucked bad.

Anyway, i wish staff 4 would’ve atleast energy cost and cast time reduced. The cast time is so slow by the time you want to cleanse conditions you are dead.

Btw if they want to force condi rev, they should fix mace skills, skill 2 should be a flame wave projectile kinda thing, so it would hit on uneven terrain.

Actually the fire field is nice if you use it for combos with mace 3 or sword 2 (if your weapon swap is ready). What mace needs imo is to increase the power contribution, the AA chain’s 1 and 2 as well as Searing Fissure have laughably low power coefficients. Because of that it’s a terrible weapon to use with Viper amulet. Or they could just increase the base damage, which is horrible. It’s far below power damage from warrior or guardian mace, even though those both have other ways of buffing allies (guardian) or CC and condi (Warrior mace F1). Temporal rift on axe has a decent power coefficient, but again a very low base damage.

choovanski.5462:

SteepledHat.1345:

BrotherBelial.3094:

If you are getting killed by heaps, then you need to learn how to kite, or stop trying to facetank. It will not work.

Kiting around point as the score ticks. No other class has this level of control over a point.

good thing you can just dodge roll and stand inside ToF… which is the main trap you see.

also dude, you ever heard of necro wells?

Much higher CD so they can’t be used twice in the same fight, only one deals significant damage. Not that they’re bad but why are we comparing them? Traps are much more useful to a power DH than wells are to any kind of necromancer, why do you think only one (test) metabattle build has any? No necro spams them on point anyways in my experience unless they’re really bad. DHs are rewarded against low-medium level players for spamming traps with kills, well-spamming necros are not.